1 hour ago, bernh said:

I'm assembling rebels from starter and it's a pain - I can't cut mold lines and hands do not fit right for some figures. Hard plastic has to be way easier to assemble.
(and yes, I have WFB experience)

The droids are very tedious to assemble. Each one is 8 pieces and most of the contact points are quite small and fiddly.

But once you finish your 6 B1 squads you know that pretty much everything else in the line will be easier (if only becuase you wont have to assembly line so **** many)

What's with the plastic? Beskar!

5 hours ago, bernh said:

I'm assembling rebels from starter and it's a pain - I can't cut mold lines and hands do not fit right for some figures. Hard plastic has to be way easier to assemble.
(and yes, I have WFB experience)

I've assembled and painted tons of Legion Rebels stuff and haven't seen a single mold line. I think my landspeeder had some sprue attachment points on a couple of pieces. Weird.

11 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

I've assembled and painted tons of Legion Rebels stuff and haven't seen a single mold line. I think my landspeeder had some sprue attachment points on a couple of pieces. Weird.

Every stormtrooper has one across the top of their helmet and down the sides... you can sort of remove it at the top but you risk losing a lot of detail if you hit the sides. Dooku also has one through his hair (but this'd be a problem in styrene as well; you can't avoid hair mold lines).

14 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

I've assembled and painted tons of Legion Rebels stuff and haven't seen a single mold line. I think my landspeeder had some sprue attachment points on a couple of pieces. Weird.

You just didn't notice them, I think. It's impossible to not have them. But hard plastic minis way easier to cut.

The rebels have them but they're not terrible so they may escape some people's notice. Soft plastic can only be de-molded by carefully carving the mold lines. Files, and dragging a blade backwards over the line, just creates fuzz. In my experience anyways, but I'm not very artistic.

I generally prefer hard plastic, but there are some definite challenges with it. Part of the reason it works so well for GW is that they're able to engineer their art design around its limitations (space marines have ear covers for a reason). I'll be curious to see how less angular models work out.

I dont really mind either way. I see it like this....

Soft plastic-

pros- pre-painted so saves a LOT of time there.

Cons- hit or miss on assembly. Some go right together while others not so well...inconsistency in assembly and quality. All units look identical (this can be seen as a pro or a con depending on who the person is. To me, it is a con).

Hard plastic-

pros-easy to assemble, consistency in quality. A LOT of variety as it lets you customize your squads (again, theis can be seen either way but to me, it is a pro).

Cons- can jack up the price as boxing needs to be lager to accommodate the sprues. You need to paint them yourself. I can paint FAR better than the prepainted ones but just dont have the time to put into it (As with the other aspect, this can be seen as a pro or con depending on the person.

All told, the thing that would make my mind up the most is cost. But there is no need to insult others by calling them "fanboys" or other such things if they disagree with you on which is better. We are all gamers together and should treat one another with dignity and respect.

@EVIL INC The current soft plastic Star Wars Legion minis are not pre-painted.

2 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@EVIL INC The current soft plastic Star Wars Legion minis are not pre-painted.

Yeah, I'm kinda wondering what he's talking about. " All units look identical" is also just as true for soft plastic as it is for hard on sprue. People keep acting like having 100 extra pieces just comes along with having your **** on a sprue when really it's just that they are used to how GW does it and assumes that all just goes together. He's taking a TON of things for granted as well as showing that he might not be too familiar with how FFG has been doing things and plans to do them in the future?

2 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

Yeah, I'm kinda wondering what he's talking about.

The old WotC miniatures maybe?

For tabletop games with multiple models (10+ per player/side) I prefer to have hard plastic. Coming from 40k, it is the standard that I'm used to and comfortable with both in modeling and painting terms. I like the soft plastic for games like D&D, where the models are almost an afterthought compared to the roleplaying.

Soft plastic

• Pros- Less expensive, for both producer and consumer (both master molds and plastic is less expensive on the production side). Models are easy to put together, as molds are fairly simplistic. "Bendy" issues can be fixed fairly easily with hot water and/or heat guns.
• Cons- Mold lines can be very fiddly to take care of. Details can be soft, or blurry. "Bendy" models likely, especially thin or long pieces.

Hard plastic

• Pros- Sharp details. Models are easier to convert (the hard plastic cuts easier and cleaner). Minimal "bendy" effect.
• Cons- More expensive (master molds are more expensive, so consumers pay more). Slightly more difficult to put together, due to hard plastic allowing for more variety in positioning (stronger plastic can make poses with thinner bit more possible). Correcting defective models (bendy or misaligned) is harder.

Overall, I like hard plastic. Its a personal opinion, but I would rather have the higher quality and higher detail models even if I have to pay more.

15 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

" All units look identical" is also just as true for soft plastic as it is for hard on sprue. People keep acting like having 100 extra pieces just comes along with having your **** on a sprue when really it's just that they are used to how GW does it and assumes that all just goes together.

Even as they are now, with the bare minimum and nothing else on the sprue, B1s are far more customization than anything save the Clones from the soft plastic. Even there, B1s have the advantage. I'm not going to say that no two are identical, but you still have a variety of poses available for each mini, depending on how you chose to build it.

But yeah, no idea on the prepainted stuff, unless he's talking X-Wing/Armada, which doesn't really apply here.

Something else I haven't seen on a pros/cons list is that personally, I view having to use super glue with the soft plastic as a CON. With hard plastic, you have the choice of hard plastic or plastic glue, and personally I vastly prefer plastic glue for various reasons.

I put my rebel veterans together with normal plastic glue and they're fine. Is there something ive missed?

16 minutes ago, Minimaddog said:

I put my rebel veterans together with normal plastic glue and they're fine. Is there something ive missed?

Yes, the soft plastic doesn't react with plastic glue. many plastic glues are tacky and so your models will hold together a bit between the tackiness of the glue and the slots.

59 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Yes, the soft plastic doesn't react with plastic glue. many plastic glues are tacky and so your models will hold together a bit between the tackiness of the glue and the slots.

They should be fine though right? For the record its Tamiya extra thin cement........if that makes any difference whatsoever

2 minutes ago, Minimaddog said:

They should be fine though right? For the record its Tamiya extra thin cement

Well, my FLGS assembled the initial core set display models with something similar and they fell apart in a few days so probably not?

1 minute ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Well, my FLGS assembled the initial core set display models with something similar and they fell apart in a few days so probably not?

Well then..... mine have held together for about 2 months so far with no sign of coming apart. Kinda the reason i kept using it for the rest of my minis. I suppose I'll have to keep an eye on them over time

It's worth noting that hard plastic doesn't necessarily translate into more customization. That's entirely a matter of how the sprue is designed and whether optional parts are included. We're actually seeing a pretty significant retraction in options on sprue plastic models these days, as more singular assembly creates the ability to put more details on the model and more dynamic posing.

PVC's limitation is likewise mostly just a matter of a lack of options being made in the kit. The peg nature is mostly just a matter of companies liking the idea of push fit assembly in the model design.

@LunarSol The greater customization also comes in the form of the parts themselves holding up better to sawing and re-gluing with plastic glue, regardless of options included in the box.

5 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@LunarSol The greater customization also comes in the form of the parts themselves holding up better to sawing and re-gluing with plastic glue, regardless of options included in the box.

This is true. I did my E-webs with stormies and it was an absolute hatchet job. A good coat of paint covered up most of the mess but it took some doing.

Absolutely dislike it. Together with the increased price it's making me think about alternatives.

6 minutes ago, sigidi said:

Absolutely dislike it. Together with the increased price it's making me think about alternatives.

Such as? Miniature wargaming is not exactly the cheapest hobby in existence. With Legion at least you get all the bodies you need to represent all of the different weapons options that are included in the box.

My bad on the pre-painted. I was thinking of the x-wing models. Ignore that point. But the rst remains valid. The hard plastic offers endless vairty and conversion opportunities with ease. Not everyone has the skill or time to do it though. Some players may just need to up their modeling game. Of course, with some units, like droids, identical is kind of the point so only the odd one would need to be modeled to stand out.