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Overall I rank best to worst medium as:
1. Pewter - very durable, minimal assembly for rank and file, great details, difficult to convert, limited poses
2. Plastic - durable, good details for modern kits, easy to convert, best choice by far for large models,
requires a lot of assembly time
3. Lead - Basically the same as pewter although less durable and slightly easier to convert
4. FW Resin - amazing details, have to deal with warped pieces, air bubbles and material is fragile
5. Finecast - Similar to FW resin but casting errors are far more common. Material is a bit softer which
helps reduce breakage but also lowers the warping temp
I'm a true gaming fanatic and have thousands of models across all of the above materials. Every casting medium has pros and cons and they serve different functions. I used to prefer metal over plastic with no question, but plastic technology has advanced to the point that the two mediums are almost interchangeable... and large elaborate kits are far and away better realized in plastic. If plastic tech keeps advancing it very well may edge out pewter for me in a few years. I just love living in the golden age of wargaming.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Cap'nSmurfs
oh no! a small bubble!
When that bubble is the exact size and shape of the model's extended finger, it doesn't seem so small.
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I can only speak to my experience. I know there's some horror stories out there.
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I've never had bad finecast. I know it definitely happens, but they do replace it and it isn't nearly as prevalent as when it was first brought out.
Pretty much anything is better than metal in my opinion, due to the weight of the parts making models unbalanced and ease of chipping.
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I don't buy finecast. I will always take the metal versions if available.
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I have been using metal since I started in 1990. I almost never pin anything - unless I have done some sort of conversion like a hand, head or weapon slot. This goes for big stuff a la dreadnoughts - no pinning unless absolutely necessary. I don't use GW glue, I have quite a good other company at the mo.
Maybe I am just ingrained to the use but never seemed to think they were all that problematic - although harder to clean up mould lines than plastic.
I have got in my head that GW changed its metal or metal mix after a while - the old RT minis seemed to have a really dingy dark grey look and were solid. I have always assumed these to be lead. Later seemed to be quite clean - some sort of white metal (I know people often say pewter but not sure that is what it is?). I also noticed that these later models did not feel as solid and if you held them by the slotta tab and gently hit them off a surface or jangled some in your hand, they would make a chinking noise that the old ones wouldn't.
I have no innate prejudice against finecast and I'm not sure calling it 'failco$t' or some such represents the highest pinnacle of mirth we ever see on these hallowed pages. I have only used one model of fine cast - an Astorath to convert to Kharn for the overhead axe swing.
I think I would say plastic for troops, metal for characters. Because, as Boris the Blade said, 'Heavy is reliable'.
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Think the change occured in the late nineties, as it was lead when I started about 95ish and I vaguely remember the new metal ads in WD.
I think its a pewter alloy as opposed to pure pewter. :confused: but who knows without being in GW procurement?
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Yup. Change to White Metal, triggered by EU legislation about lead content in toys etc that eventually never passed.
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I think one of the most fundimental things people need to realise between the Plastic/Resin/Metal arguement, is a matter of scale.
If you have sourced a collection of the older plastic figures (produced before 1998ish) you will notice when you compare them to today's figures, the scales are off, so you need the metal figures for command squads and such for those units.
before 1998 the scale was more like True 25mm (the scale used for LOTR/Hobbit range) afterwards any metal and plastic produced was to the current 28mm Herioic scale.
for me I now need to scour the websites looking for a small number of metal mini's to complete these older retro army units of mine, I'd prefer them in plastic, but I can't use that medium because of the scale issue.
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A good point on scale DR. The old RT book states that 1" was roughly 2m in terms of game scale. So if 1" = 25mm (real life) then that means 3mm = 1/8" (ish) or, in games scale, 1/8 of 2m = 25 cm.
So although on original 25mm scale new heroic scale would be up to 25cm taller in real terms, when models are posed and on slottabases I really don't see much difference except on terminators and stuff like that - its less than a foot in height.
Actually I understand GW have always skewed the size of heads, used disproportionate bodies etc to accentuate the minis. So whilst 25-28mm citadel don't seem to figure, I find using 28mm heroic citadel against 25mm other companies (say kryomek or aliens colonial marines) the latter look quite puny.
