WF Plastic Liberty and Union VSF Sprue

[Mors]

Not sure if this has been posted before, whilst perusing Wargames Factory site I noticed in the Liberty and Union boards this http://wargamesfactory.com/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=49443


SET DESCRIPTION: Multipart Character miniatures perfect for Pulp gaming. 5 miniatures per
sprue. 3 male and 2 female (torso, legs, left arm, right arm, head). And
as many extra bits theres room for on the sprue ex. monocle, hats,
weapons steampunk contraptions, binoculars, umbrellas etc. With the
extra bits it should be possible to outfit one miniature to look like a
stereotypical Victorian villain.


Ive signed up for a few sprues from them before , but I dont think they are likely to get produced, mainly the Martian types. This however has got 28% committed so there is a bit of interest. Ideal for VSF gaming with all the conversion possibilitys, especially with other currently available and soon to be released boxed sets. Would rather it was 4 male and 1 female from a gaming point of view , although my Godalming Ladies Armed Milita could do with some reinforcements.
I suppose the downside is that people wouldnt want 100's of sprues like the main wargaming periods. Anyway, if its of interest sign up for some.

Cheers Mors

[YPU]

As a side note, many on here dislike WF's fleshy bits, ie faces hands etz. However a sprue like this should still provide a lot of conversion fodder. Having some 19th female bodies in appropriate attire might prove especially useful, even if  the heads and hands need to be replaced.

[Red Orc]

I don't wish to rain on the parade, and I say this as a supporter of th Wargames Foundry project (I've signed up for a lot of sprues and contributed to a number of the discussions) but this sprue is very unlikely to be made.

WF's main focus is on providing 'troop' types rather than 'character' minis at the moment. They are changing their way of working but I think it will be while (if ever) before we see something like this.

What could be a goer is something like a small 'VSF equipment' sprue that could be used to customise other models. They looking for ways of using components across different ranges: something like a small sprue that includes (let's say) a lantern, pair of binoculars, service revolver (?), spanner and a pith helmet could be used for VSF, Colonial, Vampire Hunting, and Pulp (Mummy Hunting?) games - that might be a wide enough field to help something like that along.

But I agree that some adventurous Victorian ladies would be smashing, I'd by several if they were OK sculpts and there was sufficient variety.

[mysteriousbill]

I put myself down for a couple just to see if I can use them.

[Red Orc]

Don't get me wrong, I'd love this concept to come about, and if it did I would get some too... I just don't think it will sadly.

[Mors]

Yeah Im pretty sure it wont too , and I know what people mean about the facial features on WF plastics, but i think they getting better.

[Chairface]

Yeah Im pretty sure it wont too , and I know what people mean about the facial features on WF plastics, but i think they getting better.

Oh for sure! The faces on the British Zulu fighters were so so, but the faces on the Germans and Vikings were amazingly good!

[Laflin and Rand]

Yeah, I'd much rather that they stick to rank and file troops for their plastics. I think the would make a killing by producing Franco-Prussian War troops.

[The_Beast]

I'd like to order, but I have no idea what the price point is likely to be.

Does anyone see any clues anywhere?

I guess it's less about whether I'd pre-order, and more about how many.

Doug

[Red Orc]

Don't worry, Beast, you're not committing yourself to anything. What WF are doing is pretty much market research. People post suggestions, the ones that get lots of people registering an interest are more likely to get made, the ones that don't, or have a few people making massive orders, are less likely to get made.

Their historical ranges have been very cheap so far I believe, their Shock Troopers (sci-fi soldiers) less cheap but still below the price of plastics of certain other companies that make sci-fi soldiers.

Not knowing how this is concieved to be bundled it's difficult to tell, but my guess is '$20 for 18 minis' or something close to that, should it ever make it to being sold.

[The_Beast]

No, I'm pretty certain you are committing to a certain number of sprue, not packages.

Okay, I'm probably in, but I'd do more if I had an idea. Not absolute, just a clue. Now, I'm sure the idea is to make sprue into packages, or even add/bulk-out to current runs. Just for the program, it says for sprue.

Really, the shock troopers are more expensive? I'll have to look again, as I thought they were less expensive than other of their lines. Well, for the swelling of my bitz box, they certainly were. ;->=



Doug

[Red Orc]

OK, brief history lesson: Liberty and Union League (the WF plastic version of Eureka's 300 Club) was set up about 18 months or so ago. It was so overwhelmingly successful that WF couldn't produce all the things that had been requested - they have a massive backlog of ideas that have already reached 1000 sprues of people saying they're interested. But that's all it is, interested. There's no commitment to buy (how can you say 'yes' for definite if there aren't even any renders, let alone figures?). Honestly.

You can't actually order things that haven't been designed yet from WF, there's no mechanism for it. What the Liberty and Union League is for is market research into ideas that interest gameers. Then the idea is they take those popular ones and do renders and design the figures. That's when you say whether you do or don't want to actually order them.

The idea is that the proposals are something that people are going to want multiple sprues of for an army/game, hence concentrating on basic troops (Zulu horde, Colonial British firing line, Saxon levies, Viking warriors, Roman Legionaries, Numidians, War of Spanish Succession Tricorne-and-Musket dudes etc). All these historical ranges came out fairly painlessly. But it is important that they're all bulk troops.

The Shocktroopers ('Sci-Fi Greatcoat Troopers in Gasmasks' - also bulk troops in that you'd probably want multiple squads of them) took ages to come out, WF says because they took much longer to get 'right' - C18th British redcoats or Roman Legionaries have a defined look and there are lots of descriptions and illustrations of how they should look, so they're easy. Sci-fi is hard to do and takes longer (higher production costrs so higher prices).

Faced with this backlog WF decided to re-organise things. The old pre-order (registering mechanism) is to all intents and purposes redundant, the LAUL is closed for new submissions, and WF has its next several months of releases worked out. '3 sprues' or '7 sprues' or '20 sprues' really doesn't mean anything now, it's just for monitoring what's being talked anbout, what people are excited by.

they're also changing their production methodology. Instead of making sprues of 3-5 models with some kit and putting 10 of these in a box, they're going to make 'mini-sprues' and package these together (this is how I understand it anyway). So it's likely that if our 'VSF Adventurers' sprue ever flies, it'll really be a sprue of equipment, a sprue of a Victorian woman, a different sprue of a Victorian woman (interchangeable parts of course), three different sprues of Victorian guys, a Victorian alternative heads sprue, a sprue of small Mechanical Contraptions to add as bionics, etc.

This where the point about troops comes in again; as WF is guaging this on 'do 100 gamers each want 10 sprues of this (or 1,000 gamers each want 20 sprues, or whatever)' you're not really saying 'I want 3 sprues'. You're saying something more like 'if this product is something like what I'm after, I'd want 3, or 5 or 10 or 20 sprues' - which begins to look more like 'if it's good I'll have a box or two'.

That it seems to me is where this is heading. The mini-sprues allow WF to use the same components in different boxes - my hypothetical Victorian equipment sprue could go in the 'Aeronaut Adventurers' box or the 'Intrepid Archaeologists' box or the 'Landship Navigators' box or the 'Colonial Explorers' box...

Anyway; enough of this. The point is, WF can't hold you to anything, even if you do say 'yeah I'll take 10 sprues of that' because 1 - there's no mechanism to actually do that, unless it's one of the released ranges; and 2 - they specifically say that they're collecting interest not orders. They don't expect you to commit to ranges until they have got figures to be approved (and at that point you can back out).

[Christian]

Wouldn't it be more viable for someone to sculpt these and release them as metal components through an existing distributor such as Eureka etc.?

[YPU]

I'm not sure, but I think I would prefer plastics for these.
But to look at what Red Orc is saying, at this point anything will take a while to get produced. But there is still a chance that if we bump the VSF stuff up to enough interest that they will make them in the end. Correct?

[The_Beast]

@Red Orc
Thanks for the history lesson; I'd not been aware of the program before, though I'd have guessed the outcome in advance.

I didn't think there was a particular mechanism for 'enforcing' my commitment. Nonetheless, I'd have felt committed in the case where they'd actually went forward.

Doug