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Posthumous wrote:
If it was any other consumer item than miniatures, the question wouldn't be considered unrealistic

It really would be.

rigeld2 wrote:

Posthumous wrote:
If it was any other consumer item than miniatures, the question wouldn't be considered unrealistic

It really would be.

I just bought a 2013 Camaro. Should GM send me a new 2014 Camaro because it has a redesigned body?
(I wouldn't want to anyway, I really dislike the 2014's tail lights)

Actually the way it would work is you give your camaro to me, and you can have my 2010 ford escape. It's a good deal, cuz I just had the oil changed.

Posthumous wrote:

brettz123 wrote:


Ridiculous much? Great first post..............

Gee thanks!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Come on, that's just an unrealistic ask

when have a minis company ever given out free replacements when a figure gets a resculpt?

But seriously, how many figures companies withdraw something within a few months of going on sale only to re-sculpt them to be completely different.
Even GW wait more than a year or so to replace a range with something incompatible It's not as if they didn't admit the reason is because they got the original set wrong!
If it was any other consumer item than miniatures, the question wouldn't be considered unrealistic

Doesn't happen very often BUT the Germans were really bad and didn't even fit scale wise with their previous minis. I think it is really good that they are redoing them. Is it bad they were bad in the first place? Absolutely. Does it suck for people who already bought them? Absolutely and hopefully they offer people who bought them some kind of discount on the new ones.

 Guildsman wrote:
For me, it's really way too early to make any sort of value judgement on the new sculpt. It has the potential to be better, but that doesn't mean anything. I would think that Defiance would get better with practice, but the Chinese set seems to be the worst product they've ever produced. Time will tell, I guess.

What exactly are you measuring with the Chinese being the worst yet? I am just curious.

Shepherd23 wrote:

 Guildsman wrote:
For me, it's really way too early to make any sort of value judgement on the new sculpt. It has the potential to be better, but that doesn't mean anything. I would think that Defiance would get better with practice, but the Chinese set seems to be the worst product they've ever produced. Time will tell, I guess.

What exactly are you measuring with the Chinese being the worst yet? I am just curious.

Setting aside casting quality (which is a major issue itself), the Chinese set is just... ugly. Badly proportioned, chunky, unnatural. The faces in particular look distorted. I think they hold up poorly, even compared to the rest of the Defiance range. For me, their marines are still the best kit they've put out. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the plethora of amazing options available today, but they just seem sub-par.

I think that they know it, too. When you go to their online store, there is one small, blurry picture for the kit, which is all but useless. You basically have to buy it sight-unseen, which just feels dishonest. Why would I buy a product that the manufacturer doesn't feel comfortable displaying?

Ick, I read on their announcement that those new Germans are still going to be restic. Why keep working with the stuff? It may be cheaper, but it seems way more prone to having faulty castings than regular hard plastic does.

Hard plastic is not that easy to come by, though. It requires a significant investment. I've never had any in my hands, but Mantic seems to be able to produce good minis with restic. Trollcast apparently has been used to great effect.

I don't think we can lay all the blame at the foot of the material used. We'll see how those resculpts turn out.

Is it my turn to buy a box first and do a review?

The hilarious thing is that it wasn't all that long ago that people were bitching about how inferior plastic minis were -- low detail, cheap production values, etc -- and wondering why companies didn't use metal for everything. I still see the occasional grognard complaining about how inferior plastics are.

 Xeno wrote:
The hilarious thing is that it wasn't all that long ago that people were bitching about how inferior plastic minis were -- low detail, cheap production values, etc -- and wondering why companies didn't use metal for everything. I still see the occasional grognard complaining about how inferior plastics are.

I like plastic kits and the variety they can provide as well as the easy of conversion. However, most plastics still are inferior to metal in some ways. Unless you use even-more-expensive- sliding molds, plastics still end up without undercuts and such. The flexible rubber molds used for metal allow details in the undersides and in inverse crevasses that you can't get with a metal mold. Additionally, while metal models don't give you the variety of poses as a multipart/multipose plastic kit, the plastic kit will never be able to give you the accurate physiological poses that a unified metal sculpt allows.

Plastic is great, and I'd prefer it to resin, resi-plastic or pvc any day, but there are very real benefits to a well-cast metal figure.

Besides your argument is a touch unfair because folks on this thread are complaining about the differences between plastic and resi-plastics, for which there are real differences, especially when looking at the products that Defiance has produced.

 Barzam wrote:
Why keep working with the stuff? It may be cheaper, but it seems way more prone to having faulty castings than regular hard plastic does.

That's your answer. Faulty castings don't matter because you can make the customer fix that themselves.

 Eilif wrote:
Besides your argument is a touch unfair because folks on this thread are complaining about the differences between plastic and resi-plastics, for which there are real differences, especially when looking at the products that Defiance has produced.

Though, as far as I can tell, those fault castings are the fault of Defiance, not the material they are working in. I like the material itself and think it'll be a perfectly good substitute for metal (which I hate -- I can't seem to get a paint job to actually stick to a metal figure for more than a couple of minutes because it chips off).

 Xeno wrote:


Though, as far as I can tell, those fault castings are the fault of Defiance, not the material they are working in. I like the material itself and think it'll be a perfectly good substitute for metal (which I hate -- I can't seem to get a paint job to actually stick to a metal figure for more than a couple of minutes because it chips off).

That's odd about metal and paint. I've not had that problem, and I've painted hundreds of metal soldiers. I don't think any of my clubmates have had that problem either, and we've got quite a few decades of gaming between us.

Perhaps I can help. A couple questions.
-Are you washing them before priming?
-What are you using to prime?
-How do you hold them when painting?
-What do you use to varnish them post-painting?

As for the Defiance material, I confess I can't speak to it. I don't own any figures in the Troll-cast (Trollforge does their casting, yes?) and as yet the reviews of Defiance Resin products have kept me away. That said, my experiences with resin, and pvc have not been any better (and in many cases worse) than metal, for whatever that's worth. At this point, only Battle Eggs (a fairly unique product) would tempt me into Defiance resin, and I'd buy them understanding that quite a bit of work would likely be necessary.

Troll Forge created the plastic-resin mix but Defiance does the vetting of molds and casting, so the errors are pretty much all theirs. The material itself is fine -- a different texture than high impact polystyrene and a little softer, but not brittle in the least, unlike traditional resin. I like it. I also like the PVC figures made by Reaper.

 Xeno wrote:
Though, as far as I can tell, those fault castings are the fault of Defiance, not the material they are working in. I like the material itself and think it'll be a perfectly good substitute for metal (which I hate -- I can't seem to get a paint job to actually stick to a metal figure for more than a couple of minutes because it chips off).

Even if the quality of the castings was not Defiance's fault, allowing them to reach the customer would be. Subcontracting is not an excuse for a lack of quality control.

 Xeno wrote:
Troll Forge created the plastic-resin mix but Defiance does the vetting of molds and casting, so the errors are pretty much all theirs. The material itself is fine -- a different texture than high impact polystyrene and a little softer, but not brittle in the least, unlike traditional resin. I like it. I also like the PVC figures made by Reaper.

Good to know. There's so many variations on resin and plastic these days. How similar is it to the resi-plastic that Mantic is using?

I have mixed feelings about Bones figures. I love the price, and many of the miniatures, but many of the miniatures in my KS order were just not as nice as their metal counterparts, in very noticable ways. Soft faces, mold lines in difficult to reach places, miscast detail, etc. By no means all, but a far higher number than I would deem acceptable. It's odd, because the Bones figure I bought pre-kickstarter was perfect. At this point I'll probably buy any future Bones in person, as if the sculpt is nearly-as-good, and I can't find the metal figure used, I'll buy bones over metal any day just for the price savings.

 Eilif wrote:

 Xeno wrote:
Troll Forge created the plastic-resin mix but Defiance does the vetting of molds and casting, so the errors are pretty much all theirs. The material itself is fine -- a different texture than high impact polystyrene and a little softer, but not brittle in the least, unlike traditional resin. I like it. I also like the PVC figures made by Reaper.

Good to know. There's so many variations on resin and plastic these days. How similar is it to the resi-plastic that Mantic is using?

I have mixed feelings about Bones figures. I love the price, and many of the miniatures, but many of the miniatures in my KS order were just not as nice as their metal counterparts, in very noticable ways. Soft faces, mold lines in difficult to reach places, miscast detail, etc. By no means all, but a far higher number than I would deem acceptable. It's odd, because the Bones figure I bought pre-kickstarter was perfect. At this point I'll probably buy any future Bones in person, as if the sculpt is nearly-as-good, and I can't find the metal figure used, I'll buy bones over metal any day just for the price savings.

I really couldn't tell you how they compare; I don't own any other plastic-resin figures. I also didn't get in on the Reaper Kickstarter (I was broke at the time), so all I have to go by are the pre-Kickstarter figures which are more than just fine. I suspect Kickstarter figure problems are more of an issue with poor quality control related to mass volume. I doubt they had the personnel, either in the US or in China, to make sure everything coming out was high quality.

That, however, is a problem with Reaper, not the material. However, they did say that part of the reason for the Kickstarter was to fund the equipment to moved manufacturing in-house, so these problems might be temporary.

Anyway, it seems to me that the real problem with plastic resin is the same problem with plastics previously: it's a new material and manufacturing method and it'll take time for people to know exactly how to work with it and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Even Defiance, to their credit, has been learning. The Chinese aren't a good set, but they are better than the Germans and I do think they're learning. I just also think they need to spend the extra time and effort into learning, prototyping, and fine-tuning rather than shipping said prototypes off to the customers.

Are they still using Trollcast but casting it themselves?

They seem to be having a very long learning curve for a group that's been producing miniatures in some capacity or another for...four or so years?

Having miniatures produced in plastic is nowhere the same as self producing miniatures in any form of resin.

Also, producing resin miniature at a level of production suitable for distribution as opposed to individual sales is also very different. For an example of a proven minis producer having a steep learning curve, just look at GW. Finecast still comes out with some major flaws, yet GW still sells it and people keep buying it.

Defiance has admitted to having issues and they are actively working on it. They have pulled and are replacing an entire set because of issues. They have held of selling items because of issues. And when people got faulty minis, they actively sought to rectify the issue. It seems to me they are doing a lot more right than wrong.

Don't be silly, another company demonstrating terrible QC doesn't suddenly make it cool to sell shoddy product.


They have been having "issues" since their inception. As soon as they produce a professionally cast, quality sculpt I'll consider them to be doing anything right at all, let alone more right than wrong.
Right now they are a garage operation that has inexplicably managed to get hobbyists to fund their resin casting learning curve.
This isn't vindictive, I want to buy cool models that I'll never use from great companies and sculptors. Start producing quality products and stop fething around and you won't get irritated people rolling their eyes in threads like this.

Alright, pages back someone mentioned Defiance selling another companies terrain at a mark up. The Cargo contianers ?

Because, honestly, I liked the way they looked, but thought the price was too damn high. If I could get them elsewhere significantly less expensive I would be interested in that.

Rust Forge terrain, manufactured by Proxy models, sold by Rust Forge, Proxy, and Defiance.

Proxy doesn't sell the containers, just Rust Forge and Defiance.

 adamsouza wrote:
Alright, pages back someone mentioned Defiance selling another companies terrain at a mark up. The Cargo contianers ?

Because, honestly, I liked the way they looked, but thought the price was too damn high. If I could get them elsewhere significantly less expensive I would be interested in that.

Rust Forge sells the containers for about 3 bucks less each. It's not a huge difference though and if you buy Defiance from any of the many online retailers who knock 20% off as a matter of course then the Defiance price is the same as the Rustforge direct price.

If you can find them at a Con, you might be able to get them for a bit less. My buddy picked up a 3 for $30 deal at Adepticon.
You can see his review here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/04/review-rust-forge-28mm-shipping-crates.html

I sell the Rust Forge containers for $12.99. DG sells the containers for a slightly increased $15.00 each. This is only a $2.00 difference, not $3.00. I wouldn't have allowed that high a mark up.

And we do attend shows and we do have show specials. If you are willing to wait that long for a couple of dollars off, that is your choice and I will see you at the show.

Shepherd23 wrote:
Proxy doesn't sell the containers, just Rust Forge and Defiance.

Could've sworn I saw them there not that long ago, but I may have been confusing a visit to Rust Forgo with Proxie's store, which seems to not exist right now.

Not sure what may have happened, but I just checked the Proxy Models store page and it is up and running as of 4:23PM EST. Maybe a work filter or temporary glitch.

I also checked while I was there, no shipping containers.

Posthumous wrote:

brettz123 wrote:


Ridiculous much? Great first post..............

Gee thanks!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
Come on, that's just an unrealistic ask

when have a minis company ever given out free replacements when a figure gets a resculpt?

But seriously, how many figures companies withdraw something within a few months of going on sale only to re-sculpt them to be completely different.
Even GW wait more than a year or so to replace a range with something incompatible It's not as if they didn't admit the reason is because they got the original set wrong!
If it was any other consumer item than miniatures, the question wouldn't be considered unrealistic

Hello Chris Valera. I notice you have some Romeo on you ever since you got banned from the Defiance Games Facebook page.

Look, I want them to succeed, as much as the next guy, but even I feel unwelcome on that Facebook page.

Why?