Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Privateer Press is Upping Their Game...

When trying to get friends (specifically 40k friends) into playing Warmachine/Hordes the single biggest gripe is how bad the models look. I will be honest that is why it took me so long to get into WM myself. Now that I am into the game my biggest gripe so far has been how impossibly terrible the materials they use for the models actually are. The metal is fine, its metal although sometimes how they fit or where they decide to break a model up leaves much to be desired. The plastic though...ugh. It's so terrible. Mold lines everywhere, normally across major detail, like around the mouth of the Storm Troll for example. That is all changing, and fast.

With Privateer Press's most recent release they have started using a new Resin for single characters and GW style hard plastic model kits for their large models. Both are massive jumps in quality versus what they used to employ. I recently picked up the new Dozer and Smig character Dire Troll. Check out how incredibly crisp this model is right out of the box. Virtually no clean up (small bits here and there).




With all my other Dire Trolls (especially the EBDT and Mulg) I had a couple hours worth of clean up and putty work just to get them to fit together and cover up the huge gaps were pieces didnt fit. Not this guy. Dry fitting him has almost no gaps. I will need almost no green stuff to actually complete him. I am going go paint him in stages starting this weekend (more pics). I am super excited that this is the direction Privateer Press is going as it looks like all new kits are this quality.

2 comments:

Dave Garbe said...

I gotta agree and disagree here. First, I think Privateer Press models are gorgeous compared to their GW counterparts. Lots more detail, dynamic poses and so on.

As for them not fitting together well... 100% agree. Warmachine models seem to be mostly fine since they're more robotic, but organic models like Hordes beasts are always a pain. The metal ones aren't so bad, but those resins are horrible.

Ghoulio said...

@ Dave Garbe: For the most part GWs new plastics destroy (not even a little bit) most of the models that Privateer Press makes (in my opinion of course :) ). Lately though PP definitely feels more interesting as GWs stuff feels way too ACADed. Not enough of that "human touch" which is an area that PP models are starting to shine (case in point is Dozer there).

As far as the quality and not fitting together I was specifically talking about the EBDT, Mulg and the MK. Each of those three took at least 3 hours to fully build, fill in the gaps, etc. Mulg and the MK required entire sections to be sculpted out of green stuff to make it look right. The rest so far havent been bad. I really hope this push to the "hard plastic" model sprues pushes into their infantry as well as their current plastics are the worst. lol

As always, thanks for the comments :)