Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Resin is Dead, Long Live the New Plastics!

Hey All!


Its a good time to be a 15mm Gamer! With the new Kids on the Block, namely, Plastic Soldier Company and Zvezda, putting out better and better (and cheaper) products, Battlefront has had to shake up its product line. Life is too short to spend HOURS cleaning up a pair of tracks to assemble a poorly cast and detailed miniature.  So much of the sculpting on resin is crooked and skewed or frail and prone to breakage.  

After assembling Battlefronts T34/76 - 85 all-plastic kit, I realize it is going to be damn near impossible to go back to the resin/metal kits...
Battlefronts All-Plastic boxed set, the SBX30 T34, is in a word, AWESOME! And the detail is borderline fantastic! Even 'straight-out-of-the-box', you will have in your mitts a damn good rendition of the T34/76C M42  or T34/85 M44.  

Things like tracks and boggies are complete as soon as you remove them from the sprue.  Detail is crisp, straight and accurate. Sure there is always room for improvement but this is a winner! 
I added grab irons to replace the simplified ones on the turret and hull and also have begun to replace the overly-simplified light.   I find the hard plastic is of a good quality, think more of a PVC than a polystyrene.  All parts are virtually flash free and fit is very good although you will have to sand the joint on the turret. Price is steep but cheaper than the resin-metal. 

I am a convert - for me its all plastic from now on.  Yes, I have a shit-ton of resin unbuilt so I will still be building them (or flogging on eBay) but my money is now only going to be spent on plastic vehicles.  I still think that metal soldiers are the way to go as the current plastic offerings from all companies are too brittle for small parts and gaming and some major detail is lost due to the plastic mold process but for tanks and trucks, plastic rules! 

As I said, its a good time to be a 15mm Gamer!

Cheers,

Troy 

9 comments:

Cameron said...

Totally agree. I really like the new plastic kits I have built from battlefront. I like the slightly chunkier details over psc. I saw you painted some psc infantry. I really like the battlefront plastic infantry. Not perfect accuracy but much more paintable detail than the metal models imo.

My next company will be based on which nation has the most complete plastic options. I'd rather not buy anymore resin and metal vehicles.

Braxen said...

Good article!

At the moment I am doing projects in 28mm but can't bear anymore the metal. If there is a set in plastic, I am going for it instead.

Weight, conversion, ease of painting 8 figures on a stick at once, quality improvement, price.

All is here. Same in 15mm, rarely go back to resin, let alone metal.

Chevalier de la Terre said...

Agree completely: plastic vehicles and guns are the way to go. I still prefer metal infantry, though clean-up to get a good model is still a chore.

CdlT

Catweaseloz said...

What did you make the grab handles out of?

WWIICentral said...

Thanks for the write-up Troy! I recently purchased the Battlefield Plastic PzIVH and it is fantastic as well... I like it better than PSC. I wondered about the T-34's and this answers it for me.

On a side note, I also picked up the new Resin/Metal PzIII and PzIV from Battlefront and they are pretty darn good. The tracks are cast in metal and it's clear that the plastic tracks were used as the master. Still not quite as good as Plastic in my opinion, but WAY better than their previous PzIII and IV crap.

Furphy said...

Thanks for posting Troy, for me plastic is the way forward and I am waiting for more plastic infantry the plastic panzer grenadiers were a joy to paint and in my opinion more easy to paint with better detail .
Regards Furphy .

Ritterkrieg said...

Bent florist wire tho any type will do.

Paul O'G said...

Couldn't agree more Troy! I still have a funny feeling when picking up such a light bit of plastic though :-)

I'm really looking forward to PSC expanding their range to cover the spread of North African vehicles.

Treadhead said...

Hi Troy,

I've been following your blog and site for a while now. Do you still do anything with your micro armor or is that on the back burner?