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Hi all,
I'm tempted by the BF discount on the Fallout miniatures game. I'm wondering though, is the PVC any good? Does it compare favourably to the resin version? Or should I hang on and buy the resin instead at a later date?

The PVC is pretty terrible. The human ones need weapon and head swaps to be good, the super mutant ones work out ok with the larger scale, but compared to resins, they suck.

Ah crud. Maybe I'll cancel my order then...

The starter set PVC models can be painted to a standard where they make passable game pieces, but as said there's just no comparison to the resin models.

Purely from a quality point they're less terrible models and more entirely unsuited to the material. PVC works fine for Star Wars Legion with large, friendly, somewhat heroically scaled models that don't have fine detail. For the same reason, the Super Mutants in the starter set look superior to the humans, and there's nothing wrong with the even larger Deathclaw. The problem the Super Mutants suffer is while cloth and mountains of muscle work fine in PVC, the finer detail of their faces is not captured on the models. Modiphius's choice of realistic proportions is simply not compatible with the material.

By contrast the resin models are very much superb, sporting fantastically fine detail and in my opinion they are very much worth getting, and if the decision is between resin or PVC, I'd choose resin without a second thought.

One thing to consider is that you very likely want the starter set for the cards and dice (and obviously the rule books won't hurt). Wasteland Warfare is built around the cards and many basic cards are found in the starter set and (I think) nowhere else. Now getting the rules for equipment is easy by downloading the PDFs from Modiphius's website, but if you want to build a loot deck to draw from in settlement mode or during games, it will obviously be beneficial to have the cards so you can mix them with cards from other boxes to make a random loot deck (same goes for events and all the other RPG elements that make narrative mode fun.

You definitely need the dice to play, and having the cardboard markers isn't a bad idea. Combined with the cards and the nice Deathclaw model I don't think you need to feel bad buying it at 50% off. In that case I'd consider the subpar PVC models a bonus that will give you pre-assembled models for a quick start into the game.

One last point, I don't know about your skill level or interest in painting, but as said the resin models have very fine detail. Having thematically fitting PVC models to practice painting on and get in the right frame of mind can be beneficial if you come from larger, more heroically proportioned models like GW's.

Here's my painted starter set for reference. I'd say the worst models of the group are the Settlers which have a few details which I had to look up on the resin models to figure out what I was actually painting, and Nora who I painted after the resin model so I instantly became very well aware of the difference in detail quality.

I have no experience with actually handing the resin, though have looked at it. If you want to save money go with the PVC. In any other instance I'd recommend the resin.

With the PVC Starter set I bought the quality of figures was fairly subpar. The detail is shallow to the point of obscuring what you're looking at completely. Thinner models are flimsy. The larger ones are chunky enough to be sturdier - but still have some give. You don't have to replace the heads/ weapons, but I would with any other set. Unfortunately you're paying for those licensed weapons, so if you're replacing them with other things then what's the point in spending so much on the figures instead of using something else?

If we're showing figures off... I took the opportunity of the terrible material to convert the Lone Survivor which comes in the set. Her (and the Settler's) pose wasn't great. They missed a trick by not giving her the pose off of the video game's box art and instead went with a generic one. Her pistol was salvageable as it was small. The rifle had to go. And her head's replaced by one from Wargames Factory female survivors.



I've criticised the starter set in the main news thread before on its production values. The PVC vs resin - rather than all resin - cheapens the product. However given the price of the regular box sets I imagine they went with the cheaper material to lower the bar of entry. You can live with the PVC, but knowing that there's a better product out there as you deal with its shortcomings may grate on you.