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Hey, after seeing some of the GW starter kits like First Strike, is there a difference between the coloured green and blue plastic and the standard grey? Just curious, as the last time they did that was the Space Hulk set I think, and I didn't manage to get it, so I couldn't gauge quality.

This may be totally imagined on my part but the colored plastic seems to be slightly harder than the standard variety. Other than that there is no difference in terms of quality or crispness of detail etc.

I find the Space Hulk stuff a tad more brittle, as I've damaged a few Hulk Stealers.

Other than that quality is great and they glue together just like any other GW plastic.

I've found in general the coloured stuff is more prone to denting and also doesn't flex as far before snapping.

But that's a very general statement, I've gotten a couple of batches of grey plastic that were extra brittle as well.

It's injection moulded polystyrene whether it's blue or green or grey or beige or red or yellow.

GW have used ALL of those colours for their plastics in the past.
(RTB001 plastics came in blue, green, beige and grey, Space crusade had red, yellow, blue and green, spacehulk had dark blue and beige (depending on set). )

All of these colours are the result of a dye being added during the manufacture process (it's normally a clear plastic).

 chromedog wrote:
It's injection moulded polystyrene whether it's blue or green or grey or beige or red or yellow.

GW have used ALL of those colours for their plastics in the past.
(RTB001 plastics came in blue, green, beige and grey, Space crusade had red, yellow, blue and green, spacehulk had dark blue and beige (depending on set). )

All of these colours are the result of a dye being added during the manufacture process (it's normally a clear plastic).

Doesn't mean they're all going to have identical properties though Clear cast plastic is usually much stiffer and more brittle, I'd always assumed most kits were grey due to some rubberisers they put in there to stop it coming out so brittle (just my assumption, not saying it's necessarily true).

I'm sure the materials engineers are constantly tinkering with the mixtures, maybe it's just coincidental that variations seemed to occur with the coloured varieties or maybe it's the properties/quantity of the dye required to achieve different colours.

There's no such thing as a colouring agent that changes nothing but colour. I've noticed in several games that there are differences in brittleness, rigidity, detailing etc. between plastic pieces of different colours, even when they're clearly said to be the same plastic with different colour.

Dyes are chemicals. Chemical additives change the properties of materials, and you can't pick and choose which property changes you want.