The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Elbows]

Therein lies the problem.  You're imagining GW has any interest in selling a few metal figures to the admittedly large Oldhammer audience.  They'll cash in by doing their small metal print-to-order bits, but you'll never see a concerted effort to go back to metals.  I doubt you'll see much of it from any company.  Plastics are more expensive to create molds for, but you can work that mold to death and produce untold thousands of kits.

Their stated goal for the past couple of years has been to eventually go all plastic (hence the $35 plastic single figures...).  I can also guarantee they have no interest in being green or recycling anything until a government or tax law forces them to do so.  It's all profit.  Their sales process about ten years ago was clearly laid out to my buddy who was running a GW store at the time: get parents to spend $200-300 initial investment for their 12-14 year old.  Continuing customers are not our concern.

That may have changed, but that's the kind of thought process you're getting.  I can't fault them for it, as they are simply a business in the practice of producing models.  You see Perry has gone this direction, Malifaux has gone plastics, Dreadball or whatever is going plastic, Warmachine/Hordes are turning to plastics.  Despite having a small audience of older players, the overwhelming majority of consumers want plastics (I'm not one of them).  I don't harbor a grudge, it just is what it is.

There are plenty of old metals on sale for eBay all day long (assuming you don't want any newly designed units).  Learn to strip and re-do them. 

[Ulfhednar]

It was contemporary plastic that kicked off my anti-plastic resurgence, someone sold me a plastic as though it was metal and it's a horrible thing compared to the quite beautiful lead version (the dangers of ebay). And while ebay offers up a few it's disappointing that there's nothing new from them to look forward to. But there isn't, they're clearly full on with going plastic you can see it in the new sculpts like those Andrex Puppy Seraphims, that are looking to optimise the fact that they're specifically made out of plastic, it's beginning to look like it's coming off a production line, is mega mass produced and is made for children. And fine, but not at those prices they are crazy, it's a habit from metals (when it was justified) that this new way doesn't deserve customers to keep. Apart from the lack of weight / how horrible they are to touch / inferior they feel (which is a massive issue for gaming pieces) light sits differently on plastic, so paint does too and it shows on people figures (though resins seem good for it and seem same as lead with light or maybe even better, plastic is quite different). I reckon going total plastic will end up a bit of a bump for them, it is a shame after discovering how ace their metal Sisters of Battle (and other 90's things) are / were. But we do have those as you say, it is what it is, I'm going to back Warlord, their metal Dredd range was very good, they have the licence for the whole of 2000AD so maybe finally Nemesis (with real Citadel old metals as proxies while GW heads off to wherever lego goes to die).

[Ajsalium]

It was contemporary plastic that kicked off my anti-plastic resurgence, someone sold me a plastic as though it was metal and it's a horrible thing compared to the quite beautiful lead version (the dangers of ebay).

May I ask what minis were those?

[Ulfhednar]

It was the Vanguard Veterans with jumpacks (I guess from the late 90's or bit later), I'd just discovered them for first time via a picture of them completely in metal (which was a shock as I thought all Space Marines had plastic arms), found 4 painted on ebay at lead type money but they turned up plastic (I'd had no idea they'd been done in plastic too). They have warped swords but it's the feel and lack weight, plastic just doesn't have the gravity to communicate a thing so serious as something that's supposedly real & alive. They are shells of the real thing and great as short term gaming pieces until things move on for just playing games (if games rather than figures are your priority) but that's all they are, they are long past the bin. And no matter how good the plastic materials have become since, it's still plastic and made up, added to a made up thing like sci-fi or fantasy it makes it all too childlike. And as they design for plastic, the style is becoming smother and ever more Disney.

It really doesn't matter though as all I wanted out of Space Marines was maybe 3 small units, 1 each Dark Angels, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, completely in metal as popular culture / sentimental art for display and for easy going but quality (so adult) gaming with friends. I'll forget about it for now, maybe Citadel will wake up to that as a product for oldhammers and make something like it. And I've got everything I really wanted from Sisters of Battle except a top boss, the metal Celestine is just too wrong, the Canoness is resin, and the new figures (pretty as they are) are going to be plastic. Free with MacDonald's Happy Meals plastic. edit - Actually those new models are close to being beautiful it's such a shame, gothic plastic is a paradox.

[nic-e]

My colleagues got me the new sister of battle miniature. She's very nice. Great casting and great detail. Really a perfect match for the artwork and i shall look forward to painting her up. 

[Duncan McDane]

You haven't had a contemporary plastic model on your hands, have you?

There aren't any plastic models anymore, only kits. 10+ parts for a 28mm single man-sized miniature is ridiculous in my book. I do own both the Silver Tower and Gorechosen boxed sets as the White Dwarf free Slaughterpriest but honestly I don't understand how those parts come together and individually the parts look far less detailed than they would in metal, as they look more artificial...
Won't buy plastics for the models, only boxed games and I will use my own metals as proxies... 

[Momotaro]

Won't buy plastics for the models, only boxed games and I will use my own metals as proxies...  

Look on eBay - you'll find the game rules and card components from the recent GW games on sale at a tenner or less.  Cheap way to get the game itself and Betrayal at Calth gets decent reviews just as a game.  Continues to be supported in White Dwarf too.

I like the plastic GW characters - I think you get more complex, realistic poses with them than you can with metal (thin pieces like cloaks especially).  I dread painting some of their more complex plastic troop sets though - too many places that are tough to get to.

In general, plastic is a great medium to work with, transports and stores more easily than metal and I like the level of detail on the models I have (while being happy to admit that the level of detail on my last metal Antares figures just blows the line's plastics away). De gustibus and all that.

Having said that, one of my projects for 2017 may be an all-metal Eldar aspect warrior force, and I've considered going back to my Antares Concord and rebuying the basic troops in metal.

[N.C.S.E]

The quality of plastic in my book is slightly inferior to metal, but more than balanced by the ease of conversion and modification.

My personal antipathy to plastic comes from the fact that I cannot get a single good looking paintjob on them and I have no idea why!

[Ulfhednar]

Re good paint job on plastic, ask any car resprayer / restorer, it's not possible to make plastic panels look right, because being a totally artificial material it reflects all light off it's top surface. Natural materials like metals like lead (or steel), or skin, wood etc (and it seems resin) absorb however small a proportion of the light they reflect back into their surface first before reflecting it, so unlike plastic their surface is slightly illuminated and merged with the light / world around them, like is the case with everything natural. Plastic will always look artificial by comparison to a natural material in normal lighting, they make painted ones look good / like painted metal in promo photo's via strong artificial lighting, you are being conned over what's possible so you're content with plastic instead of metal.

Lead absorbing & reflecting light was actually a technique used by the Pre-Raphaelites (who were part of the Arts & Crafts movement that evolved through to our time into Tolkien & lead miniatures) used to undercoat their canvass, particularly under painted skin, in thick white lead, so when the painting was finished it would absorb some of the light it was reflecting back, would glow and look genuinely alive, and those paintings do. In the context of what miniatures are and the artistic imagination & natural materials movement that spawned them, plastic is complete heresy and trash, it's an anti-art material, what GW are doing is anti-art and even anti the British art movement that spawned this industry and that they ride off. Them doing gothic styled models in plastic (at the expense of metal that they're seeking to marginalise / leave behind) is like Simon Cowell managing Syd Barret or the Rolling Stones, it's so false, conflicting & undermining it's repulsive.

edit - I wonder why they don't want to set up a separate company, perhaps called Citadel Miniatures, specialised in making versions of their stuff in lead for the oldhammer people, the collectors and the artist types, like they've created that ForgeWorld or whatever it's called for their dedicated plastic and resin? It would be efficient & commercially viable, as big as it's market proved it needed to be and willing to spend up to, I can only think they haven't because it's a simple fact that their leads out compete their plastics and resin, and they think they stand more chance of getting people to buy their fundamentally inferior / anti art plastic that makes them more money if there's no lead alternative.

[Andrew Rae]

So... a figure coated in primer and several layers of paint and varnish still somehow reflect light depending on the properties of the casting material? Not the shape but the actual material?

[Ulfhednar]

Yes, light is an amazing thing. Car panels have tons of paint layers on them and fibre glass / plastic panels still stand out a mile and look trash. The Pre-Raphalites were using thick oil paint, a proportion of light still passes through it till it hit the lead, was captured in that lead surface and then reflected, illuminating itself and all the layers above it.

[Andrew Rae]

Truly.

What about the fact that all metal miniatures are originally made in either epoxy putty, polymer clay or are 3D printed? And what if the mould from which they are cast is silicon rather than natural rubber? Where's the honesty of natural materials then?

Edit: Regarding car panels, I'd wager any difference in the light quality between, say, a pressed metal wing and a moulded plastic bumper is more to do with the tolerances of production and the radii of creases. Good design and engineering will seek to minimise the differences between the two.

[Ulfhednar]

But those artificial materials don't form part of the object afterwards. It's not about a natural process, it's about ending up with an object that is naturally right and so communicates itself as real. I think it really must be a generational thing, we didn't only have art miniatures, we had indie / art music too, it's all gone so sold out & plastic, and the later generations don't see it, they really do think architecture is art and it's really not. Maybe we need a Brexit for GW, send them off to lego land and get some English art back.

edit - and 3D printing is not art, it's a way of usurping it, it shouldn't be anywhere near this.

[YPU]

edit - and 3D printing is not art, it's a way of usurping it, it shouldn't be anywhere near this.

Oh boy we just closed that can of worms on the "make something contest" page.

[jon_1066]

It would be very interesting to see the surface difference between white metal and plastic under a powerful microscope.  I am sure there would be a difference but how well that would translate after three or more coats of paint is an interesting question.