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For context, when I started mini gaming end of the 70s/start of the 80s, all minis were cast in lead-tin and were 25mm. Since there were no other options back then other than 20mm Airfix minis cast in that bendy toy plastic that barely takes paint (and usually sheds it rapidly because of the bendiness), we all got used to the bother of working with metal, and we put up with it. So I still have my collection of needle files, and the pin vise. and of course they can be used on plastic minis. Now there are all sorts of plastic PYO kits in 28mm available, from Wargames Atlantic with some not-quite 40K guardsmen, and basic fantasy kits, and Northstar with the various "[Name]+Grave" kits. I am greatly enjoying kit-bashing said kits with a mix of parts from various 3rd party manufacturers and some GW bits. [I've a lot of the arms and weapons sprues from 2nd ed. 40K marines; the ones with metal bodies but plastic arms & weapons.] Well, thanks to the ease of working with these hard plastics I have become quite spoiled and thus reluctant to work with metal minis.

This dragged out my most recent project for a week as I was procrastinating as I had to assemble metal minis I'd purchased that I can't find hard plastic alternates for. I started on Monday, filing down parts, and drilling holes in Stargrave plastic bodies for simple kit-bashes with metal bits from Sally 4th Games. That took a few hours, but since it was comparatively simple I stuck with it. What caused me to leave the table was the prospect of working with three Sally 4th metal figures. Much scraping, filing, then and drilling before I could start assembly. One figure was a pain since it could not be assembled as designed, so I had to figure out a way to make it look right, then file and drill a new place for the neck join. So I put it off until this Saturday, when the my Northstar order arrived, giving me renewed vigor. Since I can't find any sprue dealers with SG Scavenger sprues, I decided to order the Scavengers, a Troopers box, a blister of SG zombie soldiers for Quarantine 37, and two of the prepainted mdf SG scenario kits.*

So I'm taking a break and typing this, as there is putty work required on the pure metal figures, and I'm letting the super glue set. After I'd finished the metal figures, I kit-bashed another two plastic-metal figures, and then had the easy task of assembling 3 SG plastics almost out of the box. I complicated things by using parts from four different SG kits, but that's on me. Still, just easy trimming with the craft knife, then simple gluing with plastic weld and done!

Anyway, all but one figure are for Stargrave. So a Bruiser, Engineer, and Terrain Expert from The Last Prospector, a Ravaged, and Ravaged Trooper from Quarantine 37, 2 Burners from the core rules, a Reaper Elf Sorceress, and Capt.Tasha, Toki, and Erma from Albedo Combat Patrol based on the comic of the same name. The last three are the troublesome metal figures, and Erma is the one that cannot be built as intended.

Summing up, hard plastic kits good, kit-bashing with metal bits, tricky but not too much of a pain, but multi-part metal figures, a royal pain in the !

And kudos to Northstar Games in the UK. The order took a mere six days, arriving early this Saturday afternoon, despite having to travel from Notthingham, UK to Los Angeles, USA.

*Now regretting the purchase of the SG zombie soldiers. Realized in the middle of the week that I have Zombicide and that game has WAY more than the three types of zombies that Quarantine 37 requires. And some of them are even painted already! DOH!

I find there’s no reason for me ever to work with metal minis again. Thanks to some splurges via McDougall Designs, I’ve got plenty of Wargames Atlantic, Mantic, and other manufacturers to keep me in kitbashes for a year. And yet, when my birthday comes around I’ll be getting more.

Metal?

It really, really depends.

Left at the Bottom of the Garden are gorgeous little models full of character, done on what I suppose one could call a boutique scale.

I’ve a few of those, cast in metal. And they are gorgeous sculpts and casts. Super smooth with bugger all flash or mould lines. And for a pretty decent price.

[subliminal]go and buy some sets for your self, they’re aaaaaaaaace[/subliminal]

Stuff made on that scale, and to that quality? Gimme me my metal.

But. More mass market stuff? Between “proper” plakky and siocast? There’s just no need to muck about in metal in my eyes.

Plastic moulding has come a long, long way since Drastik Plastik in terms of detail and complexity, and in certain ways has comfortably outstripped metal as a medium. So metal’s main selling point just isn’t what it once was.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I find there’s no reason for me ever to work with metal minis again. Thanks to some splurges via McDougall Designs, I’ve got plenty of Wargames Atlantic, Mantic, and other manufacturers to keep me in kitbashes for a year. And yet, when my birthday comes around I’ll be getting more.

Yes, this was self-inflicted misery, but as you already know from early in the Stargrave thread, this is due to my desire for animal anthromorphs. I have looked for similar bits in plastic or resin, but they don't exist. And since I was already paying for transatlantic shipping, I thought I'd better toss in the three ACP figures as I'd not bought them the first time I ordered back when Stargrave launched. However, the recent prep reminds me of how glad I am for hard plastic kits. At least the Reaper elf was a clean single piece cast which only needed a minimum of filing.

If McDougall Designs had had Scavengers or Trooper single sprues, I'd have ordered from him as I'd also like a sprue each of einjarl - space dwarves, and SpaceNam. I'll get to those eventually.

For those who are willing to deal with metal bits, two links. The first is for Albedo which is for sci-fi animals, but there are also bare-headed and medieval animal heads should some one want to model characters from Redwall et al. The second link has many heads inspired by Star Trek, with the names carefully worded to avoid copyright infringement. "Large ear alien" and "Fork-faced alien" for example. And yes, they do have the Children of Tama, "Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel". There are sci-fi bodies available if you go up one level from the Sci-fi heads link.
Critter Conversion Kits
Sci-Fi Heads

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Metal?

It really, really depends.

Left at the Bottom of the Garden are gorgeous little models full of character, done on what I suppose one could call a boutique scale.

I’ve a few of those, cast in metal. And they are gorgeous sculpts and casts. Super smooth with bugger all flash or mould lines. And for a pretty decent price.

I've seen those before, and was tempted by the original set with the singing rats. But I'd never use them, so I closed the tab. Now if I owned Stuffed Fables or a similar game. I do take your point; there are specialty figures I might consider in metal, and as shown, if it is the only option.

Oh gosh, i need that Old Woman who lives in the woods model and to paint it up as tomberry

I've been purposely collecting only all-plastic factions since... 2005 or so.

Metal can go die in a fire.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I've been purposely collecting only all-plastic factions since... 2005 or so.

Metal can go die in a fire.

That is quite close to my experience. Between Battletech and 2nd ed 40k I had plenty of metal models back in the 90s. Never much cared for the material, but that's just how things were back then. When 40k got its plastic revolution in 3rd ed, I resolved to convert my Marine characters from the shiny new multipart plastic Marines. I even looked into sculpting, first to take care of gaps that conversions left, and then to add things for which I didn't have bits. I had no more desire to put up with metal models. Not even for anything related to assembly, which was not too terrible but certainly not something I needed in my life either. I was just sick and tired of paint chipping and rubbing off at a time when painting was a significant chore and I got too few models painted as it was without worrying about touching up the ones that were already painted.

It's been a slow transition all told, given that not every company had GW's means to just knock out new plastic kits left, right and center. The last substantial metal purchase I made was an Italian army for Bolt Action a few years before the army got plastic models. I had even painted it almost completely by the time something new and shiny drew my attention away. It wasn't terrible, and I use copious amounts of varnish these days to make myself feel better about the metal models I paint. But I still avoid metal models whenever I can, which is virtually always at this point.

Metal I'm fine with, for single part models where all I have to do is base them, some have way more character than many plastics.

the moment you want more than glue the head on.. plastic all the way

With resins being a fairly comparable alternative I don't see a whole lot of need for metal anymore, but I appreciate that they can provide a way for small designers to realize their dream. As much as I like HIPs sprues, it means pushing out all but a few big publishers, where much of what makes it a great hobby is the easy ability for people to think of better ways of doing things and actually bring them to market.

Couldn't agree more!

Well. Except for Relicblade. https://www.relicblade.com/ Everyone should go buy lots of stuff from Sean. These models are fantastic.

But I've never kitbashed them - love 'em just the way they are.

But yup. I deal mostly with plastics these days. And can relate to your tales of woe, trying to kitbash from metal, to plastic, with the odd resin bit... Can get quite messy!

The worst is metal/Resin combo minis. Those are the devils work.


Yes, I too am also spoiled by all plastic only. The only way I will build forces now-a-days. If it ain't in plastic it ain't gonna' happen.

I love the North Star ranges. The modularity and the range of cool stuff you can get is awesome. You can pretty much do a whole fantasy world in their plastics - you've got down and dirty adventurers, pirates, human troopers and cavalry, orcs and goblins, dwarves and elves, gnolls and snakemen, wizards, tribal warriors, evil cultists and lots of options for female models.

It's really brilliant. And it's all fairly affordable too, especially the Oathmark stuff with 30 to a box.

I find they're the right level of modular for me too - the "legs and torso plus head, arms and accessories" with a lot of cool accessories really works for me as a sweet spot. I've got a pile of the boxes sitting around for various projects for Warlords of Erehwon or Middle Earth stuff. And I'm really tempted to do an Old School D&D game with a box of their dwarves, elves, and Frostgrave Adventurers and Wizards to get people to make their own heroes...probably a bit pricey but it'd be a fun thing to do and people could keep their minis...

That said, I love a good metal model too. I've got a bunch of LOTR metals and they're really nice, and I've also got a bunch of Red Box Games metals and they're really fantastic. Sometimes I'm hesitating to paint them because they're so nice, whereas with the plastics I reckon I can always slap together a few more so I don't stress about it as much.

I think we're in a golden age of choice with these kits, I mean all of that was just one company without looking at Wargames Atlantic or Forgotten World or the various historicals. All I want now is a box of modular retro-robots and I'm all set...

 Easy E wrote:
The worst is metal/Resin combo minis. Those are the devils work.

I really like some metal bits on resin, simply because the model isn't as brittle. I also find metal bonds to resin better than either metal to metal or resin to resin. That said, a lot of modern resins are more flexible, so it's not quite as big of a deal as it used to be and resin is a lot easier to transport on magnet trays without a random hunk of metal throwing off the center of gravity.

God's own casting medium METAL has it's place.

Lately GW plastic rifleman models come in 5-12 parts and offer no real creativity (oh how I miss the easy make cultists and guardsmen), you put in a ton of work to get fairly repetitive models that are still hard to customize.

2nd edition 1 part metals however, are ready to get from the blister. Granted some companies do make 1-part, 2-part plastics but GW no longer does.

Modular plastics like WGA and StarFrostGraveOath are great but if you're doing a big army and if repeated poses make sense, aiming riflemen for example, then 1-2 part models are great. They can literally save you a day of work.

Yeah, metal is fine if you're just gluing a piece or two on, but one piece is better again.

I'm also really fine with good monopose - I'm not the biggest kitbasher, though it is nice to be able to do that if you decide to. I love the GW LOTR minis because you get 12 poses, which is really enough to provide a lot of visual variety for big forces. Assembling them is an absolute breeze, generally clip them off the sprue and go.

Wimps! Real wargamers embrace METAL*! *Dio screams in the background*


But being serious, i Dunno, I love the heft and feel of it and have loads of solidly sculpted metals. Plastic is fine and what is being sculpted these days by gw and plenty others is extraordinary. But a nicely crafted metal model still makes me all happy inside.



* the exception being privateer press's nyss hunters. They can absolutely go burn in fire.

Deadnight wrote:
Wimps! Real wargamers embrace METAL*! *Dio screams in the background*


But being serious, i Dunno, I love the heft and feel of it and have loads of solidly sculpted metals. Plastic is fine and what is being sculpted these days by gw and plenty others is extraordinary. But a nicely crafted metal model still makes me all happy inside.



* the exception being privateer press's nyss hunters. They can absolutely go burn in fire.

After going from Warmachine to Kings of War Empire of Death with metal + hard plastic models I thought I was done forever with metal. But then I started back with mesbg during the pandemic and now I own close to my partner's body weight in LotR metals (to be fair she is like 150cm and 45kg so not too crazy and the Moria dragon alone is 1% of her weight) and I am not going to stop soon with collecting more of them.

Some metals are terrible to work with and some you just glue to a base and wonder how did they make it look so alive and like the movies when it is so small and simple.

I'm a lot happier with metals when its something like Infinity or Bushido that's a pretty small number of models that are generally all in the 30 mm range. Full armies or large models in metal definitely doesn't excite me anymore.

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm a lot happier with metals when its something like Infinity or Bushido that's a pretty small number of models that are generally all in the 30 mm range. Full armies or large models in metal definitely doesn't excite me anymore.

To be fair, that's less about a small number of metal models than it is anout a small number of models, period. I think tastes have shifted in the last few years in that there is a greater appreciation for skirmish games over mass battle of massed rank and file games.

I love 40k: kill team.because it is precisely the game I've waited for for a long time. An 'army' is a box (Maybe 2!) Of dudes - I can.go to town painting each of them and won't burn out midway because there's dozens more to.go, if not hundreds of models.

Plastic for kill team or metal.for infinity or our historical skurmishes (home brew game called 'clash of clans ..men) with my flags of war metal jacobites) Doesn't matter. Skirmish or mass rank? Skirmish, any day of the week!

For sure. As a rule if people are interested I'm happy to jump into any game that's in the 10ish model range.

I do like the occasional metal Mini, still holds detail better than plastic and painting sometimes is easier because of more defined detailing (I recently painted the plastic and metal Big Mek with SAG next to each other and the metal version somehow looked much better in the end despite using the same colors).
Building a metal mordor Troll back in the day was an adventure for sure and it's the lotr version of the dreadsock . But I don't want to do it again.
For larger troops and if you want to kitbash plastic/ resin all day. Not failcast though, GW resin is utter trash and has the quality of PVC minis.

Just give me the miniatures that have the least mold lines, gaps, and other prep I have to deal with!

Metal and resin can have more undercuts than non-multipiece plastic. But metals with mold lines are harder to prep than other materials. Also, if you have a multipiece with small bits, cutting off the bit from the metal sprue then filing it down is a pain, since these bits tend to be really small (eg. arms) and you're working with metal.

Resin is fine, except when it has bubbles you can't fix, or the paint flakes of because of the resin formula used!

Soft plastic is an unnecessary evil because of those lazy boardgamers who can't glue things together. As a result of pre-assembly (which seems to be happening more and more with boardgame miniatures), mold lines are more difficult to remove, and painting is more difficult because bits will block your paintbrush. If you get lucky, you can get past the superglue and take the miniature apart, but I find that to be more trouble than it's worth.

I'm also for hard plastic. Archon, who will have a caves KS next year, has spoiled me with inexpensive models. Use to be Mantic had the cheap stuff, but much of it was soft-plastic. (I stopped paying attention to Mantic since I have plenty of generic fantasy from Reaper. Had Mantic's Walking Dead mini's not been too chunky for me, I'd be dropping hundreds of dollars on their stuff.) I'll even do a round of priming while the bits are still attached to the sprue, then prep only the bit I need for a miniature I'm working on. For small bits on a multi-piece miniature, I've noticed that hard plastic uses much larger sprues than the ones resin and metal use. This makes hard plastic usually easier to paint on the sprue than metal and resin. Archon isn't the smallest company, but it's still smaller than GW and boardgame companies.

Still, since not every metal, resin, or soft plastic *sculpt* is available in hard plastic, I still put up with other materials.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I find there’s no reason for me ever to work with metal minis again. Thanks to some splurges via McDougall Designs, I’ve got plenty of Wargames Atlantic, Mantic, and other manufacturers to keep me in kitbashes for a year. And yet, when my birthday comes around I’ll be getting more.

Yes, this was self-inflicted misery, but as you already know from early in the Stargrave thread, this is due to my desire for animal anthromorphs. I have looked for similar bits in plastic or resin, but they don't exist. And since I was already paying for transatlantic shipping, I thought I'd better toss in the three ACP figures as I'd not bought them the first time I ordered back when Stargrave launched. However, the recent prep reminds me of how glad I am for hard plastic kits. At least the Reaper elf was a clean single piece cast which only needed a minimum of filing.

If McDougall Designs had had Scavengers or Trooper single sprues, I'd have ordered from him as I'd also like a sprue each of einjarl - space dwarves, and SpaceNam. I'll get to those eventually.

I'd be happy to get you single sprues. Message me, I'll get you quoted out, and the remainder of the boxes will end up on the store as stock.

I just didn't have enough disposable to buy a box of each northstar kit for sprues when I brought them on-board.

While I completely understand everyone preference for Plastic, I will always prefer Metal. In fact if I know a particular model had a Metal version, even if it is VERY OOP, I would rather scour Ebay for that one than buy Plastic.

I agree plastic is by far easier to work with and kitbash. However the act of cleaning, pinning, filling gaps with greenstuff etc is all part of the hobby aspect that I enjoy. The extra work I have to do to get a model together is part of the fun!

I recently got my hands on metal Morathi on Pegasus. It took me 3 evening of work filing, pinning and greens stuffing to get it together and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:
While I completely understand everyone preference for Plastic, I will always prefer Metal. In fact if I know a particular model had a Metal version, even if it is VERY OOP, I would rather scour Ebay for that one than buy Plastic.

I agree plastic is by far easier to work with and kitbash. However the act of cleaning, pinning, filling gaps with greenstuff etc is all part of the hobby aspect that I enjoy. The extra work I have to do to get a model together is part of the fun!

I recently got my hands on metal Morathi on Pegasus. It took me 3 evening of work filing, pinning and greens stuffing to get it together and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hear, hear!

I built a metal LotR Balrog years ago as a gift. Sculpting in extra flames with greenstuff to fill the large gaps along the top of the body and everything. It was a challenge and I loved every moment.

Generally I find that the more effort you have to put into something, the more satisfying it is when you've finally finished it. Same with a book that's difficult to read (e.g. Riddley Walker). If you have to carefully scrutinise and re-read each and every line, it's burned into your memory more thoroughly by the end.

But the real reason I prefer metal is the weight. It's a psychological thing. When I pick up a metal miniature, I feel like it's worth something. It feels like a Finely Detailed Scale Model for Painters and Collectors (tm). Something worth putting hours of painting effort into.

Plastic minis, on the other hand, feel like cheap toys. I can have heaps of fun kitbashing them, but I don't actually like moving them around a table during a game, or even displaying them on a shelf.

And the effect persists even if I'm not touching them. No matter how good a plastic figure looks, I can sense the lightweight hollow cheapness of them from the other side of the house. It's like how you're always uncomfortably aware that you never painted the back wall of that castle you built, even if you can't see it.

It took me a while to cotton onto the psychological preference for metal, but once it dawned on me, I decided to only buy metal minis where possible. Apart from anything else, it saved me a vast amount of money that I otherwise would have spent on plasticrack I'd never get around to assembling.

I've still got plenty of painted plastic minis, mind. Often from starter sets. For big vehicles, plastic is great. And for certain other things. Never going to torture myself with metal Tyranid Hormagaunts again, and let's not talk about big metal Battlefleet Gothic ships on flimsy flying stands...

Resin meanwhile is ye devil's own excretory substance and I expectorate in its general direction.