Made To Order: The Preslotta Redux.

[Zhu Bajie]

OK, so GW did this "Made to Order" thing, where they re-released a bunch of old miniatures. A bunch of people got excited, and then they released a bunch of stuff that looks (to me) really modern and not really what I want. It's all sold out now so I guess some people were happy.

Then I thought about what classic Citadel Miniatures I'd actually buy if GW re-released it, and decided the old school Bugbears, like the old Monsters Starter Set. They're such gangly weirdo ugly freaks, briliant. Then I remembered that they were actually Ral Partha and available from Iron Wind Metals. Great!

So what Pre-Slotta range or individual model would you like to see on Made To Order?

 

[Tex]

I'm not a fan of pre-slotta minis in general, bar a few exceptions (C20 trolls, chaos goblins)
I'd really fancy a re-release of the chicken dragon and the giant from that era, though

 

[dieselmonkey]

I'm not a fan of pre-slotta minis in general, bar a few exceptions (C20 trolls, chaos goblins)
I'd really fancy a re-release of the chicken dragon and the giant from that era, though

Yeah, that. Not a fan of preslotta in general, but I'd buy an official resin version of the Citadel Giant in a heartbeat.

Not so much the Chicken Dragon, as it was a piss-poor model, IMO, so much that I sold mine.

 

[ZeroTwentythree]

I can only think of a few pre-slotta figures I'd be interested in, off the top of my head. Like the Tom Meier troglodytes.

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniature ... (Boxed_Set)


Oh... wait... Ral Partha is already on that, casting up both these and the smaller ones. Supposedly adding new sculpts to the range, too. Well, I guess I'm taken care of there. Good luck with GW doing pre-slotta.

 

[Aiteal]

There's lots of nice pre-slotta minis, but i'd love it if the offered Karnacs and the other lizardmen, the Perry Slann, Dwarves (esp the Northern Dwarves) and the fantasy tribes Hobgoblins.

 

[whiskey priest]

A lot of people dismiss pre-slotta stuff based on the shitty pictures from the compendiums and Journals etc but when you actually get them in your hands I've always been pleasantly surprised. Give me a set of the Kremlo the Slann figures and I'd happy for a day or two before deciding i needed more stuff

 

[Fimm McCool]

A lot of people dismiss pre-slotta stuff based on the shitty pictures from the compendiums and Journals etc but when you actually get them in your hands I've always been pleasantly surprised. Give me a set of the Kremlo the Slann figures and I'd happy for a day or two before deciding i needed more stuff

This is very true. A bit on the small side (even compared to early 90s minis) but there's a lot of really nice detail hiding in many of those preslottas. Not all of them mind... but quite a few!

 

[dieselmonkey]

A lot of people dismiss pre-slotta stuff based on the shitty pictures from the compendiums and Journals etc but when you actually get them in your hands I've always been pleasantly surprised. Give me a set of the Kremlo the Slann figures and I'd happy for a day or two before deciding i needed more stuff

My issue is more with the scale, in general they're just tiny. That and the apparent lack of quality control when it came to releasing models, whilst there are a few gems in the pre-slotta ranges, there's a whole world of chod!

 

[Niibl]

The scale is an issue and once or twice I paid dearly for it.
If they just scanned them in, clean the model and print them to order in a scale of your choice...That would be great.

 

[Mr Papafakis]

Yeah I got burned on a few pre-slotta purchases over the years. Thought they were bigger, but nooo, they were Hobbits I tell you, Hobbits!!!!

I think for quite a lot of the "good" one's, there's a few manufactures that produce them. As already mentioned, Ironwind, but there's ample choice from other companies too.

 

[Naagruz]

Those Gollum-esque Bugbears are great & there are lots of goodies in the preslotta ranges I'd like to see recast. Many of those sculpts have character & poses that you just don't see in later ranges.
Top of my list would be RuneQuest Broo & Chaos Goblin Mutants. The Skeleton Warriors & Zombies would be nice too. I never found scale to be an issue that couldn't be solved with basing, but I don't paint much past the '80s.

"Made to Order" is bizarre. I think they would be better off listing what moulds they still have & letting folks actually place orders. I'd guess most of the newer Specialist Games stuff (Warmaster, BFG, E40K) is still around & they would certainly pull in orders for that.

 

[dieselmonkey]

"Made to Order" is bizarre. I think they would be better off listing what moulds they still have & letting folks actually place orders.

This is an issue I keep having to tell people. They don't have *any* old moulds, they threw them all out about 15 years ago when they closed down the bitz service.

Production moulds are ephemeral items and are continuously worn out and replaced (sometimes in a matter of weeks!). What they'll be doing is making new master moulds from the master castings that they've always kept (all the way back to the preslotta era) and then making production moulds from them.

Not sure why they're making them limited availability, I'm guessing so they can knock out a production mould's worth, then bin that mould and discontinue them again. Presumably they can then re-release them if they turn out to be popular by knocking out a new prod mould.

 

[Fimm McCool]

I suspect they figure (and are probably right) that anyone who want it will buy in their limited release. Otherwise they're back to a non-profitable bitz service where they're paying staff to fish out one mould from among thousands, spin it probably once, discard all the bitz the customer didn't ask for, do the same for the next mould etc. etc. Very little of it would fit with their current ranges (if any) and I reckon at least 80% of their OOP miniatures there would be little or no demand for. They'd probably do ok putting the most popular items into a few production moulds and releasing them as a 'classics' range, but I doubt setting up such a thing would be the best use of their time. Best thing would be to sell another company rights to reproduce ex-Citadel miniatures. I'm sure there'd be a few who would be interested.

 

[Naagruz]

"Made to Order" is bizarre. I think they would be better off listing what moulds they still have & letting folks actually place orders.

This is an issue I keep having to tell people. They don't have *any* old moulds, they threw them all out about 15 years ago when they closed down the bitz service.

Production moulds are ephemeral items and are continuously worn out and replaced (sometimes in a matter of weeks!). What they'll be doing is making new master moulds from the master castings that they've always kept (all the way back to the preslotta era) and then making production moulds from them.

Do you really think GW has any preslotta reference casts left? I'd be really shocked if they had anything beyond the YMCA-Era. If they suddenly pulled out a c100 marine Made to Order, I think I might pass out.

 

[dieselmonkey]

Do you really think GW has any preslotta reference casts left? I'd be really shocked if they had anything beyond the YMCA-Era. If they suddenly pulled out a c100 marine Made to Order, I think I might pass out.

I know they have. They're all in small brown cardboard boxes, about 4"x2"x2", I went through loads of 'em when I was there. There's pretty much zero chance of them ever seeing the light of day again, but they do still exist. I'd presume they're stored in the GW fireproof vault these days.

 

[Zhu Bajie]

Oh I don't know, this stuff changes hands on eBay regularly, Iron Wind are pulling in punters, there is a market. And amazon pretty much destroyed the argument that long-tail inventories can't be profitable. I'm guessing the 'made to order' experiment will feed into R&D about what kind of stuff to resurrect as new lines - the first wave of models were very much about Imperial Guard themes, so perhaps a useful signpost for which themes might prove popular by which sold most/fastest. Anyway, none of it for me.

Yes, the solid base are 25mm, not 28-32mm, and don't really 'fit' with the later stuff as the Solid Base tends towards realistic proportions and more naturalistic poses on the one-hand, and gonzo freakout 1970s baroque folk art on the other. But the detail, and posing on some of them is stunning. If you've only ever looked at the CCMwiki photos or the ones in the Compendiums, you're not really getting the full picture, or if the Warhammer 3rd Edition Regiments Boxed set represents the high point of miniature design then you're not really going to appreciate the older style.

Problem for is be where to focus, there is just too much good stuff. The early C09 Dark Elves and the Runequest Chaos Broo, any of the Fantasy Tribes stuff based on Russ Nicholsons drawings.

 

[whiskey priest]

I've got most of the C series half-orcs and Hobgoblins and they are amongst my favourite figures. Until you paint some of these figures I don't think you can pre-judged the whole range. I've got a coupe of the old Chaos warriors that I'm including in my slightly later Marauders units and they fit perfectly. It's well worth exploring the ranges prior to 'slotta'. The difference in base system doesn't change the quality of the mini's.

 

[AranaszarSzuur]

"Made to Order" is bizarre. I think they would be better off listing what moulds they still have & letting folks actually place orders.

This is an issue I keep having to tell people. They don't have *any* old moulds, they threw them all out about 15 years ago when they closed down the bitz service.

Production moulds are ephemeral items and are continuously worn out and replaced (sometimes in a matter of weeks!). What they'll be doing is making new master moulds from the master castings that they've always kept (all the way back to the preslotta era) and then making production moulds from them.

Do you really think GW has any preslotta reference casts left? I'd be really shocked if they had anything beyond the YMCA-Era. If they suddenly pulled out a c100 marine Made to Order, I think I might pass out.

Damn, new casts of C100 marines would be awesome.

 

[ZeroTwentythree]

Oh I don't know, this stuff changes hands on eBay regularly, Iron Wind are pulling in punters, there is a market.

There are an increasing number of successful Kickstarter projects based on Old & retro styles (and/or taken directly from GW designs...) too.

But I'm curious about the difference in scale between all of those and the expectations or threshold for profit for GW, and how much the really old miniatures will fit into that. What they've put up so far appeals to a very different market, I think.

 

[area23]

"pre-slotta hipsters" was coined recently.