What would you like to see in plastic?

[WolfLogic]

Essentially what the title says, what FW models would you like to see GW do in plastic?

 

For me I’d love Mark II, the Sicarans, and the Storm Eagle.

[Grotsmasha]

Obligatory Thunderhawk.....

[m0nolith]

Everything.

[Imren]

As I understand, resin (and metal) was/is used because it is easier to make highly detailed moulds for resin and metal compared to plastic. However, todays technology for plastic casting has improved and brought down the costs of creating plastic moulds and casting plastic, so I see no excuse for FW to switch to plastic for all new units. Obviously it is much easier to work with plastic and safer too´(less need to sand and file compared to resin and also better fit between parts).

[m_r_parker]

As I understand, resin (and metal) was/is used because it is easier to make highly detailed moulds for resin and metal compared to plastic. However, todays technology for plastic casting has improved and brought down the costs of creating plastic moulds and casting plastic, so I see no excuse for FW to switch to plastic for all new units. 

 

I was speaking to one of the model designers at this years Heresy Weekender around the difference in plastic and resin casting / manufacturing, and while plastic mould production has become cheaper and more detailed there are still limitations. One of the things he mentioned was the "three degree rule" which prohibited the use of extreme angles in plastic production in order to be able to open the moulds and remove the sprues. Resin moulds get around this by being a lot more flexible, therefore allowing for sharper edge angles and details, at the cost of mould lifecycle - apparently simple moulds only last 20 or so times before needing to be remade, with large and more complex ones only lasting a handful of castings.

 

As for units / models I'd like to see in plastic, I can't see any reason why base vehicle chassis shouldn't be put into plastic. I'm thinking of the Deimos pattern Rhino and the Sicaran. That way the bulk of the repeatable parts are plastic, cheaper to manufacture, and the optional parts to make Predators / Whirlwinds / Vindicators and the different Sicaran builds can be provided in resin.

 

On a purely personal level (whereas above a business case can be made), I'd love to see plastic Legion upgrade packs similar to the 40k Chapter upgrade packs. Two small sprues in a pack, one with 10 Legion power armour shoulder pads (plus an optional sergeant pad that's more ornate), a couple of heads and some bonus weapon options. The second containing 5 Legion terminator shoulder pads (plus optional sergeant pad), and additional legion-flavoured weapons and bling. 

[apologist]

Seeing more of the now sadly OOP Krootforms put into plastic is my dream. Such beautiful models.

 

Beyond Forgeworld, the small upgrade sprues are a fantastic concept that deserves to be more fully developed, and taken further than just Space Marines. Ork clans, Eldar craftworlds, Imperial Guard regiments, Tau septs, Necron dynasties, even Tyranid hivefleets and Mechanicus forgeworlds would all benefit hugely from more variety. Sprues with half a dozen new heads, and a few pieces of distinctive wargear etc. would be a treasure trove of material for converters, breathe new life into old kits, and be a great way for GW to give a push to older armies in between releases.

 

On a more specific level, I'd like to see more casualty figures. Very niche, I know, but having some dead models to scatter around (or use as markers to remind me to take morale tests) really adds to the feel of the game.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Apologist

[Closet Skeleton]

MK II tactical AND assault marines, Proteus Land Raiders. That will let me do the small Lunar Wolves display force I've always wanted at an affordable price.

 

For actually playing Heresy Mark V would be a must, having to pay through the roof for late great crusade models to play during the heresy was always unjustifiable to me.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Closet Skeleton

[Ficinus]

Assault marines and bikes (of the land or jet variety) would be my pick.

[Charlo]

MkII tacticals

Assault Marines (mkII aswell please)

Jetbikes

Rhinos (and other similar vehicles)

 

Some kind of Volkite.

[Marshal Rohr]

My ideal scenario is plastic base models with resin weapons and heads. Weird, I know, but the detail resin can handle and not having to worry about undercuts in an injection mold can give you a lot of detail on the things that draw the eye the most (faces, weapons). If we are talking pure plastic, I’d like a single box of ten marines in mark 2-4. A box of five in Mark 5-6. Then use forge World resin upgrade or plastic blister pack upgrades to make the various types of support and assault and breachers squads.

[Reyner]

Mk2 marines every time, would also like quad mortars to be plastic as they are proper expensive now!

[No Foes Remain]

Everything.

This. This right here.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I agree with the prevailing sentiment of wanting the 'base' miniatures in plastic - having all the marks of power/ terminator armour served by plastic kits as well as the basic Deimos Rhino & Sicaran hulls (the Sisters having Deimos chassis vehicles gives me a bit of hope here) would make starting an army easier and actually free up space in the resin range by allowing more units to be resin upgrade sets as opposed to full kits.

 

In complete pipe dream territory, each Legion having a full plastic 'Veteran' and 'Terminator Veteran' kit would compensate for the loss of many of the basic Legion upgrade sets, and players could 'dilute' the sets with the standard plastic kits to vary how ornate they want their Legionaries. Basically, I was thinking a plastic version of the Iron Hands MkIII squad, but for all Legions alongside an equivalent Terminator kit as well. Hell, throw in plastic incarnations of the standard bearer/ centurion command sets and you'd have a great Get Started set for each Legion.

[m0nolith]

Although I would prefer to have everything in plastic, it’s unlikely.

That being said, I believe the Specialist Games method would works fantastically for Heresy, the method where most of the range is in plastic, but upgrades, special Legion specific units, and characters are in resin.

[Suspira Mortis]

Mk. II and Production Mk. V power armour. However, my hopes for further plastic Heresy have been dampened by the arrival of Primaris and the fact that it has been about three years since BoP.

[Leif Bearclaw]

I'd just like to see plastic get better. One of the major QOL quirks FW resin have/had, that didn't translate to the plastic HH kits was the gun barrels. You didn't need to drill the resin guns because they came with muzzle indentations, unlike the flat gun ends you get with plastic kits.

 

Also, bring back the separate weapon upgrade packs, so you can mix and match weapon types and armour marks easier, as well as tool your Marines up properly with a plethora of stowed blades and pistols (it was so frustrating the MkIII plastics didn't come with enough for all 10 bodies).

[Zuvassin]

Trying to be realistic, and pretending I'm some sort of Horus Heresy range manager or designer who's pitching a request regarding Next (Plastic) Steps for the range. As such, my sales pitch would be (in order of greatest to least importance):

 

1. Legion Mk2 Armour

Reason: Replaces missing resin kit, pairs easily with Mk3 kit for players to convert and customize their units

 

2. Assault Weapon kits

Reason: Replaces somewhat fiddly resin (esp for things like lightning claws and swords)

 

3. Starter Kit / 3rd Horus Heresy Boardgame / Start Collecting Set

Reason: Provides low cost entry into the hobby in general, and a true starter set could also provide a small paperback rulebook for convenience, and a small set of Heresy-specific terrain for added cool bonus

 

4. Deimos Rhino and/or Proteus Land Raider

Reason: Allows current Deimos/Proteus and related kits (e.g. Predators, Scorpius Whirlwind, etc.) to reduce resin components and make easier to build Rhinos and base bodies for Preds; additional selling points I'd try to use would be that the designs could be tied into new CSM and/or Sisters of Battle kits for 40k (albeit at this design stage likely way too late) and allows the Horus Heresy range to 'take over' Marine kits that seem destined for retirement in 40k as Primaris and Primaris vehicles take over the (loyalist) Marine range

 

5. Retro-Themed Seasonal Sets

Reason: Much like the holiday and other bundles GW does for 40k, routine 30k sets would provide an excuse for certain plastic options (e.g. plastic MkV or MkVI armour sets), and making them somewhat 'retro' would be icing on the cake (and possibly increase appeal to 40k players as well). For example, sets with decent discounts mimicking the original box sets of 3 Rhinos or 2 Land Raiders, or an homage to the 2nd edition starter set that includes two squads of (say) MkV armour 'versus' several squads of Solar Auxilia and Militia/Cults (e.g. the Ork and Grot replacements), a plastic Auxilia/Militia Rapier (in lieu of the Ork Dread), and some Heresy-themed terrain would be kinda neat.

 

6. Replacements for anything "fiddly"

Reason: If there are any kits that are either just a pain to build using resin (ie their weight requires lots of pinning or reinforcing), or kits that have high replacement costs due to easily broken parts (both of my Dreadclaws have needed the access point piece replaced due to multiple broken "teeth"), those seem potentially ideal candidates to replace as ways to cut costs down on breakage and increase profits on making them less intimidating or advanced for newer gamers to tackle.

 

7. Anything popular in 40k

Reason: If there's anything in the HH range that happens to be appealing to 40k players, I'd try to use that as an opportunity to push for a plastic version, be it a Leviathan Dread or one of the flyers or whatever else it may be.

[Zuvassin]

 

I was speaking to one of the model designers at this years Heresy Weekender around the difference in plastic and resin casting / manufacturing, and while plastic mould production has become cheaper and more detailed there are still limitations. One of the things he mentioned was the "three degree rule" which prohibited the use of extreme angles in plastic production in order to be able to open the moulds and remove the sprues. Resin moulds get around this by being a lot more flexible, therefore allowing for sharper edge angles and details, at the cost of mould lifecycle - apparently simple moulds only last 20 or so times before needing to be remade, with large and more complex ones only lasting a handful of castings.

 

I believe that's why on the one hand, resin kits can be "few piece" while plastic kits tend to have to break down the relatively same part into multiple components (to retain the detail), and also while FW kits can run into fitting issues (as moulds run out, I believe they sometimes 'reverse-engineer' a new mould using casted parts, which results in slightly smaller parts over time - and if a vehicle uses multiple moulds, that means some of its parts start dropping out of 'scale' to the rest, so to speak).

 

I definitely love resin for how relatively few parts are needed in larger kits, but I wish there was almost a hybrid approach - say, for example, on a Deimos Predator, making the body a full one-piece resin rather than a multi-part hybrid kit, keeping the resin turret as is, but then leaving the tank treads, turret guns, and the sponsons/sponson guns as plastics for better durability.

 

[m_r_parker]

There are numerous issues with having kits made of a single large block of resin. From the technicalities of trying to fit such a piece in the mould, the amount of resin that would be required to make the piece and the associated weight in the casting process, to the increased cost of the product due to increased quantities of base materials. The likelihood of mould slips will go up as the pieces increase in size, and mould life would be cut short. It’s part of the reason why large 40k scale Titan models are the price that they are, they’re complex to design and cast.

 

I still believe there’s a decent business case for hybrid plastic / resin kits in the majority of ForgeWorlds range. Plastic kits forming the base model, reducing the amount of resin needing to be cast and providing consistent results, with resin upgrade parts for those pieces of higher detail and lower quantities. Another no-brained I thought of the other day was combining a plastic MkIII kit with resin boarding shields and gun arms to make breachers. The MkIII kit is pre-existing, and it wouldn’t take much to take the existing MkIII breachers and strip out the base legionnaires, and make a unit of ten cheaper than the existing full resin equivalents.

 

As an aside to this topic, I would love to see more thought from the design teams as to the integration of resin upgrade pieces into plastic kits at the join points. There’s already been some thoughts around magnets by the design teams, with dedicated magnet mounting points in the AT warlord Titan and some of the 40k Tau kits, and I’d like to see some similar thinking for how resin pieces attach into plastic. At the moment a lot of these connection points are flat, and as a result I take a religious viewpoint of using pins on every connection. Maybe some built on notches to increase surface area, or for things like dreadnought arms using a rotating catch like on the new Redemptor dread arms. That would be sooooooo useful to me.

[Lucerne]

New CSM, Plaguemarine, or even truescale Heresy Space Marine infantry. Mk V?

[Marshal Rohr]

There are numerous issues with having kits made of a single large block of resin. From the technicalities of trying to fit such a piece in the mould, the amount of resin that would be required to make the piece and the associated weight in the casting process, to the increased cost of the product due to increased quantities of base materials. The likelihood of mould slips will go up as the pieces increase in size, and mould life would be cut short. It’s part of the reason why large 40k scale Titan models are the price that they are, they’re complex to design and cast.

 

I still believe there’s a decent business case for hybrid plastic / resin kits in the majority of ForgeWorlds range. Plastic kits forming the base model, reducing the amount of resin needing to be cast and providing consistent results, with resin upgrade parts for those pieces of higher detail and lower quantities. Another no-brained I thought of the other day was combining a plastic MkIII kit with resin boarding shields and gun arms to make breachers. The MkIII kit is pre-existing, and it wouldn’t take much to take the existing MkIII breachers and strip out the base legionnaires, and make a unit of ten cheaper than the existing full resin equivalents.

 

As an aside to this topic, I would love to see more thought from the design teams as to the integration of resin upgrade pieces into plastic kits at the join points. There’s already been some thoughts around magnets by the design teams, with dedicated magnet mounting points in the AT warlord Titan and some of the 40k Tau kits, and I’d like to see some similar thinking for how resin pieces attach into plastic. At the moment a lot of these connection points are flat, and as a result I take a religious viewpoint of using pins on every connection. Maybe some built on notches to increase surface area, or for things like dreadnought arms using a rotating catch like on the new Redemptor dread arms. That would be sooooooo useful to me.

This is essentially what I am doing. Using the plastic mark 3 bodies with resin shield and bolter arms. I mix and match various mark 3 heads for flavor.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

If I could get Mk II tacticals/breachers, I'd be a very happy Interrogator-Chaplain. Throw in jetbikes and assault marines, and I would just hand GW my bank details.

[Master Sheol]

Everything.

^This

But i fear that we will not have anything new in plastic

Edited August 18, 2019 by Master Sheol

[Chaeron]

As for units / models I'd like to see in plastic, I can't see any reason why base vehicle chassis shouldn't be put into plastic. I'm thinking of the Deimos pattern Rhino and the Sicaran. That way the bulk of the repeatable parts are plastic, cheaper to manufacture, and the optional parts to make Predators / Whirlwinds / Vindicators and the different Sicaran builds can be provided in resin.

 

I think this would be ideal, definitely! The flexibility then to add that range of 'upgrades' over time would be really helpful. Doing the same thing for any core chassis so that it means you won't end up with a lot of excess kit (like the Fire Raptor) would also be useful too.

[Noserenda]

A Plastic Mk 5 kit , Assault marines maybe and definitely a core Sicarian. 

Unfortunately FW seem very anti plastic heresy so i wont hold by breath.