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DukeRustfield wrote:Just read the first page, but for the older gamers out there, models all used to be lead. In the 1980s there was a big fuss about the toxicity of lead and legislative action pretty much forced all manufacturers away from it. In America, if you can make a half-assed Save The Children argument, it will fly. Companies know this and thus won't do anything to bring out the angry mothers of doom.

The move from lead to pewter occurred in 1994-1995. A friend of mine who managed a big independent fantasy game store at the time told me it was sparked by a temporary moratorium on the sale of lead miniatures in the state of NY caused by a divorce case in which the wife cited her husband's lead models as a risk to their children. In other words, someone used the models to strike at their spouse in an angry divorce case. NY being one of the most populace and therefore viable markets for any corporation, the temporary ban on sales was a real blow to companies already in a niche market trying to get bigger. To avoid any further problems like that or even the chance of them occurring again GW, Grenadier, Ral Partha, etc. all went to pewter shortly thereafter and the price of all metal miniatures immediately jumped about 30% because the pewter alloy was much more expensive than lead even then.

The change to pewter occurred in the US first, then GW followed at their UK operation the next year. I bought a bunch of lead stuff on sale at US GW stores when it was being discontinued. When I visited the UK in summer 1995 they were still using lead, but not for much longer after that.

Stormrider wrote:Ultrasonic cleaners are a bit self destructive (they vibrate themselves apart eventually). Also they're probably a bit too aggressive to be used on something like resin.

Fair enough. I was not aware of the drawbacks.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Ultrasonic cleaners are a bit self destructive (they vibrate themselves apart eventually). Also they're probably a bit too aggressive to be used on something like resin.

Fair enough. I was not aware of the drawbacks.

They're far from being too aggressive to be used on resin.

I've got a small ultrasonic cleaner, and I've yet to see it do anything potentially damaging to resin.

Now, maybe the industrial ones use a different frequency or cleaning solution(I've noticed that the liquid contents within the cleaner gets really hot, depending on how long it's left active)--but I can't see that being an over the top issue.

I've been a happy GW/40k fan since 1989 and have endured price-hike after price-hike. All I can say is if GW hikes their prices yet again to offset this resin thing(which I think is silly to begin with), that will be the end of my GW mini buying days.

You still aren't. I strongly suggest researching this factoid for yourself before forming an opinion. Not trying to condescend, HBMC, but accepting that wholesale may not be the best route.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Ultrasonic cleaners are a bit self destructive (they vibrate themselves apart eventually). Also they're probably a bit too aggressive to be used on something like resin.

Fair enough. I was not aware of the drawbacks.

Seems an unlikely road for a conservative company like go down. Not only does a large percentage of the market not like resin one but at all but the retooling costs would be very expensive and I don't think they would be saving all that much money anyway.

A normal sized 28mm miniature will cost you about $0.67 per miniature to have cast up (obviously this depends on the actual bulk and size of the miniature). And this price is not at anywhere near the bulk that GW would do. So there price would be significantly lower. Seems an unlikely step to take just to save some pennies later down the road.

And now Warseer is not loading..... perhaps it is true and GW took them out. The plot thickens.

Bell of lost souls pg 1 is up and running still......Yes the truth hurts is still working too and so is bloodofkittens but they dont have any posts about resin. It seems warseer was hit hardest with a site beheading....

Oh christ, not with these stupid conspiracy theories again.

Warseer is "down" because their ad banners have been hacked.

I swear, GW's arm has grown long indeed.

Notice on Heresy website re the price of tin.

My heart sank: I felt like I'd been just been told that I had an incurable disease of some sort. I had just been given the latest price for the tin alloy we use to cast the models in. remember whewn I did that last price rise in September because metal had risen so much I could no longer afford to absorb the increase? Well, since then, it's gone up another 37%. In fact, it's done 30% of that in the last three months alone. It's insane. The price of 50kgs of metal is now more than my Ford Focus and Craig's 125cc motorbike are worth if you add them together!

(dated 14th March 2011)
GW stated in the last but one annual report that due to the volatility of metal prices they would be shifting production as much as possible from metals.

As much as GW wind me up with silliness at times, banner hacking? Not only does it seem highly implausible, isn't just a tad off topic?

I agree with seeing some of the Eldar aspect warrior boxes being the most notable changes. those and Space Marine Veteran boxes.

Hopefully a move to resin means a move to more plastic for box sets.

Kanluwen wrote:I really cannot think of seeing a PS3 ad in an "official" Xbox Magazine.

At least not a PS3 'exclusive' game. Just like you didn't see ads for Halo or Gears of War in the PS3 magazines.

As for "profiting on the alternatives"...I don't see that happening. Privateer Press and the like wouldn't let GW get the stock for free, they'd be paying out the nose for it.

It's the business model that turned GW from two guys in a shed into the world's largest miniature wargame company.

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Ultrasonic cleaners are a bit self destructive (they vibrate themselves apart eventually). Also they're probably a bit too aggressive to be used on something like resin.

Fair enough. I was not aware of the drawbacks.

They're far from being too aggressive to be used on resin.

I've got a small ultrasonic cleaner, and I've yet to see it do anything potentially damaging to resin.

Now, maybe the industrial ones use a different frequency or cleaning solution(I've noticed that the liquid contents within the cleaner gets really hot, depending on how long it's left active)--but I can't see that being an over the top issue.

This.

I use a small cleaner from JayCar with tap water + detergent.

Completely loosened paint from poorly painted metal minis, and began flaking paint from Eldar Guardians (plastic) after 7min... neither minis nor water warmed considerably.

Resin's drawback could be the sub-surface airbubbles... but I have cleaned FW parts in this way and experienced negative side-effects.

TBH, I hope that the switch only particular minis to resin, while keepng metal versions of others. Yet, when GW does such a good job of the plastics, I do not see why resin is required.

It seems to me a tad illogical for GW to retool all their metal minis to resin when they have stated their ultimate aim is to have all plastic range (sure i read that somewere). Would it make more sense for them to be retooling to plastic, the only evidence there is is a rumour about GW courting a chemical supplier which are quite likely to supply raw materials for plastic minis as well. Please correct me if ive missed something i have been following thread sporadically and may have missed something.

Ugh.. I've seen some severely off centerline bolt pistols come off of a lot of marine sprues. They really do need to get their plastic models at least better quality controlled. If this happens I expect the price on pewter models on eBay to go up.

A bit off-topic, but i just got a message from chrome that 'this page contains content from Warseer, a site known to distribute malware...' uh, is this normal? I proceeded anyway putting trust into my security software.

Warseer got their ads hacked, apparently.

They'll need better quality control on this new resin stuff thatn the level Forgeworld frequently display. Maybe it'll mean more production in China or something.

People even thinking this will lead to a price decrease are kidding themselves. GW price their plastics like metals on the basis that people will apparently pay the same for both. Why would this be any different? If anything prices may go up in order to cover the costs of this transition.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Notice on Heresy website re the price of tin.

It's the little people like Heresy that I feel the most sorry for. Ever-rising materials costs will eventually extinguish them, one by one.

If metal prices got that high, they could just swap to resin.

Studio McVey.

Howard A Treesong wrote:
People even thinking this will lead to a price decrease are kidding themselves. GW price their plastics like metals on the basis that people will apparently pay the same for both. Why would this be any different? If anything prices may go up in order to cover the costs of this transition.

+1 Current GW are going to stick to their extraordinary pricing path.

If a tonne of metal has the potential to form 50000 average sized figures how many lead figures do GW currently sell yearly?
I'm thinking that this isn't millions.

Even taking a figure of a million metal figures sold that's £400,000 spent for Metal alone.

What's raw PE resin these days? around £2700 per tonne £3000? £120K for the same tonnage ( yield per tonne would be different).

GW would make savings less, tooling etc, but they still are not addressing the main issues. This margin stretch isn't going to turn their stagnant sales around.

Unless they use that plasticy-resin that pirvateer press use. It's like 'hard plastic' as opposed to resin. So its tough and castable but you can use poly cement on it AFAIK.

Also if they put up the price for using a cheaper material they can GTFO

Agamemnon2 wrote:

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Notice on Heresy website re the price of tin.

It's the little people like Heresy that I feel the most sorry for. Ever-rising materials costs will eventually extinguish them, one by one.

Yep, how are the smaller outfits coping with these price rises, can they easily switch to resin? if they do then I think their will be wildly differing qualities coming out.

Phototoxin wrote: if they put up the price for using a cheaper material they can GTFO

If they do this, I will rage. From then on I will refuse to buy from a GW store and instead support discount webstores.

I don't think my wallet can support another price increase.

Mr. Burning wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:
People even thinking this will lead to a price decrease are kidding themselves. GW price their plastics like metals on the basis that people will apparently pay the same for both. Why would this be any different? If anything prices may go up in order to cover the costs of this transition.

+1 Current GW are going to stick to their extraordinary pricing path.

If a tonne of metal has the potential to form 50000 average sized figures how many lead figures do GW currently sell yearly?
I'm thinking that this isn't millions.

Even taking a figure of a million metal figures sold that's £400,000 spent for Metal alone.

What's raw PE resin these days? around £2700 per tonne £3000? £120K for the same tonnage ( yield per tonne would be different).

GW would make savings less, tooling etc, but they still are not addressing the main issues. This margin stretch isn't going to turn their stagnant sales around.

And it assumes no backlash with people not wanting to buy resin, or that the quality control is poor that puts people off buying. I recall when they stopped using lead they went through a period where the quality was a bit dodgy. There seemed to be more miscasts around until they perfected the alloy mixes and temperatures required. Seems a big gamble for GW, if people lose confidence in the product they could lose a lot of sales on blisterpacked figures.

Howard A Treesong wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:
People even thinking this will lead to a price decrease are kidding themselves. GW price their plastics like metals on the basis that people will apparently pay the same for both. Why would this be any different? If anything prices may go up in order to cover the costs of this transition.

+1 Current GW are going to stick to their extraordinary pricing path.

If a tonne of metal has the potential to form 50000 average sized figures how many lead figures do GW currently sell yearly?
I'm thinking that this isn't millions.

Even taking a figure of a million metal figures sold that's £400,000 spent for Metal alone.

What's raw PE resin these days? around £2700 per tonne £3000? £120K for the same tonnage ( yield per tonne would be different).

GW would make savings less, tooling etc, but they still are not addressing the main issues. This margin stretch isn't going to turn their stagnant sales around.

And it assumes no backlash with people not wanting to buy resin, or that the quality control is poor that puts people off buying. I recall when they stopped using lead they went through a period where the quality was a bit dodgy. There seemed to be more miscasts around until they perfected the alloy mixes and temperatures required. Seems a big gamble for GW, if people lose confidence in the product they could lose a lot of sales on blisterpacked figures.

Ah yes, I forgot about that, brittle figures, misshapen lumps etc.

Lets wait and see what happens.

I reckon GW could consolidate a lot of the current metal kits into plastic if they were a bit clever about the setup of the sprue frame.

For example, the current Tyranid Elite models are all metal--Venomthrope, Zoanthrope and Hive Guard. These are weighty chunks, difficult to assemble and somewhat unwieldy on the table being very top heavy (except the Hive Guard).

Surely these models could have been produced in a single sprue frame, which would be split into three or four sections to be packed into boxes.

Similarly, the Tau Pathfinders could easily be put into a frame. If you include the Shas'ui and the rail rifle models, there are I think eight different poses. Add a few accessories and a couple of drones to make up the numbers. If it isn't economical, make a frame with five different Pathfinders and the Sniper Drone set, then split it for packaging.

Well, your Tyranid idea also posits that the consolidated models are sold in equal increments, which isn't really true...

Kanluwen wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Ultrasonic cleaners are a bit self destructive (they vibrate themselves apart eventually). Also they're probably a bit too aggressive to be used on something like resin.

Fair enough. I was not aware of the drawbacks.

They're far from being too aggressive to be used on resin.

I've got a small ultrasonic cleaner, and I've yet to see it do anything potentially damaging to resin.

Now, maybe the industrial ones use a different frequency or cleaning solution(I've noticed that the liquid contents within the cleaner gets really hot, depending on how long it's left active)--but I can't see that being an over the top issue.

The ones used for stripping rust from automotive parts are too powerful. The jewellery cleaning ones are just fine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr. Burning wrote:What's raw PE resin these days? around £2700 per tonne £3000? £120K for the same tonnage ( yield per tonne would be different).

Yield per tonne would be many times greater - a tonne of resin is a hugely greater volume than a tonne of tin.

Kanluwen wrote:I really cannot think of seeing a PS3 ad in an "official" Xbox Magazine.

At least not a PS3 'exclusive' game. Just like you didn't see ads for Halo or Gears of War in the PS3 magazines.

As for "profiting on the alternatives"...I don't see that happening. Privateer Press and the like wouldn't let GW get the stock for free, they'd be paying out the nose for it.

You cannot think of seeing my Hipotetic example? Forget the specific example then and you will notice that its a publicity model employed in many many industries and its not even the most aggressive method of publicity... As for the specific example yes I have seen in a independent PS3 mag xbox adds and vice versa... and even on the official PS3 mags I have seen adds to mags of xbox and its not the end of the world... I mean if publicity space is for sale the least a competent biz can do is try to buy it... sometimes you cant but sometimes you can...

You dont see GW get the stock for free? well neither can I see anyone getting free stock... duh

It would never happen but the idea is to bring back the Hobby and the hobby people to the stores and that will never happen if they exclude everything its not GW... Its a store model that would bring back sales, the more you offer the more you satisfy clients... gw does not have the deapth to cope with so many stores.
And any business man with a brain would very much like to sell their minis on GW net of stores so I dont know if I share your opinion on this.

But its all a bit offtopic.

Resin has advantages and disadvantages like metal or plastics have... its a bit of a personal taste I guess... In small average 28mm miniatures metal so far has been the most affordable way to cast loads of copies and resin everywere is always more expensive... But we are talking a completely diferent volume of miniatures in GW so they may have crunched some numbers and found out a cheaper way... just dont espect to save something on small 28mm minis, the way I see it small minis will price rise and bigger ones will probably stay the same price. But thats just me guessing.

One little note, for someone witout GW in their country, with GW UK charging a load of money to ship to your country its a nightmare to buy the exclusive direct only stuff... good for them they have excluded themselves from independent stores and from the market... no wonder the sales are not stellar... one thing is having one big speciall exclisve monster or model or collectors range another thing is full ranges of necessary heroes or units for your freaking army of tokens... Bah