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 kodos wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Guys, get real.

with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)

for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group

3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)

but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming

3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.

 frankelee wrote:

JWBS wrote:
The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.

If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.

I remember it quite vividly despite being quite drunk myself. He used that word instead of a more usual synonym and I thought to myself "Lol what a tool" and perhaps something in my expression gave away my thought or maybe he just had the same thought because he immediately said "Oh wow that was a douchey thing to say" and I agreed and we both laughed (I was laughing mostly with him but also a little at him too ofc).

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And quoting Latin at him says, what, exactly?

Err. Sorry.... thought was the term for the falsehood that alcohol makes you say the truth.

Oh boy... this thread has run his course...

 frankelee wrote:

JWBS wrote:
The only person that ever told me he was bright was incredibly drunk at the time he said it.

If you're not old enough to know alcohol brings out the truth, then there's nothing I can do for you mate. You've just got to get out there and live some more.

No, it fething doesn't. Reducing inhibitions doesn't mean that the stuff a person says or does is the truth.

Psychedelics also reduce people's inhibitions but we don't believe a tripping person when they tell us they can fly and want to get on the roof of the house to show us.

SKR.HH wrote:
Oh boy... this thread has run his course...

QFT about 6.5 pages ago

So back to the pre-order promise...

If you pre-order, and aren't one of the lucky ones who get theirs shipped straight away, can you cancel? And how do you find out - by email after paying?

 dreadblade wrote:
can you cancel? And how do you find out - by email after paying?

I hope so, but I rather suspect you'll be lucky to get an email.

SKR.HH wrote:
Oh boy... this thread has run his course...

Not even close. This has to stay open for pre-order day to see what actually happens, and whether what GW said turns out to be true.

 dreadblade wrote:
So back to the pre-order promise...

If you pre-order, and aren't one of the lucky ones who get theirs shipped straight away, can you cancel? And how do you find out - by email after paying?

Yes, this would be my concern as well. Are they going to tell you when you order that the in stock copies have sold out and you'll be waiting months for yours? If not, once you find out later will you be able to cancel? They didn't bother to explain that.

You can always cancel your order prior to shipping

They should only take your money when they actually send out the product, and you have the right to cancel your order up to that point.

That is how places such as amazon handle pre-orders.

 frankelee wrote:
Are they the exact same quality to your human eye if you're forced into a blind "taste test"? Yes. Could someone get one of GW's stl files, print it off, slip it into their army they use at the game store, and completely fool you and all your friends? Of course. Could a Phrozen Sonic Mini make any of GW's fancy models? Easily. None of that is really even up for debate in the 3D printing world.

You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.

I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.

 frankelee wrote:

Yeah. I know you went through all that earnestly, but who are you trying to convince? Sure, you can pixel bitch around to find potential problems, everybody doing 3D printing has dealt with them, they're not that hard.
You know if you try to put together a GW mini you've got to look in the instruction booklet to know what pieces to put together, but one time a guy in Cardiff bought a box and it was missing the booklet! So that's the end for him. And did you know you have to clip them off the sprues, but what if you clip it and it goes flying across the room and you can't find it, well there you go, your purchase is ruined, your foray into Warhammer is over. And then as you put the model together you've got to be able to think in 3 dimensions, not everybody can do that, so there goes half the market. And then to actually hold the model together you've got to use glue, so that requires a trip to the specialty shop. And then if you try to use glue you can get your fingers stuck together, well that'll end your mini making day, won't it? And then after you have the model put together, all those joint lines ruin the whole thing. They look like garbage, the whole mini looks like garbage. And if you want to solve that problem you'll need green stuff, good look finding that if the world is currently suffering a shortage of it. And if you have some you've got to knead it together before it'll even work, how do you do that?
Guys, get real.

For someone who claims to be bright you really aren't demonstrating it if you thought this was anything approaching a reasonable or convincing point to make. Check your logical fallacies next time.

 Theophony wrote:

I'd put that up against any models made by GW.

I wouldn't. Its a nice sculpt, sure, and the print looks good, sure, but its - in my opinion - not up to par with GWs minis in any appreciable way. The only 3d printed minis I've seen which I'd say are actually superior to GWs plastics come off of printers that cost significantly more than anything we're discussing in this thread (and when I say significantly more, I mean add 2-3 zeroes on to the end of the price of the printers we've named here).

 Arbitrator wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Guys, get real.

with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)
for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group
3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)
but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming

3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.

Are you just making gak up? I play a *lot* of wargames from a lot of different publishers and designers. On the whole, I've seen less 3d printed minis/parts in those other games than I have seen in GWs games, the only exception to that being certain periods and scales of historicals, and arguably sometimes the Star Wars games (despite how common Mels Miniatures, etc. seem to be in the online communities, I've yet to actually encounter anyone who owns anything other than the official FFG miniatures for these games). On the whole (again with the possible exception of Star Wars), fans of fantasy/scifi games by smaller publishers seem to be generally more willing to buy the official minis and less interested in 3d printed ones than the GW community is.

MaxT wrote:
You can always cancel your order prior to shipping

In which case surely scalpers are still going to be a problem? There will still be people prepared to pay a premium to have theirs now rather than wait.

 dreadblade wrote:

MaxT wrote:
You can always cancel your order prior to shipping

In which case surely scalpers are still going to be a problem? There will still be people prepared to pay a premium to have theirs now rather than wait.

And I have had people offer me $5 more than the cost of the pizza I was carrying out of a Dominos because they didn't want to wait the 10-15minutes for one to cook. There is always someone willing to pay a little extra for the time saved. (Also the person didn't even know what type of pizza it was, so that speaks a lot to instant gratification) There will always be scalpers, if this helps to limit the number that we face and diminishes the out of stock issue in any way then its a benefit.

 Arbitrator wrote:
3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.

from the people I know who own one ore more printer, their use them for GW models, or scale/theme that is not available
something like 2mm Napoelonic, fantasy asian armies, historical indian armies

French-Indian/Seven Years War, people use the metal models, no matter if 28 or 10mm because they are cheaper and more accurate

cheap and good 3D files for historical armies outside of niche settings? there are none
if I want to print Austrians in 28mm for the 7YW the only ones available have the quality of Warlord plastics (means using the same models for all nations with different box art), or less different models than the metal ones on the market
I am just better of buying the metal ones and be done

I miss the heady days when I was one of the worst and most contentious posters on these forums. Leave it to the young to outdo their predecessors in all things, I suppose. The villainy I and others like me taught them, they have executed.

chaos0xomega wrote:
You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.

I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.

<rolls to disbelieve>

...right

Are you maybe talking about fdm printed stuff here? (I know you say you have phrozen sonic printed miniss, but still) Because I've made masters for moulds with resin printers and I can 100% assure you that the ones from the mould look, if anything, coarser than the master.

I'va also printed whole Epic and Warmaster armies that, if anything, are much better than any original minis.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
Guys, get real.

with the average GW customer being unable to build models without a booklet, no matter how easy it looks like for others
(I just bought the Mantic GCPS Mule out of curiosity because lot online reviews complained that it is nearly impossible to build because there is no booklet in the box, took me 10 minutes including removing mold lines and test fit without glue)

for those people this is a different hobby, easy to build, paint and play
3D printing is already too much work and too complicated to replace HIPS for GW's the main target group

3D printing will replace papercraft, classic foam terrain building and lasercut/mdf terrain in the long run (outside the niche were you need to advantage of other materials as base)

but models for the average wargamer?, only if the requested size and time period is not available as otherwise it is cheaper to buy the models
and for the average GW customer, way to complicated and time consuming

3D printing will hurt every wargame but Games Workshop. If you're playing other wargames, you're already far more aware/willing to try 'alternatives' than the vast majority of people. The great irony of the "3D printing will kill/hurt GW!" meme is that it's far more likely to further consolidate their stranglehold on wargaming because the other games are bleeding money to printers whilst most GW customers, most of whom won't even buy non-Citadel paints, keep handing it over to them happily.

There is a difference between miniature manufacturers and games companies. Printing will benefit games companies because it means they don’t need to shell out on manufacturing kit to make models to play their game with. There is a full set of STL models being used by a random manufacturer to support the game. You can also order physical models with of them.

Means they can focus on the rules.

Saw this had reached seven pages, came in to drink the rage of GW haters. Disappointed. The whole first page only has like one hate-boner post and a lot of people responding to it reasonably. Then I discover the discussion spirals off topic and THAT is why there is so much discussion. Smh black knights need to step it up.

To me the contention that 3d printed miniatures aren't good enough is absurd. As someone who owns dozens if not hundreds of hand-sculpted metal sculpts from the 80s and 90s that are really often quite crude or have some compromises, I've never considered them to be flawed by their imperfections. At the end of the day they're still just figurines. A metal, resin, or plastic ork with an outrageous machinegun in his hand will never be "real".

The emphasis on "fooling" people with 3d printed miniatures likewise baffles me. Unless we're engaged in some kind of a counterfeiting or defrauding scheme, the provenance of our pieces should never be obscure. The only yardstick by which a miniature's appearance can be judged (contests of painting and modeling skill notwithstanding) is whether or not its owner is satisfied with it, and, for gaming pieces, whether or not it's modeled appropriate to a particular ruleset's accepted baseline (for things such as scale and base size) and the general notions of good sportsmanship and fair play.

 Albertorius wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You need glasses. Thats an entirely debatable point, or rather you're right that its not debatable, because you're just wrong.

I can, and have, spotted 3d printed painted minis with absolute ease from across the table. Its even easier when you pick them up, theres a readily apparent difference in weight, and you can feel a textural/structural difference (even through paint) on the mini itself. This isn't really unique to me either, everyone in my group seems to be able to recognize the 3d printed knockoffs with relative ease - and I say this as someone who has 3d printed minis on a Phrozen Sonic 4k and mixed them into my squads of GW official minis. Nobody is fooled.

<rolls to disbelieve>

...right

Are you maybe talking about fdm printed stuff here? (I know you say you have phrozen sonic printed miniss, but still) Because I've made masters for moulds with resin printers and I can 100% assure you that the ones from the mould look, if anything, coarser than the master.

I'va also printed whole Epic and Warmaster armies that, if anything, are much better than any original minis.

In terms of 6-15mm stuff I'll give you that 3d printed minis look better than anything I've seen produced in metal (debatable on plastic, I'll have to do some comparisons with some of the plastic warlord 15mm acw minis I have sometime).

But in this case we're comparing resin 3d prints to GWs plastic, not cast resin. Cast plastic has much higher surface fidelity than resin does (although a high quality resin cast has much sharper edges than plastic does, 3d printed resin edges in my opinion aren't as sharp as cast resin).

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
To me the contention that 3d printed miniatures aren't good enough is absurd. As someone who owns dozens if not hundreds of hand-sculpted metal sculpts from the 80s and 90s that are really often quite crude or have some compromises, I've never considered them to be flawed by their imperfections. At the end of the day they're still just figurines. A metal, resin, or plastic ork with an outrageous machinegun in his hand will never be "real".

I think we're crossing some wires here. The "good enough" contention from earlier discussion was more about whether or not 3D printing tech was at a point where it would have mass market applicability (i.e. the masses would find it easier and more convenient to 3d print miniatures vs ordering plastic injection miniatures). The current discussion is more along the lines of overall quality comparison/value judgement of a 3D printed mini vs a GW plastic injection mini. If you're able to recognize and render a value judgement that your metal minis from the 80s/90s were crude and imperfect, then you're able to understand the discussion being had about how resin 3d printed minis compare to injection molded plastic ones in terms of quality. One position is that they are very closely comparable, to the point that 3d printed resin minis could be indistinguishable from GWs minis once painted, etc. The opposing position is that that is a gross exaggeration and there are noticeable differences in quality between them and spotting printed minis isn't particularly difficult.

Only thing I can say about that is that many of the latest GW minis painted on their page are actually 3d prints. Some have quite noticeable steps. I've noticed some myself when perusing GW's page, but apparently spikey bits did an article, so here:

https://spikeybits.com/2021/02/even-gw-is-using-3d-printing-for-faster-minis.html

(also, all of that is noticeable because it's aaaaaall zoomed in)

How well you have your settings dialed also make a lot of a difference. These guys for example came out almost flawless:

 Albertorius wrote:
Only thing I can say about that is that many of the latest GW minis painted on their page are actually 3d prints. Some have quite noticeable steps. I've noticed some myself when perusing GW's page, but apparently spikey bits did an article, so here:

https://spikeybits.com/2021/02/even-gw-is-using-3d-printing-for-faster-minis.html

(also, all of that is noticeable because it's aaaaaall zoomed in)

How well you have you settings dialed also make a lot of a difference. These guys for example came out almost flawless:

Spoiler:

Makes sense. 3D print the models and get them painted for promos before the setup for machines are even ready.

I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.

Yes, of course, but not, as you said, "with absolute ease from across the table". That is simply, in my experience, not true.

As for those Deathtroopers, its pretty easy to tell they are 3d prints - they look nothing like the actual deathtrooper sculpts made by FFG. Since nobody else is allowed to produce them as FFG has an exclusive license, theres really only one source for them.

chaos0xomega wrote:
As for those Deathtroopers, its pretty easy to tell they are 3d prints - they look nothing like the actual deathtrooper sculpts made by FFG. Since nobody else is allowed to produce them as FFG has an exclusive license, theres really only one source for them.

I... that's not the point. I like them because they look nothing like the ones from FFG. They're alternate sculpts. The fact that you can tell they're not the official ones don't mean they're bad, or even that they're prints, they could exactly as well be cast.

If your comments above that you could tell them apart from across the board is because they're different... I don't believe they have merit, TBH.

 Albertorius wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I'm well aware, thats hardly new news - they've been using 3d printers for almost a decade now to print prototypes, its fairly standard in the miniatures industry. In GWs case though, they are using some of those extremely expensive printers I mentioned before, not a hobbyist grade printer for a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.

You will also note, as you just pointed out, that even with those high end industrial pritners which run tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars that its still pretty easy to identify the indicators of it being a printed mini.

Yes, of course, but not, as you said, "with absolute ease from across the table". That is simply, in my experience, not true.

I mean, some of the preview minis GW has shown are very, very painfully obvious. In some cases, the stairstepping/layer lines are the first thing I notice, so yes - from across the table.

And again the quality on those prints is significantly higher than the prints that 99.9% of the people on this board and in this community have access to.

Dunno, I print my stuff and I think I'm getting pretty good results.

But I think that's as far as we'll be able to go with this.

Of course, you might have better sight than me, but I'm pretty sure I would absolutely not be able to see print lines from across the table:



(yes, yes, the bases, those are fdm and I use them for all minis. Now I'm using them for Stargrave ones, for example).