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This actually makes sense from a business standpoint. If you ever visit a store that stocks both GW and PPS kits you'll quickly understand why. The PPS boxes are small and compact, you can fit a lot of stock in a small amount of store space.

In contrast GW kits are in much larger boxes which are mostly empty space. They quickly take up a lot of space in a store.

Not using styrene is most disturbing however. CA is not in my opinion a very good plastic glue. It's OK for GW stuff because you can if necessary disassemble the model to re-equip them in a Codex change. However the joints are still brittle and still easily broken. Nothing beats plastic weld for durability, and it can also be easily used to fill gaps in the model.

Theirs not too many other suitable plastic mixtures for these style kits. ABS or PVC are both possible candidates and both types of plastic can be "welded" with chemicals.

Linkdead wrote:In contrast GW kits are in much larger boxes which are mostly empty space. They quickly take up a lot of space in a store.

Probably saves shipping, too.

If they used some sort of linear sprue like what's done for some metal miniatures, all they would have to do is line it up once and chop the two apart. Don't know if anybody does it this way, but since they are using non-styrene plastic, it sounds like conventional wisdom is gone out the window. Surely they're not like those horrible Warzone troops that came in the boxed set, I couldn't find any glue that would keep them together.

Where does PP make their models?

In China it would be cheaper to have 10 workers clipping than to have a machine do it.

I watched a documentary last year on opal mining in Australia and there are factories in china where they use opal fragments (which miners and polishers have thrown away as worthless for the last 100 years) and glue them onto jewellery mosaic stayle. All at a dollar a day.

Monpoc is made in China, I'm sure they'll produce their plastic Warmachine models in the same factory. It's much cheaper to have some workers clip the sprue then it is to engineer, test, and build a machine to do the same job.

I'm just kind of disappointed that I can't use Testors on these kits. Super glue is rather annoying to work with for me, and one of the things I love about plastic is that Testors is great on styrene kits. Add in some brush on plastic weld for important bonds and they never come apart and bond quickly.

Linkdead wrote:This actually makes sense from a business standpoint. If you ever visit a store that stocks both GW and PPS kits you'll quickly understand why. The PPS boxes are small and compact, you can fit a lot of stock in a small amount of store space.

In contrast GW kits are in much larger boxes which are mostly empty space. They quickly take up a lot of space in a store.

These two things are something I really want to point out:
While the Privateer Press kits ARE smaller and more compact, with the exception of Warjacks, they're pretty much all very few piece counts and come with a very limited amount of poses.

Now, GW metals are the same limited poses, yeah. But the GW plastics are far better(in regards to 40k specifically) about poses.
Add in the fact that with alot of those plastics you'll end up with spare gubbinz for later things you work on and that "empty space" isn't really that empty.

About 2.5 years ago Rackham came out w/ their Aberration prime in plastic. It was their first and only plastic figure and a precursor of the prepaints to come.

Of note. The pieces where packaged individually, not on sprues. The connection points were at the joins so you didn't have any "sprue" points on the figure. The plastic was hard and durable not as stiff as GW but certainly light years away from the PP Monpoc figs.

The plastic did not take traditional plastic glue but with a socket method of assembly CA worked fantastic. Styrene cement also could have worked.

The detail is/was great on this figure.

They were done in China.

If PP is going the same way as Rackham with their plastic kits, rest assured... it was a top notch product.

You can see the packaging in the lower left of this photo.


Painted fig here.

Those minis are listed $44.99 for a box of 5 minis. A box of Termies are $50 and they are similarly sized. So five more dollars for mini's with weapon options and some extra gubbins I can use later. I think I am ok with that.

Not sure how poseable or customizable they are, but if they are limited in that capacity then another plus for the GW ones.

Agamemnon2 wrote:The use of non-styrene plastic does not seem like a fun idea. If they're going with the soft rubbery stuff, I will not be happy. The sheer amount of "going limp" jokes would blow up the Internet.

PP definately wouldn't be able to say "Play like you got a pair" but rather it would be "Get it up if you can"

Linkdead wrote:Ambroid pro-weld or Plastruct Bondene will probably still work on whatever version of plastic they are using.

I agree. Plastic welders such as ProWeld and Bondene can not only be used to weld styrene, but also butyrate, ABS, lucite, and plexiglass. Chances are if it's plastic, it can be welded with this stuff. Plus plastic welders have always been the most durable way to bond modeling plastics together in that they liquify the plastic allowing both pieces to fuse completely. Traditional modeling cement and cyanoacrylic adhesive bonds get brittle over time.

Not as sweet to smell as the Testor's in the messy tube, I'm guessing.

malfred wrote:Not as sweet to smell as the Testor's in the messy tube, I'm guessing.

It depends on your preference: the sweet smell of brain damage, or the sweet sweet smell of cancer.
I'm a cancer man myself, so I go with the ProWeld and Bondene. The cool thing about that stuff is if you push the parts together while it cures, you'll get a little bead of plastic squishing out of the join which can then be trimmed or filed off when dry, leaving so visible gap whatsoever. As the true test I used it on my Monolith and didn't have to do any puttywork to fill gaps.

Take your plastic modeling to the next level!
Booyah!
HIGH FIVE BRAH!
IF YOU CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THE BIG DOGS, STAY OUTTA THE BIG GRASS!


Say what?

loomisc wrote:Those minis are listed $44.99 for a box of 5 minis. A box of Termies are $50 and they are similarly sized. So five more dollars for mini's with weapon options and some extra gubbins I can use later. I think I am ok with that.

Weapon options aren't really a factor with PP stuff as additional wargear isn't an element of the game. We haven't seen the finished product yet (only pictures) so the casting quality will be a point of comparison. The GW SM Terminators are a good standard, the Chaos Terminators less so.

GW (and others) plastics are on a sprue because that's how it's packaged, parts are inteded to stay on the sprue until you remove them. Plastics need not be formed on such a durable sprue if they are dissassembled at the point of manufacture.

Really, FFS, only privateer press would go out of there way to find a plastic that won't take testors.

arrgghh, don't get me wrong I love Warmachine, and like most of their models, but the guy who breaks them up for molding is huffing ether out of a paper bag. I mean who the hell puts one pound of pewter on a single joint that isn't even as thick as a 10gauge wire.

Now they start making plastics and I will Still have to use Bloody CA glue to put assemble them. Lovely lets hear a big cheer for arms and weapons still falling off, hurray .

Narlix wrote:Really, FFS, only privateer press would go out of there way to find a plastic that won't take testors.

Now they start making plastics and I will Still have to use Bloody CA glue to put assemble them. Lovely lets hear a big cheer for arms and weapons still falling off, hurray .

Read the posts by Linkdead, NecRon_Jeremy, and myself. There is a better way to glue plastics. Always has been.

I'm a little confused as to why a Quato showed up in the middle of this thread....

Agamemnon2 wrote:The use of non-styrene plastic does not seem like a fun idea. If they're going with the soft rubbery stuff, I will not be happy. The sheer amount of "going limp" jokes would blow up the Internet.

I'm betting its the opposite. Chances are they are using a harder more brittle plastic, not much harder than what bases are made of. The harder plastic will allow them to more easily remove the pieces from the sprues before they bag them. At least in the past when a customer wanted that sort of easy sprue removal that was one thing we did.

Another thing that hasn't been pointed out too much is that just because they aren't on a sprue doesn't mean they will come without some portion of the gating or flash on the model.

JediRaptor wrote:I'm a little confused as to why a Quato showed up in the middle of this thread....

Glue huffing.

RussWakelin wrote:Also note, PP plastics are NOT styrene. So polystyrene cement will not work on them. Super glue is still, apparently, the glue of choice.

That's a lose for me. :( Generally I prefer metals and am prepared to pay a (modest) premium for the extra detail in (most) metals compared to (most) plastic because the lack of undercuts in many plastic models bothers me. One of the compensations of plastic is because of ease of assembly of plastic vs metal, and so it is possible to circumvent the lack of detail in undercuts by producing models in more parts that require more fiddly assembly but because plastic cement doesn't gum up your fingers and such like superglue does, it isn't that big of a deal.

Producing a plastic model that requires fiddly assembly (unless they've got around the undercuts issue some other way, but if so I haven't heard of it yet - maybe this is the reason for using different plastic?!) but needing superglue to stick the models together sounds, on the face of it, like a fail to me :(

Of course this is PP, so I trust them to think of their customers in all of this, unlike Another Big Wargames Company (TM), and maybe I'm worrying unduly so should give them the benefit of the doubt. We'll see.

Interesting to speculate.

Seriously, how long do you think it will be before they sell a glue for their plastic?

If they are using the same plastic that's used in Monpoc, then even Plastic Weld won't work on it. I use the stuff to strip the paint off the Monpoc miniatures, and the plastic is untouched. That plastic doesn't even take superglue very well.

Not using styrene sounds like a horribly dumb move. Everyone else uses styrene, it's easy to cut, glue and takes acrylic paint well. Any other plastic they use might still glue properly with the Weld, but soft plastics don't lend themselves to being cleaned of mold-lines and certainly don't take paint as well (I have experience painting ABS on Gundams).

Is PP trying to distance themselves from the GW model of operation (again)? "Let's not follow the Evil Empire and make conventional plastic models which are easy to assemble. HURRR!"

ZandrisIV wrote:If they are using the same plastic that's used in Monpoc, then even Plastic Weld won't work on it. I use the stuff to strip the paint off the Monpoc miniatures, and the plastic is untouched. That plastic doesn't even take superglue very well.

Then it must not be this stuff as the article in NQ says that it glues with superglue. Also according to the article the figures use 'pegs and holes' to help hold them together.

We could wait until we have them in our hands before declaring the sky to have fallen.

George Spiggott wrote:

ZandrisIV wrote:If they are using the same plastic that's used in Monpoc, then even Plastic Weld won't work on it. I use the stuff to strip the paint off the Monpoc miniatures, and the plastic is untouched. That plastic doesn't even take superglue very well.

Then it must not be this stuff as the article in NQ says that it glues with superglue. Also according to the article the figures use 'pegs and holes' to help hold them together.

We could wait until we have them in our hands before declaring the sky to have fallen.

That would defeat the point of the internet. Besides, surely they will sell the glue that is appropriate for them.

warpcrafter wrote:Besides, surely they will sell the glue that is appropriate for them.

They do, it's called superglue.

George Spiggott wrote:
Then it must not be this stuff as the article in NQ says that it glues with superglue. Also according to the article the figures use 'pegs and holes' to help hold them together.

Sounds a whole lot like the Alkemy stuff, like exactly like it.

Image of an Alkemy figure right out of the box:


Discussion of the Alkemy miniatures and the nature of the plastic:
http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/2008/05/28/14632#more-14632

They should just stick with metal models at this rate. The best part of assembling a plastic kit is using plastic weld.

These new plastic kits will still require superglue and PINS on heavy parts or large spears.

George Spiggott wrote:

warpcrafter wrote:Besides, surely they will sell the glue that is appropriate for them.

They do, it's called superglue.

Surely you've been in the hobby long enough to know that plastic cement/glue physically joins the two parts by melting them into each other. Superglue only adherese the two surfaces to the glue and thus to each other.

When I engineer a system at my job, we select adhesives and bonding agents based on a simple concept. For a permanent joining the material that is being joined should fail before the adhesive. That means the miniature should break before the glue does. Super Glue is a poor choice in that regard and its only used in the hobby because of how readily available it is. Even readily available adhesive epoxy is better than superglue.

aka_mythos wrote:Surely you've been in the hobby long enough to know that plastic cement/glue physically joins the two parts by melting them into each other. Superglue only adherese the two surfaces to the glue and thus to each other.

The article says superglue is sufficient, who am I to argue? I would prefer to glue it with something else and when they release something plastic for *my* factions I'll look into that. I've got some PVC glue knocking around the house that I 'borrowed' from work a few years ago, maybe I'll give that a try. It's hard to say without the product in my hand.

I need to read this article.

Glue and pre-pinned plastic = probably a solid join. However, that might detract from the
conversion potential