10mm plastic miniatures

[Techno]

I believe the ice cream makes it easier to swallow his tablets 'in bulk'. 
Cheers - Phil

[Orcs]

I believe the ice cream makes it easier to swallow his tablets 'in bulk'. 
Cheers - Phil

[Fenton]

I believe the ice cream makes it easier to swallow his tablets 'in bulk'. 
Cheers - Phil

Is that why they call them hundreds and thousands?

[Hertsblue]

Trouble is, you're all asking for "odds and sods" and there's no way they're viable commercially. The only Napoleonic ranges that stand even the remotest chance of being viable is your basic French line infantry, line cavalry etc. and the major opponents - like Austria.  And hey, you've already got them in metal.

The first thing I learned whilst casting my own figures was that there's no point whatsoever in creating moulds for a few figures. The only items worth casting are those that recur over and over again in bulk. As for specialist tanks and vehicles that you only need one or two of, you're better off converting your own from existing basic models.

[Dunnadd]

Zipee wrote

GW ditched their plastic 6mm Space Marines and 10mm Warhammer - not sure what that tells us about viability other than that small scales are possible 

I think GW just did this because they wanted to maximise sales of their 28mm figures by removing a cheaper alternative to them. They were selling warmaster (10mm fantasy) for about a decade. I doubt they'd have kept doing that if they weren't making some profits - though warmaster weren't plastic - the Battle of the Five Armies boxed set figures are.

[Zippee]

You're right I meant the BOFA stuff which didn't have a long shelf life in the end.

Trying to discern market trend and value from GW practices is impossible, they made 6mm and 10mm plastic, all that says is that it is practical to do so (which we knew anyway). Was it profitable? Who knows. Were they dropped because they lost money or competed with core product or due to internal politics, can't say. 

[Leman]

I suppose the above points should make us really appreciate the small company wargame manufacturers who are in it for the love of the hobby rather than to make megabucks. How little variety there would be without these people pushing the boat out.

[Hertsblue]

Absolutely. I look at some companies' listings and think - how many of those are you actually going to sell?

[Wulf]

Absolutely. I look at some companies' listings and think - how many of those are you actually going to sell?

My problem is, I keep looking & thinking 'Oh, that would be nice...'...

[paulr]

My problem is, I keep looking & thinking 'Oh, that would be nice...'...

Which is how those companies keep in business 

[Dave]

Not sure if this helps but I believe the development and tooling costs for a plastic set would be about 3-5000 GBP

I looked into it through work, at one stage, I had access to a injection moulding machine, this was 10 years ago and the quotes I got for a complicated mould was £5000 - £10000 range with aluminium moulds being at the cheaper end of the price range, steel being more expensive.  You basically spark errode the material away.

Dave