OMG! What are Rackham doing?!?!?!

[Legacy Account]

Originally posted by Ritual

As long as the money keeps coming in the will to change will be very slight. But, if you don\'t have a problem with child labour and such, then go ahead.

That\'s a crock. China\'s economy has been fueled by western businesses investing in it\'s infrastructure and using it as a manufacturing centre. China\'s economic boom has created both job shortages and wage increases. As China\'s economy grows, the wealth and prosperity of (most of) it\'s people will do too. That\'s capitalism for you and Chinese workers recognise that a free market economy is the best way to go if they want to pull their country out of the mire it has been in.

I don\'t understand all the bollocks about \'exploiting\' countries like China. They will be the largest economic power on the planet in a very short time. They\'ll really reap the rewards of their hard work then.

 

[Jarrett]

Will cost them a helluva lot less to ship them overseas too.

 

[Braveheart712]

The problem with \"exploting\" countries like China is real, like it or not. Countries like China do not follow the same type of labor and envirnmental control policies that western countires do. Also these counrties use their leverage as well as corporate greed of western countries to skirt tarriff issues. The net result is cheaper products in western markets but the real price paid is the loss of manufacting jobs, envornmental issues, as well as a devaluation of the laber force in western countries, since it is cheaper to send maunfacting to the third work where things such as health care, OSHA, and a fair wage do not exist. I am all for global trade but if you feel that the way in which it is currently being conducted is fair and equal, you are crazy.

As for the topic at hand, prepaints suck, yes they suck! Any company that wishes to go in this direction may or may not be sucessful, but one thing is certain, they will not have any of my disposable income fueling thier growth. Prepaints are the equivalent of screensavers our hobby, yes they look nice and offer instant gratification, but get really boring after seeing them more than once. Let\'s see, you are playing army \"x\", boy that looks just llike John\'s \"x\" army, and Pete\'s, etc... wake me when its over.

 

[Ritual]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie

Originally posted by Ritual

As long as the money keeps coming in the will to change will be very slight. But, if you don\'t have a problem with child labour and such, then go ahead.

That\'s a crock. China\'s economy has been fueled by western businesses investing in it\'s infrastructure and using it as a manufacturing centre. China\'s economic boom has created both job shortages and wage increases. As China\'s economy grows, the wealth and prosperity of (most of) it\'s people will do too. That\'s capitalism for you and Chinese workers recognise that a free market economy is the best way to go if they want to pull their country out of the mire it has been in.

I don\'t understand all the bollocks about \'exploiting\' countries like China. They will be the largest economic power on the planet in a very short time. They\'ll really reap the rewards of their hard work then.

Who knows what working conditions will be like in China in the future, but right now there\'s plenty of people working under slave-like conditions. If I have reason to believe a product is manufactured that way I don\'t buy it!

 

[lahatiel]

Those of you concerned about scores of Third World painters, chained to long rows of tables with brushes in hand, might be interested in these posts from the Reaper forum about Reaper\'s new pre-painted plastics line (the posts were from June 4th, and ReaperCon had just taken place). The final post came from ReaperBryan, who was quoting several posters before him (sorry, their board uses different forum code than CMoN, and I don\'t have time to re-code from CMoN\'s version):

[quote name=\'Reaperbryan\' date=\'Jun 4 2007, 03:31 PM\' post=\'400713\']
[quote name=\'kristof65\' post=\'400545\' date=\'Jun 4 2007, 10:16 AM\'][quote name=\'Ironworker\' post=\'400527\' date=\'Jun 4 2007, 08:36 AM\']I\'m still interested in seeing what Reaper comes up with but I\'m skeptical. I don\'t think there is any way they could pay for a paint job that I would consider worth while for the prices they are suggesting. Not unless they are exploiting very cheap labor in an underdeveloped country. Then again that\'s the norm for pre paints and I still think they will end up being substandard paintjobs put on by people getting paid sub standard pay. There\'s just no other way to do it.[/quote]
While I was looking at the prepaints on display at ReaperCon, I overheard ReaperBryan (I think) explaining part of the painting process of the prepaints to someone. I didn\'t hear the whole conversation, but the gist I got was that each color is applied by means of an airbrush and a custom \"mask\" for that mini. I didn\'t catch if the process is wholly automated, or partially done by hand, but I distinctly got the impression that we\'re not talking about 100s of low paid workers sitting around with brushes painting each figure. The process is at least semi-automated.[/quote]
Kristoff is correct - it was me. The painting process is mostly automated. There may be a human element at some part of the process, but there are not rows and rows of painters sitting at benches all day long putting green on the same orc over and over. Technology - and the intelligent application thereof - is the secret to inexpensive prepaint.
[/quote]

For those not familiar with the Reaper boards, ReaperBryan is a moderator, company employee, and basically the company\'s forum spokesman -- so what he says should be considered a good source of info on what the company\'s doing.

There may or might not be more concrete information somewhere over there; the quoted post was from an 18-page thread and I certainly haven\'t read all of it. For those wishing to look for themselves, the page from which I\'ve quoted is here:

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=27047&st=225

 

[No Such Agency]

Well that is a relief.

 

[hubbabubba]

Hmmm, at the moment, from what I\'ve been led to believe, Rackhams AT 43 line is produced and painted in France.
Personally, I think the prepaints are a good idea for those who want to get the mini\'s and start to play ASAP, and as already pointed out, they can be repainted over time. Problem is that the initial quality of the AT 43 stuff was appalling., and while it seems to have gotten better, they\'re still leaving mould lines on the minis, which to me just seems slack. I really like the steel troopers, but I\'m not gonna be buying any for this reason.
Aside from anything else, rackham seems to be shooting themselves in the foot at the moment. They released AT 43 last christmas, yet at the moment the rules seem to be incomplete, there no points system, and yet they are surprised that the sales are disappointing.
AT 43 was distributed to the major European retailers with a RRP of 80 euros, meanwhile at Rackham direct they\'re selling at 70.
I personally have found the quality of their casting to be flawed of late, with defects on many of the minis in my last order. (have they changed casters?)
The order I placed was also incorrect, and from what I hear about town, this is all to common. On the plus side, they were very quick to rectify their error and in the end provided good service.
All in all, I like their stuff, but I think it would be an idea to give the option of buying prepainted or unpainted, at least in the hero packs.

 

[NAVARRO]

im out

since about more or less 2004 i do buy lots of rackham stuff, why?
Because it was a skirmish game with few but extremely challenging beautifull minis to paint. Supported Rackham for years... in a couple of months the skirmish game will end and will be a small regiment game the miniatures are no longer for the painter... worse now you have to buy regiments at43 style with prepainted crap... yes crap i dont need to pay for very expensive Tabletop quality at best prepainted if i want minis to paint. AT43 plastics are... very bad comparing to all metal rackham done

In short rackham is telling you rackham fans that hey thanks for supporting all these years but now we dont care about you anymore... we want nonpainters and copycat GW regiments gamers on our company.
Its not a normal miniature range evolution its a rupture.
Personally im out since rackham is dead ... nothing there for me.
Since i dont need another GW wanabee i will take my business elsewere.

 

[Severatus]

Remember when finding some Rackham minis was a thrill?

Like the obscure time when I first got introduced to Warhammer.

It took effort and contacts ( & some driving ) to find GW minis around 2nd edition.

Rackham minis fetched a high price for a few years I know this cause I painted & sold dozens of Fiannas , Mira the Reckless in every color and theme, about 6 times in one year. Always fetching more dough than the last.

Then suddenly the market died once people realized the rules were in French & once translated later were as hard to understand as Chinese.

No direction or soul to the game, actually maybe too much soul not enough game.

I bought the rule book, spell decks to fashion my Alahan force....and shortly thereafter sold everything but, my calvary on Ebay ( Someday they will be painted in a display case looking fancy....someday )

If you want to know what something is worth look on Ebay.

You will see the only thing selling from Rackham is the Limited edition minis ( the few still offered time to time, not as highly priced as before )

The models are so well sculpted that if you are not an accomplished painted they look horrible!

Try to paint a Fianna mini without a lumpy butt, it\'s not too hard for some however novice gamers will have a Fianna\'s backside looking like a truck drivers clumpy,poxy ****** Pillow stepped on by a football team wearing Cleats effect in short order *******

Nothing hotter than a clumpy, lumpy,dumpy bleach white arse!

Oh ya, everyone who knows someone painting female minis ***Stop shading the thong backs with brown tones or washes !!!!!!!! ****** that look makes me think of smuggled Chacolate, we all wanna puke to see such questionable hues in such an region!

Also, the eyes are near impossible for most, note all the Run Away Bride Eyed looking Fiannas 00 all shocked lookin!
O
Nothing more discouraging than looking at the studio models and seeing yer wasted $10-15.00 dollars.

GW minis we all can paint and with all the background info, readily gameable rules a beginner might over look the Bug Eyed minis he paints to enjoy the whole package.

Background people! Books & stories to read while taking a dump, stuff for your wife to complain about being left about.

GW must be disturbed when it see\'s it\'s minis on Ebay selling for 1/2 their retail cost.

How long before they close all those mall stores? You gotta sell a lot of box sets & whitedwarfs to make rent in major malls.

It\'s cool for gamers, makes my life easy on occassion but, we all know folks still playing minis from 10 years back who never buy anything new, always reading the store copy of WD & Codex\'s.

In closing, I was very shocked to see how lame the new Rackham AT-40 or whatever looked like, Crappy impression of GW Marine Scouts. & poorly cast, looking all soft.

Meanwhile I still cannot find a single Ilyad mini of leonadis!

Anywho\'s long live the Emperor!!!

GW wins by a white beard!

 

[Chern Ann]

The mouse and keyboard you are using right now are more than likely manufactured in China. Even these relatively high tech products are quite labour intensive (I know, I make these for a living), involving dozens of workers from start to finish. Your Ipod headphones are injected by an operator and finished by hand, are wired by hand and tested by a human being (I\'ve seen one of the actual production lines). One headphone will pass through about 15 pairs of hands before being put in it\'s bulk pack shipping crate for the Ipod factory.

If you\'ve never been in a manufacturing environment, you may have the idea that modern factories are all robot driven. This is true only for simpler or huge mass quantity goods, such as food stuff like cereals. Anything that needs screwing together was most likely hand assembled.

It\'s still pretty much lots of people sitting at a conveyor belt fiddling with things and then putting it back on the belt.

Now, workers aren\'t really exploited, since they are mainly from rural provinces where they\'d be lucky to make a $1 a day (and sometimes much less), whereas their factory wage would be anything from $100 to $300 a month. It\'s typical for Chinese women to work at factories for about 2 years and then return home with a nest egg and get married. I\'ve spoken to many workers and they are generally quite happy to have their jobs, and are very surprised (read \"angry\") that some well meaning westerners think they shouldn\'t have them. Don\'t buy into the populist claptrap that your left leaning politicians like spewing; i.e. keep jobs at home, it\'s good for us and good for the poor Chinese slave.

China itself doesn\'t stand for slave labour (illustrated by the huge scandal caused by rogue brick factories keeping workers locked up). There\'s a huge and widening divide between the richer manufacturing centers and the poorer countryside, and this is being managed by trying to industrialize the country as quickly as possible (exact implementation may or may not work depending on how local planning goes).

As the country gets richer, automation will become cheaper than labor, and when that happens China will no longer be competitive as a manufacturing center compared to the west (it\'s impossible to get anything manufactured cost effectively nearer Shanghai and Beijing now for this reason, and factories march ever inland in search of cheaper labour). This is a long ways yet, China is a very big country indeed.

The one big issue is that China is fast becoming an environmental disaster because of all the factories, and the central government can\'t seem to keep up.

The place feels a lot like what the US must have been like just after World War II. Opportunity everywhere, makes me kinda regret not being born in Shanghai or Beijing (but pretty glad not to be born in the hick provinces).

 

[darthfoley]

Glad I never liked \'em in the first place.