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Metal v Plastic

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This topic contains 14 replies, has 12 voices, and was last updated by  hutch 1 week, 2 days ago.

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  • #1912167

    commodorerob
    11077xp
    Cult of Games Member

    Oki know this has probably been raised a few times before. But I am currently working on some 28mm Second World War British Airborne. I have acquired a combination of figures from warlord and offensive miniatures.

    The baulk of the force is in plastic and I really do like gluing plastic stuff together. However when it comes to painting, there is something I find a bit Meh about Painting plastic figures. I have been really enjoying painting the metal figures compared to the plastic figures.

    I don’t know if it’s just me or it’s because I paint far more metal figures. Mostly 15mm Does anyone else find this?

    Note this is not really about which better, as I said give me a plastic multiparty figure to build anyday over a multi part metal.

    #1912189

    avernos
    Keymaster
    34256xp

    makes perfect sense, detail captured on a model goes resin>metal>PVC>HiP

    PVC may be a bugger to clean but it captures detail better. While assembling HiP’s minis may be fun the limitations in detail that can be rendered without turning a miniature into a 3D jigsaw is the limiting factor and often you end up having to paint details that just aren’t on the model, webbing, piping and belts often suffer from this.

    So generally you get more cohesive detail around a metal model over a HiP one.

    #1912226

    grantinvanman
    2302xp
    Cult of Games Member

    I will always pick metal if I can, I like the weight, the detail; that said, plastics give more “options” and there are some really nice kits out there. Warlord aren’t one of them, unfortunately. Perry plastics (and their metals) are my favourite for WW2.

    #1912274

    athelstane
    Participant
    699xp

    Plus, and few bother to take this into account, if you put a value on  the time you used to assemble the figures, metal is cheaper.

     

    #1912910

    angelicdespot
    4695xp
    Cult of Games Member

    As a teenager I preferred the price, weight and options of plastic, but these days I like metal again. As well as being quicker to assemble, as they’re typically single-piece, they’re also quicker to paint. (Arms and gun tend to be molded into the chest so there’s less surface area to cover – and often hard to reach surface area at that.)

    I’m convinced (but don’t know why this would be so) that paint goes on to metal miniatures more easily too. Although unfortunately it’s also much, more more likely to rub off!

    #1913117

    jamescutts
    6935xp
    Cult of Games Member

    I’ve very much the same Rob, I love gluing plastic kits together, i think this is the kid in me being brought up on airfix. However when it comes to getting stuff done and not just building then I much prefer metals, less assembly work if its a sizable project and i much prefer painting them and playing with them.

    The exceptions to this for me are vehicles, I always love plastic and Napoleonic’s, if I’m painting several 32 battalions its much easier on the wallet with plastic, and much easier on the back carrying, on top of that most are one or two piece plastics so quick to assemble.

    @avernos theres also ABS which Rubicon likes, that seems very good for the vehicles with hard edges, but the infantry seem a bit soft on detail to me, somewhere between PVC and HIPS?

    #1913215

    onlyonepinman
    18075xp
    Cult of Games Member

    For me, metal is the sweetspot between detail capture and injuring your opponent by throwing models at them in rage.  Some PVC and Resin models can be quite chonky and have a bit of weight to them, but metal is far more consistent in that regard.  Plus, when they break after being thrown, they generally break where components are joined so very easy to repair.

    #1913335

    avien
    2034xp
    Cult of Games Member

    when I was a wee lad building loads of space marines and tyranids I’d have stubbornly insisted that plastic beat out everything for sheer convenience, conversion & ease of cleaning. But now I’m an old fart approaching 40 I have a real appreciation for the detail and heft of a metal mini, and while not as easy to work with for certain aspects, I think they have something about them that just sets them apart on the shelf.

    The folly of youth

    #1913336

    pagan8th
    Participant
    11584xp

    One piece metal minis are fine. Superglue is a bitch to work with and pinning arms on scrawn races like elves is a nightmare.

    Resin is far too brittle and can snap very easily.

    I hate bendy plastic.

    And gluing fiddly bits on hard plastic is tedious. I don’t care about multipose plastics… a few different poses in a unit will do for me.

    In summary… I’d rather have minis that don’t break if you drop them. Whether that means metal is irrelevant.

    #1913705

    redscope
    Participant
    2719xp

    For 15mm I find the material does not make a lot of difference to the quality of the model. I do find with some of the metal figures faces can be a little bit of an issue but they might be more due to the age of the design than the material. The other slight down side to metal can be the quality of the casting with flash or slipping causing the loss of details.

    One product I dont like is the siocast resin. I admit it is getting a better product than orginally to work with but it is still a pain.

    Battlefront have release new plastic team yankee plastic minis with the modern design methods and they look amazing. So to for the Epic scale(12mm) warlord releases if we can get that quality for minis going forward that would be ideal.

    #1913951

    halffinishedkits
    Participant
    106xp

    If it weren’t for the cost I’d lean into metal hard. Its hard to field larger forces with all metal models when you’re paying 4 times the cost and a bit of a cheap arse.

     

    The people who generally like plastic more haven’t touched much metal. They tend to come from GW stock and either didn’t prime a model properly so the paint rubbed off once or they’re converters wanting an easier material to work with. Like a lot of stuff on the Internet rumours dominate the discussion and give false impressions. Metal minis have become heavily demonised and with most companies switching to resin first hand experience doesn’t change that like it used to. Personally if I got into the hobby with modern sprue lay outs I wouldn’t have lasted a week. There’s nothing more miserable to me than opening a box and seeing random bits of models with numbers near them. You spend more time looking for the left legs matching testicles part than you do building models. For all the faults pinning has at least you know what to pin when you open the box. A lot of the plastic boxes are still decently laid out but companies like Mantic are slipping down the jigsaw sprue path and then the cost of metal is less of an issue for me. I’d rather build something I enjoy building than fight a sprue.

    #1913967

    grantinvanman
    2302xp
    Cult of Games Member

    @halffinishedkits I’m “from GW stock” – it’s where I got my start in gaming. And as such, metals were the main models when I started. It was rare to get any kind of substantial amount of any army in plastics. Exceptions were the boxed sets (Orks/Gretchin vs Space Marines 2nd edition).

    Even then, many plastics were hybrid with metal in some way. Metal bodies, plastic arms. Plastic bodies, metal add-ons. What a fun time it was.

    Also never had any issues with primers. From the early days of rattle cans to today when I airbrush prime everything, technique counts.

    As for jigsaw puzzle kits, yeah, sometimes they can be weird. But also, if you have any amount of skill, converting can still be as fun.

    #1914105

    halffinishedkits
    Participant
    106xp

    @grantinvanman When I said GW stock I meant the type of gamer that only knows GW and stays very specifically within their games, usually just space marines. If you’re on a website like this one you’re not the type of person I mean. A lot of us older gents remember metal fondly and are used to working with it. Finecast is 14 years old now so many of them have never even seen a metal model and go off Internet whispers.

    #1914885

    commodorerob
    11077xp
    Cult of Games Member

    My first miniatures were some old dungeons and dragons minis, these were probably lead based. I then moved into GW which at the time were all white metal, again probably lead based.

    It was not until I got into 3rd edition of Bloodbowl did the plastic minis appear in red and blue plastic as I recall. I don’t think I ever painted them as I got the metal equivalent which were far superior.

    So in a way I guess metal was my original material so it’s where I am most comfortable.

     

    #1914887

    hutch
    5301xp
    Cult of Games Member

    I like the feel and weight of metal, but I am starting to lean more towards plastic.   I am most certainly not from GW stock and started out in this hobby sometime in the 80s when there were only metal figures.   Even GW was metal at that time, ah the old days of paying 1 pound 95 pence for 5 metal men at arms figures.   I have played some GW stuff in my time, but other than Blood Bowl, Dark Future, Battlecars and the other ‘boxed games’ it has normally been because friends have wanted to play it.  These days I would rather clap with crap in my hands than have to play 40k, but that’s just because it’s not my thing and just a personal opinion.

    I hate assembling figures, pinning and glueing metal figures together is something I would willingly pay someone else to do.

    Also, the older I get the clumsier I get, and plastic figures don’t chip as much as metal ones do.   Resin, I am not too much of a fan of, it’s still too fragile for my mind.  I would rather sacrifice some small details in models for something more robust.

    Having said all of that, I have Metal, Plastics and Resin in my collection and appreciate them all.

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