Are there any Modern 28mm Figures in Plastic?

[ulverston]

Hi Chaps,

I have had a hankering to play modern skirmish games in 28mm using the Spectre Operations second edition (love those rules) for some time but I am not keen on metal figures. I have some of the Warlord games moderns but wonder did Wargames Atlantic plan to release a set or did I dream it? I do prefer plastics now rather than metal.

My imaginary project has made it as far as pen and paper but I am now stalled as the manufacturers have such different ideas of scale. The front runner would be TAG or Grubby but I have been a bit out of touch with the hobby (unless Warhammer counts) so have no idea if some manufacturers are planning plastic ranges. Any pointers would be useful but I realise I may have a bit of a wait!

[Steve F]

The only 28mm hard plastic multi-part moderns I can think of are from the Project Z range, but they are going OOP. I've just checked Warlord Games's shop, and neither the Spec Ops box nor the Modern Military sprues from it are still available. Airfix did some 1/48 Operation Herrick British infantry, too.

There's lots of 3D printed resin around, though.

[ulverston]

Thanks Steve, the Warlord games stuff is OK and I have a few and I find the resin figures expensive... looks like I will wait until Wargames Atlantic get around to them.

[carlos marighela]

They aren't contemporary but giving a slightly wider remit to the term modern then Rubicon do some nice sets for the Vietnam war.

These are pretty useful for kit bashing. I've used the US Army bodies and the North Vietnamese arms and weapons to make 1989 era Panamanians (I had to source suitable heads separately) and they are eminently suitable for making developing world forces and anyone not using modern body armour. Sourcing suitable heads is your biggest issue but many of the makers of modern metal ranges produce spare heads and if you are looking for berets and the like then there's also the plastic WW2 ranges you can utilise.

[Tom Dulski]

 You can try 3d printed ones. They are Plastic, there are tons of people doing really creative stuff on Etsy and other sites.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

They are not plastic (high impact injected polystyrene) but Anvil have multi-part resin figures that are worth a look.
They have a pre-release 3D printed Special Forces range.

The figures are cleanly moulded with close to zero flash. As a bonus, the figures have locating pins for the arms, not really possible with injection moulding.

The cast figures go together easily with superglue, the printed ones seem to glue together well.

The only downside is the weapons are a bit large. Partly it is the 40K original scaling and also the limitations of the material (I wrote off all the Spectre figures as the M4 barrels were too fine for light dry brushing, let alone normal storage).

Hasslefree MP5 versus Anvil carbines.


Modern female PMC with carbine.

[ulverston]

I have never looked at Rubicon but will certainly have a quick google for them now! As for 3d printed stuff there are some south american cartel types that have motorbikes that I did see on fleabay but now I cant find them which is typical, otherwise unless I print them myself I will avoid commercial 3d prints-some sellers are asking almost as much as GW for some models... I might as well buy the original.
As for barrels bending and snapping off this is one more reason why I will hesitate to ever buy metals again other from the Assault Group or Grubby. It upsets me so much I will need therapy if it happens to one more of my minis.

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

Regarding the proposed WA set(s) I recall that in a survey they ran two or three years ago regarding what period they should introduce next, the surprise winner was the Cold War. I don’t recall there being much detail about specific conflicts or factions, but it seemed to have forced its way onto their agenda. I can only assume that, in keeping with the subject, it must be being conducted in a secretive manner, as I’ve heard nothing further about it.

[CapnJim]

At one point, their website and updates listed 3 "secret sets" that were in development.  Hmm...

[carlos marighela]

I'm not sure I'd pay too much attention to those WA polls or their weird part poll/part kickstarter set up. They don't seem to follow them and to be honest I don't detect any rationale behind much of their release schedule, it all seems terribly scatter-shot to me.

That's their right, it's their business and they are 100% entitled to run it as they see fit. Presumably it works they are a going concern that continues to churn out new product. I'm just saying I wouldn't set much store in anything announced unless its an actual release or imminent release, let alone something discussed two or three years ago.

Because the whole 'modern' thing is a fairly niche market, it's hard to imagine too many people rushing into the tooling expense of plastic figures. Rubicon claim they did their Vietnam range to test the waters for WW2 figures. Actually, given some of the vehicles they are releasing, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Rubicon went into Cold War figures.

If breakage is the OP's issue then I'd suggest that metal figures aren't as bad as they might think. It all depends on the manufacturer. I have literally hundreds of 28mm metal moderns from Eureka, Empress and Underfire and I could probably count breakages to weapons on one hand. All the more suprising as the Empress ones tend to come in ziplock bags tossed inside a padded jiffy bag when I buy them through their local distributor.

[SJWi]

Unfortunately, I would second Carlos' comments. Personally I don't see the business case for plastic moderns, Vietnam excepted which is a whole game genre in its own right. For most 28mm "modern" games the figure count is quite small and then which period. Classic "Cold War 1980s" or something more contemporary. But then I didn't see the appeal of 28mm WW2. How wrong I was!

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I certainly agree with Carlos about WA (though I hope for more Quar - how niche is that).
I was surprised about Vietnam, though Empress had already defined my choice in figures and vehicles.
https://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2021/08/an-army-i-do-not-need-for-war-i-am-not.html

Moderns also covers a large range in time and equipment.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident is nearly sixty years ago.

If Warlord had been a bit smarter with the Wargames Factory ranges, they could have kick started interest from the Black Ops/Call of Duty type gamers. Instead they rushed in to try and get ahead of Mantic with TWD:AOW with a badly thought out and poorly produced zombie game, and then doubled down with overpriced figure boxes.
Once you have a foothold with Special Forces/PMC types, regular and irregular forces can follow.

My Moderns (Vietnam,  Cold War and Recent) are Empress (or Empress/Crooked Dice compatible).

I am impressed with the durability of Empress gun barrels, unlike Carlos mine arrive in a box but even after years in a zip lock bag I have yet to have to write off a figure (I take a while to get round to some figures).

[Edit: I did bend the T1E2 tank barrel and replaced it]

[carlos marighela]

Warlord are a bunch of chancers. Opportunists who hoover up ranges with no fucking clue as to what to do with them save jack the prices up by double or triple and then wonder why they wither on the vine.

The WF WW2 range was half the price of Warlord but of greatly superior quality to most of the WG releases.  'Twas well for WG's bottom line  that they disappeared.

The WF Post-Apoc civilians were handy figures with a wealth of useful items for the spares box. Once Voldemort Games had them in their clutches their relative value disappeared.

C'est la guerre.

[SJWi]

Yep, again I agree with the esteemed Carlos. How many incompatible ancients ranges have Warlord hoovered up. They have now bought the lovely Emperor's Toad French Revolution range to compete with their existing Trent range. Prices went up 50% .....

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

I have to concur with all points made by Carlos, but then Carlos is the man (o homem dinkum, in fact.)

Being in the UK I buy Empress figures direct and can confirm that, for small orders at least, they are despatched in a Jiffy bag. Weapons have on occasion arrived broken but the figure in question is swiftly replaced. Unfortunately nothing can be done about figures whose weapons break subsequent to their arrival, of which I own quite a few.