Metal Miniature's in The Old World and the fate of the pewter regiments.

[MechaMan]

We read the writing in the financial reports when Games Workshop said they were moving away from metal miniatures, we read the writing on the wall when Vostroyans, Valhallans, Armageddon Steel legion went last chance to buy, before selling out altogether.
 

We watched as metal, and even resin characters were updated in plastic, or went the way of Sebastian. The fate of the pewter regiments seemed clear; they were heading for retirement, and it seemed that on a long enough timeline all metal

models were destined for extinction.  
 

Then the Old World was brought back, and with it the entire range of metal miniatures for certain armies. In fact some armies seem to have more kits available to them now than they did during the end times of the world that was. There are currently close to 100 metal kits being sold in the Old World range. 

 

With the presence of metal Imperial Ogres, pewter warrior priests, or should I say “lead-free white metal alloy” Wood Elf Mages , might we not also see the return of the Vostroyans? These aren’t available on a limited run, mto basis either, they’ve been part of the roster since their introduction. 

 

what’s stopping them? They clearly have the shelf space for 100 metal kits to be in stock, manufacturing capabilities etc etc.  

Edited May 28 by MechaMan

[Bonehead]

No idea. So I shall conjecture:

Possibly they didn't sell well enough to justify the shelf space. Space marines were always more popular than imperial guard, and outsold them even with a metal range of drastically fewer models; meanwhile presumably gw stores were finding space for a range with nearly as many sculpts per regiment as the whole vanilla space marine range, for a lower return in sales.

I think they're always going to be bearing those sales figures in mind when they consider resurrecting any models. You only have to look at the number of posts in this sub-forum when the new dkok models and book came out recently, and compare them to the number of posts in the space marine forum, to see the same things that gw execs are going to look at and estimate low sales returns, I think.

The Old World stuff is selling so well at the moment because a) they took it away in the first place, which drummed up a lot of interest and b) the nostalgic crowd who enjoyed warhammer games back in the day are kind of fed up with where 40k is right now. These are the same people who'd potentially be most of the customer base for any metal gaurd resurrection, and they don't have a current game they like to use the models in.

They've proven themselves to be an incredibly money-motivated company (I mean compared to other model-making and games publishing companies) over the years, so I'm basically assuming profit is the root of all decision-making in my conjecture.

And finally, and extremely subjectively, I wouldn't re-release the vostroyans because I think they look terrrible. Irrelevant, but I wanted to get that off my chest for years.

[MechaMan]

I always used to think this as well - that they didn't sell well enough to justify the shelf space, that GW were streamlining their product range, moving to all plastic etc. I was resigned to their loss.

 

But now you can buy metal Imperial Ogres, from FEBRUARY 1990! And another 99 other metal kits! I just feel like the introduction of the Old World and the continued availability of ancient (and seemingly pretty niche/unpopular) metal kits has totally bucked the trend. 

 

Maybe it's tunnel vision from collecting guard all my life, but I feel like the Armageddon Steel Legion or whatever it might be are far more iconic and impactful/marketable kits than like the Wood Elf Beast Pack from 1987. (No shade to the 1987 kit incidentally)

[Bonehead]

I suppose if they're appealing to nostalgia, then they maybe feel the longer the models have been unavailable, the more people want them? No, that doesn't make sense, because they've also reissued stuff much younger than the metal IG.

I'm back to saying hell if I know at this point.

[Arikel]

I wouldn’t place bets on it. I figure for the old world, the metal/resin and old plastic stuff was brought back simply because it was far easier to resurrect the older kits than create a whole boatload of new minis in plastic until they are confident the new game is worth supporting.

 

I would say it is far more likely that we will see regiments brought back in plastic IF the krieg launch goes well and satisfied GW expectations. If it did, I would expect catachans first though, and then maybe other regiments either as upgrade sprues for DkOK, Cadian, or Catachans, if they match the base uniform closley enough, or as kill team kits to test the waters first.
 

No way to confirm it but it’s my gut feeling that the Krieger KT sold well enough that GW figured there would be enough support for a whole army of the little buggers.

 

In any case, I am confident that the way forward with GW is going to be plastics by default, with resin for specialist/lower demand items. I don’t see them creating any new stuff in metal and aside from TOW I would only expect metal in the odd made to order offer. Even in TOW, if it remains part of the game lineup, I would see all new items going forward to be plastics, for new units and eventually replacement plastics for dated plastic/metal/resin kits if the game is popular enough to warrant it.

[kabaakaba]

There is an issue with guards. Regiments mean some specialization like storm troops, siege, recon, armoured, etc, so mordians, vostrayans or steel legion really can get only standard set of infantry things like commander, command squad, troops and some specialist like current kasrkins or combat engineers. But even so there is not so many players around who ask for firstborns or steel legion for example. So the chance ve get vostrayans back in plastic is really scarce