Action figures

[Stark]

Look you move it.

Since it seems that the terms miniatures guys use for plastic is different from everyone else, what are things like 'hard plastic' and 'resin' chemically? Like I said above, the kits I've got are parts PBS, parts ABS, parts PVC, some PA or something like that. None of it needs glue so I don't know how this affects what bonding to use, but Aaron has told me that 'resin' has all kinds of toxic issues with drilling and etc. What stuff is that? How does the type of plastic affect things like cost etc?

[sgt67]

Resin kits are normally made of polyurethane resin and usually have to be fully scrubbed with a mold release agent before assembling and painting. If the kit has any bits that stick out a lot you'll usually have to drill out holes and insert a metal connecting pin to support the two halves. (Say to connect a wing to a fuselage) You usually need to use CA glue or epoxy cement to glue parts together. I believe but I'm not totally sure that priming a resin kit is absolutely necessary before painting it, but that's good modeling technique in general. Plastic kits are normally ABS (at least historical kits).

As to cost resin kits (at least for historical/sci-fi) are usually a lot more expensive than a similar subject would be in plastic, but this is always due to the miniscule production run which probably numbered in the dozens or maybe hundreds. The resin itself is much cheaper to work with and can be cast by hand easily if you know how to make a rubber mold.

I hope that helps, Stark!

[Rogue 9]

Look you move it.

Since it seems that the terms miniatures guys use for plastic is different from everyone else, what are things like 'hard plastic' and 'resin' chemically? Like I said above, the kits I've got are parts PBS, parts ABS, parts PVC, some PA or something like that. None of it needs glue so I don't know how this affects what bonding to use, but Aaron has told me that 'resin' has all kinds of toxic issues with drilling and etc. What stuff is that? How does the type of plastic affect things like cost etc?

"Plastic" tends to refer to thermoplastic, formed by mold injection at very high temperatures and pressures. I don't know the exact chemical compounds, but I used to work in a factory that made mold-injected thermoplastic parts (though not miniatures/action figures) and it is far more durable than most resins and thanks to the production method is much less prone to casting errors. (When Games Workshop rolled out their relatively new Finecast resin miniature line it was known as "failcast" because of the frankly astounding number of flawed kits that made it to market.) Also, when a model kit says it's plastic it generally means that it will be bonded with plastic cement, while a "resin" kit needs superglue or epoxy.

[Stark]

I'll have to check at home, but is ABS the 'hard' plastic? I think it's mostly used for outer panels on my kits, so it's stuff relatively flat or even with sharp edges.

Do you need to pin resin because its very fragile and bits that stick out might otherwise break off?

Rogue, that's the sort of thing I saw on miniatures forum, and I'm not familiar with the way of breaking plastics down by crafty stuff like how you bond it etc. The kits I make are injection moulded kits and I've always been struck by how I don't get flash or undershots the way I did with GW stuff a decade ago. Do GW still use that spin/cassette style of casting?

[sgt67]

Resin is fragile if you're dealing with thin bits, mostly. Anything fairly substantial should be just fine. Not everyone pins though, if you use sufficiently strong glue it'll usually work just fine. It really depends on what you need to do specifically and how you're planning on displaying the finished model. ABS is the hard plastic you're thinking of, the kind the armor panels and like a Gundam is made of. The formulation might be a bit different since I have noticed gundam plastic is noticeably harder than historical model plastic and the like.

[Stark]

I've only recently started doing crafty stuff with the kits I build like sanding properly etc, and there's definitely strong differences in how the plastics react to sanding and their finish even within a plastic type. The harder plastic seems to sand easily and cleanly, whereas some of the softer stuff (like the internal frame) often takes more work to get a decent finish back. I'll be interested to have a look at the runners for Nu to see what range of plastics is in there.

When you talk about fragility, it makes me think about the different uses for different kits. Something like a dreadnought in 40k I imagine is built and painted and based, and then used like a chess piece and moved around a table. By contrast, gundam kits are more action figure-y and are designed to be posed and moved about etc. Maybe this affects plastics and designs, because I believe bandai used to use PVC friction joints in larger kits and stopped because they couldn't support the weight of the limbs etc when posed 'dramatically'.

[Rogue 9]

They probably do use cassette casting for their resin and pewter miniatures, but the ones labeled "multi-part plastic kit" are injection-molded, and sold still on the sprue (which proves it to anyone who's seen a thermoplastic mold press in action, in case there's doubt).

Sgt67, the formulation probably is different for different companies' miniatures. When I worked in the plastic plant I worked in inventory and warehouse, and there were literally hundreds of different plastic formulas on hand for different applications.

Stark, in 40k kits it's actually relatively common for people to use magnets in limbs, weapons, and so forth to be able to switch weapon loadouts, and several tanks have articulated turrets and weapon mounts. But you're right in that they aren't designed to be fully poseable like you'd see in a Gundam action figure.

[sgt67]

Yeah I do mostly historical kits and only the rare gundam so I generally have my kits displayed on a shelf and pretty much never touched. If you need to bond resin fiddly bits on a kit that's going to be moved a lot like a gundam that will take a very different approach.

[Stark]

I know people use neodymiums with Gundams too, especially as some of the older kits hands couldn't actually support the weight of weapons (usually too nose-heavy for the thumb joint). They experiment with different ways of connecting hands to guns, but it seems to be a tradeoff between the conflicting needs of posability, holdability, and design constraints.

What SGT says about resin being 'cheap' in the costs of making moulds and actually buying the material makes me think that this is relevant to discussing those smaller manufacturers. Do they use this sort of cheaper process to make cheaper stuff when fragility isn't a problem? It appears from looking that places seem to use injection moulded stuff for their rank-and-file. I imagine that's because they can make the tooling for SPACE SOLDIER and recoup the cost through really cheap costs per-shot?

BTW, I have to say again that this is one of the most helpful and interesting discussions I've had on SDN in years. I am pretty clueless about this kind of stuff and I've chewed Vendetta and Aarons ears off about it in the past, but I had no idea so many people here had such a depth of knowledge of this industry.

[sgt67]

Yeah I would consider replacing the hands for my old gundams with a magnetic hand because poor Tallgeese can't hold his massive cannon of a gun! :V

While I don't know any industry specifics I do think you're spot on with regards to the economy of resin. There are a number of manufactures that do limited-release stuff in resin when the normal stuff is all plastic. I think Bandai used to do this with resin B-Club releases.

Always happy to expound about scale modeling, it's one of the few subjects that'll drag me out of the woodworks.

[Havok]

OMG if you are going to just babble and not post any cool pics, I guess Thanas picked the right forum after all.

[Rogue 9]

GW has done limited release and low volume kits in resin through their Forge World division for years. The steel molds for thermoplastic injection can weigh well over a ton (depending on the size of the thing being molded; some molds for very large parts at the plant I worked in actually couldn't be moved with the smaller electric forklifts and had to be lifted into the presses with a propane-driven one) and are ridiculously expensive, so if you aren't going to move a huge volume of whatever the mold makes then the mold won't pay for itself.

There was a huge outcry when GW moved a lot of their previously pewter models to resin (a different sort of resin than Forge World uses, curiously enough) explicitly as a cost-saving measure, didn't pass those savings on at all, and then raised prices in their annual price hike three weeks later.

Edit: Since Havok insists. This is a closeup of my Baneblade flanked by a pair of Leman Russes, just to reinforce how much bigger the damn thing is than the normal tank kits. (Russes are marginally larger than the Predator you remarked on as being small earlier, but still small next to the Baneblade.) A Chimera (the APCs you can see the tail ends of in the foreground) can actually fit inside the Baneblade chassis as it's being put together; it fits into the interior space between the track units. It would be too tall to close the top of the superstructure over, though, not that I'd want to anyway.

[Stark]

Back when I read GW magazine I remember the switch to pewter stuff from (I guess lead-based) metal, and it seems they used spin cassette moulds then (which might explain why there was so much flash since I think this casting method wears out moulds).

The B-club thing is interesting, because B-club stuff seems to be option kits or custom kits and they are astronomically expensive. Shouldn't they be cheaper than $90 for a few wing bits?

[sgt67]

You'd think so, right? Honestly I don't know how to account why B-club was always super expensive. I think some of it might be the labor involved, as B-club products were always cast to a very high standard, especially when standards were so low in the 90s. Your typical garage kit, especially then, was more of an approximation of the subject replete with pits, bubbles, shallow or misaligned details, etc.

I wonder too if part of the pricing was to artificially induce exclusivity, as B-club is sort of a status symbol.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Ok so I took a crappy picture of a robit. Sorry about the flash it washed out heaps of the surface detail PS i want to repeat that picasa sucks.
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Anyway this is the upgunned seravee in 144 and is about 12cm tall. It's about US$15 and to ship to Australia is about US$9 by itself. The regular version (minus the four shield generators, waist guns etc) is about US$1.5 cheaper. I haven't done anything to it (actually its not even finished the lenses for the gun barrels are off and the cannons don't have their sights) and that's basically what you get for your US$24. It looks pretty goofy cause it's from 00, but you can get this guy for US$17
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These are the smallest kits I've built; I have a few other things from capsule toy machines and fixed-pose 'action figures' The 100 and 60 scale ones are orders of magnitude more complicated and 20cm/30cm+ in size. Lemme see I made an example thing once

Thanks for your post about the industry. I've seen many kits (including a hilariously named 'gundoom') from Chinese manufacturers who are using machines or moulds from other kits and manufacturers, and they seem similar in mould quality (even if things like fit, plastic quality, etc isn't so good) so its interesting to think that the industry is just so small in the West that a whole country could use one company to get moulds. I think the 'gundoom' is parts of a 1/100 kit, and parts of a 1/144 kit, both 'resized' somehow to an indeterminate middling scale, so it has some parts of very high detail, and others of quite low detail all mixed together.

From talking to other people (like Vendetta) into this sort of hobby, it seems that the demand that the really small manufacturers meet is largely due to GW's pricing. It seems bizarre that a guy can make a sculpt and then basically farm out the manufacturing to a factory on the other side of the world and sell low-volume to a tiny market and still beat the prices of a much larger company.

How much of this sort of distinction is due to the specific needs of the 28mm scale? Like I mentioned earlier (and you can see) much of robits are just flat plates, as with tanks and the like. Are there technical challenges involved in sculpting and casting etc such small pieces with such fine surface detail? You mention detail retention, and I guess that sort of thing is a physics issue with the amount of pressure in the mould to fill the details without leaking etc?

PS sorry for the huge images, and thanks everyone else who posted their stuff. Its pretty sad but I find this sort of thing interesting in a technical and business standpoint, and also a pew pew standpoint. :V

EDIT - Actually it occurs that a big part of the 'hobby' for japanese kits is 'detail' in a technical rather than artisitic sense - obviously it's not visible, but the big blue dude has a full internal skeleton with silly amounts of surface detail, moving parts, pistols and reciprocating flanges and all kinds of nonsense. Its a bit different to a kit which is more 'solid' in that it's parts you join together to create the surface appearance only, and the surface is lower detail for this sort of robit. The kit I'm building at the moment (90m for a foot fucking hell) has a full internal skeleton and armour/fairings designed to open up for no reason than to reveal little glowy bits all over it, whereas by nature the actual outer surface is quite 'flat' and stuff.

Man maybe I should get this thread moved because I am pretty interested now.

EDIT TWO - I looked up that 'restic' stuff you mentioned, and found a discussion on different types of plastic. For robot kits, different runners are different plastics, depending on the requirement - the inner frames are usually slightly more flexible, the outer bits harder, they use some PVC for friction joints etc. For robots you don't need to use any glue etc to assemble them, and apparently working with plastics in that way causes big problems when working with 28mm stuff that's in several bits that need gluing and etc.

(I'm probably going to post a few replies in a row so my computer doesn't eat them as I type. If a mod wants to put them together, I will be grateful.)

Pricing is a strange beast that has decoupled to some extent from the market. The introduction of a few new modelling mediums and Kickstarter will probably change industry standards in marketing, material used and sculpting quality in the next couple of years.

First of all, 28mm tends to be the most popular 'scale' for sci fi and fantasy wargames because it is small enough to make for a nice, big army of playing pieces on the table, but large enough for a figure to have distinct, paintable details that can be seen from across a table. 15mm and smaller scales are pretty popular with historical wargamers because the miniatures can be cheaper and the formations bigger. 54 mm is popular with very experienced painters, but the shading techniques that work on a detailed 28mm model will look like ass on a 54mm mini, due to the larger surfaces and the need for smoother shading gradients. This is also a problem with chibi-style miniatures, like those in Super Dungeon Explore, which cause frustration for being "hard to paint."

In order to be successful, a 28mm miniatures should have a dynamic pose (historicals are often lacking), a distinctive design (Mantic gets a lot of flack here), a lot of textures or details that are easy to paint (most wargamers with drybrush and/or dip their rank and file minis, so "soft" details are a big negative), easy assembly (some metal or resin minis are infamous for their assembly issues), and have "character" (meaning the sculptor has a sense of what makes a piece of art interesting...basically). There are plenty of 28mm models made every year that fail at this and die pitifully, but there are even more that succeed and still die because the company that makes them targeted the wrong market.

There seem to be 4 different "draws" for a wargames customer. Or maybe there are 4 types of customer...

Gamers tend to buy models that are useful for whatever game is popular (or that they know they will get to play a lot). For gamers, the performance of the model is the most important aspect, followed by price and ease of assembly. For example, LOTR models used to have great prices and were easy to assemble, but there was no critical mass of players in most gaming communities after the peak of the film franchise, so people don't buy them so much any more. Space Marine Terminators are very popular because they play well in the most popular game, so they are extremely expensive compared to models of a similar quality.

Modellers/painters tend to buy models based on the quality of their sculpts or on the customizability of their kits. Painters often prefer resin or metal miniatures because those minis tend to have a lot of detail and dynamic poses and are often the heroes in a particular setting or game, so are more visually elaborate. Modellers tend to prefer plastic kits because the plastic is easy to work with and provides a lot of options and extras. Restic tends to be right in the middle, and appeals less to everyone.

Collectors buy miniatures because they are rare or part of a certain range. Some companies, like Wyrd, Kingdom Death and now GW, put out a lot of limited edition models to grab collectors' dollars, and often charge a premium. Kickstarter-exclusive models guarantee higher pledge amounts. The Hobbit models command a far higher price than their not-branded equivalents. People will often buy sculpts by certain artists (Werner Klocke and Studio McVey appeal to collectors).

Story enthusiasts and roleplayers buy models based on the background material (or potential material) attached to miniatures. Reaper sells a lot of character models to RPGers, while GW and Privateer Press sell lots of models that have poor sculpts and/or game performance based on the minatures' personal stories. For example, lots of people buy orks or inquisitors because something about the background makes them fun to play with, even if they suck.


As far as I can tell, Games Workshop is really the only company that consistantly appeals to all four customer interests, and they have a huge advantage because they were the first on the scene and had time to really establish themselves. GW opened up dozens of shops with gaming space and set up tournaments to make sure their gamers could always find a game of Warhammer 40k somewhere. GW has invested tons of money into their casting and injection molding technologies and were the golden standard in the industry for a long time. GW sells hundreds of books based on their fluff, which in turn inspires lots of customers to start new modelling projects with GW merchandise. And GW has often hired the best artists and sculptors to design their ranges.

GW spent so long being at the top of the industry that they have insulated themselves from the reality on the ground. GW's executives have gone on record stating that there is no competition to GW and that demand for GW figures is inelastic. The results have been spectacular. They have yearly price increases, they raised Australian and Pacific prices dramatically, they cut costs by downsizing their stores to get rid of playing space and all but one employee, they eliminated tournament and gaming club support, they replaced popular metal models with a type of resin that they wasn't ready for wide release, they got into a dick-fight with Amazon (look up "Spots the Space Marine"), they started fucking around with shipments and product availability to local retailers, and they deleted their forums and even their main Facebook page to silence criticism... they seem to have gone nuts.

[Stark]

There's a similar division in modeling I think. Tank guys and robot guys have varying degrees of consideration for REAL ACCURACY and crafty/hobby stuff and final finish. I guess there's the play with dolls side too.

Some of the people who build 'models' as distinct from 'miniatures' to pretty crazy, with $150 photo etch kits for $30 tanks, 50000 different types of Sherman tank, etc. I guess those kind of pressures shape the different markets in different ways (especially if parts commonality is a big money saver).

There are totally 'price points' for Gundm kits too; each scale has a premium price point, a regular price point, etc. I think those prices affect what gets made; less popular stuff never gets the larger, much more complicated kits.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'll definitely have to get some of those models, Stark. Thanks for the photos.

Sorry for the rambling nature of my posts. I should be in bed now...

Anyway, plastic is a risky medium for 28mm miniatures because the startup costs are so high. New steel molds cost from $10,000ish (at least according to rumor) to more than $50,000 (according to statements by people who use Renedra's services), not including the costs of casting the modles, packaging and shipping. Mantic famously lost a lot of money on some of their poorer releases--their elves, their first release, reportedly haven't paid for themselves and their Warpath minis were embarrassing failures that I'll get into later. Defiance Games seems to have gone out of business with only one plastic kit released before deciding that they needed to switch materials and then failing to deliver even those. The second biggest 28mm Wargame producer (Privateer Press) still refuses to make any miniatures in plastic (as opposed to restic). Wargames Factory had a rather bumpy road behind it, and their biggest kits, the Dreamforge kits, were proved themselves on Kickstarter, with WGF only agreeing to tool so many of them after Mark Mondragon proved there was demand for them.

Looking at Mantic, there are some ways to cust costs and still produce plastic models, but they aren't always a good idea. Mantic's elves and undead are larger sprues than their later kits and have a less copy-and-paste appearance. Mantic also saved money by using modular molds; the elf archer sprue and the elf spearman sprue are the same, except for the part with the weapons. Their smaller sprues tended to look even worse when they re-used parts--the entire dwarf army is composed of clones with two possible faces and two possible pairs of pants. When Mantic released their sci fi kits, they used the pants-and-heads half of the fantasy kit again, resulting in space dwarfs with power-ish armored torsos and chainmail leggings. Since then they have moved heavily into restic, which resulted in a price rise for new kits and less customisablility. They are planning an upcoming Kickstarter to fund new Warpath plastics to stop the bleeding...

Restic is very similar to the material used to make boardgame pieces. (Remind me about the boardgames later!) Restic is actually just plastic that doesn't take "plastic glue", the glue that melts plastic pieces together. Therefore, restic loses one of the big advantages plastic has over resin. It also loses the possibility for adding optional bits to a frame. Like metal, restic bits need to be cast individually and then bagged together to make a kit, so complexity raises costs. Also, restic molds cost hundreds of dollars, and are supposedly more expensive than metal, with reduces the incentive for companies to produce whimsical options. Restic molds seem to require more pieces than metal and restic models often have a baffling number of huge, ugly mold lines running right through their most intricately-detailed parts. Combine that with the difficulty of preparing restic modles (filing them makes them fuzzy and knife-scraping them doesn't work like on plastics), and you have a slightly subpar product that's cheaper to produce per unit if you need to make a lot of models, but can't use real plastic. Mantic just had to reduce the prices of their Restic models because people didn't want to buy them. PP restics are much cheaper than their metals, but really shitty to work with. And still not cheap. PP sells at GW pricepoints for their models and only get away with it by targeting certain demographics.

The big game changers now are Trollcast and Bones. Trollcast seems to be a casting method for a special mix of restic that keeps all the detail of resin and apparently costs less, although I haven't received any Trollcast items yet. I just know that Trollforged miniatures began making models for Red Box games, Impact Miniatures, Defiance (sort of), Kingdom Death (? Not sure about that one) and other companies in the last year, exploding onto the scene. Ed Fortae ran a Kickstarter to raise cash just so he could take time off from casting other people's minis so he could sculpt some more of his own for Trollforged Miniatures. He has also expanded his company and added staff and more machines.

Reaper came out with their Bones line roughly 2 years ago. They started out as prepainted minis, kind of like WOTC's DnD minis, but better quality. Reaper traditionally sold to RPGers over wargamers. Then Reaper started selling them without the prepainting to target wargamers and modellers. When they only had about 20 figures done, Bones sales made up about 30% of Reaper's sales, and Reapers had several lines with thousands of miniatures in them, including the official Pathfinder line. Reaper had a Kickstarter to pay for the tooling costs for more Bones models, starting out with about 30 models up for tooling and looking to move their manufacturing to the US from China. They made about 4 million dollars and tooled 200 or more models. Between the Kickstarter and now (KS figures come out in a month or so), Reaper saw their Bones line sell out repeatedly. It's only a matter of time before other companies start paying Reaper to cast their own models in Bones. The prices that retailers are putting up for preorders are exceedingly cheap, so Bones will probably make a ton of money and become the new entry-medium to the hobby, displacing GW's plastics as the noob material of choice.

Kickstarter is also changing the 28mm market in other ways. More and more companies are using Kickstarter to gather funding for new projects without all the hassle of taking out loans. KS is also a great tool for determining if there is a market for a new product before they've paid to make, box and ship thousands of units. (Hello, Dropzone Commander! Hello, Dystopian legions!) Mantic is gearing up for their third Kickstarter after their previous Kickstarters were successful enough to revitalize the company and change the way they approach miniatures. (Mantic used to be a business plan in search of a product. Now they have learned that they need top talent to design models people actually want to look at before deciding what to release instead of letting their budget and ideal release dates dictate terms which lead to such abominations as the hated Warpath minis, the terrible Drakons and the awful hybrid restic/metal kits they can't sell.) Because Kickstarter "investments" are paid off in merchandise instead of interest payments, they allow companies to create larger model ranges and sell them at more competitive pricepoints. The other big surprise from Kickstarter is that Boardgame Players are a large, untapped market. Zombicide, Sedition Wars, Dreadball, Rivet Wars and Kingdom Death: Monster are all board games created by miniatures makers that successfully tapped that market while still appealing to wargamers, and they were all very successful. This means many new wargames will start out as boardgames, much like Fantasy Flight's Dust Tactics, and expand out into wargames like Dust Tactics did so well.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Gamers tend to buy models that are useful for whatever game is popular (or that they know they will get to play a lot). For gamers, the performance of the model is the most important aspect, followed by price and ease of assembly. For example, LOTR models used to have great prices and were easy to assemble, but there was no critical mass of players in most gaming communities after the peak of the film franchise, so people don't buy them so much any more. Space Marine Terminators are very popular because they play well in the most popular game, so they are extremely expensive compared to models of a similar quality.

Modellers/painters tend to buy models based on the quality of their sculpts or on the customizability of their kits. Painters often prefer resin or metal miniatures because those minis tend to have a lot of detail and dynamic poses and are often the heroes in a particular setting or game, so are more visually elaborate. Modellers tend to prefer plastic kits because the plastic is easy to work with and provides a lot of options and extras. Restic tends to be right in the middle, and appeals less to everyone.

Collectors buy miniatures because they are rare or part of a certain range. Some companies, like Wyrd, Kingdom Death and now GW, put out a lot of limited edition models to grab collectors' dollars, and often charge a premium. Kickstarter-exclusive models guarantee higher pledge amounts. The Hobbit models command a far higher price than their not-branded equivalents. People will often buy sculpts by certain artists (Werner Klocke and Studio McVey appeal to collectors).

Story enthusiasts and roleplayers buy models based on the background material (or potential material) attached to miniatures. Reaper sells a lot of character models to RPGers, while GW and Privateer Press sell lots of models that have poor sculpts and/or game performance based on the minatures' personal stories. For example, lots of people buy orks or inquisitors because something about the background makes them fun to play with, even if they suck.

I'd argue Battlefront is doing pretty well with all four, too. Especially recently - they're in the midst of their own "plastic transition" reminiscent of where GW was 10 years ago, in that they're starting to do more and more plastic with more elaborate kits.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

There's a similar division in modeling I think. Tank guys and robot guys have varying degrees of consideration for REAL ACCURACY and crafty/hobby stuff and final finish. I guess there's the play with dolls side too.

You should see the sheer gnashing of teeth on BoardGameGeek over the difficulty in assembling the Sedition wars models. They are restic and require some experience to get right... Uh oh. Then again, the wargamers also seem to be happier with the rules, too.

Some of the people who build 'models' as distinct from 'miniatures' to pretty crazy, with $150 photo etch kits for $30 tanks, 50000 different types of Sherman tank, etc. I guess those kind of pressures shape the different markets in different ways (especially if parts commonality is a big money saver).

There are totally 'price points' for Gundm kits too; each scale has a premium price point, a regular price point, etc. I think those prices affect what gets made; less popular stuff never gets the larger, much more complicated kits.

Maybe that explains some of the prices I've seen on Gundam models. I remember seeing a baggie with a single sprue of ..I don't know, hydraulics? and a pricetag that made me look again.


Are my posts still helpful or am I retreading covered ground?

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'd argue Battlefront is doing pretty well with all four, too. Especially recently - they're in the midst of their own "plastic transition" reminiscent of where GW was 10 years ago, in that they're starting to do more and more plastic with more elaborate kits.

Battlefront makes Flames of War, right? If so, I think their new plastics have a lot to do with losing market share to Plastic Soldier Company and Warganes Factory. I've heard enough people complain about FoW's ridiculous prices to draw other comparisons to GW. However, while GW may hold the trademark on Space Marines, Battlefront can't exactly trademark the panzer. If they rely on the setting or distinctiveness of their models for sales, they'll lose to someone like Zvezda or Hat who can always make cheaper model tanks of the same style for the same setting. FoW was smart to sell their starter set and rules together so that future customers won't end up looking around for a better deal right away.

I also wonder how much the blossoming popularity of 28mm WWII like Bolt Action is cutting into FoW's expansion plans. I know FoW really took off when disillusioned GW fans decided to look for a new wargame and decided Warmachine wasn't it--will 28mm WWII capture those sales from now on?

I hear that Germans make up something like 70% of all WWII wargames sales. Is there any truth to that?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm not sure - I can only speak for what my local Denver-area group does, which plays just about everything but Germans. When Battlefront releases an obscure Romanian early war infantry force with an equally obscure hero to lead them, you can bet at least 3 guys in my group make sure the local game stores are sold out.

Worldwide, it seems to vary. I was watching some recent interviews with the BF guys, and they're talking about how American tank companies are all the rage in one region while another region struggles to get any tanks into local tournaments at all.

As for 28mm, I have my doubts. FoW is the WW2 wargame, for a gazillion different reasons (it's accessible, it's got inertia, it plays very similar to Warhammer, it's cheaper than GW, etc). It plays like a 28mm wargame even though the minis themselves are 15mm, and that has some additional advantages in that you can field large armies relatively easily.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Well, it's good to hear from someone who actually plays it. I wonder how long it will be until a popular Sci Fi 15mm game comes around. I'm tempted to use Proxie's 15mm not-Leman Russes and normal 28mm Space Marines to make a counts-as FoW army just for the hell of it, but I'd need some 15mm sci fi infantry to form the core. Maybe I'll just go with Germans...

[Stark]

Talking about KS with regard to startup costs is pretty interesting - that small manufacturers that get capital behind them can quickly bash out lots of cheap, high quality product. Obviously this is an area where Bandai has a big strength, since 90% of all plastic models sold in Japan are Gundam kits. Even then, what gets more complex kits is driven by what is popular at the time. It's interesting that the lines between different materials and qualities are shaped by relatively narrow bands of capital.

It's a shame 28mm isn't quite 144, because in 144 you can get some pretty sweet tanks from Gundam stuff. I'll take a picture.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Well, it's good to hear from someone who actually plays it. I wonder how long it will be until a popular Sci Fi 15mm game comes around. I'm tempted to use Proxie's 15mm not-Leman Russes and normal 28mm Space Marines to make a counts-as FoW army just for the hell of it, but I'd need some 15mm sci fi infantry to form the core. Maybe I'll just go with Germans...

A 15mm sci-fi game would be pretty sweet. If GW had any sense, I think they could be pretty successful with a re-imagining of 40K Epic, using FoW-style rules. 40K targets the 12-year-old boy demographic nowadays; a FoW-style re-imagined Epic could recapture the more mature gamers that originally made 40K so successful back in the 80s, but that would require GW to un-fuck themselves.

[Stark]

The larger 'wargame' scale stuff for GW is super small, right, like 5mm tall dudes?

I guess 15mm is like, 1/120?

Anyway a 'Ground War' set I bought ages ago had a pair of 144 tanks in it. I painted and weathered them (well, spent 5m on them and gave them to Zak) and obviously things like the commander's machinegun have a big chunk of plastic under the barrel for strength, but they seem pretty sweet. Probably too small for FoW, though.