Rate the Manufacturers

[Impernouncable]

Heres a really subjective question which may cause a little spirited debate.

On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate the quality of a manufacturer\'s figures?

I would rate Rackham and Citidel (especially releases over the last year or so) at a 9-10 (depending on the figure).

Who do you think is good and who is bad?

 

[madartiste]

Um...I\'d have to say reaper puts out some good minis. I\'d probably range them between 8-10 since some aren\'t quite as good. I like their dark elves.
Rackham kind of puts me off a bit since some of their minis have very strange proportions. Celtos too... Though both have some really, really nice ones too.

 

[wightzombie]

oooooo great question!

1st place: 9 points
of course is consistent with details throughout whatever they do. their detail and imagination and new twists on old things is always welcomed and looked forward too. i think they have raised the bar for miniatures and fantasy quite a bit. i knock a point for having trouble making the minis in sufficient quanity and not having a full blown english versions of thier games and books out yet. no online doesnt count

2nd place is 1st loser 8 points
reaper. a little bit toned down on crazy weapons but reaper still maintains great detail most of the time. the one thing i dont like with reaper is some of thier darkheaven line look kinda weak while other look great. i dont know if its sculpting in the end or a bad concept for the beggining but some i wouldnt touch wiith a ten foot pole. also i knock them a point for introducing a totally uninspiring sci-fi mech game. i truly expected better design. if your just another mechwarrior, battletech, heavygear knockoff you better bring the party. on the good side the greatly detailed warlord miniature line has some of the best fantasy minis ive seen also. kudos. one thing that would be interesting from reaper is a full blown game world maybe along a inquisitor type detail rather than another D&D.

3rd place: 7 points
games workshop. i have some odd feelings with GW. i think some of thier redesigns have been good as with characters and some unit types but as with the late chaos daemon troops i feel that at least haf the older ones were better n scarier than the new ones any day including some of the greater daemons. id say thier sculpts and quality are for the most part above average but thier prices and what they charge for crappy stapled B&W rool books is damn joke. also another mark on thier record is the almost entire LOTR line that looks retched cept a small few. just another way a big company (kenner) screws up a good liscense (starwars) when companies like reaper would have owned GW like McFarlane would have owned kenner or whoever.

4th place: 6 points
iKore. iKore is a peculiar company in the fact they remind me alot of target games cept the got lucky in the end. they have a barely decent scifi line that was scraping along but unlike target games there medieval range did very well and i believe has backed the company with a good cash reserve to try new things and continue with. also having the celtos line look very uniform and alike aka similar/same sculptors is a great cohesive touch.

all the other companies are good in thier own small ways and what not but that would take forever to go through, sounds like something fun to write thoroughly on the site sometime, good forum topic.

 

[Errex]

My pick

I\'d give GW a 9, bacause of their craftmanship, and overall solid production values. Reaper gets a 7 from their DH line, and a 9 from Warlord, so, in the end, I guess it\'s an 8. I-kore, I\'d give a 7, because their minis, when unpainted, look kinda plain with a few notable exceptions. I do not remember who made the Clan War minis, but they get an 8 from me, as do the Ral Partha guys.

 

[Dave]

RATINGS

I think GW gets a 10. Teir figures are very consistent, and always look as good in person as in the picture. THey cast quite nicely, with no major mould shiftings. Also, they have proper proportions, they don\'t have that \"flat look\", but rather proper depths. Next, is Rackham. I really like the flashy style, but they are not very consistent. SOme of their figures are butt-ugly Take the old red lioness or some of the barbarians. However, look at the new stuff, like the wolfen or the new Mira model.

Dave

 

[Impernouncable]

Originally posted by wightzombie
4th place: 6 points
iKore. also having the celtos line look very uniform and alike aka similar/same sculptors is a great cohesive touch.

The entire Celtos line and much of Void is by Kev White. Personally I don\'t care much for his style. It\'s a too soft in alot of places, but that can somewhat be attributed to the greenstuff medium. I especially don\'t care for his female figures, which have ridiculously large calves. You are very correct though, having a single sculpter produce the line does indeed give it a cohesion lacking in many others.

 

[figurephenatix]

Mini Makers

Confrontation 9 (Unique and beautifully detailed)

Reaper 8 (Great Selection, great price)

Games Workshop 8 (Great selection, great workmanship, very solid product)

Celtos / I Kore 7 (Interesting and different, the sculpts are a little unrealistic and comic bookish)

Ral Partha 7 (Old School, would have been a 9 if this board was 10 years ago, hehe)

WoTC / Chainmail 6 (I though the figures were strangely sized, too small, too big, etc, and in too many pieces, not enough interesting models)

Thats most of what I use to paint and how I view them

Figurephenatix

 

[vincegamer]

ranking the heavy hitters

There are so many little manufacturers out there who have some great stuff and some crappy stuff. GZG for instance has some of the most creative pieces out and at the same time some of the worst quality minis I\'ve seen, and I own stuff that\'s nearly 30 years old!

So, of the heavy hitters mentioned above I rank from best to worst:
Reaper (amazingly diverse product line with good details)

I-kore (Hey, I like Kev\'s females! I think the design and sculpt of the humans is very good - I think their horses suck rocks)

Games Workshop (can\'t beat their consistency of quality. Very cartoon feel though. I don\'t understand how f-ph ranked them less comic-bookish than I-kore)

Rackham (you either like rackham females or I-kore females....Mostly I find their proportions and details ridiculous, but I agree they are getting much better. They haven\'t been around long enough to compare)

 

[Temperance]

Hmm, I\'m actually not at happy with Games Workshop as everyone else seems to be. Other than the Lord of the Rings line, I haven\'t seen too many eyepopping figures.

I think I\'m most interested in which miniatures inspire me either to paint or in roleplaying -- which will hurt the more Sci-Fi oriented figure lines.

#1) Reaper. It most suits my needs -- a bunch of random figures for roleplaying needs.

#2) Ral-Partha\'s Crucible line holds a high spot in my heart; it\'s too bad I discovered it after RP went under.

#3) Crocodile Games Wargods line - One of the few miniature lines that really sparks my roleplaying imagination.

#4) Rackham - for me, these figures fill the roles of \"boss creatures\" -- something that look wonderful by themselves, but en mass they lose something.

#5) GW\'s Lord of the Rings line - very realistically proportioned, especially the weapons. Something I wish more of their other miniatures had.

#6) I-Kore -- Unfortunately, they don\'t inspire me much.

#7) WotC/Chainmail is really hit or miss. Sometimes they turn out a terrific model, but a lot of them are hell to put together/clean.

 

[Flashman14]

Gosh, it really depends on what you\'re doing. I typically buy with the intent of skirmish gaming with my minis - I don\'t do much in the showcase/diorama world, or single figure modeling, or even tabletop roleplaying for that matter.
Therefore I buy factions typically - and am not so much interested in individual characters - For example, I\'ve bought the lot of Battle Nuns from ***Reaper***, their Goblins, the Orcs, the Black Orcs, the Kobolds, the Templars, the townsfolk, and the Black Legionnaires. These are all great models. I buy the occasional one off too from them - rock solid...
For a quirkier twist I sure like them ***Ghost Miniatures***.
Their Orcs are great - really twisted skeletal structure - not just a bulked out human with an Orc head. They are mangy and hunched - with a horizontal neck that thrusts their head forward like a gorillas. They have long mandibles too - lotta charm!

[BTW ***Mithril Miniatures*** does some great Orcs too - tiny, mean heads on big bodies (small head=small brain get it?)]

Also their Dwarves are really nice too - some remind me of the Rankin Bass Dwarves of the animated Hobbit. Simply and lightly equipped. I hate them balls with head and feet on them that GW does. Mohawks? on dwarves? lame! But these ***Ghost Minis*** have a lotta diversity and character (the dwarves, and the Orcs come 8?6? models to a pack.)

The Rangers of that line are nice too.

Then for down right bizarre but highly imaginative lead is the stuff from Australia\'s ***Eureka*** (Pax Limpopo in particular - I have a lot of their pics up on CMON) and then England\'s ***West Wind***. Lotta character from both of these companies but arguably their best stuff is not Fantasy in the classic sense: Victorian Sci Fi? and Gothic horror respectively.

***Eureka\'s*** Flying Monkeys are just superb - a little work to put together some of them but superb models.

Then someone look at West Wind\'s Sleepy Hollow range or the Asylum Inmates, or the Vampire Children, or even the Anarchist Vampires - very cool - very imaginative. Check out the German Archeologists for the Mummy range . . terrific models. I dont dare paint\'em for fear of ruining them ! (I\'ll get to \'em soon)

I\'m sure I forgot somebody . . GW is up there for some things (Elves, Humans) Ridiculous pricing though, right?

Copplestone\'s VERY good (mostly Sci Fi/moderns)

Bobby Jackson\'s Thugz are pretty cool

And Ral Partha has some neat ideas - Cthulhu stuff in particular . . .

WOTC has some good models - some down right oddball ones too (in a bad way). I don\'t like their blatant attempt to cater to youth - modern haircuts (flattops), goggles, etc on Fantasy figures?

 

[Impernouncable]

I really want a copy of Pig Tickler from Eureka. It looks like silly fun. Nobody round here carries it.

Not that I have the cash to spare.

 

[Lorf]

I\'ll give Rackham 10!!perfection is in details and for having painted a few of those, I think they\'re the one that got the most of them.

GW depend, The =I= line deserve 10
the old mordheim, the vampires counts and the tau 8-9
the rest tought I don\'t like, especially the LOTR series (how thw best book and the best movie ever ended up with the worst minis ?? :|~

Reaper, especially the warlord series are very nice 8

Being a fan of Brom, I can\'t help but give a 9 to the dark ages miniatures, thet\' re dinamics and render well the twisted draing from wich they where design.

Historicaly speaking, I give 7 for foundry, taken apart they look alright, but in full scale regiments, they\'re amazing

7 for originality to the 1999 line (sorry don\'t know who make them ???

 

[shortboy]

My favorites tend to mirror alot of others and for most of the same reasons.
9- Rackham- Detail is hard to beat.
8- GW- The new stuff is nice
7- I-Kore & Reaper- Like the oversized impressionistic look of I-Kore and the huge selection of Reaper minis.

 

[Impernouncable]

1999 is by Cell Entertainment out of Stockholm.

I give them a 6. I have a couple of their Angelics and they just look crappy up close.

 

[number9]

my votes

*GW*
gets a solid 9 for me. A lot of their archive stuff I order is pretty rough, likely because of mold degradation over time... BUT the current quality of sculpture and casting is top nothc, especially in plastics. I don\'t know of any other company that releases as high a quality of plastic minis as GW does...

*Mithril*
One of my favorite metal manufacturers... they get a 9 from me for what i believe is the way the Tolkien world should be represented in miniature. Its all well scaled and proportional and their box sets are of a very high quality. Their castings are also superb as I encounter few mold lines, little flash, and nice crisp detail.

*Foundry*
I want to give them a better score but a 7 is where I feel they are at. Excellent range of models is their real selling point for me and some ranges are better than others. The mercenary orks I feel are top notch, as are the street violence figs, but some of the older sculpts and some of the historicals can cast pretty roughly with lots of flash and frustrating mold lines.

*Rackham*
For their sheer dynamism and detail I give them an 8 but I feel they suffer from \"comic-art\" posing and can seem a bit too busy or absurd... Some like it, some don\'t, either way the quality is pretty solid and the ideas pretty original. Only real quality gripe I have is their alloy mix is too brittle and I often get figs with bent details that weaken and break when put back into position.

*ForgeWorld*
These guys get an 8 from me. The detail is simply amazing and the pieces are really well conceived but I\'ve gotten cheaper resin kits that arrive a whole lot cleaner and whole lot less warped than some of the forgeworld stuff I\'ve gotten. However they are very accomodating fellows if you get some bum pieces in an order.

*SHQ*
Hands down my favorite 20mm historical model maker. Their infantry figures are well detailed and of a large selection and variety of poses. Their vehicles are also quite good. Only other manufacturer that I feel comes close to these guys is AB figures but they don\'t make much more than vehicle crews at this point.

 

[AAvH-Darkblade]

Hmm ... very subjective ... good question.

For myself I would have to rate the ones I am familiar with as follows:

Games Workshop [9] - huge variety, great sculpts for all tastes, great plastics, very consistent, not a 10 mostly because of cost. By Game: Inquisitor [10], 40K [9], Warhammer [9], Necromunda [8], Mordhiem [9], Warmaster [7], Epic 40K [8]

Confrontation [9] - There are some amazing sculpts, very unique and creative, wonderful details, not consistent but getting better and better. Proportions are often off, but still Ok, all the girls are buxom, slim and very leggy, but don\'t look like they could lift their swords......lol

Reaper [7] - a huge range, lots of great stuff but also lots of really poor stuff, pricing is very good.

Reaper Warords [8] - this will creep up to a nine quickly as the new stuff starts to get released. Each new one is better than the last.

I-Kore Celtos [9] - I absolutely love these, particularly the Gael woman, they are beautiful, solid warrior women, and it looks like they could actually swing a sword. I actually like the horses as well, they also look solid, like they could take a hit or two. The rest are also great, very evocative of Celtic Mythology. I like the cleanness of the sculpts as it allows a lot of opportunity to do freehands and be really creative with the paint.

I-Kore VOID [7] - very all over the place, a very few really good ones, particularly the new militia, but most of the early stuff is not great. I expect they will get much better as time goes on.

Ral Partha [-] - no point in rating stuff you can\'t get anymore.

Chainmail [7] - another very inconsistent line.

Foundry [6] - I just don\'t like these sculpts at all, though some of the ideas are great.

Good topic, I enjoyed reading everyone\'s opinions. Cheers,
Darkblade