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Davor wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Davor: why do you not like resin???
it hold crisp detail better than any other material...
it also takes undercuts better than plastic...
just curious as to why you don't like it...

also, do you paint models???
saying that X-Wing is more attractive because it is preassembled and prepainted, well, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of painting and modeling...
this is why i have zero interest in X-Wing minis, but am stoked about these ones...

it constantly amazes me that there are so many people out there seem who to have no interest in the creative side of painting and modeling, yet still want to play with miniatures...

cheers
jah

I suck at modelling. For what ever reason I can't glue the blasted thing. Plastics I have a so much easier time so I enjoy it more. I guess that is why my boxset and resistance is not put together yet and I don't buy more. I don't like working with resign. Maybe because I don't know how to. Maybe I am not the only one. If I am then it's a moot point. If I am not, then that could be an explanation as to why there is not lots of sales. I guess you can go GW way and say, "This is what we make, You buy IT!". Or you can ask "Why are we not selling much? What will it take to sell more product? Could it be people don't like resin even though it's a superior product detail wise? Do we need to change to plastics to get more sales?"

Now that I see HW has plastics now, it seems they are trying to appeal to the people who like plastics as well.

As for painting yes I do. I suck at it but still do it. I just mention the X-Wing because for the price, it's so much cheaper to do that. It's a price comparison. You get so much more money wise.

As to the creative side, that is why I have come back to miniature gaming, be it X-wing, 40K, or Dropzone. I want to reinvigorate my creative side again. So that is why I am slowly coming back to everything I can find. Money wise, it just means I have to save more if expensive.

I guess I am playing devils advocate here. It didn't hit me until I had to buy some Skylanders for my wife and kids. I really felt like an idiot. Why? Because she is paying $15-$30 for a fully painted mini. She didn't have to cut it off the sprue. She didn't have to take mold lines off. She didn't even have to assemble and paint it. All for $30. What do I do? I have to pay almost twice that much. I have to cut of the sprue, take mold lines off, assemble it and paint it. So who is the smart one when it comes to money wise for entertainment? LOL

Then it hit me. I like to assemble. I like to paint. Even though I suck at it, I like doing it. I just wish it wasn't so expensive lol. But my point stands though. When it comes to resin, I am not good at it. I don't want to keep paying the high prices for resin to practice to become good at it and there that is where it stops for me. I love the quality of resin. Really looks sharp and clear. Thing is I don't know how to use it properly and not willing to practice with it no more. When I see plastics so much cheaper, I want to go that way. At least for me when I practice with plastics it's more affordable to practice with.

I guess if I was good at painting and modelling as you and a lot of others my opinion would be different. But I am not and just more comfortable with what I can work with.

It is fair enough that you want to use a certain material, however the cost of producing a miniature in plastic is a very unreasonably high cost ( between 5k and 20k for a single mold ignoring currency exchange rates), its just not affordable, and very , very few companies can do it let alone produce a few miniatures and gain enough sales ( currently only GW and a few historical companies can do this and only GW can do monthly releases in this material) to grow and continue their range with such an expensive material.

This is why we do not see the few skirmish games that have gone into this material be able to really produce new miniatures without relying on going back to kickstarter or getting crowd funding, Mantic even cannot afford to expand their range in plastic without getting crowd funding the material is just too cost prohibitive. Resin and Metal do hold detail in a much higher level and are reasonable in cost. With our coming Veil Fall campaign what we will be asking to get funded will allow us to produce many more different miniatures to support our game for a fraction of the cost any other company starting their range in plastic will ask without them already having invested in much of the process.

We will be able to grow and support our range, increasing the diversity of available miniatures for our game as other miniature companies can do , were with the ones starting out in plastic will end up having to kickstart another expansion and the fair majority not being able to be self sufficient enough to afford to produce expansions for their game in plastic. Also this allows many companies too support local casters instead of commissioning their casting over seas usually into China and other markets that have a lower minimum wage for their employees.

Dropzone Commander seems to be doing very well with their resin line, they have kept stock and ensured they can meet demand, I have seen their miniatures first hand and I can say they are highly impressive. A starter box is doable in plastic however for starting up companies and up to medium sized companies kickstarter will be the only way to truly fund such material costs. Metal and Resin are simply a realistic and what the market will continue to be dominated by until one day we have a caster who innovates a new casting method that can have the best of two or all three such materials. PVC from Reaper miniatures I feel is quite a fantastic material however some warping does occur and the use of this material really depends on what type of game your trying to produce.

I Hope we continue to see Dropzone Commander thrive and grow , smaller scale wargames are one of my personal most liked scales of gaming when it comes to anything of a battle style game system.

I hope this clears up a bit why you don't see most of the market ever picking up plastics they are simply cost prohibitive and not a suitable material to produce most game types in, with the few being very large scale games and even then the costs are so high it cuts into diversity of a range and holds back a lot of other areas in miniature design that such money would be better spent on.

I hope to not offend anyone , this is my personal view and feelings on plastic and I hope we can at least agree to disagree if we cannot agree.

with best regards - Shawn.

DrRansom wrote:

- Will there be smaller ships, a la fighters?

One of the images above has a 'New Orleans class Strike Carrier', presumably fighters and other small craft will function in a similar way to Battlefleet Gothic so essentially tokens. Having watched the video the Strike Carriers are actually for dropships so....

I have been interested in this game since I heard about, more so since I heard that Andy Chambers was writing the rules and even more so once I have seen the models and more so again after watching the above video. This is a must buy game for me.

I also quite curious about the DZC stuff that everyone seems to be ignoring in favour of shiny spaceships

The ships look great - Hawk Dave pointed out that he has got some great detail on them.

And the rules sound good, too.

Even more eager to get this game now that I've heard more about it.

As with DZC the game will be mainly resin. Plastic being too expensive for a whole line and for holding the same detail as resin the models would necessitate to be cut in too many pieces to make it affordable. GW gets a lot of detail out of plastic, but needs to slice the miniatures a lot, which really pushes the price up.

That´s also the reason only the basic models with easier shapes from DZC are done in plastic.

What was the 2015 show only model?

 Compel wrote:
What was the 2015 show only model?

There were two: a double decker resistance battlebus and one of the Frigates in metal

Pretty interested to see what the studio playing surfaces look like!

Out of all the recent and not so recent space game announcements, these look really, really good. Not just in terms of make, but also of design. They're silly, but they are certainly interesting.

Sadly, I really need to see the Scourge before I can start hyping the game to friends.

However, they're big BFG fans, so the rules writer is a plus.

Those designs are so clean and sleek. Cannot wait to see how the other races look.

The latest newsletter is available - some new info on Dropfleet as well as new Dropzone Commander previews

These are simply stunning and have blown FSA and Halo right out of the water! And thats with one faction, looking forward to seeing the other 4 races! The brief overview of the game seems really interesting. Can't wait to hear more about it.

Sounds like a really unique sort of game and the models are quite extraordinary; I don't think I have seen such inventiveness in design for a very long time.

overtyrant wrote:
These are simply stunning and have blown FSA and Halo right out of the water! And thats with one faction, looking forward to seeing the other 4 races! The brief overview of the game seems really interesting. Can't wait to hear more about it.

Yeah, I had been considering getting Halo as my space fleet game (since I never picked up Firestorm), but this model is incredibly impressive. I might have to weigh out these two a bit! (I've only space for one!)

That newsletter has some nice size and close up pics of the designs. I have to say that I like the berlin design the most. I'm curious which city they'll pick as the token US ship if any. My guess would be LA or NY.

Isn't New Orleans a city in the USA? I'm quite partial to the Beijing class.

Derp... yes it is. I didn't actually notice that name on there! When I saw that pic, I just instantly assumed it read "avenger" as the name which I know is the class and didn't take a closer look to see the individual name since I had seen the 50x larger version!

Curious to learn more about the sculpt of the woman riding the wave and what faction she falls to. My first guess was PHR.

She is probably PHR with house-clearing drones.

@DFC
There will be no boarding actions and Scourge will keep the basic style of ground-troops but will still be quite different.

Some pics from the newsletter (courtesy of BoW http://www.beastsofwar.com/dropfleet/hawk-wargames-reveal-details-dropfleet-spaceship-game/ )

Looking like Hawk are going to be taking the lead in terms of the detail with the various space combat games coming out! The last one gives the sense of scale with the massive ship they had at Salute, and all of the little drop ships in the side of it.

Can't wait for this. I had a quick chat with him at Salute and he hinted at even bigger dreadnought class ships. The PHR are supposed to be slow, heavy and over gunned. Shaltari are tricksy (in his words) and the scourge are short ranged and fast.

I wondered even if the races would make more sense not having as good a tie to their ground forces.

Like, perhaps since the Shaltari are a long spacefaring race with powerful energy manipulation, (and fast/tricksy ground forces) their spacecraft could be monstrously shielded juggernauts. PHR ships could be nimble and stealthy. Scourge could be tricky or whatnot.

Those are some beautiful models. Stunning, really. I really love the design of the battleships.

This is supposedly half a tournament sized fleet. I wonder if this will be the starter set (less the Beijing)?

The one aspect of the design that I dislike is the mass drivers, they just look too big.

The Beijing class is very close to the upper size-limit for this game. They don´t want to wander into the realm of the ridiculous large ships that are hard to handle on the table.

And if you see what the mass-drivers drive, you will understand the size.

Some of the ideas in the newsletter look very compelling. Various profiles for weapons, multiple altitudes sound amazing.
Dropping the scale down to what would be a knife fight for any other space game is fascinating.

And the ships! I'm already a huge fan of the Heavy Cruiser- and if the PHR is overgunned compared to that it should look like a sleek flying porcupine!

 Duncan_Idaho wrote:

And if you see what the mass-drivers drive, you will understand the size.

Hawk wrote the fluff though so they didn't have to go for something to disproportionally large.

The ship's superstructure is sleek and graceful yet their turrets are Gamesworkshopesque. I find it jarring.

Those are bigger version of the turrets on UCM ground vehicles, so it works. And the little lasers on the side fins of the ships are giant orbital defense lasers on the ground game.

I think DFC will go over much better than DZC.

However, the biggest question is the Scourge models still. Scourge in DZC are hit or miss with some people.

I honestly want to know how this all grew out of practically one guy (or so I heard).

Do you remember the mass-drivers the Centauri had in B5? That´s the kind of mass-driver UCM uses on the big ships.

Damn Centauri.

As to the models -