Hey guys

Me and a mate have recently gone halves on a batch of the DiD plastic sprues with me taking the Skinnerz on and he's doing the Novans. I've fallen in love with the Skinnerz infantry and wagonz mainly because the Boyz totally remind me of the old 2nd ed. 40k plastic goff orks from the starter box. Unfortunately my friend's having a breakage rate of ~20% when getting the human riflemen off the sprues.

Does anyone have a technique or trick to getting them off more successfully? He's going carefully with clippers and clipping the side well clear of the model before the bottom of each trooper before cleaning up the side bit but they keep breaking at the knees/ankles.

The plastic guards are indeed very fragile. I got mine off the sprue mostly unscathed (loss rate about one in every two or three sprues) with a sharp clipper, being very careful to not apply force anywhere except on the cut.

Even after assembly, they're still very fragile when mounted on stands. I typically break one per game, and I'm not a rough player They're really fiddly to repair, too, since the break surface is so tiny.

If you need your minis to be playing pieces rather than display models, I'd really look into metals instead.

The OrksSkinnerz are far more sturdy, and yes, they have that monopose 2nd ed 40K thing going All they need is a pointy hat

We're hoping that once they're off the sprue, Araldite'd onto the mdf bases and copiously varnished they'll be a bit more sturdy. We really want 'em to work 'cause they're lovely simple models. Hopefully I can tempt him into getting some more if we can get the guardsmen working as I can never have enough Boyz....

I've used a pair of very small clippers for mine relatively snap-free, and then a craft knife to tidy up the sprue connection mark.

I've a feeling I clipped beneath the base first.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I only ever built one stand of each to see how they'd paint up and they were the Mk1 casts so i've no advice I can give really sorry. It's why I have the little warning note on my site.

The human infantry have always been the main issue with this sprue they are just so thin, to thin for gaming figures that need handling all the time. Beefed up by 50% would have seen them much more robust.

Metal casts this thin would probably see 100% breakages most of the time.

_________________
Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

I think the mk1 sprues were cast in the most brittle possible material. The current ones are better (they bend a bit rather than snapping whenever the wind is blowing... outside...in another country).

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter