It's not the complexity of model assembly that is their problem, but the annoyance of preparing them for assembly. I love Archon's Masters of the Universe miniatures, but they really need to a) make fewer connection points on the sprues and b) make those connection points thinner. Cutting them off the frame and then slicing/filing them to remove the inevitable excess is probably the most taxing I've ever dealt with in any miniature line. The same annoyance is present in the other Archon minis I've built as well, including the Mammoth Walker and their Dungeons & Lasers kits.
It is an interesting design choice because you would think they would make the hobby aspect as accessible as possible considering this might pull a lot of PC gamers across who don't have prior hobby experience.
The coloured plastic is a novel idea but I remember the green bits on the old Necrons were a bit of a hassle.
Archon makes some pretty good "pre-painted" (actually cast in different colors) terrain, such as for dungeons and caves and whatnot. I have a few in stock in my store and it looks really nice. It wouldn't work as well for miniature figures obviously. But one beneficial point of having different colored plastic parts is ease of assembly on complex kits, so maybe that's what they are going for. A lot of the Gundam models have different color plastic *even on the same sprue* so you can see at a glance which part is for which frame. It does speed up assembly time.
It's not the complexity of model assembly that is their problem, but the annoyance of preparing them for assembly. I love Archon's Masters of the Universe miniatures, but they really need to a) make fewer connection points on the sprues and b) make those connection points thinner. Cutting them off the frame and then slicing/filing them to remove the inevitable excess is probably the most taxing I've ever dealt with in any miniature line. The same annoyance is present in the other Archon minis I've built as well, including the Mammoth Walker and their Dungeons & Lasers kits.
It is an interesting design choice because you would think they would make the hobby aspect as accessible as possible considering this might pull a lot of PC gamers across who don't have prior hobby experience.
The coloured plastic is a novel idea but I remember the green bits on the old Necrons were a bit of a hassle.
Archon makes some pretty good "pre-painted" (actually cast in different colors) terrain, such as for dungeons and caves and whatnot. I have a few in stock in my store and it looks really nice. It wouldn't work as well for miniature figures obviously. But one beneficial point of having different colored plastic parts is ease of assembly on complex kits, so maybe that's what they are going for. A lot of the Gundam models have different color plastic *even on the same sprue* so you can see at a glance which part is for which frame. It does speed up assembly time.
Very true.