GW seems less bad now

[DWest]

As part of a side project I ended up working on a Revell brand scale model car kit, and as a result of the experience I find myself saying "GW doesn't look as bad anymore"- for $22, the kit was very crude, with nasty thick plastic and poor detail, and I had to grind nearly 1mm thickness of plastic down to get the halves of the engine block flush with one another. If this level of price to quality is typical of mainstream models, then I find myself somewhat more willing to pay the GW premium. I know there's Tamiya as an alternative, but I've had bad flash problems with kits purchased from them in the last year.

So my question is, did I get an unusually bad experience, or is this about the norm?

[SonicPara]

Either a bad experience or Revell kits just aren't very good in general. Try spending $22 on a Bandai Gundam model kit and you will be blown away. Only detail painting is required and the mobile suit will have full articulation and a full suite of accessories.

Really makes new offerings like the $85 Riptide look like the overpriced gak it is.

[Mr Mystery]

I've found the Gundam models to be nice, but (not being designed for it) not robust enough for gaming. And there's the rub.

GW kits have various demands on them only other war games models face. They need to fulfil the rule of cool, and being practical enough for gaming. This limits things like joints, as they can't be too thin due to the general bumps and scrapes even the most carefully packed model will face when travelling.

And GW continue to play around with the designs. Seriously, go back even 5 years and you'll see a noticeable change in the level of detail and 'cool'.

Go further back, say 1997 and the release of the first multipart Chaos Warriors, and they've come on leaps and bounds!

[Magpie]

How big is a $22 Gundam model?
Can it be made into other variants?
Am I reading it right that they come pre-painted? That would suck for me.

Like MrMystery says it's horse for courses you can't really comapare the 2.

[Houghten]

I've never had quality problems with a Revell or Tamiya kit before; they've always gone together very nicely.

Airfix, on the other hand... >.>

[Renegade]

I've never had quality problems with a Revell or Tamiya kit before; they've always gone together very nicely.

Airfix, on the other hand... >.>

Airfix was always better than the other two, and Revell had a name as being cheap and nasty. This is going back a few year mind.

For what it is, GW is not badly priced, and those that complain are far to use to stuff made in China.

[PalinMoonstride]

How big is a $22 Gundam model?
Can it be made into other variants?
Am I reading it right that they come pre-painted? That would suck for me.

Like MrMystery says it's horse for courses you can't really comapare the 2.

Gundam models are around titan sized, but skinnier since they are humanoid robots.
Gundam models don't usually have alternate variants, though they do often come with all the equipment seen in the shows.
They come on colored plastic sprues. Amazingly they somehow get different colors all on the same sprue.

Honestly, I was impressed with my first gundam model. (Sword Impulse)

[Necron2.0]

I've collected model kits for years, but then I mostly collect pre-2000 kits that have gone out of production. In my own personal experience, the heyday of plastic models was probably the mid to late 70's, topping out at the very early 80's, and back then even Revell was pretty good quality. Naturally, things have gone down hill since then.

The question I'd ask is "What scale was the model you were building?" The second question I'd ask would be "At that scale, what from GW could you get at a comparable price?" If you were paying a half to two thirds less for a comparable kit with some minor molding defects, I'd say you got a deal.

[Deadlift]

The only comparison I can make model wise is with PP, whilst I do like their war machine models very much and the prices of both GW and PP products don't really bother me, it's the ability to customise and kit bash GW kits that swings it for me in a comparison. I think the detail in GW products takes some beating too. Avatars of War however have some fantastic heroic models that I think are on par with GW fantasy models. But again its come down to how versatile those GW kits are and all those spares that swings it for me as my favourite model company.

I like the plastic GW use too, the resin/plastic PP use is not to my liking.

[Denzark]

I've done 'traditional' scale military modelling and the quality on a lot of kits is disappointing. There did indeed seem to be a 'golden age' as Necron 2.0 referred to, a lot of the kits seem to have really poor and weak plastic.