I really like Armada miniatures, it is one of the main reasons I began to play the game and I am really curious how they are produced.

Sometimes there are documentaries about toy factories but I couldn't find any info on FFG production facilities ( like a photo showing production floor a thousand ISDs ready to be boxed.) I was wondering if you guys have any info on it, or guide to me to the right web page.

Also if you have a chance to have a Q&A with a FFG exec at a Con or other events, can you ask how long it takes to produce a piece ( either for Armada or X-Wing, I guess their production techniques are very similar)

Like Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, but miniatures and gaming products instead of chocolate. They say the wargame miniatures be the more addictive anyway.

1 minute ago, Shadow345 said:

Like Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, but miniatures and gaming products instead of chocolate. They say the wargame miniatures be the more addictive anyway.

And Ugnaughts instead of Oompa Loompas

5 hours ago, Megatronrex said:

And Ugnaughts instead of Oompa Loompas

I think you mean Chinese children..... Also it good to have you back megatronrex.

5 minutes ago, Noosh said:

I think you mean Chinese children..... Also it good to have you back megatronrex.

I was hoping you were still around too. Glad to see you too.

FFG has never officially pulled back the current to reveal it's production partners' processes or set-up.

We know it's in China. That's about it. Best you can probably do is try to find comparable "behind-the-scenes" revelations at Chinese factories that may produce similar products. Certainly some of the whistle-blowing and worker-rights violations surrounding Apple's facilities a few years ago come to mind as a peak behind the curtain, as do the work of some artists who have done displays and photographs capturing the grim conditions for workers in Chinese factories that made toys. I'm sure there are other accounts out there (and some possibly not so negative), but you'd need to do some research.

I don't know about FFG's facilities, but I did just take a tour at a local plastic injection molding plant and learned all about some of their methods. I expect FFG's plant is similar. Probably smaller, hot, and filled with people who make much less than they should.

I’ll have to find the post over in the X-wing thread, but the person in charge of making sure the FFG factories are held to standard did have an account on here. He did talk about it a little.

6 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I don't know about FFG's facilities, but I did just take a tour at a local plastic injection molding plant and learned all about some of their methods. I expect FFG's plant is similar. Probably smaller, hot, and filled with people who make much less than they should.

Yup. Or they don't have one at all and own the tool/die and have a bigger injection company run it ffg pays labor materials and profit margin. It's most likely the latter.

If ffg did set up it's own production house. I would say good for them, but the trend in this day and age is to subcontract instead of having the process 100% in house (under your direct control). Mainly because someone out their has the capability, capacity, infrastructure, and (this is the most important) know-how to get it done right in a reasonable time. This last one is huge, people will sell, set you up, and even give the basics; but without the people with the hands on know how your gonna have a bad time.

Tldr: costs too much for them to make it them selfs.

17 hours ago, LostFleet said:

I really like Armada miniatures, it is one of the main reasons I began to play the game and I am really curious how they are produced.

Sometimes there are documentaries about toy factories but I couldn't find any info on FFG production facilities ( like a photo showing production floor a thousand ISDs ready to be boxed.) I was wondering if you guys have any info on it, or guide to me to the right web page.

Also if you have a chance to have a Q&A with a FFG exec at a Con or other events, can you ask how long it takes to produce a piece ( either for Armada or X-Wing, I guess their production techniques are very similar)

We do know a few things about Armada/X-Wing specifically, and we know a few things about minis companies in general.

First things first: FFG will never show photos on the production floor for several issues, chief among them legal aspects involving the products they are making. FFG is making licensed products, so there are probably rules affecting who can see what at which stages of development and what they can say to the public about their manufacturing processes. Most companies making plastic components and toys work with multiple license holders, so the same company making products for Star Wars Armada may also be making products for Mansions of Madness or Imperial Assault or even some other company like WizKids.

Second: For FFG miniatures games model production, we've been told before that the longest and most time consuming process isn't the model production or the component printing, it might not even be the Disney approval process (which no doubt is very time consuming). It's the hand painting of the models, which a lot of players don't realize. The primer base coat and the quick ink wash are fast (the main color and popping all the ridges and gaps). But hand painting those little squares of color takes several minutes and has to be done by hand. By contrast, an Imperial Star Destroyer is composed of 4 pieces: The top half, bottom half, the engine array in the back, and the peg connector on the bottom. Each of those pieces can be mass produced, glued together on an assembly line, and passed down until a full model appears on the other end for quality control inspection. The hand painting though is tougher: each model has to be marked by hand in specific places, in specific patterns, and in specific shades. Then it has to dry and still look right. Then it has to pass quality control again. Because of this process, the painting takes several times longer per model than the actual production of the unpainted model. Because it takes longer, you need more painters to keep up with the production schedule. Because it takes more people, it's more expensive, so FFG and the production plant have to limit the number of painters to keep the costs down. And this means that the painting team is always much slower than the model production team for prepainted models.

Here's a How It's Made video detailing the production of plastic model race cars. Just keep in mind that where they use mostly decal stamps in this video, Armada and X-Wing ships involve a lot more hand painting and a lot fewer decal stamps.

3 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

Second: For FFG miniatures games model production, we've been told before that the longest and most time consuming process isn't the model production or the component printing, it might not even be the Disney approval process (which no doubt is very time consuming). It's the hand painting of the models, which a lot of players don't realize. The primer base coat and the quick ink wash are fast (the main color and popping all the ridges and gaps). But hand painting those little squares of color takes several minutes and has to be done by hand. By contrast, an Imperial Star Destroyer is composed of 4 pieces: The top half, bottom half, the engine array in the back, and the peg connector on the bottom. Each of those pieces can be mass produced, glued together on an assembly line, and passed down until a full model appears on the other end for quality control inspection. The hand painting though is tougher: each model has to be marked by hand in specific places, in specific patterns, and in specific shades. Then it has to dry and still look right. Then it has to pass quality control again. Because of this process, the painting takes several times longer per model than the actual production of the unpainted model. Because it takes longer, you need more painters to keep up with the production schedule. Because it takes more people, it's more expensive, so FFG and the production plant have to limit the number of painters to keep the costs down. And this means that the painting team is always much slower than the model production team for prepainted models.

How could anyone not be aware of this?

4 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

We do know a few things about Armada/X-Wing specifically, and we know a few things about minis companies in general.

Thank you for lengthy explanation, I think painting is a justified expanse, models do look amazing and they way the models look made me buy the game ( I did not play miniatures before). I always thought they made the painting with machines rather than manual labour, when I think of it, I spend hours painting a small ship, kudos to the workers ( I hope they are working in humane conditions )

6 hours ago, Noosh said:

age is to subcontract instead

4 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

Star Wars Armada may also be making products for Mansions of Madness or Imperial Assault

I am really curious how they work with the subcontractors, I guess they use the same type of machinery for molds and etc so they could switch from one client to another.

I wonder with X-Wing 2.0 coming with all reprint ships and some them with moving wings really clogged up the production line of those facitilies and maybe that is why we don't have any new Armada products.

10 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

We do know a few things about Armada/X-Wing specifically, and we know a few things about minis companies in general.

So a few comments on what you said.

First, an ISD is not 4 pieces. By my count, it's 10 pieces. Note that in addition to the 8 shown here, the Main Hangar is it's own piece, and the lower half of the bridge is separate from the tower. In the dozen or so that I've taken apart, I've never come across paint in the joints, which leads me to believe that they're all painted and then assembled. I would suspect that the model is sprayed gray, then the panel lines are all screen printed on, and then the dark grey is screen printed on. And then a light wash on the turbo lasers. Engines are going to be masked and sprayed. But an ISD is not going to go through all of the same steps as an X Wing from XWM. It's pretty clear to me that there isn't a wash on an ISD (except perhaps in the turbo lasers and the engine crevice), and there's not as much detailing. Instead, there's a ton of individual pieces and assembly.

I also wanted to touch base on your "what consumes the most time" statement. There's several different points of view to discuss. The 3 main ones I want to bring up are tooling design, cycle time, and elapsed time. It's going to take a long while to design and manufacture the tool to cast the plastic. They're going to require slides and cooling jackets and whatnot, not to mention iterations on it all to ensure that there's even cooling and that the pieces don't warp. On the contrary, masks and fixtures for the painting side of things will be pretty easy and quick to make.

But that's more on the up front (and to a lesser extent, the setup when you switch from one tool to another), which I'm pretty sure is not what you're referring to. Forgive me if I miss a step here, but someone is going to be working the injection molding machine. The number of pieces made will vary, but seeing as this game is mass produced, let's just assume they're making 4 hull pieces at a time. Two upper and two lower. Doing a quick calculation, that should be about 64sq in. Using a standard 5x multiplier, that means they need a 320 ton press. The cycle time for that is going to vary based on the plastic flow geometry and whatnot, but typically it's about 60 seconds in the machine. There's not much downtime between, let's call it another 15 seconds for the operator to pull the 4 pieces out, which is very generous. Then the machine will start the next pair. Meanwhile, the operator is going to inspect and clean any flash that there may be on the part before putting them in some sort of dunnage (or I suppose a belt depending on the facilities). 75 seconds for 2 ship hulls, 37.5sec each.

Then there's probably some more cool off time. This may be hard designed into the production facility, or may just be the by product of having to fill up a rack of hulls. They will may have trays of 4x3 hull pieces (and then more of the smaller pieces on other trays), and there may be 4 stacks of 12 (figure 3in height per tray = 3ft tall stack) to a pallet. So it's going to take the injection molding operator 144 cycles @ 75 seconds, or 3 hours to fill a single pallet. All the while the pieces are doing their final cool down. If the painter at the next step paints them FIFO, then they all get a long rest (though not the full 3hr if the painting is <75sec cycle), even if it goes directly from the mold -> paint. Which is unlikely, but possible.

Doing the actual painting on most of the ISD won't take long at all. Now I know less about mass painting than I do molding & assembly, but judging by the video you posted, they're going to do numerous coats of gray (note you can confirm the gray is painted by looking at the interior picture of the hull - it's not the same color as the exterior base color, nor is it a consistent color). My guess would be that they take a tray of 12 hull pieces out, spray it, put it back in the rack, and grab the next tray. I would expect 45 second cycle time for that. That would include 5sec to grab the tray, 5 sec to return the tray, and 30 sec to spray, allowing for 10 3 second passes. There's also 5 sec of slack time there, which adds up to a minute per stack, but that's going to be consumed rotating the pallet, and switching out pallets. This means that a full pallet will take 36 minutes to paint a coat. It also means that they get 36 minutes of drying time in between each coat. The same operator can do a full spin of the pallet for the 4 stacks, and then he's right back at stack #1 for the second coat.

I would then expect a mask & paint for the dark gray panels, repeating the above for the dark gray panels, except just 1 coat and with a mask. Putting the mask on/on may make it a 50sec cycle time. And then they need their wash on the turbolasers, which will be done on the trays, and mass produced. Each upper hull is probably 8 sec (1sec/app), plus tray on/off time, for 55sec cycle time.

From here though, they're likely to leave their trays. They'll be brought to the next part of the process, where an operator will pick up the hull, place it on a single model fixture, cover it, and then screen print the panel lines. I would expect that he would return the ship to the tray, and do another one. This is probably about a 10sec per part (120 per tray) plus 10sec per tray, plus 30sec per stack, for an average of 11sec cycle time, we'll just stick to 10sec and say he starts with only 9 per part :).

And then it gets assembled. We haven't talked about the other parts yet, but I would expect the command decks (all 3) get assembled and installed onto the ship by one person. And maybe a new person (though possibly the same one) would then assemble they bridge and insert the tower. None of those are glued together, they're just all snapped in place. The hangar door is also just pushed in place (but very tightly, it might be done with machine assist). And the engines are also just snapped into place, the operator who puts the two hulls together will place the engines and then dab glue onto the 5 posts (I've never seen glue in the rear 4 posts, they seem to just be for locating) and 4 tabs, then push it all together. My guess is that there's a fixture that holds it all together as it dries - and that fixture probably also snaps the hangar door in place. So, I would expect 3 operators at 45sec each here, and I'm saying the bridge is assembled independently from the command decks (because the bridge requires glue).

So... Excluding whatever painting time on the subcomponents and just looking at the hull, you have 37.5sec molding, 7.5sec base coat x3, 8.3sec gray panel, 9.16sec wash, 20sec panel lines, 3 assembly ops @45sec = 135sec for total assembly time of 217.5sec, or just over 3.5minutes. But we can probably double the molding and painting time for the non-hull pieces, bringing a total ship to 5.5minutes of cycle time. At US minimum likely rates of $12/hr (cost to employer, not employee wage), that would be $1.10, but at an unionized wage of $30-35, that would be $3.21. A quick google search shows the average factory worker in China makes $275/mo, and if we assume no overtime, that would be $1.60/hr, meaning the labor cost of an ISD is 14.7cents... But I digress, we were talking about time, not cost.

So 5.5minutes of operation time, however, the elapsed time from start to finish is more like 180 minutes + 36 minutes x3 + 40 minutes + 44 minutes + .75 seconds x3 = 370.25 minutes, or just over 6 hours. And that's assuming no inventory between each step (which is bad practice - you want to have some level of safety stock so if your molding machine needs repair, you don't stop your entire operations).

Yea, I'm pretty sure a lot of the painting in X-Wing and Armada is done by sprays and screen-prints.

Did people actually think there were legions of workers hand-painting everything on the the ISD? I mean, look at how consistent that maroon and brown paneling is on the Mon Cal ships, for instance. You're not getting that even texture or those precise and uniform squares and rectangles with hand-painting...

3 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yea, I'm pretty sure a lot of the painting in X-Wing and Armada is done by sprays and screen-prints.

Did people actually think there were legions of workers hand-painting everything on the the ISD? I mean, look at how consistent that maroon and brown paneling is on the Mon Cal ships, for instance. You're not getting that even texture or those precise and uniform squares and rectangles with hand-painting...

Nobody said this was brushwork. Sprays and screens are still hand-work to apply the mask/screen and then mark. In that sense this is hand painting.

17 minutes ago, OlaphOfTheNorth said:

Nobody said this was brushwork. Sprays and screens are still hand-work to apply the mask/screen and then mark. In that sense this is hand painting.

Uh, I guess. But then like when would any painting ever not be "painted by hand?" Any pre-painted toys or whatever else have human cogs in the production process loading, unloading, masking, etc.

So, given that, I think when people say "hand-painted" they are usually intending to mean "painted by hand-held bristle-brushes or air-brushes."

3 hours ago, Khyros said:

In the dozen or so that I've taken apart,

Wow, that is a nice description

- I have few questions, why do you take them apart? is to modify and repaint ?

- do you operate an industrial plant? you have a great knowledge of production and your descriptions are very detailed,

- I always thought screen printing required 2d surfaces, at ships like Mon Cals, how do they print on organic form accurately?

- you wondered a bit into cost, ISDs were 50 USDs ( now they are 40 in Amazon ) what would be production cost for the ISDs? and I really wondered how many ISDs they produced, operation this complex, I assume it must be around 10.000, but on the other hand I feel like it must be more, for a 500.000 USD job, it is to much trouble to get into.

Anyway sorry for the questions but thanks again for that long description,

11 minutes ago, LostFleet said:

I have few questions, why do you take them apart? is to modify and repaint ?

He lights them up with LEDs:

22 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

He lights them up with LEDs:

Wow I didn't know ( and he posted a year ago today), the models look amazing I am not going to sway away from the topic of the post but I wish original pieces are produced with lights, I would love to play Armada at a dark room

2 hours ago, LostFleet said:

Wow, that is a nice description

- I have few questions, why do you take them apart? is to modify and repaint ?

- do you operate an industrial plant? you have a great knowledge of production and your descriptions are very detailed,

- I always thought screen printing required 2d surfaces, at ships like Mon Cals, how do they print on organic form accurately?

- you wondered a bit into cost, ISDs were 50 USDs ( now they are 40 in Amazon ) what would be production cost for the ISDs? and I really wondered how many ISDs they produced, operation this complex, I assume it must be around 10.000, but on the other hand I feel like it must be more, for a 500.000 USD job, it is to much trouble to get into.

Anyway sorry for the questions but thanks again for that long description,

Most of my knowledge comes from an engineer in the auto industry, but we injection mold a bunch of our parts and I've spent several years working in our assembly plants. Thus why I don't have as much knowledge on the painting side of things, but know more in regards to the people and what would be a reasonable starting point for operations and cycle times. Of course every plant is unique and has various constraints, so I may be wildly off, but it's where I would start if I was in operations for FFG and looking for a manufacturing facility to source my products.

As for cost, I'm pretty sure I've backed out the costs before to come up with a reasonable estimate... But most retail stores will be making 30% profit or so on MSRP. This is supported (especially by the pre-Asmodee) online prices. $35 cost to retailer. Then the distributor is going to make a 5-10% profit and have a distribution cost. Let's assume $5 cost and $3 profit. $27 cost once in the USA. I really have no clue as to duties and oversea shipping costs, but pets assume 15% duty and double the US distribution cost. $18. If we pretend that manufacturing is its own entity, that $18 represents their revenue. The you have inventory, labor, depreciation, core business overhead and R&D (which aren't actually part of manufacturing... but whatever). Chinese labor is negligible, and your material costs aren't that high. I would estimate that would come to be around $3, but it's a pure top of the head estimation. Also, there's a cost to run the machinr. A press that large would normally be $80/hr in the states, but a good portion would be labor, so figure $40/hr in China. And they would have at least 3 presses, more depending on volume requirements. So 1.5min of press time would be another $1. That means FFG would make $14 on each ship, but tooling is going to be ~100K for each tool, plus Alex Davy's salary in R&D, and all of the HR staff they need to keep him from sexual harassment complaints =P. I have no clue as to their volumes, but I would guess its more on the order of 100k ships than either 10k or 1M. So they would make 1.4M on the ISD, pay 300k for a single set of tools, though at 3 per 5min, they probably need a second set of tools, so 600k for tools, leaving 700k for profits, R&D, and overhead.

All of these numbers are off the top of my head sitting in my car waiting, so so not take them as fact or gospel, just a guideline as to what all goes into this.

@Khyros thank you for the detailed information, getting the perspective of someone working directly with the industry is enlightening.

4 hours ago, Khyros said:

Most of my knowledge comes from an engineer in the auto industry, but we injection mold a bunch of our parts and I've spent several years working in our assembly plants. Thus why I don't have as much knowledge on the painting side of things, but know more in regards to the people and what would be a reasonable starting point for operations and cycle times. Of course every plant is unique and has various constraints, so I may be wildly off, but it's where I would start if I was in operations for FFG and looking for a manufacturing facility to source my products.

As for cost, I'm pretty sure I've backed out the costs before to come up with a reasonable estimate... But most retail stores will be making 30% profit or so on MSRP. This is supported (especially by the pre-Asmodee) online prices. $35 cost to retailer. Then the distributor is going to make a 5-10% profit and have a distribution cost. Let's assume $5 cost and $3 profit. $27 cost once in the USA. I really have no clue as to duties and oversea shipping costs, but pets assume 15% duty and double the US distribution cost. $18. If we pretend that manufacturing is its own entity, that $18 represents their revenue. The you have inventory, labor, depreciation, core business overhead and R&D (which aren't actually part of manufacturing... but whatever). Chinese labor is negligible, and your material costs aren't that high. I would estimate that would come to be around $3, but it's a pure top of the head estimation. Also, there's a cost to run the machinr. A press that large would normally be $80/hr in the states, but a good portion would be labor, so figure $40/hr in China. And they would have at least 3 presses, more depending on volume requirements. So 1.5min of press time would be another $1. That means FFG would make $14 on each ship, but tooling is going to be ~100K for each tool, plus Alex Davy's salary in R&D, and all of the HR staff they need to keep him from sexual harassment complaints =P. I have no clue as to their volumes, but I would guess its more on the order of 100k ships than either 10k or 1M. So they would make 1.4M on the ISD, pay 300k for a single set of tools, though at 3 per 5min, they probably need a second set of tools, so 600k for tools, leaving 700k for profits, R&D, and overhead.

All of these numbers are off the top of my head sitting in my car waiting, so so not take them as fact or gospel, just a guideline as to what all goes into this.

I would say thats an astute guess. I would say your close. That sounds right for casting (depending on application, matierial, method) considering the high quality of product I'm making the assumption that their initial costs are much higher than average..,..maybe. they could of lucked out and found good and cheap, but slow is their down side (Wich fits the bill)

10 hours ago, Khyros said:

All of these numbers are off the top of my head sitting in my car waiting

Thanks again,

I always thought 50 dollars was a bit expensive but when you add all the expenses and everything it is actually a good value. Good quality of the miniatures really makes a difference, if Star Trek had the same quality ships as in Armada I would buy their game too.

Their easiest sell was probaly Chimaera expansion pack, apart from the special paint process, they basically resold the same ISDs ( I am not complaining, I love the ship and Thrawn )