Yorga said:
They went to resin because it is tons cheaper and therefore drives up their profit margin. 'Nuff said.
That's actually very very false. The white metal costed next to nothing because its an alloy composed mostly of tin and other sub-industrial metals. Tin has skyrocketed in the last 10 years but its not hard to substitute a different metal for tin in the mix. You could easily use recovered metals for GW miniatures for example and 90% of the player base would be oblivious. EDIT: You are looking at anywhere between 5 cents to a dollar (at most) worth of metal for most of the old white metal line.
From experience building and painting other types of models and miniatures, resin actually costs more than metal to make because it requires a lot more human labour input per unit than metal injection moulding to produce the same result, which is why they didn't go with resin from the get go even though the technology has been around for ages and is superior from a modelling perspective.
I'm not saying that GW isnt milking their player base. I'm saying that on the balance of things the swap from metal to resin is not an example of said milking.
PS: Have you ever actually tried flying internationally with several cases full of white metal miniatures? Until you have, you will not truly appreciate the swaps to plastic and resin.
