Plastics are my fave, hands down. For painting, converting, collecting, holding in my chubby fingers...all of it. Nothing frustrates me more than metal I have so lovingly assembled, drilling and pinning, gluing (often several times) and picking out the cat hairs...then dropping it and busting it all up. Serious nerd-rage.
Resin is assembled the same way (superglue) which I'm not thrilled about (I really love plastics/ plastic cement) but the overall mass of the figures will be less than white metal, so maybe they won't necessarily break apart. Maybe. Resin is more fragile. The only real gain on resin, for the consumer is the fine detail you can get with resin, which is better than metal OR plastic. Resin is slightly cheaper to manufacture but there's wastage concerns so that (resin vs metal cost to mfr.) largely zeroes out. Resin is lighter, so shipping will be considerably cheaper, and resin is largely based on oil same as plastics instead of tin, which is getting ridiculously expensive.
My main concern is over quality. While Forge World makes beautiful models, I haven't gotten one yet that didn't need thermo-forming either by hairdryer or hot water. It's an annoyance more than anything. Of course resin, even more than plastics should be rinsed off/ cleaned before assembly due to the release agents used in the casting process (they are greasy and makes it harder for primer to stick to). Still...metals are usually a matter of a bit of careful bending and they are good to go. Resin tends to be more fragile so snapping off parts is a very real concern.
The price hike is pretty standard. GW has done so annually forever as far as I know. Probably always will. I've got nothing really to say on that except that it's normal. People will complain and either suck it up and keep buying or go off and play Warmachine (or Malifaux
In the end I don't think there is anything skeevy about any of this. It's a major billion pound corporation keeping an eye on the bottom line. There will be fan turnover, there always is. In the end GW cares about making cool toys and staying in business, and I'm ok with that. GW is the cornerstone of the entire wargames industry: as they do, so does Privateer Press and every other smaller publisher/ Mfr. As long as GW stays strong, the hobby stays strong, and that is a good thing in my book. If GW were to tank it, it would damage the entire industry. There's no other company within an order of magnitude to take up that slack. We like to think 'Yeah, **** GW, I'll play Warmachine instead!" but really PP is small potatoes next to GW. Take a gander at the corporations, the stock sheet, ine number of people employed...and the staff that leaves to form other companies.
Think for a moment of how many Ex-GW staffers are now working for other, smaller minis companies. How many started their own? If it weren't for GW, those small outfits wouldn't exist as the people that started them would have never had a chance to become who they are, trained gamesmen with honed gaming skills to make the industry as a whole grow.
GW to many is the public face and the introduction of most folks in to wargaming. For good or ill. It's a gateway drug.
I for one love the overall wargaming hobby, toy soldiers and games. So I while I may be able to afford fewer GW products as the years go by, I still understand the big picture. Same on the RPG side. Wizards of the Coast may be the Evil Empire destroying my beloved D&D and turning it in to a crap kids game...it still is the gateway drug to the RPG world.
Cheerio!
JP
