RagingRodian

This may be personal preference, but I would just skip using the plastic model in favor of the metal one until a suitable replacement plastic Nekima comes out. The metal one was a damn good looking model too! But if you adapted the plastic one maybe you will post a few pictures showing how you fixed it?

I would have to agree about the Young Lacroix. They were excellent before Ophelia's guns got way cut back, now I usually take them either because I like the metal models or if I am trying to out activate my opponent. I do want to try Old Cranky out, he looks really nice on paper. I went so far as to pick up a Taxidermist to use as the basis for a conversion, I just have to find a little time to convert and paint him up. I mentioned it in the Outcast Totems thread, but don't overlook the Student of Conflict in a Gremlin crew- her ability to give Fast stacks with Reckless, which opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans. Who doesn't love the idea of a Gremlin Kin model with 4AP?

I have to give a thumbs up to the Student of Conflict. I sometimes play a Misaki Outcast crew, and I usually take the Student as her totem. She pairs up really well with Hans, giving him Fast every turn and giving him some melee defense if anyone gets behind my lines. Throw in an elevated position and you can dish out some damage. The Student is also excellent as a mercenary in an Ophelia crew, as Ophelia's guns got so neutered it made having to take Young Lacroix very optional. Note that the Student's ability to give Fast stacks with Reckless, meaning you can a 4AP Gremlin running around every turn with a bit of good positioning. I also like my painted metal model, I know it isn't a tactical reason to take him (he looks like a boy to me) but just liking the model is often enough reason for me to put it on the table.

I would think that Gremlins would be one of the places where you could get away with mixing metals and plastics? That is if you were worried about heroic vs realistic scales? They are weird little swamp creatures after all. As long as the heights/scales of the models are correct it should be fine. The shame of it is Gremlins would have been an ideal faction to continue making metal models for. Their small size makes it easier to continue designing/casting good looking one piece models. Shoot, as I mentioned over a year ago if Wyrd still made a mix of metal and plastic models, and concentrated on making new plastics for holes in the line first rather than reinventing the wheel remaking new versions of current models we probably would have had a metal set of Brewmaster Gremlins to go with our Nightmare Whiskey Golem by now. Bit late now though.

Ah! I missed that part about being able to change your list every round. That is cool! Last year we did have a few "this is so the wrong crew for this" moments.......

Sounds like someone is preparing for the Adepticon Team Tournament?

For a Hungering Darkness proxy I would use a Shoggoth model, or some other Cthulhu monster from beyond. I believe Reaper has a good looking Shoggoth is their line? As an alternate a large wraith model should also work pretty well, as they are also ghostly horrors that feeds on human life forces? Ah, here we go, Reaper's Shoggoth, Night Spectre and a Grave Wraith: http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/shoggoth/sku-down/77115 http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/wraith/sku-down/14547#detail/14547_g_2 http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/wraith/sku-down/03274 For Jacob himself I have always taken it for granted that, should I even build his crew, I would be using Reaper's Benedict Baker in place of his relatively plain plastic one: http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Chronoscope/latest/50305#detail/50305_p_1_mj

I was initially drawn in by the metal models back before there was a Malifaux game. I found Wyrd at a little booth at Gen Con years ago, really liked the models, and bought a couple of them. Later on I saw Wyrd had a bigger booth and they were doing Malifaux demos but the game was a bit clunky- kept adding a few new metals to my collection though just because I liked them. Then second edition came along, I heard the rules were cleaned up a bit so I bought some Gremlins and found the local Henchman so I could learn how to play. I truly got lucky, as Sharp Objects runs a great Malifaux scene in my area. Now I am painting up some new goodies that I got during Black Friday to use in the team tournaments at Adepticon- hopefully we will do better than last year!

I found original recipe Dullcoat to be far and away the best, sadly it has been replaced by the current version of Dullcote. Still pretty good though. I have tried both Army Painted and Vallejo brush on matt varnishes a few times, each time well mixed with water but each time ending up with a frosted finish. Sure, I could fix them with a quick layer of brush on glass but then I had to matt them again. I may try that glaze medium trick next time, my only concern would be if normal handling would immediately rub it off and leave shiny spots on the model

Haven't checked out the new Alyce in person yet, but even keeping in mind the caveat that you can't really judge the finished models by the renders it looks like her legs are too long. About the plastic Ronin- yeah, their legs are way off. First time I saw them in person I had a "what the?" moment and actually measured them out. Like I said, way off and once you see it you can't unsee it. I bought myself a set of the metal ones instead to paint up for my crew. The one that really surprised me was Yamaziko. I bought her on the advice of my tag team partner for a team tournament, and sight unseen I bought her a 30mm resin base to mount her on. When I opened the box I was shocked that she had a 40mm base! At first I thought it could be because she had a weapon with a long reach, but then I realized that she already had a three inch reach and Misaki, who also carries a pole arm, only has a 2 inch reach with a 30mm base. Then I took a look at her legs and realized that her oversized legs + crouching = oversized base.

Play against Reckless Gremlins sometime, you will quickly see how valuable that extra AP can be!

I actually do look at the facial expressions, even going so far as to use an optivisor to help paint them in. I don't know about you but even if an enemy model starts on the other side of the table I am still going to want to get closer to check out the painted details! I have also found the realistic proportions thing with Wyrd's plastics to be a double edged sword. The style can make for some great looking models, as seen on some of GW's LOTR models and much of Tom Meier's work- they look fantastic. However, because you are doing realistic proportions you end up with very tiny details to paint, which can be tricky for some painters, and you end up with some pretty fragile parts especially if you make them in plastic. Going more towards your realistic silhouettes point though realistic proportions means that any anatomical or scaling mistakes stick out even more like a sore thumb. Sure, you can talk about style choices or suspension of disbelief or whatever, but if you make models that are supposed to be realistic these mistakes are glaring, and standing bad models next to correct ones makes the mistakes even worse in comparison. When you have models with oversized legs for example (hello Ronin...) they always look off, especially because there are other female models with correctly proportioned legs. When you have crouching models that are as tall as standing ones it looks wrong, especially if the crouching/kneeling model looks like it would be the same size as his standing buddies if he stood up. Finally, we actually have a Height stat in this game- we can empirically say some models should be taller or shorter than others, no excuses. When they aren't it is an obvious error.

Paul Muller also did most, if not all, of the metal Gremlins as well as a large chunk of the Resser minions and, if I am not mistaken, the whole Zoraida swamp fiends boxed set. While there were some "eh" metals in the old line most of Paul's stuff holds up very well. I initially built an Ophelia crew because I was lucky enough to spend some time with him in Nottingham during my GW days when he was working on the last versions of metal ghouls, he was a complete gentleman, very patient and willing to give advice to help with my budding sculpting skills. Off the top of my head I know Werner Klocke did the model for Lilith as well as the Mature Nephilim and Terror Tots. The man is a sculptor's sculptor, I actually feel bad for whoever had to remake his models in plastic. I would hardly call any of their work amateur.

Out of curiosity how well does the dried glaze medium hold up to handling?

I am fond of the Stitched in my Collodi crew, particularly when combined with My Will. You get positive flips on Gamble Your Life (which can also benefit from a shared Focus), and it ignores things like Hard to Wound making it a blessing for killing certain models. If you lose you can get your Stitched dropped down to 1 wound, triggering Reactivate. If your Stitched is Paralyzed you can still use this combo, and if you provoke a Horror duel you get a positive flip on the duel- which saves cards in your hand and may give you some immunity to Horror from the attacked model for the rest of the turn. If you are low on cards or your Stitched is already at 1 wound you can just switch to Game of Chance.

The example you give Fetid is for a limited release model, and it is difficult to recoup the costs of making limited models in plastic compared to metals. However, Nekima would be a general release that would have years to recoup its costs. We are talking about two completely different things here. I think it has been well established by now that there is a market for a correctly sized Nekima, and even if it cost $50 (which is still about $15 more than the metal one, but we won't get into that) people would rather have that. It would also help with Wyrd's scale issues and quality control image. If Wyrd wanted her to be that small she should have been Ht 2 and there should have been some sort of blurb in the book about her mysteriously shrinking to the size of a Nephilim that had its growth stunted. But that isn't what happened. For the record, I didn't buy Tara because I thought Tara herself was an ugly model, Karina was lackluster, and the Nothing Beast looked like Cthulhu arms and head stuck on top of a pile of...lets be polite and just say Cool Whip. There are better Cthulu type models out there. The little guys were the best looking part of the set, but I couldn't shake that "those three spindly legs are gonna snap off the base" feeling. All in all, it was a no sale for me regardless of price. Just my opinion of course, other people seem to like the set.

True, but we can ask for and should receive pictures of the models before we buy them. Wyrd has done this when asked about what a gaudy/translucent new limited plastic crew looks like. It is a fair request, what does the model look like especially in comparison to other models in the range?

I have used Oiran about half a dozen times and their Lure was next to useless. I also found them to be a bit...eh. I haven't tried them again with their new upgrade, it may make me decide to use them again. I don't think it is fair to compare anyone's Lure to the Belles though as theirs really is over the top and Belles do have a bunch of other abilities going for them besides Lure. I think comparing them to a Beckoner is more sensible as their Lure is pretty balanced.

Never seen anyone use they shafted ability but I have learned to dislike Crooked Men when playing Gremlins. I am particularly not fond of them starting the game on the table, finally getting picked off halfway up the table, then getting reraised as Drowned once they are in melee range to tie up my models further- despite this making absolutely no sense given the background on both Crooked Men and Drowned. But that is the game, no? I am sure if I ever get around to painting my metal Drowned and Crooked Men I would do the same thing.....

I keep them as assembly and painting reference. I do vastly prefer the design of the new cards though.

Both are good for making different models. You can do great things in plastic and metal, and they both have their advantages. The problems usually come up when someone tries to design a bad models using the wrong material- you have to keep in mind during design whether the model will be plastic or metal, it makes a huge difference in molding as well as how durable the final model will be. This is part of the reason why many companies that are making plastic models will also still make metal models. People will whine about how "hard to assemble" metal can be when in truth you can make a lot of awesome single piece models in metal that require no additional assembly, are nearly immune to breaking, and thanks to how they are molded will have better organic detail that wraps around the whole model, not just perpendicular to the mold lines (hair and fur in particular). You know how big the model will be BEFORE you mold it or pay the sculptor, meaning you can avoid many of the scaling problems Wyrd keeps having. However, you can end up with pretty clunky models when they start getting to be on the bigger side or in way too many parts. Again, that is more bad design than metal being "bad". Plastics can end up as kits in waaaay too many tiny parts, making them also "hard to assemble" and making them prone to breakage in packing or when being snipped off of the sprue. You can also end up with delicate, spindly parts that are prone to snappage and resnappage during packing, transport, or getting snagged on a sleeve (it has happened). Dgraz did give excellent advice concerning fixing this, but it is fiddly work that is prone to rebreaking. You also end up with worse detail in some cases due to the molding and casting process, and due to the cost/time of molding it is less practical to do small runs of limited models or get a fast turnaround on something new. You can't sell models in parts, you have to buy a whole sprue (or boxed set) even if you only want 1 model (such as trying to get a steam trunk...). On the up side plastics are cheaper (or should be cheaper), make for great mechanical models, and can be assembled using only plastic glue. Many of the problems with plastics can again be avoided with good design and proper planning, plastic itself isn't really "bad" either- just depends on what you are trying to do with it. What I will say is that it is complete rubbish when people start saying that they won't even think about getting a model based on whether it is plastic or metal, or start talking about nonsense like how that try not to game with metal models, or that all of the plastics are better than the metals (or the other way around)- that is just ridiculous.

There is a big difference between a model overhanging its base because it is supposed to be huge and a model ridiculously overhanging its base when it is supposed to be really small. Scaling has been an issue for years, this shouldn't still be happening- thus the guff.

I think the problem here is many sided, hopefully Wyrd can eventually fix this. First off, why are people still buying models based on renders? Renders are not the same as the finished product, you need to decide to purchase models based on the physical model. It is a bit surprising that people are still doing this despite the number of hiccups we have had along the way. We are also still dealing with Wyrd's throw out the baby with the bathwater approach towards their metals. They could have fixed their metal issues and continued making great metals but instead chose to go all plastic. The problem is that, while there were some dogs in the old metals (both literally and figuratively), there were a bunch of seriously kick ass models in metal. Granted, there are some plastics that aren't bad or are an improvement over the older models. Off of the top of my head I would definitely say that the new Waldgeists are much better than the old metal ones, the old ones were a little odd looking. But one of the responsibilities of replacing the great metal models is that you have to make a model that is an improvement over the old one. We just don't have that here, instead we have a replacement model that is faulty. Thus the disappointment. I find the comparison shots to Barbaros to really show off this problem. Nekima should never be as tall as Barbaros, Nekima is a Ht 3 model compared to Barbaros having a Ht 2. Additionally, in the background Barbaros is specifically described as having his physical size magically stunted- and Nekima is described as being huge. This model is an obvious mistake, and by now we should not still be seeing these sorts of scaling mistakes. One way to fix this while the Nekima model is correctly remade is to sell the current one as Alt Barbaros. This was a great suggestion put forwards earlier in the thread. With a bit of repackaging the opportunity could be taken to make back some of the costs from the current mistake, give us a chance to have a second Barbaros option that is a bit more....voluptuous, and allow people who had the old metal crews to get a henchman (henchdemon?) without having to buy a whole new crew box. Take this lemon and make some lemonade! I know people are going to have the "eww....metals!" reaction to the old one, and give that as a reason why the new one is "better". I have an old metal one, it looks fantastic. It has never come apart. It fits just fine into my Battlefoam case, and even my ten year old nephew is capable of carrying that case when it is full of metal models. If you use two part 5 minute epoxy with assembly you can avoid most if not all of the pinning with assembly and, once set up, you will need to rip the pieces apart again if you want to take it apart. Yeah, you may have to do a bit of putty filling but you have to do that with most models, that is a basic model building skill that you also need to use on the new plastics.

So if I understand this correctly.....the massive, kick ass and correctly scaled metal model actually costs less than the plastic one?

I always said "ar-can-ists" because I pronounced "arcana" like "ar-can-a". Not sure it is grammatically correct though. What annoyed me was GW using "codexes" instead of "codices".