104 replies to this topic

[ZILLA]

So we finally get our first look at the Legendary Encounters pre-painted plastic minis. What do you guys think? Personally, I think that they look horrible. I expected better from Reaper! Sorry guys.

[Krztoff]

Considering what I've seen from other manufacturers, I think they're pretty decent.

They're prepaints, so I judge them by other prepaints.

[Spike]

The skeletons look a bit flat..but then there's not much one can do with mass-production tools that can produce the sort of shading to make a skeleton look much better.

I'm pretty happy with the others as they are. I keep hearing people say "..but I can paint better than that."..which is probably true, but then, these are not for displaying alongside your handpainted minis. They're designed to be bought cheap and in-mass for gaming tabletop. At around $2.50 a pop, they're a far better bargain than unpainted metal.

Compared to other prepainted models I've seen, they are on par. Compared to this AT47 stuff everybody's talking about, they look about half as good.. for HALF the price. One gets what one pays for.

[Ironworker]

They look better than the WOTC plastics. I suppose they could be painted up from these basic paintjobs.

[kristof65]

Don't forget that photos tend to magnify all the worst aspects of a mini's paintjob. I excpect that they'll look better in person - unlike many other plastic pre-paints, which look great in online photos, then look horrible when you see the real thing.

Remember that Reaper deliberately didn't post the pictures of the pre-production figures just to avoid that particular problem. I'll take that WYSIWYG aspect over disappointment any day.

[Lorderl]

From the pics, they look about the same to me as the wotc stuff. They are what they are for tabletop playing, the non-blind minis is what IMO the best thing, lets keep in mind this is just the first set and reaper has lots of minis

[Dane]

They're not masterpieces, but I'm thiking of picking upa few here and there regardless. it is a royal pain to sift thorugh all the overpriced spare WotC commons on eBay looking for a handful of orcs, kobolds, and other generic monsters to use for DnD games.
Knowing what you're gonna get ahead of time and paying a good price like this is very helpful.

[tabascojunkie]

I have mine in front of me right now, and they'll work for what I believe they were intended for- cheap stuff to throw on the table for monsters. I'd get some orcs and trolls and whatnot for RPGs, but for Warlord I think I'd still rather paint my own.

And they could benefit from a shot of Dullcote, they are a bit shiny, especially the orcs.

[Spike]

I was thinking some dullcote or matte sealer might solve that, but was unsure how the stuff would behave on whatever sort of paint is used on those.

If you decide to try a dull finish, let us know how it goes.

[smokingwreckage]

Why is this even a topic? "These prepainted plastics look like prepainted plastics!!"

Well colour me stunned.

[Mengu]

Why is this even a topic? "These prepainted plastics look like prepainted plastics!!"

Well colour me stunned.

I too have difficulty distinguishing between the quality of 3 minute paint jobs, but there is bad and there is worse, so the topic is not unwarrented. As a matter of fact whenever a new PPM line pops up, quality of paint jobs seems to be the hottest topic of discussion.

[SaintRigger]

I'm not a fan of PPMs, and never really have been.

That said - if you take some brown liner and thin it down to a 4:1 or 5:1 (water:liner) and give 'em a quick wash, I think you'll notice a HUGE improvement in the figures, to be honest. Sure it's not "Bust 'em open right onto the table and play" - but it is minimal effort to really bring out details, especially on the skellies which I think are the roughest looking of the bunch.

[Kuni]

A quick coat of MinWax Polyshades Antique Walnut Satin wood stain, followed by a dullcoat 24 hours later, should vastly improve these minis.

[smokingwreckage]

I personally don't need PPM. If I wanted PPM my main criteria would be 1. an acceptable mini (check!) 2. Not blind (check!) 3. cheap (check!) and 4. No major paint flaws. (apparently check)

By no major flaws I mean: no thumbprints, no big smears. The jobs on these look tidy. I could retouch, if I wanted to, in less than a minute per figure.

I am convinced the people who attack the paintjobs on PPM are either metal-aholics who don't want them anyway, or PPM customers who WILL buy them anyway.

Let me make something clear: I'm no fan of PPM. But these seem to be fine for what they are. I think I'll pick some up for my kids to mess with, reducing the risk of limb-loss to my metals.

[ograx]

Personally I think the WOTC ones look 10X as good, but only the last 3 sets they've released.Blood war and on has really had some nice looking minis for PPM's.Reaper is the king of metal and I think by the looks of things they should just focus on keeping that crown.The thing that really turned me off with the Reaper PPM's was the ugly colours.I believe this will get better with time but it will take awhile for reaper to catch up to WOTC in the PPM market.


Just to finish off with a little positive note the sculpts of the minis look great, definitely alot better than WOTC's first attempt.