[Knockman]

I really like redcoat's article, and agree with a lot of it. If I'm honest to myself, I'm a wargamer first, a boardgame and cards player next, and role-player/GM after that.

Ogre Miniatures has always been a favourite of mine, to the point where I invested heavily in Hexon terrain from Kallistra UK to end up with a hybrid Ogre game drawn from both the Miniatures and boardgame formats. Acquiring the metal minis was the hardest part - hence why I ended up using so many 'proxies' from other manufacturer's ranges.

That is why I find the Ogre plastic miniatures to be, for me personally, the stand-out success of all the latest developments of Ogre over the last five years. The quality is exceptional, with great potential to even 'mod' some of these into variants or give them that campaign look. And the irony is that I already see the possibility to use some of them as 'proxies' for other genres/games - e.g., 'Hammer's Slammers'.

In other wargaming genres, hard plastic figures are steadily taking a sizeable market share of wargaming compared to just having metal miniatures available. Some well-established companies (e.g., Perry Miniatures) are cleverly using a mixed approach - plastic for the rank-and-file, metal for commands and specialist sets. Some new companies with new product lines have been entirely reliant upon plastic from the outset. And I've even seen some discussions where the plastic sprues themselves are likely to be re-designed so that they can contribute too, for example as rubble/bricks/girders/stones/etc., once the miniatures are removed from them. (Pig Iron Miniatures used to do this with their metal range).

It all now relies upon keeping the supply easy to acquire and affordable. It's why number 1 priority on my own preference is to see Combine equivalence to what we now have for the PE. That would round out the basic foundation of the range, to have all the standard elements of both armies available.

I sincerely believe you have a great success here, with a great opportunity to take it even further. Some wargamers - me included - discover a range of figures they like, acquire them, then look at how they can get them on to the tabletop with whatever rules are out there. If that's followed by others, think how many would discover all the other aspects of Ogre via picking up the plastic miniatures first?