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After brief discussion with a guy who will be producing 15 mm plastics that could be used in FoW (and just to tell you after seeing first models- quality is awesome, well in scale without Batlefront pumpkin heads syndrome) we decided to suss out whether it would be viable for him to produce stuff for early war like Polish army or French army- how many people would be SERIOUSLY considering buing plastic kits like that? Just to give you an idea about prices- it would be around £15 for 100 infantrymen, £4 for tanks. Please let me know as I am posting it on all forums and on that pretty much depends whether he will decide to produce that kind of early war stuff or not.

I would say yes, as it fills a nich in the hobby. At some point FOW will move towards the 39/40 years in a more robust way...maybe after they do 'FOW Iraq 91'.

Hmmm....can I claim copywrite on that idea?

If the quality is as awesome as you indicate then there would be not shortage of takers at those prices.

There is a whole horde of people frothing at the mouth for early war forces on the FOW boards, prehaps a few taster models here and over there would garner a better idea of interest.

I hate to be boring but I am pretty much UK and German forces orientated so I can really offer much more of an idea of interest in the other nations stated.

Good luck to your mate though, and get some samples up!

I think the FoW people are planning to do a bunch of Early War stuff at some point. I believe they have said that they have postponed it as they want to do it 'right' which means releasing a lot of stuff that is Early War only... I assume (not being a WWII scholar) that a lot of this kind of stuff is the weird tanks developed between wars that were quickly abandoned as new stuff became available.

The Early War book (and minis) are scheduled for July...

Well, the quality is awesome in my humble opinion plus all of my mates that have seen samples, but of course some people might disagree. Samples will be definitely shown on different big events but i don't have any pics yet. Well, thanks for those that replied so far, how about others?

I might be interested in some early war stuff, but not French. What sort of models do you have planned for the Polish?

French and Polish are the two armies I am planning, but the plastic would have to be very detailed and high quality for me to consider them.

One other thing that is often requested are pacific war troops and that is not yet in Battlefront's public timeline. I know I'd like to see some good Japanese forces (there are some ok ones out there but nothing I would spend money on yet).

ok, so if the models are detailed you would get it - cool.
No particular models planned (infantry though) but if the Polish and/or French range would get a release, there would be few things plus metal blisters available (for cavalry, artillery etc.). So far we have to judge what is the interest, because it is an investment after all. Anyway, thanks for your replies so far.

Anybody else? Don't be shy people

I for one love the metal mini's for FoW very detailed but a pain in the ass to put together...Plastic would need to be highly detailed or at least half way decent for me to even contemplate the switch to Germans in plastic.

However the possibility of very cheap army box deals could be appealing a quick leap in points for my late war Panzergrenadiers could be good and a plastic Soviet force would be mouth watering.

As for the Pacific I am eagerly awaiting this a US Marines and Japanese Imperial Army force would be awesome.and the other rumoured time frame from battlefront the Napoleonics range they said they were doing/going to release.

Other than this I am satisfied with my lot as I am sure I am the only person who buys Flames of War from my FLGS.

high quality plastic is the way to go. If his range is made available, I would buy all my stuff that way. Battlefronts rules are great,... their models, .... not so much.

Well, the 15mm WWII market is starting to get crowded and you can already get miniatures in both plastic or metal for very cheap (around $4 a tank).

The older generation of historical players still tends to look down on plastics, but most of them poo-poo FoW anyways and don't play, opting for their favorite several hours per turn chart referencing then cross referencing rules of choice. So, the actual FoW player base at large is probably going to be accepting of plastics, but I think price is going to appeal more than material and even more than sculpt.

Well I got to see what the sculpts are like before i go YAY or NAY!

I would consider buying plastic if it was of comparable quality to Battlefront's metal minis, but to be honest, they would have to be amazingly good to get me to switch to plastic. I really like metal for 15mm, and I'm not sure the advantages that plastic has at bigger scales such as 28mm would be as pronounced at 15mm scale. In all honesty, I'm not sure there would be any advantage to doing plastic 15mm infantry, other than a theoretically lower price tag. Plastic 15mm vehicles, yes...but infantry? Not so much, I don't think.

well, we are talking here about 3 times cheaper stuff though...

3 times cheaper than Battlefront? You realize you can already get prepainted plastics for about $4 a tank (Point of Contact, Axis and Allies singles) or $4 for bare white metal (Old Glory)?

So if you're talking like $1.50ish for an unpainted plastic tank or $2.50 for a blister of 40ish man platoon of unpainted infantry figs, then yes I would consider them.

Now here is a real issue: how sturdy are these tiny plastic army men?

I'm not trying to dissuade you or your friend, but I fear your enthusiastic optimism is skewing your vision of the current market.

Well, I am not optimistic, thats why I am trying to find out what the situation is like and asking more experienced people

When I was saying 3 times cheaper I refered to infantry only, not to tanks. Plastic is very sturdy in my opinion, proper hard plastic not the soft one. Of course with lack of care yo uwill always manage to break guns etc but hey- 15 pounds for 100 infantryman (or maybe cheaper, thats a rough estimate) thats really a bargain in my opinion

You can check wuality of sculpts at http://www.theplasticsoldiercompany.co.uk/ (I know , it says 1/72 but 15 mm will be released as well and exactl ysame models)

I think distribution would be important as well.

A big reason I buy Battlefront (FOW) figures and not Old Glory or Peter Pig (for example) is becuase I can get them from my FLGS and don't have to order them from another country and have to wait for them to get through customs

Have you seen the detail on the old glory stuff?? Also Old glory tanks and men are a bit smaller... I recieved a bunch of tigers once(18 and two of them were Old glory models) they were about a 1/4 smaller then the other tigers and lacking of details...

Thinking about this some more, the big make-or-break for me would be mould lines. Visible mould lines on hundreds of 15mm plastic models would be a big turn off. Metal 15mm miniatures have mould lines on about 60% of them , but usually to a lesser extreme than plastic and are easy to clean with a file. 15mm would plastic would need to be cleaned with a knife and that would be much more difficult.