HAT 28mm hard plastic figures
These seem to have snuck in under the radar what with the Perrys, Warlord, Victrix and Wargames Factory ones coming out. For a firm like HAT thats been making half decent 20mm soft plastic (and those very easy to paint rubbery plastic ones like the Rumanians and the Poles) this is a pretty late entry. They are offering some unusual Napoleonics (like Bavarians) and redoing their existing El Cid 20mm figures. The first few boxes are already out. 32 figures for just over 8 quid, making them 25p each or so.

Here it is: http://www.hat.com/current28.html

forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=5552" target="_blank">http://wdlovesme.19.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=5552 The first batch was trash, but they seem to be improving.

Not by much though. Those El Cid Heavies are truly awful. The others are not inspiring. One wonders why they bother.

IDK, The Frenchies aren't TOO bad, and they're cheap.

Oh, I think those French Napoleonics are very tidy indeed... clean, one-piece sculpts with all the realistic human proportions of HaT's better 20mm soft plastics, and WITHOUT the... how shall I put this... godawful special-needs sculpting of their El Cid range! They've been 'coming soon' FOREVER, though.

I agree Norman, they are nice figures. However.... I don't know whether it's the lower standard of painting you see on plastics websites, or what, but a base of, say, six plastic figures just doesn't look "right" when you compare it with a similar base of six metal figures (and I have to confess I'm at a loss to say exactly why). I'm certainly not a "metals snob" - I'm quite happy to accept equal, if not occasionally even superior, quality of sculpting and anatomical accuracy. There' just something missing about the finished product. Is the suggestion of greater weight/mass that's present in a base of metal figures perhaps?

I know what you mean, there's something about the metal figure regardless, no matter how good the plastic ones are. However I feel it's reversed when considering vehicles. Given a choice between metal and plastic, I'd go for plastic vehicles every time -and I have no idea why, in theory metal should suit big tanks better.

Yes agreed - the greater "delicacy" needed to replicate the thinner skins of vehicles, compared to human anatomy, is much better achieved in plastic. And the vehicles DO look right when they are painted and based up.

If you read the earlier thread, my favorite blogger addresses some of these points. I've never been happy with the cartoon heads and hands approach and am overjoyed with the new plastic hordes. I'm willing to give HAT a chance, but another point is that as I understand it their product will be scaled in such a way as to be only scalable with themselves.