tmod

Well said! :-)

Note that he was saying he uses Airbrush paints with a brush. It's agood tip! When it comed to price vs quality the answer is Army Painter Warpaints. They are pretty much the most out there, and as good or better than most alternatives. Rather small range if you're looking for something very specific is the major downside. Washes are very good, but stay away from the dipping stuff, and I find their coloured primers unnecessary gimmick, but ithers like them...

I think the conversion issue is interesting here. I think GW models tend to be boring and static enough (or you need more of eache!) that you need to convert some in order to have interesting units. The flipside is that they tend to be pretty easy to convert. Wyrd minis tend to be much harder to convert, but it's extremely rare that I find myself wanting to change the appearance of Malifaux minis. The problem arrives when you need more than five Bayou Gremlins, more than three Witchling Stalkers, or similar. I've solved this using metals so far, but with time this will cease to be an option, and conversions might be needed... All in all I'd consider this in Wyrd's favour quality-wise, but I see how one can appreciate how GW does this as well...

It seems most people tend to be so much in agreement it's almost starting to become embarrassing (this is supposed to be an Internet forum after all!!), but I had the opportunity to illustrate my earlier point with a nice photo, so here goes: On the left is a wyrd hog wisperer, with one foot in the air, leaving a single contact point with the base. On the right is a khorne bloodreaver body in a somewhat similar pose that I'll convert into a possessed mordheim character. The pose is similar, but instead of leaving the model with a single attachment point GW has added a shrub (or similar) connected to off-ground foot, thus leaving the model with two solid contact points. I think this perfectly illustrates different approaches to realism, detail, dynamism and robustness. From a purely aesthetic point of view I think the hog wisperer is superior. While it's true that there could be exactly one shrub on the entire battlefield, it's a little too convenient it's located exactly next to the raised foot. This gets worse if you have more models in the warband were they've used the same trick, which is often the case with GW kits! To be fair, GW have improved here, using much natural connection points than earlier. My brother used to collect Bretonnians in the 90s, and those plastic horses had huge plastic tufts of "grass" supporting galloping hooves... From a robustness perspective it should be equally obvious the bloodreaver will be able to stand much more abuse than the hog whisperer, and that is certainly an objective quality. Furthermore in GW's defence, it's easier to cut off the shrub if you don't like it than it would be to add something similar to the hog whisperer. That said, I think the wyrd approach has a more premium/display quality to it, whereas GW has a more utilitarian quality. This utilitarian design philosophy is also obvious in some of the oldest and most persistent criticism of GW models: the oversized heads, hands, feet and weapons, in short the 'Heroic scale'. 'Heroic scale', or a scale where some parts are oversized, often to a ridiculous degree, has two major advantages: easier to produce robust models (thicker weapons shafts, etc) and easier to paint details. Apart from different scale types (heroic vs realistic) I think the two models in the picture highlight a key difference between the companies, namely where they're willing to compromise. GW won't compromise robustness, so they add a shrub to the raised foot. They are however willing to compromise on aesthetics. I'm thinking specifically of the khorne icon on the left thigh. Because it doesn't follow the contour of the leg (naturally) it varies a lot in thickness, and the back sort of "melts" into the thigh. It's a small thing, but it doesn't look good. Wyrd would have included this as an annoying separate piece, and after a lot of filing and cursin (and possibly a fight with the carpet!) the end result would've been better on purely aesthetic grounds. For it makes no difference, I'll file it iff anyways, but I find it's a good illustration of the different approaches. I think quality is a problematic term when comparing gw and wyrd. I think wyrd in many respects surpases in aesthetic qualities, the details are at least as sharp on the hog whisperer (and you don't get the compromises due to wanting fewer parts!). GW is clearly ahead when it comes to robustness, but is that what people have in mind when they mention "high quality plastics"? It's more fair to say gw has it's distinct style, which it does pretty well (though aesthetically ot does seem to be changing for a more Blizzard influenced style), wyrd have another style which it also does pretty well. GW's weakspot has always been realism, I feel wyrd's weakspot is robustness and ease of assembly. Where gw goes doesn't really concern me, but I hope wyrd keeps improving their weakspots, but on the tradeoff between dynamism and realism on the one hand and robustness and ease of assembly on the other I vastly prefer where Wyrd are at the moment to where GW are...

I believe they tried to outsource stuff some years ago, but stopped due to panic over pirated copies... I might have this wrong, but it does seem to fit in with GW's thinking the last decade. Also remember that it's a long while since GW had to develop technology themselves, hips plastic production is a pretty big industry, miniatures notwithstanding... There probably was a bit of a learning curve turning hand-sculpted masters into moulds, but GW has been using digital design for some time, with the software available to anyone. I'm not going to pretend there's not a learning curve as to what transfers well from screen to plastic, and the skill of the sculptor is as important as ever. But was is new is that the know-how is more available. CAD is a medium I suspect most designers are educated in using, green stuff and toothpicks is rather more niche. Similarly, there are probably thousands of companies worldwide struggling with how to transfer the small, detailed CAD sculpts into plastic. This means there are going to be solitions on the market for this as well! Oh, and great post by the way! That is certainly true, but I remember it as pretty solid intel... Either way, they still keep a sizeable part of the production in-house, whereas everybody else use third party manufacturers...

Best of luck in the IP! :-)

Som'er, Ophelia and Wong are very solid starter boxes, leaving you with several models useful across masters. Mah contains Trixiebelle, but the rest of the box is less universally useful. Old Major from Ulix is also solid, but wild boars are more niche. Somer is a good hog-master, so I'd get him and the one you prefer the aesthetically of Ophelia/Wong. Otherwise, Slop Haulers are great, so is Merris and Sammy (and rooster riders when they get released!). Not having too much choice (analysis parslysis) can be a good thing in the beginning, so I wouldn't advise getting more than a few masters and some extras from the outset... Oh, and the Pigapult has its uses with all masters, piglets are useful with Lenny (from the Bayou Boss box set), and Gracie is all round good as well (and combos well with Lenny as well)...

I believe they tried to outsource stuff some years ago, but stopped due to panic over pirated copies... I might have this wrong, but it does seem to fit in with GW's thinking the last decade. Also remember that it's a long while since GW had to develop technology themselves, hips plastic production is a pretty big industry, miniatures notwithstanding... There probably was a bit of a learning curve turning hand-sculpted masters into moulds, but GW has been using digital design for some time, with the software available to anyone. I'm not going to pretend there's not a learning curve as to what transfers well from screen to plastic, and the skill of the sculptor is as important as ever. But was is new is that the know-how is more available. CAD is a medium I suspect most designers are educated in using, green stuff and toothpicks is rather more niche. Similarly, there are probably thousands of companies worldwide struggling with how to transfer the small, detailed CAD sculpts into plastic. This means there are going to be solitions on the market for this as well! Oh, and great post by the way!

Thanks, awesome! T.

Sounds good! I've spent my hobby budget this month (and we've got some taxes coming up), but if you've still got it available over the next weekend or so I'm in! Of course, if someone wants it sooner, feel free to sell...

What are you looking to get for the mat?

I started out with a hardware comoressor, a moisture trap/regulator, and a harder & Steenbeck brush. One of their cheapest ones, but still not exactly cheap... Very happy with this as a starting setup...

They are very good! Their washes are awesome, and their metallics are good (but I tend to prefer Vallejo Air Metallics). I use an airbrush for priming and stuff, so find their 100% spray colour match gimmicky, but could possibly be useful if you want to be quick about painting (skipping base coating). Similarly I've never tried their dipping system, and I'm not inclined to either. Apart from this their regular paints are very, very good for a very reasonable price. Their only major downfall is that the range is smaller than many others. I use warpaints as my go to paints, and use Reaper, Vallejo, P3, etc, for very specific tones. I find that they are better mixed, thin well, are easier to use than for example Vallejo (they don't separate), but nothing in the warpaints line can replace deck tan for example... In short, the best bang for your buck for most basic colours. Some specifics are better from other brands, but that's the way it's always going to be...

That's the thing, if one is to talk about quality at all one must try to divorce it from subjective aesthetics and tastes, otherwise it becomes meaningless. I hate the look of the new sigmarines, but can appreciate the build quality (ease of assembly) wich is great, level of detail which is ok (worse than typical Wyrd, but not bad), and dynamics which is horrible for most of them (I planned to use a few as statues, but had to abandon the idea due to bad poses). Similarly the Khorne guys have more detail than signarines (the ones I've seen at least), but most is thin relief on the main parts (stuff hanging from belts closely next to the legs, etc) whereas Wyrd tend to include these as separate pieces. Wyrd's approach results in objectively more detailes sculpts (higher detail quality), but more less robust with pieces sticking out more (poorer build quality) and much more work in assembly. There are several reasons to prefer either GW's style or Wyrd's style, but not because GW make higher quality kits with more detail overall. It's just a different approach to the trade off between realistic looks on one hand, and robustness and ease of assembly on the other. I mentioned that I don't like the new AoS aesthetics much, but I've still gound occasion to study them closer. I'm using the unbooted Bloodreaver body as a starting point for a heavily mutated possessed for our group's Mordheim revival. As finished minis they're not great (and horribly out of scale!), but as a basis for a demon-possessed small giant they fit the bill perfectly! Heavily converted cultists from Dark Vengeance and frostgrave models fill out the rest of the warband...

Yeah, otherwise stuff submerged in water should be unable to rust at all. Easy enough to see for yourself...

Not trying to bring GW down either, they do indeed produce some technically very nice kits (increasingly of a rather weird aesthetic, but tastes doesn't matter for kit quality/detail level) and they tend to be very easy to put together. What I was trying to challenge (sort of) is the claim they are in a league of their own. They aren't. Before digital sculpting they did have a lot fixed advantages over any competition. They had the best sculptors in the world, the best casters in the world, and the best distribution in the world. You may not have liked their style, but they had a head start on quality versus pretty much everyone. Digital sculpting have been a revolution, in that it's a much more generic technique. This means that you don't need to hire from the very small pool of specific miniature soldiers scultors, but many more designers have the skills needed to produce basically the same quality sculpts. GW use Z-brush like everyone else! This also means that you can use factories set up for any kind of plastic production, greatly diminishing the comparative advantage of have everything in-house. This has been a great equaliser when it comes to sculpting quality, with some one-man operations on kickstarter being able to beat quality and detail of the great GW. They tend to struggle competing with ease of assembly and production logistics though, and you tend to get issues like The Great Gremlin Delay debacle a few years back, the probably-not-to-scale-but-to-expensive-to-fix Nekima and the like...

Been missing you, hope you're back soon! :-)

I agree on the AoS vs everything else thing here. The AoS plastics are NOT terribly detailed, and most is less impressive than a lot of Wyrd stuff. A lot easier to put together though, and a lot fewer parts. FW resin is a different story, but then again, resin is a completely different medium. FW is not the best resin brand out there either, but quality is still very impressive...

Not the only one! :-) Awesome skintone!

Not the only one! :-) Awesome skintone!

Pretty much all types of steel will rust eventually if left soaked in paint for a prolonged amount of time. Get glass balls or balls if lava rock instead. Cheap, just as good shakets as steel and won't react with the paint in any way... Back in the day Reaper used to add pewter skulls to their paint bottles as shakers. Don't know if these are discontinued, but I think they might be. The extra weight could be a small benefit, but a few extra shakes should more than outweigh the risk of something reacting with the paint...

Squadron and Liquid GS both have their uses, but standard gap filling is not it for either of them! What you want is somerthing that cures slightly softer than plastic (Squadron/LGS are both a little on the soft side) for easy filing, has a slight ability to dissolve plastic so the blend becomes unnoticeable (plastic glue does this to some degree naturally, squadron does it as well, lgs does not), is easy to get into the cracks (squadron is not, lgs works if thinned with water), does not crack (squadron is pretty bad here) and does absolutely not shrink (both are bad at this!). Liquid GS is good for altering the surface texture of a mini (especially metal), and for minute hairline cracks (in many layers), and not much else. Squadron is a decent putty for metal minis, with being single component being it's only real advantage over milliput. Automotive fillers are similar but better at this... What you want for plastic gap filling is mr. Hobby's Mr. Dissolved Putty. It's a jar with a rather unremarkable polystyrene based single component putty (Mr. Putty) very similar to Vallejo's Plastic Putty, but with a twist. It's dissolved in a thinner (Mr. Thinner, sigh...) containing the same solvents used in poly cement. Thus it will bond better to the plastic, and create seamless joints. It shrinks little, and because the hardness it files very easily once completely dry. Jars are easy to come by on eBay, and are cheap. Never leave with lid off, always shake AND stirr before use, apply with a toothpick and file with very fine sandpaper or filing sticks. No gaps, no joints, no cracks, only smooth surfaces! Doesn't really work as well with resin/metal/PVC (not tried PVC yet myself, though) due to different hardness, and incompatibility of the solvent...

Not saying it doesn't work, cyanoacrylate (super glue) can glue most materials, but by not using plastic cement you loose out on one of the main advantages of plastic. But it's harder and more brittle than styrene plastic, meaning it's harder to file without damaging the plastic, it doesn't reduce/remove gaps without filling the gap with actual glue (see the filing issue above), you have no wiggle room as the glue sets quickly, it has a very low shear strength, and it creates an inflexible joint with a different strength compared to the plastic around it. Usually the joint will be weaker that the plastic, but sometimes it will stronger. In all cases it will flex much less, which creates additional stress on the joint and the plastic immediately next to the joint, in all cases leading to a weaker connection... Again, if you're used to ca from metal minis and are happy to work around the disadvantages, super glue makes perfectly fine minis. The biggest advantage of ca is that it glues pretty much anything, so if you want to use resin/metal bits/bases you need superglue in your case anyway...

If using superglue, scoring is a good tip. However I would never suggest anyone struggling with plastic should try superglue. Superglue is much harder to work with, especially when filling gaps later on. What I would advise is using a very thin (as in more liquid) plastic cement, preferably using a brush... Tamiya makes an extra thin cement that id awesome to work with...

The turn ends when all models have activated and spent all of their ap. Doesn't matter how it's spent (walking, shooting, fighting, tactical actions etc.) A charge (usually, some models may charge using only 1 ap) cost to AP but allows the charging to make two 1 ap ml actions for free. Willpower is mostly used for defending against attack targeting willpower, much like df is used for defending against attacks targeting df...