Do you still buy metal minis?

[NewJeffCTHome]

Warhammer proved that they can charge outrageous prices for cheap plastic minis. As for the paint jobs - the last 3 expansions have seen a huge leap in painting quality. The original and second expansions were marred by an abundance of black and brown making them look like the monkey inspired minis you describe. Later expansions look excellent. Are they up to Heavy Metal (painting feature in White Dwarf magazine for Warhammer players) quality? Of course not - but they are a sight better than I can do.
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I don't think Warhammer's prices for plastic minis are that expensive, though they've gone up recently due to the perilously weak dollar. You're getting good quality plastic with normally a ton of extra bits - a box of Empire soldiers comes with enough material to make 20 men with swords & shields or 20 men with halberds, or a combination of both. The price for that is currently $30 in the GW online store, or $1.50 per plastic mini. Many non-GW online stores sell GW stuff at a discount of 10-20% as well. My FLGS offers a flat 10% discount on all GW product, so that would be $27, and a friend of mine gets 20% off at his store, so he'd pay $24 for a box of 20 minis.

The GW metal minis are another story, however. $20-$50 for a single character is ridiculous, even if it is a cool knight on a griffon or something.

However, I shell out the money (on occasion) for GW metal minis, as well as Reaper (still the best D&D character minis with good prices), Rackham's Confrontation, Shadowforge historicals, Adiken and a few others (I bought like 40+ metal pikemen from a British company whose name escapes me at this time, but they were Alexander the Great era pikes)

Sometimes, I prefer plastics due to the ease with which you can mix & match pieces, as I'm not good at converting metal stuff.

 

[Frilf]

I go with whatever is most pragmatic. If I need 20-30 of a fig (say, kobolds, zombies, goblins, whatever), then I go with plastic and pre-painted (even if they're painted by monkeys ), otherwise my wife and I really dig the Reaper minis. They're absolutely spiff!

 

[kerakus]

I've never bought a metal mini. From the beginning of my gaming career (late 80's) I've always considered metal minis to be way too much of a hassle. I'm no painter. So, when the WotC plastic ones started coming out, I started buying those. Granted some of the early ones look kinda goofy, but since I'm not willing to even attempt to paint a metal mini, it works out fine for me. Plus, I'm one of those strange people that likes the randomization aspect of it. It's fun to open up the box and anticipate just which ones are going to fall out.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I never bought many metal minis, but now I have a bunch of plastic ones...

AR

 

[pogre]

I still manage to buy one or two - now and again

 

[Tom Cashel]

Go Metallo Power, Go!

 

[Pramas]

You can pry my metal minis out of my cold, dead hands.

 

[was]

yes, as long as they're not in multiple pieces.

 

[Turhan]

mostly metal

Mini's are my main hobby. That and terrain. And buildings. It's all for DnD.

In the past 12-13 years I've painted around 800-900 minis, all of which are still in our game room. It's a huge mass of stuff to store.

The oldest are so ugly I never use them anymore, and in fact a number have been relegated to the junk pile to melt and re-use as weights for fishing lures. We keep the remaining 700+ handy for our campaigns. Lots of the Warhammer got sold off.

I bought 20-30 plastics this year, some are fairly good, and different enough that I figured I needed them for some special "foot soldiers" for the main villain.

I have nearly 200 from the old Ral Partha line, and at least 400 from Reaper. Long ago the old Partha dragons (there were a dozen or so different ones) went on clearance so I got all but one of them. We've had some major dragon invasions!

Lots of giants and big monsters. Many Citadel figures: a ton of dogs of war for specialty warband enemies and a few primary NPC's; a ton of mounted figures, most of which I customized with moslded silk armor instead of the Brettonian molded horses; and various of their "hero" characters.

So yes, I still buy metal mini's, and I think I will for a long time to come. it is so relaxing to lay on the colors and bring them to life. Then take them to the game and let the players say "oh crap, four beholders."

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I never bought metal minis before...just don't like painting them. I'm far too critical of things like that. So, of course, WotC's plastic minis are a godsend for me.