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I've been giving new life to a lot of old minis with AoS but I can't bring myself to spruce up the metal models.

I have a bunch of metal Skaven and a bit of Brettonian characters, and I like the look of them, but having them be a different material just bugs me too much.

I have a couple of finecast Vampire heroes and I didn't realize before how horrible this material is. I don't want resin anything ever. I don't think I can even glue this skeleton horse together anymore without huge gaps.

Despite it saving me a lot of money and adding a lot to my armies, I can't yet bring myself to include non-plastic minis.

Is anyone else like this?

I don't have problems mixing materials, except if it's a pain in the ass for thhe model to support itself. For example, a plastic body with huge metal components might have balancing issues and might topple over.

My metal daemons look just fine next to their plastic cousins.

It's not the material's fault that the old Bretonians were ugly.

Mixed them for years because there was no other option. I prefer plastics, but run with everything.

Nope, still mix em all the time

Once they're painted, you'll never know which piece is which.

 Kriswall wrote:
Once they're painted, you'll never know which piece is which.

Until you pick them up.

A bit ago my opponent was helping remove my casualties (he’s careful, and asked) He got to the chaplain in the assault squad, was a little shocked and exclaimed “woah! he’s metal, I’ll let you get him”. I had a good chuckle over that.

I’m used to a healthy amount of metal minis in my army, but to a lot of people they are a thing of the ancient past. Everything is plastic or resin for kids these days. So it’s a bit of a shock when they do show up. Particularly unexpected.

I love mixing parts. Warlord's Siberian vet box had all sorts of sweet bits to customize your troops. They just have a nasty habit of falling over.

I would greatly prefer my models be of one material only.

I prefer a single model not to be multiple materials due to balance and weight issues if you have a chunk of metal on a plastic model but I have no issues with different materials being in the same army.

I have a mixture of resin, plastic and metal figures in my army. It's nice working with different materials, finding new modelling techniques to tackle different problems. Though I can understand frustrations with different materials for some people, it's never bothered me.

Nope. I have metal, plastics and resins in my armies most of the time.

A plastic model with metal bits will need counterbalancing (usually) so I'll weight the base to do that.

Different materials, different issues and skills needed that will transfer.

If I'd never learned to modify metal figures, I wouldn't have seen how much easier it was for plastics - but plastics are also a feth load easier to screw up and do wrong with no do-over.

The weight some times gets me but otherwise not a big deal.

I love metal Command and Hero models, as their weight just adds an intangible quality to them imo. I know a lot of people who agree as well.

Plastic for rank-and-file is just fine for me, as I'd rather have a good sized army and be able to paint it rather quickly.

"Fine"cast doesn't impress me at all, and I only own it in cases where it's literally the only option (like much of The Hobbit stuff from the second and third movies) or when I can't find an older metal copy. I think the only 40K FC I have are Kantor and a Pain Boy.

 carlos13th wrote:
I prefer a single model not to be multiple materials due to balance and weight issues if you have a chunk of metal on a plastic model but I have no issues with different materials being in the same army.

I second this.

The old style Tau Broadside was a nightmare of a kit involving a badly designed plastic body (the standard Crisis Suit sprue) modified by a set of badly designed metal parts that made it totally top heavy.

However well designed kits from other manufacturers succeed much better in combining different materials to good effect. For example, there were Japanese kits for Macross put out in the 1980s that used die cast metal parts for the undercarriage, providing stength where it was needed compared to plastic parts. I have also had some nice mixed media kits from garage aero model manufacturers.

I just assembled some GW Cadians (plastic) and VM Arcadians (resin), and I gotta say it's a mixed bag for both. I REALLY love the Arcadians, they're super crisp and detailled, but the sniper rifle assembly (Scope, bipod and rifle separate) was a nightmare, "enhanced" by two of the silencers breaking off. The Cadians aren't remotely as good-looking, but I assembled 30 of those in half the time it took me to assemble the 10 Arcadians.

And yet, my next purchase will be more Arcadians. Because in the end the material doesn't matter, it's about how they look on the table.

nekooni wrote:
I just assembled some GW Cadians (plastic) and VM Arcadians (resin), and I gotta say it's a mixed bag for both. I REALLY love the Arcadians, they're super crisp and detailled, but the sniper rifle assembly (Scope, bipod and rifle separate) was a nightmare, "enhanced" by two of the silencers breaking off. The Cadians aren't remotely as good-looking, but I assembled 30 of those in half the time it took me to assemble the 10 Arcadians.

I never understand why assembly time is a problem. After all, you only assemble each model once. You might knock out 30 Cadians as fast as 10 Arcadians, but are you in that much of a rush that it matters?

 -Loki- wrote:

nekooni wrote:
I just assembled some GW Cadians (plastic) and VM Arcadians (resin), and I gotta say it's a mixed bag for both. I REALLY love the Arcadians, they're super crisp and detailled, but the sniper rifle assembly (Scope, bipod and rifle separate) was a nightmare, "enhanced" by two of the silencers breaking off. The Cadians aren't remotely as good-looking, but I assembled 30 of those in half the time it took me to assemble the 10 Arcadians.

I never understand why assembly time is a problem. After all, you only assemble each model once. You might knock out 30 Cadians as fast as 10 Arcadians, but are you in that much of a rush that it matters?

When assembly time includes chore-like things like cleaning mold lines, I know I like shorter ones. Also a lot of metal models require pinning (kinda a pain).

 -Loki- wrote:

nekooni wrote:
I just assembled some GW Cadians (plastic) and VM Arcadians (resin), and I gotta say it's a mixed bag for both. I REALLY love the Arcadians, they're super crisp and detailled, but the sniper rifle assembly (Scope, bipod and rifle separate) was a nightmare, "enhanced" by two of the silencers breaking off. The Cadians aren't remotely as good-looking, but I assembled 30 of those in half the time it took me to assemble the 10 Arcadians.

I never understand why assembly time is a problem. After all, you only assemble each model once. You might knock out 30 Cadians as fast as 10 Arcadians, but are you in that much of a rush that it matters?

Assembly time isn't the issue, but complexity and ease of the task. Resin - especially when it comes to small, thin parts and details - is really fiddly in comparison to plastic. If the resulting miniature was the same for the same price, I'd choose the less work intense (and sometimes: less frustrating - damn those bipods!) option. Once it's all painted up it won't matter anyway.

And in the end, as I said, I'm sticking with the resin Arcadians - just ordered a bunch more of them before lunch. The Cadians will only stay for as long as I need them to fill up Army Lists and then I'll probably sell or trade them. Which has nothing to do with the material used.

I've been really enjoying things like PPs newer 'jacks and 75mm display models done with resin for the body/torso and then metal arms/heads/weapons/etc.
Great detail, sturdy, but wont break your foot if you drop it on yourself.

Brass etc for plastic vehicles is amazing too, though probably not what OP means. Turns a well detailed vehicle exterior into an amazingly detailed vehicle exterior with parts to convert a base tank into the variant that the US military used in desert warfare during the summer of '92 (summer of '93 kit sold separately), and adds options for an interior.

Mixing materials doesn't concern me. If I have to mix materials on a single model, I prefer using plastic on plastic where possible. If the main body is metal or resin, I prefer attaching lighter bits only because it's more convenient to pin. (All joins on my minis are either plastic glued or pinned--no exceptions.)

I'd rather not mix, but if I gotta, I gotta.

I bought a couple of really great OOP metal mini's (SM chaplain, librarian or two, some Van vets), but most of them were missing arms. The missing arms didn't really look all that great though, or weren't WYSIWYG or various other issues. I replaced the missing pieces and some of the included ones with plastic bits that I think actually look better.

Before I had done that I might have said I preferred a single material, but doing it did not bother me nearly as much as I would have guessed.

Kits that come kind of mixed, like a lot of PP stuff though? Not a big fan of that, in many cases it creates more work than should be necessary to build the figure.

 Zygrot24 wrote:

Kits that come kind of mixed, like a lot of PP stuff though? Not a big fan of that, in many cases it creates more work than should be necessary to build the figure.

The problem with the PP kits IMO is that the resin and metal parts sometimes don't fit perfectly and sometimes require a little extra work to look like they're part of the same model, on some cases because the metal part just has more detail on it.

But it can't really be helped in PP's case, because the parts that are resin are too bog to be comfortable in metal, and PP's non-metal processes are often iffy.

I like plastics (durable, supposedly cheaper, easy to work with and customize, etc) and metal (very durable, harder to work with, feels like it's worth something, usually more stable on a table top).

Resin is hit or miss. Good quality resin is awesome, but isn't forgiving with paint removal... and it is brittle and fragile as hell.

Finecast is in it's own category. I hate the useless crap. I have purchased two dozen finecast models and ended up getting one to three free replacements each from gw due to miscasts. That sounds like a good deal, but the extras were worthless and not really salvageable. And then there was my one good cast - Belial - who I painted to masterclass display quality. A year later his sword has softened into an "S" shape that is unfixable. Yes, finecast models will soften or 'melt' in moderate heat (mid 70's to lower 80's!!!!). Friking ridiculous :(

As for mixing and matching, I have mixed resins, metal, and plastics before (usually metals with plastics and a bit of greenstuff). Pinning is important, but I don't mind mixing and matching.

I find if I must mix I ALWAYS pin them together and use my more "rubbery" adhesives.
One material is preferable.

I must admit from a viewpoint of robustness of bond: nothing beats plastic using model glue where it is a "weld" rather than two surfaces stuck together.
Some rare earth magnets holding two parts together has saved the odd model for me from a drop.

The materials expand and contract differently with temperature and can break more brittle crazy-glue bonds.
I have one of those old Vindicators (actually 3!) with all that metal and had it out in the cold car one time: all the metal parts fell off (fully painted no less!).

I must also say that resin in a hot car pretty much guarantees some warping if not insulated from the heat.

To address the balance problems of a model: I add weight to the base (rocks, fender washers on the bottom, some slotta-bases I cast in low-melt metal).

I love posts like this, learning about what sets off members of my gamer-tribe.

I'm pretty OK with mixing. All of my armies have some combination of plastic, metal and (much less, cuz yes, it tends to suck) resin. I no longer buy resin material. The extra detail is the proverbial pearl before swine for me - the fragile nature, the gaps, the risk of bubbles. No thanks.

But that's a modelling issue. Once the sucker is painted and done, I'm OK with merging them. I don't even mind mixing models from different manufacturers. My orc army includes Hasselfree, Reaper, GameZone, Games Workshop, Mantic... But that just serves to enhance the chaotic mess that an orc or goblin army should be!

Once there's paint on them, you can only tell by picking them up. Why would it bother you?

I have models that are made from plastic, resin, and metal components. No, it's not an issue for me. I don't really see why it would bother you. Shoot, back in the day there were a bunch of kits that had different materials as components. Settra with the chariot comes to mind with the plastic skeletal horses.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Once there's paint on them, you can only tell by picking them up. Why would it bother you?

That's not entirely true. If someone isn't skilled / meticulous about cleanup, resin models don't start with as clean a surface as plastic (or most metal) models.

What's a bigger pain is pinning metal. It's one thing to pin a model to a base; it's quite another to use pins to hold a model together, because if you game with the model, the one with metal parts is more likely to fall apart. And metal models tend to have more tip-over problems. Unless you're willing to epoxy your models together, there's a chance that a table bump or even mean stare can make the metal part detach