the mechs I never found rubbery at all, the body is hard plastic and guns/arms move. Some of the lights and a few of the guns are a hard rubber. Paint quality is fantastic. I started playing when they were 32 bucks a pop, then it increased by 8 bucks. They are quite big, about the size of a soft ball (roughly). I don’t expect a prepainted ship for Leviathans to cost that much, though ~5″ is quite big, at the scale and colors used I don’t see it costing 40 for a big ship. Though it also depends on quality of paint and sculpt too.

The War at Sea minis have carriers that are about 6″ and sell for about 10 bucks on average, 25-35 when there is a new set on ebay.

Though it is not really fare to compare the quality of most prepainted NON-collectible games with prepainted random-collectible games. As I have seen from various games the ones where you buy what you want is often higher quality.

However, this does come at a cost. I can’t say what people would be willing to pay for a fleet of, say, 8 ships. I could see $75-$100+ US for what I would consider a single typical (or even starter) fleet of a quality similar to some of more detailed AT-43 figures. The larger robot like figures are $40 a piece. They are roughly what I would consider a Battleship size figure.

If a figure is of a high enough quality that wouldn’t be compelled to paint it, I would would have to really consider the cost in purchasing a fleet of such figures.

On the other hand, if the quality is such that I would like to repaint, why would I want to pay the extra cost of purchasing something pre-painted in the first place.

It’s a tough call and really depends on the final paint quality/cost of the figures.

Aesthetically, the combination has completely turned me off to them all together (so far). The marvel heroclix paint jobs and plastics were so bad, I didn’t even want to repaint them due to the ‘cheap’ feel of them and some of the pre-painted DA stuff you’ve mentioned has floppy weapons, twisted turret mounts, etc. While this may keep costs down (can’t blame you there), and may even prolong the life of the mini, I just don’t like them.

Combine that with the fact that I’ve heard horror stories (including a couple of my own)about trying to strip the prepainted and ending with a pile of ‘plastic goo’ or smooth minis with no detail or other melting monstrocities. It may be the chemicals used, but it still doesn’t work for me.

I would strip and repaint them if they were good, solid minis, but if I try to paint over a ‘studio paint job’ it ends up looking like junk and ultimately I abandon the game for my crappy looking figures (honestly yes, whether my fault or not). I would also try to spray over them with primer and a lot of the sculpts, don’t appear to have held go detail in the first place and worry I’d lose even more. Nevermind the fact that, as obvious from my previous posts, I think a big draw for the minis hobby is the ability to have completely unique figs.

Now AT-43, and on rare occasion the DA stuff, does show some progression in pre-painted, but they still feel somewhat cheap to me. The big exception I can think of is the DnD mini prepainted dragons. however, the larger size may be the reason, combined with the centerpiece aspect of them.

Here’s hoping this is helpful and that Leviathans finds a good way to buck the trend.
I do realize I am the loudest voice in this for bare minis, and I thank you for viewing everyone of my rants. These are just my longwinded opinions and take them with a grain of salt. The last I will offer is that I’d be willing to wager that the miniature gamer community will be divided 50/50 on this. So again, do what’s right for your company.

Now I have to be nosy, even if you can’t or choose not to answer: in prepainted miniatures, is a softer plastic used to off set the cost of having them painted or is the price the same with or without paint?

Admittedly some of the later paintjobs were … less good. Bright day-glo primary colours, heavier layers of paint, poorer quality. But you could still paint over them without stripping.

(BTW, I don’t believe we’re looking at the folks who made/painted the MechWarrior CMG minis for Leviathans.)

What are your stories about repainting pre-painteds? Which were good, which were bad, and what seemed to be the key differences?

I think after seeing that demo mini.. I’m firmly in the unpainted camp.

I would usually be sitting in the unpainted camp. Just because I like to paint and convert things. Especially if having a fleet of mini’s it be nice to add individial touches to give some indentification between the ships. Plus create some of my own personality between ships rather than buy the canon personalities for my fleet. But then again that could be done with pre-painted mini’s with a bit of paint. So I suppose either way is good.

But when I first saw this site I honestly thought these would be unpainted mini’s.

Plus as stated before pre-painted mini’s don’t always seem to have the same qaulity as unpainted. If this game goes pre-painted I hope it bucks this trend, so modification if one chooses to do so, is easier.

Here’s hoping they decide to release both prepainted AND unpainted box sets and use the sales figures to determine the fate of the rest of the releases. That way we can all play with at least some of the figures in our style.