(KICKSTARTER) Mike McVey "Sedition Wars"

[Too Bo Coo]

Guys, I so appreciate all of the straight feedback.  I was SO close to backing this game and just couldn't pull the trigger...  I'm so glad I didnt!

[tnjrp]

I should add that the gap between the greens of the add ons and the quality of the product I've seen in those photos is abismal

I'm going to wait until I actually see them to pass judgement, according to the dispatch notice I should be able to do so on September 18. Namely, I keep hearing terrible, terrible things about what's been delivered in the 1st wave and yet, I'm quite happy with what I've got (to a point where I even bought more Samaritans from someone who wanted to shift them for relatively cheap!!!). Mind you, I was aware that I wasn't going to be getting hard plastic from the get go, and I've even started to think I've got lucky and there could be distinct differences in quality between different patches of the 1st wave minis. But all the same, I'm not disappointed yet. May be more so late next week

[dwartist]

I pledged when I read 'plastic' assuming, as I suppose many people did that it would be the plastic material GW use or Dreamforge. Why would I go then feel the need to check this statement at a later date to see if the casting material was different than quoted? It is, of course, correct that the material that is used (Restic for want of a better name) comes under the broad heading of 'plastic' but I still believe the original statement was misleading. For the sake of clarity I must stress that I am expressing a personal opinion and not suggesting that others should not at least try and see for themselves.
Some of the Sedition Wars figures are actually not too bad in terms of cleaning requirements but the clean-up is, for me, wearisome to say the least.
I'm not too sure about the 'soft' detail - it may paint well. I will be cleaning and painting some of the SW figures as best I can as I really do like the sculpts (and the McVeys) and willreport progress on the blog. 

[stone-cold-lead]

I don't have a horse in this race but I've read enough bad reviews of plastic-resin models to just not want anything to do with the stuff. My only experience is with a single Finecast model and it's a horrible material to work with. Plastic-resin hasn't been tried and tested to the extent of metal or hard styrene plastic, yet I'm constantly surprised at how many new products are released in the material and are clearly not up to the quality that many people expect. I think everyone who isn't happy with something they've bought should let the manufacturers know directly. Email Studio McVey and let them know that the product is poor. I think it's very easy to ignore people bitching on a message board but a flood of emails is much harder to brush off.

[Too Bo Coo]

I think this is also the same material that Zombicide was made from as well.  The thing that I found to be very frustrating with this type of material is that it does not glue with regular plastic glue.  I bought some hgihly toxic/crazy destructive glue from Litko to go with their clear disk bases.  The Zombicide plastic does not glue!  I ended up having to go with super glue and some fogging....

I also found that getting the mold lines off killed my xacto blades....

[stone-cold-lead]

I think this is also the same material that Zombicide was made from as well.  The thing that I found to be very frustrating with this type of material is that it does not glue with regular plastic glue.  I bought some hgihly toxic/crazy destructive glue from Litko to go with their clear disk bases.  The Zombicide plastic does not glue!  I ended up having to go with super glue and some fogging....

I also found that getting the mold lines off killed my xacto blades....

Whilst I don't have any SW models I don't think they're the same material as the Zombicide pieces. Zombicide uses bendy plastic (vinyl?) to get those single piece casts. Plastic glues won't work on that material but just standard superglue works fine in my experience (at least for pinning and gluing the models to 'proper' bases).

[Too Bo Coo]

Whilst I don't have any SW models I don't think they're the same material as the Zombicide pieces. Zombicide uses bendy plastic (vinyl?) to get those single piece casts. Plastic glues won't work on that material but just standard superglue works fine in my experience (at least for pinning and gluing the models to 'proper' bases).

Cheers mate!  I realized after trying the Litko 'burns yoru fingers off' glue and it not working, that I wasnt dealing with a regular plastic....

[Andrew Rae]

Whilst I don't have any SW models I don't think they're the same material as the Zombicide pieces. Zombicide uses bendy plastic (vinyl?) to get those single piece casts. Plastic glues won't work on that material but just standard superglue works fine in my experience (at least for pinning and gluing the models to 'proper' bases).

One of these days the companies using this manufacturing process is going to have to fully explain things...

I believe Zombicide, Mantic 'Restic', Dust Tactics and Sedition Wars figures are all PVC, but different types of PVC with different flexibility properties. Judging by the mould lines I've seen on Sedition Wars, Dust Tactics and Mantic figures, they must be metal moulds (and Studio McVey posted images of early metal moulds for the SW figures). 'Plastic glue' is polystyrene cement so will not work on plastics other than polystyrene. And GW Finecast is another thing altogether, being spin-cast resin (apparently). Trollcast (and what ever mess Defiance Games turn it into) is also spin-cast, though whatever mix of materials it is, Ed is keeping to himself.

But who really knows for sure since no company is ever particularly open about the manufacturing process.

I'd say Mantic had the right idea naming PVC figures something other than simply 'plastic' though 'restic' wasn't the best idea as it confused plastic and resin- I understand the reasoning but it's still seemingly confused more people than necessary. They now actually call it 'sprueless plastic' and do mention in their product listing that it requires superglue.

It seems to me that PVC injection moulding has been happily used in board game production for a long time, but now miniatures companies are looking for ways to produce cheaper casts and PVC is what they've turned to. Wargamers expect plastic figures to be multipart like GW kits but while PVC figures are fine as single part figures for board games (or factory assembled like Dust Tactics), they're pretty horrible to deal with for the wargaming customer, compared to polystyrene plastic or metal.

Would any of the companies using PVC production chose it over 'traditional' polystyrene sprues? I doubt it. It seems like a stop gap measure for those companies that either can't afford polystyrene sprues or are stuck due to a lack of capacity for manufacture.

All the while, Games Workshop (shall we ignore Finecast as it surely must also be a stop gap measure? ) are producing better and better polystyrene plastic sprues that really show what a horrible material PVC is, both in terms of the quality of figure and the preparation required by the customer.

I'll be sticking to metal I think.

[Too Bo Coo]

This is what I used on the Zombicide figures and the lexan bases:

http://www.litko.net/products/Craftics-%2333-Thick-Acrylic-Cement.html

it didnt work, probably for the reasosn you mentioned.  But this glue specifially said it was menat to bond dissimilar plastics.... but not in this case.

[Andrew May]

Andrew's pretty much hit the nail on the head. As I suspected its all PVC and the rest is marketing bumf. Whether the buying public should be expected to read between the lines though is another matter.
I'll also be sticking to metal....

[A_Train]

I just want to echo Stone Cold Lead and say that everyone here who was unhappy with the final product, especially those who felt deceived, should email the Studio to make a formal complaint.  They're not likely to know about it on here.

[ink the troll]

Reading comments about all these pvc(ish) minis, seeing pics etc., to me it's almost looking like a giant product testing lab, only here the human guinea pigs- instead of getting paid by the people running the tests- actually finance those tests via kickstarters. It also looks like the seemingly cheaper option occasionally ends up being more expensive and/ or labour intensive.

I think part of the problem is that neither the people buying nor the people selling these minis realised beforehand just how different to 'normal' minis these would be. Be it cleaning, assembling or painting- the material behaves different to what miniature painters & wargamers are used to and expect. You'll either have to learn a few new tricks and possibly buy some new tools or just sell off the minis.

It would have been a good thing if manufacturers had more openly explained the difference between standard polystyrene and resin and this 'new' material from the start. Though I have the suspicion they often didn't really know that themselves and that that's why there's so much shrinkage, quality issues etc. Manufacturers will have to learn a few new tricks as well.

[Andrew Rae]

I think part of the problem is that neither the people buying nor the people selling these minis realised beforehand just how different to 'normal' minis these would be. Be it cleaning, assembling or painting- the material behaves different to what miniature painters & wargamers are used to and expect.

Certainly the time between the release of Mantic's Corporation figures at the end of March 2012 (the first big PVC wargames figure release?) did not leave a lot of time for customers to form an opinion on what to expect from the Sedition War figures as the Kickstarter started at the end of May 2012. However, Mike McVey is (or was) the Artistic Director (or some such title) for Mantic so presumably he knew what to expect from the manufacturing process.

[Michka]

I got the campaign packet of the big game box with all the extra goodies. I was just as excited as everyone else. The first time I started working on the miniatures I was disappointed in how difficult the plastic was to work with. I cleaned and primed four minis, and I haven't done a damn thing with them since.

But...

I had unrealistic expectations. I was expecting the to get some fantastic figures for next to nothing. The deal was too good to be true. I'm annoyed with the final result, but if I step back for a moment I have no one to blame but myself. Lesson learned. I won't be buying into many more Kickstarter miniatures campaigns for a while. I certainly won't be getting anything with McVey's name on it. Sorry if this is too harsh to the creator, but he chose to put his name on the product. There are supposed to be consequences.

[Momotaro]

Trollcast (and what ever mess Defiance Games turn it into) is also spin-cast, though whatever mix of materials it is, Ed is keeping to himself.

I had a good look at the Trollcast Judge Minty at Partizan a couple of weekends back, and it really is lovely, crisply detailed figure.  I don't know whether that's a result of the material or process that TrollForged is using, or a combination, but it's clearly possible to make very nice spun-plastic figures.  

The one GW Finecast figure I have is also fantastic, so they've cleaned up their act after the initial fiasco (I know, sample size of one...).  GW's single multi-part plastic figures (I have the Wight King) are also amazing.

Some of the Mantic Dreadball figs that I've seen (sprueless plastic/restic/whatever) are also nice, whereas their styrene goblin archer sprue was atrocious - the detail was so poor and soft that I binned my Hammerhead freebie.

In the end, I'm happy to take a punt on the "sprueless plastic" Rebels in the Deadzone Kickstarter, but I'm even happier that the enforcers will be in styrene.