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Chances are they may outsource minis to painters and them painted up to Golden Daemon quality or equivalent before showing them to us.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Someone on this very forum has a quote saying that Space Marines are the right scale, it's the other sculptors who can't be bothered to make other minis fit correctly.

If I were you, Eric, I'd go all heavy or all regular, just so you can field them as Tempestus. Or a group of five heavies (command) and the rest as regular (scions). If you go that route, however, make sure you select N+5 girls to make sure you can field full squads.

Well that's why I was thinking 10 and 10. I have two full squads that way, and plenty of girls for options if I find a set of Skirmish rules I can adapt easily (Any one interested in working with me on that project, PM me). I'm also considering the jump up to wave shipping... but my main issue there is I'm moving in two months and thus need my new address.

To that end, it might be worth renting a mailbox at the post office or a Mail Boxes Etc. sort of location. I mean, yea there is probably zero chance anything serious will ship in two months, but it might be worth a few month's rent to know where your stuff will be sent to.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

KalashnikovMarine wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Someone on this very forum has a quote saying that Space Marines are the right scale, it's the other sculptors who can't be bothered to make other minis fit correctly.

If I were you, Eric, I'd go all heavy or all regular, just so you can field them as Tempestus. Or a group of five heavies (command) and the rest as regular (scions). If you go that route, however, make sure you select N+5 girls to make sure you can field full squads.

Well that's why I was thinking 10 and 10. I have two full squads that way, and plenty of girls for options if I find a set of Skirmish rules I can adapt easily (Any one interested in working with me on that project, PM me). I'm also considering the jump up to wave shipping... but my main issue there is I'm moving in two months and thus need my new address.

I... I'm having a hard time understanding this one. You know you're moving, but you don't know where, and it's in 2 months? Plastic (wo)men might have me mildly annoyed, but that kind of situation would have me breaking out in hives, man.

Oh trust me I am freaking the feth out. Which is why I'm focusing on toy soldiers to keep myself from having a heart attack.

Okay - looking at that pic, that's not horribly outscaled. Still might build up the army slower than intended, though. Since I want them as auxiliary troops to my Sisters, I don't actually want them to be larger than the Sisters in question, buuuuut...

Like others have said, if I have a whole army of them, they'll be in scale with EACH OTHER, and that's something.

Is that good or bad?

That'll clock the milleage on them minis, amirite? I know, we have some europeans on the campaign, but a good chunk of them are on the same continent as Ed Fortae, no?

It depends if they outsource production to Troll Forge themselves, it might be good. His alien infestation thingy looks damn good. But it might explain why they've been delayed. If you look at what Defiance was able to pull out of it, though... the prospects are scary.

But Defiance ended up blowing chunks because of the models they supplied, right?

Personally, I absolutely love trollcast and vouch for it highly.

Ed's own campaign has been held up by his finishing up the final sculpts, not his casting capacity... he has several employees working nearly constantly on casting.

Personally, as a backer of his campaign, I have been glad of this (I thought it was pretty obvious from the pics of casts shown earlier, and was wondering when you guys would figure it out ). Obviously, Raging Heroes brought in a lot of funds and seeing Ed get some of that work is really great.

Trollcast is amazing because you can get nearly hand-cast resin detail for a fraction of the cost. The only issue is making sure the quality control is there and that there are no really thin features, but that is true of almost any resin. I think you all will be very pleased with the results

Also, just for future reference, there are only a few ways to have models made:

1. Hand cast resin. Expensive unless you know someone (Wehrkind does it in his basement, highly recommended!). Quality can be very good but needs to be QC'ed for air bubbles and the like.
2. Trollcast (spincast resin). I actually know of no one else who does this but Ed, it is proprietary or at least a trade secret in many ways. It lets you get volume out of resin casting and makes units (rather than just characters) possible.
3. PVC. Softer details, hard to remove mold lines- just a nightmare if not done well. Can be good for some organics. Lower start-up costs than High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) which is what is generally know as "hard plastic" or "GW / WGF plastic".
4. HIPS. Mentioned above, the gold standard for a material that is easy to work with, but you have to sculpt with it in mind and can have much fewer undercuts than in hand cast resin. Start up costs and waiting time is also insane (see Dreamforge regarding lead time, although I think the costs are actually much higher than what they raised).
5. Metal... the old faithful!

Those 5 materials are the only ones I know of that are used for miniatures. You can't expect to get cheap troops in hand cast resin... and this is why trollcast is so exciting to me. Just look at my 150 grub tyranids counts-as army in my gallery to see what possibilities this opens up!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-9594-39097_Adepticon%202014%20Trollforged%20Tyranids%20Army.html

It also allows for larger models at a lower cost, too. Anything bulk (a lot of small models or a few big models) can really drop in cost in the material, while still having the benefits of a material that is close to hand-cast resin in many ways. It also has the drawbacks, of course (long thin features are fragile) but I never want to go back to metal after working with it, personally.

I'm biased, but that's my take on it

You're a mod though, you are totes a reliable source!

Personally, the poor QC is what turns me off of Trollcast. Terrible mold shift and bubbles, and issues with paint not taking to it.

And to add a 6th material type: ABS. Its basically the same as polysytrene, but better for hard edges. You'll find it in stuff like Gundam model kits, and the Robotech Tactics minis.

QC will truly be what makes or breaks Trollcast as a material. My main point of comparison was Wehrkind's hand-cast resin, and good casts from both are Very similar.

The more delicate figures from the RBG Kickstarter are a better comparison than Ed's own aliens sculpts. Here are pics I took of some of those models that I got from someone who sold their pledge to me:




You can zoom in in the gallery (just click on the image). The model on the top right was sculpted insanely thinly and should never have been made in resin, imo (that is a 20mm base next to it, the others are 25mm bases). But the other 4 human models on foot are fantastic, even with Tre's extremely detailed sculpting. And the horses are as well. The horses had some bubbles on the underside, but that was due to being cast as a single piece with all 4 legs intact!

So, I have very, very high hopes for the models that will come out of this campaign. Regarding paint adhering, I had not had an issue with that as I washed all of my trollcast models with powder-based dish soap as Ed recommends.

However, to BrookM, I said I am biased simply because I love the material. Hopefully, when you guys get these models you will feel the same way

I'm going for a single metal model myself, I think I'll wait and see how they turn out before committing to any more in this grand adventure.

Probably wise I think most folks are doing the same, given the level of communication, etc. But if RH is known for one thing, it is beautiful models in the end... it's just handling the process that might be high blood pressure inducing

Also, just checked the RBG kickstarter page and it looks like that campaign is finally finished! And resulted in comments like this when folks got their models:

Tobias Hastrup Petersen on May 9

Got my shipment today. By far the best miniatures in my collection, and I have a lot.
Thank you .

Not just that, but our only scale shots are almost a year old, that doesn't give a lot of comfort IMHO.

Also, the whole "they be purty" is becoming a mantra for a lot of people to justify this all, innit?

 BrookM wrote:
You're a mod though, you are totes a reliable source!

I thought we was a shill working for the Cabal of the Conflicted Interest.

I'd love to be able to chime in on Trollforge's Trollcast, but since my rewards haven't even been sculpted...

 BrookM wrote:
You're a mod though, you are totes a reliable source!

He's not really, so anything he says is still suspect...

I think the "Trollcast" stuff is excellent from a quality perspective.

It just might add a bit more time to this project, from what we've seen so far...

...Maybe!

@Bob- Yeah, although the RBG campaign is finished, unfortunately most folks have yet to receive their aliens (the only reason I got mine is because I selected only models that were sculpted in order to meet a painting deadline... this has actually been my strategy with a number of campaigns and I think it's worth doing if your patience is running out).

I definitely am a fan of Trollforged, but tried to list out the facts and reasons for all of my statements above, so hopefully it is of some use. The RBG models were too slender for the project I'd had in mind and I ended up reselling them, but I do have unpainted aliens in the material if anyone would like closeups on it bare, as I think most of the pics in the gallery I linked to above are of primed or painted models.

Kickstarters often seem to be in a "quality over timeliness" state, especially from companies inexperienced with huge projects. I think it's pretty obvious that any process Raging Heroes went with probably wouldn't have met their timeline goal... but what kind of timing having gone with trollcast will result in remains to be seen. I agree with you that it will likely result in some delay, but from what I can tell this is what the employees at Trollforged are casting like crazy (as I think stocks of the already sculpted aliens have already been built up, and fitting in casting of the remaining aliens sculpts will not be hard).

Hmmm, I dunno, it's hard to go for troops when there are new offerings like these coming out...



Needs more pigeon toe...

[nevermind. Too far.]

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Blegh... I'm still not sure what to do on my end. Thoughts on picking up more troops guys?

Get the heroes in metal - they have a good track record there. Look into troops once they're at retail. Because Spincast resin is sometimes ....less than 80% perfect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snapdragon wrote:
Honestly, on the scale point, has GW ever mentioned why their Space Marines are so tiny?

Their physical stature grew over time in the lore, but the Marine figures remained more or less consistently sized to one another, with just a bit of scale creep as they evolved - rather than reset at +50% scale. Though some marines, such as Terminators have had a pretty obvious scale creep over time. Regular marines are pretty much "locked in" due to backwards and cross-compatability with the "existing range" going right back specifically to 1998's 3rd edition multipart plastics - and even those were size and parts-compatible with the Late-1st Ed/2nd Edition Metal-plastic hybrids and plastic kits

Some other ranges (notably Catachans) were sculpted as bulked-out, big guys when they were metals, and then were way over-scaled when they came to plastic. Check out the sizes GW's plastic goblins got to at one point, before they shrunk them back down.

And as Jes Goodwin has said, Marines are the correct scale. It's everything else that's too big!

 BrookM wrote:
I'm going for a single metal model myself, I think I'll wait and see how they turn out before committing to any more in this grand adventure.

That's where I'm at, too. I see a few of these I really want, and if those are good, I'll probably (slowly) build up an entire army of the girls. But not sight-unseen.

 Azazelx wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Blegh... I'm still not sure what to do on my end. Thoughts on picking up more troops guys?

Get the heroes in metal - they have a good track record there. Look into troops once they're at retail. Because Spincast resin is sometimes ....less than 80% perfect.

That's the plan for the heroines. Except for the big tech priestess I don't like the idea of assembling her in metal >.>;

Yep went for nepharaya in resin for the very same reason even though it means it won't ship til 2080.

 RiTides wrote:
(Wehrkind does it in his basement, highly recommended!).

Bow chicka wow wow


Did you sell all the RBG stuff? I wouldn't mind checking out a few if you still have them.

You are right though, there are some things that just don't work reliably in resin, as even with supposedly super strong resin it doesn't quite stand up. And that stuff is rather viscous so it makes bubbles more of an issue. However, I have some newer, whisper thin stuff together that I just got working, so you should swing by the basement and compare girth and size.

I heard length was important too.

Back slightly On Topic: There is a N&R thread concerning the possible non-availability of SoB. Wouldn't it be hi-larious if GW put out a mini release of just the basic SoB infantry with all the dressings? Just to pull the rug from under RH a bit?

I don't think RH show up on GW's "concerned about" list.

Doesn't need to. Coincidences can still be funny.

I'd sigh and chuckle. Of course, I'd probably still buy some.

It would be hilarious, as that would be the second release GW shot off before RH got to do it (first one being Dark Elves)