There are a few places where the top edge of the sail has a small slit cut into it, but the whole piece is so visually complex to look at I don’t think anyone will ever notice !

And so the French Navy now has a pair of 1st Rates !

Nice !

Achieving stand-alone global leadership is not to be sniffed at !

Don’t knock yourself - “Once” may be a joint world record for one of those “all in a box” naval games !

That unfortunately doesn’t get around the not insignificant fixed cost of replacing a spin cast mold - which then has to be amortized over future sales of that figure set. That’s the barrier that’s getting harder to get over for many older and low volume manufacturers nowadays

“Want”, “need” and “could make good use of” have always been semantically challenging words and phrases to differentiate when translated into wargamer !

.. the maths will simply fail to add up as many smaller, older "heritage" ranges age. 3D scanning may be our only chance to some classic sculpts alive.

I just hope it develops fast enough that some companies can do it commercially for complete ranges rather than individuals pirating the odd figure

I've been told by several people that it costs between £40-80 to get a spin-cast mould replaced, with the lower price being just the cost of materials if the manufacturer can do it themselves ... with hard plastics & 3D printing eating into sales volumes with often (frankly) better sculpts ..

But equally I haves more very robust figures in 3D as well which are better sculpts, with more detail than almost any metal cast range - it is a fast maturing technology, and we must now surely be very close to almost every printer knowing what type of resin actually works for robust gaming minis?

I think there are a lot of horror stories out there, and many of us have experienced them. I've got some 15mm figures which are so brittle that I think I will only ever be able to use them at events I can get to by car (rather than public transport) as I can carry them in a bigger tin in the car!

3D scanning the sculpts and selling the STL files might therefore be the only way some of these older ranges can continue to live on - provided that the 3D scanning process becomes easy and cheap enough for someone to do before (ideally) the masters are consigned to oblivion.

With lower sales, and the capex of replacing worn out moulds, these businesses simply aren't "sellable" when the owner wants to retire - no-one (sane) will take them on as they can't realistically be made profitable again.

I'm not sure its a case of preference - the reality is that we are seeing a lot of the older, smaller metal-casters fade away right now - their sales volumes no longer support the costs of casting, and especially the one-off costs of re-making some of their older, worn spin-cast moulds.

The “really” interesting point will however come when this sort of 3D scanning tech becomes sufficiently simple and user friendly that old school casters “won’t” need a Kickstarter and a 3rd party “expert” company to do it for them…

Thoughts?

I mean, theh are not 28mm Victrix or Perry sculpts (of course), but "designing figures for straightforward painting at a small scale and looking good when fielded en mass" is a style and a real skill in its own right, and one they have really nailed

They paint up en-mass really well, and really take contrasts and the like very well too. Some of them, especially the earlier sculpts can be a bit "meh", but those are far and few between now.

The size and breadth of the range means they have probably become a better default choice than Essex IMO.