how well are your plastics holding up to gaming use?

[aphillathehun]

Now that we've had a few years of building and painting plastics, and presumably playing with them, how are they holding up to gaming use?  I've built and painted some but have limited experience in gaming with them.  In my limited experience (mainly WoR figures) they have held up well.  But I know there are a lot of folks here with a lot of them, and a lot more experience gaming with them, and am wondering what your experiences are?

[Hobgoblin]

I have some Warhammer Regiments plastic orcs from the 80s that I painted or repainted almost 10 years ago, and they're doing just fine!

I also have some even earlier Drastik Plastik orcs that I painted in the 80s; their paintwork well never see the light of day again, and I have harvested their heads, but they're otherwise as good as they ever were (and they've been treated a lot worse than mere gaming use!).

[Easy E]

No problems here.  As long as I don't drop them onto a hard surface because of how clumsy I am.

Even then, they seem to be able to survive pretty good.

[Waffles_vs_Tacos]

All my plastics have held up well. Antennas and spears break, but those break in pewter too.

I personally still like metals for my RPG characters, but plastics for everything else, and the quality of places like Victrix and the Perry's are just top notch.

[black hat miniatures]

I prefer metals.

The WOTR plastics I bought painted lose halberds as they snap rather than bend like a netal figure would.

[Dice Roller]

Funnily enough I was discussing this only the other day with a gaming pal.
Paint wise, they do excellently. Better than metals. The light weight means they don't chip so badly.
When I put plastics together I am always conscious of brittle weapons, so I do my best to position them so the weapon is not sticking out too much and has another part of the model to shield it. Mostly. Sometimes you can't avoid it, but I do my best 90% of the time.
When it comes to spears I snip them off, drill out the hand, and replace with a metal one. Two reasons - the obvious brittle nature of the plastic, and I don't like the telegraph pole look.

So overall, I'd say they are doing very well so far.

But what about resin miniatures?
I don't have any so can't say.

[SJWi]

So far my Perry WoTR bills and bows are holding up pretty well. They are multi-based so I can pick up a whole unit by the base which helps.  However my Warlord ECW pikemen have fared less well. Probably 30% have become casualties in quite a short time and they are hellishly difficult to repair.

[Waffles_vs_Tacos]

Dice Roller,

I pretty much hate most resin.

So many resin minis are very fragile, almost all require some modeling skill to repair before painting, be it bubbles or mold slips. And if you drop them, they break nearly every time.

A few exceptions, but not many.

I would take plastic or metal over resin.

I also dislike the silocast plastic stuff that's not really hard plastic a lot too. Always hard to clean mold lines that leave rough looking areas on the model.

[Rossco2]

My 45 years old Airfix 1/72nd plastics are now quite brittle, but still see occasional tabletop service.
My 28mm fantasy plastic figures from Games Workshop and Fantasy Warriors are doing fine, despite being up to 30 years old.
I heartily recommend multibasing the plastic figures on mdf when appropriate for the game rules, as this minimises directly handling the figures. This reduced much of the hamfisted damage I used to inflict on my own figures, especially when packing or unpacking for a game.
I avoid the more recent slender resin figures. I used to break them even with relatively minor contact, and there is a limit to how often they can be glued back together.

[dadlamassu]

I have and still use my Airfix Infantry Combat Group and Germans for WW2 wargames.  The must date back to 1970 or so.  Some are brittle but I have some reserves.  My other "soft" plastics are surviving well the older ones were painted in gloss and seem to hold paint better than later matt enamel.  All those undercoated with diluted PVA are pretty much OK.
The hard plastics are bearing up well, don't chip and are (relatively) easy to repair when battle damaged.
My metals need frequent paint refurbishment as they chip easily but do have a nice "heft" to them.  Generally they survive damage that would break a plastic but if broken can e difficult to repair.
I had a few resin figures. got fed up repairing them after every outing if I even got them to go together long enough to get to the wargames table.  They do not survive being dropped or even some wargames wear and tear.  Most have broken beyond repair or consigned to live as shelf queens.
Apart from resins they all are perfectly usable.

[Codsticker]

The only real problem I have had with plastics are the pikes breaking on my ECW figures. Other than that, they hold up just as well as my metal minis.

[SJWi]

Codsticker, I know your pain.....

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

But will plastics survive decades?   Will plastic fatigue set in making them brittle.
I have found the later plastic figures more robust than earlier ones.   Are they now using different plastic?

[Basementboy]

I’d assume the plastic would change as it goes from something different to being the norm but I don’t really know. Either way, I’ve gotten plenty of Perry’s and Warlord plastics and no problems with them- they’re holding out fine.

[SJWi]

As regards ageing I still have some GW plastics bought back in the late '80s/'90s and they seem to be holding up fine.