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I'll never understand why the companies don't get it. They either go like WOTC did and make these random sets that no one wants to waste money on because they do not know what they are getting. if WOTC just sold singles or packs of goblins and orcs and the like I bet they would still be making minis.
Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis. Paizo also half heartedly tried the paper minis, and did this adventure set thing instead of just publishing a set for the monster manual, which would of been the smart thing, and economically smart thing.
No one seems to do what would work. I think some one should make the single color plastic minis, like the ones that came in Hero Quest, or in the dungeon and dragons games.
Even Paizo's latest attempt is just another half hearted dip of the toe into the market that is going to fail.
just make a whole set from the monster manual. Sell them in clear packaging so we can see what we are buying, you could even do small set of different orcs, or skeletons, pr goblins.
It is no secret what the consumer wants. Why do all the manufactures keep doing something different.
What, you mean selling a blister pack of 5-10 mooks or the like might actually be viable? No that would never work, just ask Games Workshop :p
Triga, sounds like you've got an idea for a product. Go for it. Personally, I much prefer painting, and I've got a pretty good selection of paper minis, but if you are certain you can read the pulse of the consumer, by all means, Triga Miniatures should be the newest company on Paizo's manufacturer list.
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Triga, sounds like you've got an idea for a product. Go for it. Personally, I much prefer painting, and I've got a pretty good selection of paper minis, but if you are certain you can read the pulse of the consumer, by all means, Triga Miniatures should be the newest company on Paizo's manufacturer list.
HeHe, if I had the capital to float my fledgling business empire for two years I would do it. but I do not have any capital. At all.
So I just log onto the forums and complain and whine until I get enough investors. You want to contribute ? I can offer you stock options.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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The problem isn't that the companies out there don't know what you want. They know, and have been very aware of it. The issue is that the costs to make miniatures is high enough to force them to take their time considering if the investment is worth it.
Wizards of the Coast took a big leap of faith with their miniatures line, and it worked until they decided to stop. Their experience with Magic: The Gathering told them that randomized sets would earn them more money, and it did. People would buy more packs of miniatures to find the single one they wanted. This is opposed to non-random packs, which people would buy only once, just to obtain the one miniature they wanted.
The metal minis are part of a gaming tradition, and have always sold well. The market is there, and a high quality, hand painted miniature will always be treasured more then a pre-painted, plastic miniature.
In fact, I just recently became involved in painting miniatures. I am addicted to it, and I love being able to have a character on the board that looks exactly like the one I am playing. Before that, I relied on the D&D minis and I was never satisfied with what was used. It just didn't seem to represent what I wanted.
Now, with the recent announcement that Wizkids and Paizo are working together to develop pre-painted miniatures for Pathfinder, it seems clear to me that both companies are attempting to do exactly what you are suggesting. This first boxed set is just the test to see if people are serious about wanting what they are offering. If enough people buy the sets, then there will be more. I am confidant that Paizo will keep with their wonderful tradition of listening to the players and do their best to cover requests if things pan out.
Keep in mind that WotC recently ended their contract with Wizkids. Wizkids lost a great amount of future income because of that. They are going to want to find something to replace that loss. If you are serious about what you are saying, then help them by buying the Pathfinder set when it comes out.
I think Paizo has an EXCELLENT track record as far as 'listening to their consumers' goes. They genuinely care about delivering a product to us that we will enjoy, but they also want to be able to profit, which will help them grow and expand the company into other territories (like minis). So balancing all of the factors that are involved with having things like this done (sculpting, materials, color palettes, production, and a myriad of other things of which I'm sure I am unaware) is a difficult task for a small business, no matter how much momentum they have.
Personally, I throw my lot in with the people who dislike random packs of plastic minis. However, I admit to the guilty pleasure of occasionally purchasing them for the thrill of seeing what cool things I might get. That said, I think it would be possible for Paizo to produce sets full of orcs, goblins, and the like, and still do random packs for people who like surprises and 'collecting' them. That seems like a terrible direction from a consumer standpoint, but if it helps Paizo grow, I will mark it up as a necessary evil for fueling the Golem of RPG Awesomeness.
But hopefully it will just turn out the way I want it to.
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Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis.
Tell that to Reaper, GW, and Privateer....
Actually I disagree I love to paint miniatures, I paint all my own characters. I would like painted mobs, thugs, monsters, that hepls with gaming. I do agree the random box sets is really horrible & costly thats why I buy the them seperate on EBAY. I wish Paizo would stop making minis of there characters and more general class figures, ex: ranger, urban ranger, cavalier, cavalier with warhound, paladin male, or female
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis.Tell that to Reaper, GW, and Privateer....
I think D&D minis ruined people. They were spoiled and given the idea that plastic pre-painted minis were going to out sell pewter minis. This would mostly be because Wizards has a great way to putting their products in the hands of as many people as possible. It basically created a market outside of the pewter miniature market and made people think that was the best way to go.
Reaper, GW and Privateer are very successful companies because they have been around a long time (my first miniature was bought from Reaper 10 years ago,) and they know their market. GW has a few table top war games that rely on people buying whole armies of unpainted miniatures just to play them. Reaper has made itself into the best miniatures company for someone looking single miniatures for table top RPGs. None of the companies have the distributing power of WotC or Hasbro, and thus they will have a harder time convincing people that pewter miniatures are worth the purchase. However, I don't think they really have to, or even want to.
Someone might say the "masses" want plastic pre-painted miniatures, but I think those statements are coming from someone who has not played with a custom painted pewter miniature for their character. Think of the pewter miniatures like the luxury sport cars, and plastic miniatures like the low end family cars. I am pretty sure everyone wants to drive a sleek high end sports car, like a Ferrari or Maserati, they just have some form of mental block that prevents them from accepting that. That mental block might be the high cost or a lack of time to drive one. Same thing with pewter miniatures. I am sure that everyone would love to play with them. They just have a mental block preventing them from purchasing them, like higher costs then plastic or lack of time to paint them.
Find a collection of custom painted pewter miniatures, play a game with them, and then you should understand why the statement about what the "masses" wants sounds a little off. I just painted up a set of miniatures for my party, and everyone loves them and are disapointed when I forget to bring them to the game. They want their character, not something that is only a close approximate.
As a GM though, I understand the frustration when it comes to mooks and minions. Why buy and paint up a set of 10 creatures that will be used in one fight? Personally, I find it relaxing and fun, but not everyone has the time or funds. In that case, yes some pre-plastic miniatures work well enough. However, the target buyer is the GM, and those are the minority in the gaming market. A product focused towards the GM is going to make less money then a product a both GM and player can use. Thus, the risk of such a product is a big deal.
I'll never understand why the companies don't get it.
They get it. Don't start by assuming that professionals with actual market research teams at their backs have less of an idea about their market than a guy on the internet. Not a good foundation.
They either go like WOTC did and make these random sets that no one wants to waste money on because they do not know what they are getting. if WOTC just sold singles or packs of goblins and orcs and the like I bet they would still be making minis.
If WotC sold nothing but packs of goblins and orcs, their customers would own nothing but goblins and orcs and everyone would be unhappy. The desire for a wide variety of D&D minis is strong. Orcs/goblins/skeletons doesn't cut it.
Selling singles is another problem. Some singles would sell huge numbers, and some would sell very few. The problem is that buying a sculpt and associated molds is a huge cost, not to mention ordering a run of those products. If WotC sold nothing but singles, they would quickly find that their Half-Illithid Lizardfolk mini sold practically nothing, and wasn't worth the cost of the sculpt and mold. One of the benefits of selling minis in randomized packs is that it lets you include minis that are relatively unpopular, but that some customers consider very important. It adds variety. Random (or quasi-random) minis packs were done for so long because sales results showed them to be the most commercially viable format.
Again, don't assume that your common sense is enough to trump a company with real research teams and a decade of experience. Your proposed solution is very simple, and WotC has already considered and exhausted every simple solution, including every possible variation of yours. In the end, pre-painted plastic minis were not as viable as huge arrays of full-color, non-random, punch-out tokens.
But WotC could have given us the OPTION to buy a set of orcs, or goblins, or whatever. My group bought many boxes of minis, but we bought them to represent the bad guys. After opening our boxes and realizing that there was next to nothing useful, either for PCs or the monsters we encountered, we stopped buying them. I've told all of my gamer friends about Paizo getting into the pre-painted mini market, and to a person they said: Cool, hopefully we can know what kind of mini we are buying this time.
As to painted minis, yes, a well painted pewter mini looks fantastic. I like doing it, some of my friends do too. But I'm not great at it, and I don't often find the time, so I end up with a primer coated guy with just his cloak or something colored. Lame.
Paizo, please sell us packs of minis that are clearly labelled with their contents!! I have no interest in buying a random box again, and won't.
Dont know if its a common thing, but the groups I have gamed with in the last couple of decades have ALL had several encounters with the tidal waves of goons. Being able to go out and buy groups of grunts in a ten pack plastic kit would be ideal.
Like a box of Space Marines.
I would prefer not to haunt Games Workshop.
But WotC could have given us the OPTION to buy a set of orcs, or goblins, or whatever.
Exactly. And you would have bought them. And probably other people would have bought them, too. Which means that fewer people would be buying the random assortment boxes. Which means that the cost of producing a large line of different minis (molds, sculpts, etc.) that is normally defrayed by large number of people purchasing the sets would not be defrayed - people would purchase the orcs, goblins, etc., but not enough people would be purchasing the random sets to make the random sets worthwhile.
I feel like there are a number of people in this thread who do not understand what goes into the plastic miniatures production process. I only know this from hearing others talk about it - and maybe industry folks can chime in and correct me or add to what I'm saying here - but from my understanding, here's how it works:
Minis are produced in sets. The company that wants to make the minis (let's use WotC as an example) has someone design sculpts for each of their upcoming minis. This is a significant but one-time cost. As with all one-time costs, the more copies of the final product they sell, the more that one-time cost is defrayed. After the sculpts are done, molds are made for each sculpt. These are also upfront costs. The more minis they make and sell out of each mold, the more the cost of the mold is defrayed. Then there are your per-unit costs like plastic, paint, packaging, shipping, etc.
WotC, and all other minis companies, know that people love to buy certain minis. Goblins sell great, for example. Everyone needs goblins. They also know that some minis are not big draws. Very few people need a Half-Illithid Lizardfolk mini. But even if a given mini is not as popular as a goblin, it might still deserve to be produced - filling in gaps in the product line, making sure that people who run certain types of campaigns are supported, etc. The problem this creates is that if you sell those popular goblins by themselves, and sell the unpopular creatures by themselves, everyone buys the goblins and few people buy the unpopular sets. In fact, so few people buy the unpopular minis that it ends up not being worth it to make them in the first place; they might as well just make goblins and sell those, because that's where the profit is.
Of course, people are dissatisfied with this. If the only minis they can get are goblins, orcs, skeletons and dragons, no one will have any minis for gnolls, drow, chokers, oozes, mimics, bulettes, etc. So what they would do is mix everything together. By selling randomized sets, they can ensure that you'll get some of those minis that you need, and that the people who want the less popular minis will get some of their desired minis as well.
The solution WotC used for a long time was to package minis that everyone wanted (orcs, goblins, skeletons) with minis that fewer people wanted so that the people who did want some of the less-popular minis could get them. That turned out to be untenable in the end, due in large part to rising prices and decreasing demand for miniatures (most people eventually reach a limit on the number of minis they need to purchase).
My group bought many boxes of minis, but we bought them to represent the bad guys. After opening our boxes and realizing that there was next to nothing useful, either for PCs or the monsters we encountered, we stopped buying them. I've told all of my gamer friends about Paizo getting into the pre-painted mini market, and to a person they said: Cool, hopefully we can know what kind of mini we are buying this time.
You will, because Paizo is only making one set so far, and it's a non-random set designed to accompany the Beginner's Box.
Paizo, please sell us packs of minis that are clearly labelled with their contents!! I have no interest in buying a random box again, and won't.
You will have to live with a) very expensive minis, b) a very narrow assortment of minis, or c) random minis. Historically, those are the options. If Paizo magically figures out a way to overcome these barriers and produce a set of minis that is wide-ranging, cheap, and non-random, my hat's off to them. The industry conventional wisdom is, however, that it can't be done.
I was going to write a post almost exactly like Scott Betts' but he saved me the trouble. Excellent post.
CEO
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Keep in mind that WotC recently ended their contract with Wizkids. Wizkids lost a great amount of future income because of that. They are going to want to find something to replace that loss.
Just a note for clarity. WotC and WizKids have never had any sort of relationship. Wizards of the Coast created their own miniatures with their own vendors. WizKids has done the same thing with their HeroClix and MageKnight lines in the past. But there was never a contract between the two.
-Lisa
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Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis.Tell that to Reaper, GW, and Privateer....
OK let me rephrase, the masses do not posses the skill to paint in a high quality fashion, also the money to buy large amount of pewter minis and the time to paint them, so that you have a monster manual of them, well thats a bit much.
The market for cheap mass produced minis is there. And if they can be painted and still sold at a reasonable price point, the market for them is even bigger.
So, what if you run sets like this:
Villain packs (larger) and Hero packs (smaller). Villain packs would have a set number (4 sounds like a good number) of minis of the same faceless minion, like orcs with axes, or drow dervishes, but the other 4 are random monsters like the dire corby, dragons, and oozes. Hero packs would have 2 visible minis that have certain classes associated with them, and 2 random minis.
Or some variation of that. It was more of a spur of the moment brainstorm idea. I think the villain (monster?) pack satisfies my need for small armies of a single mini while allowing for the anticipation of getting something unique and awesome.
Reading back over it, the hero pack sounds like it's kinda flat. Maybe they could be done the same way as the villain packs, but instead of four of the same mini, it could be a party of four adventurers (with abbreviated stat blocks on printed cards inside for quick play!) and four random minis.
EDIT: What does the market rulebook say about inserting random minis into visible slots so that, while each shipment is random, you can still see what you're getting? Is that a no-no?
So, what if you run sets like this:
Villain packs (larger) and Hero packs (smaller). Villain packs would have a set number (4 sounds like a good number) of minis of the same faceless minion, like orcs with axes, or drow dervishes, but the other 4 are random monsters like the dire corby, dragons, and oozes. Hero packs would have 2 visible minis that have certain classes associated with them, and 2 random minis.
Or some variation of that. It was more of a spur of the moment brainstorm idea. I think the villain (monster?) pack satisfies my need for small armies of a single mini while allowing for the anticipation of getting something unique and awesome.
Reading back over it, the hero pack sounds like it's kinda flat. Maybe they could be done the same way as the villain packs, but instead of four of the same mini, it could be a party of four adventurers (with abbreviated stat blocks on printed cards inside for quick play!) and four random minis.
EDIT: What does the market rulebook say about inserting random minis into visible slots so that, while each shipment is random, you can still see what you're getting? Is that a no-no?
Here's the deal; WotC did just that eventually, they listened to people complain about the rarity of hero minis in the boxes and how they wanted them seperate etc. So they tried to fix flagging sales by switching formats. They split thema nd even made the heroes visible. It failed, mostly because only certain ones sold well, and also because most of the ehroes were repaints of old minis... its just not viable on the scale they wanted. I wish it had been, but I accept why it wasnt. We as consumers are part of the problem, we see the 15-20 dollar price tag for a random box of minis, say heck no and go to ebay and buy only what we need. We save alot of money, but it kinda blows out the purchase model. Also im assuming if wizkids did end up doing a pathfinder line of minis it would be packaged similiar to their other stuff such as hero clicks and mage knight, which means random. Just my opinion.
In regards to people needing armies of orcs, goblins, skeletons, et cetera, how many do you really need?
I can't think of a single time at my table I've ever needed more than eight of anything, and that was for a huge battle I staged between hobgoblins and zombies for which the players could have remained spectators. (The ranger with favored enemy undead decided to attack the hobgoblins though, for reasons that are still unfathomable to me.)
It's great to say you need huge armies of anything, but the chance is that those things were Commons in the D&D Miniatures sets anyway so you did have huge armies of them anyway. I have 10 or so common Gravetouched Ghouls from the D&D Miniatures Unhallowed set, compared to only one rare Werewolf Lord and one Large Black Dragon. I bought 29 random boxes of Unhallowed in an attempt to create a whole set and I still came out missing a few rares, most notably some rare elven archer and the gorgon (which I actually wanted for an adventure). I have substantial armies of all the Commons though.
I looked at buying the D&D Miniatures Unhallowed Gorgon on ebay. It was $16.
So I looked at the Reaper Miniatures Brass Bull here on Paizo. It was also $16.
My party fought it last Saturday, and by "fought" I mean they saw it, the archivist made a Knowledge check, and they ran away very very fast. (They also split the party in escaping from it so we'll see how that goes.)
But I'm getting sidetracked. My point is that Commons usually did consist of things you'd want to have multiples of like orcs, goblins, kobolds, and zombies or skeletons. (Though I also ended up with a few armies of things for which one would have been sufficient.)
If you're not concerned about painted plastic, as you've mentioned several times, then why worry about painted metal either? You can buy armies of skeletons, goblins, or orcs in metal and it will probably run you several dollars a miniature. There used to be a set sold here on Paizo that I wanted to buy (guess I missed it, didn't realize it was sold out until just now) that was 1 human female and 12 skeletons. Was listed at $37. That's under $3 per miniature. WARMACHINE: Alexia Ciannor & the Risen would have satisfied my itch for skeletons and I wouldn't have needed to buy anymore. (Unfortunately I couldn't justify the purchase because I really don't need any more skeletons already.)
Some assembly is required for metal miniatures, at the very least basing them, but D&D Miniatures paintjobs tended to be awful and you've said you don't care about plastics being painted anyway, so just base them and prime them. Then, they're primed, and if you feel like painting on them, knock yourself out but you can't really do much worse than the paintjobs on prepainted miniatures--Sometimes they have the black dots for eyes in such strange places that it looks like they got hit in the face with a brick and just let it heal that way.
I do hope WizKids does well with their upcoming Paizo plastics line, and I may even buy some if they do more than just the iconics, which I'd rather have in metal. I don't think having all the miniatures visible is a viable option though, for all the reasons stated up-thread.
Metal miniatures are cheaper to produce in smaller numbers than plastic miniatures so doing plastic miniatures requires a much larger market. While plastic has a higher production, they have less prestige so can't garner the prices hobby market metal miniatures can. That's one reason why metal miniatures stay around and there are so many manufacturers compared to plastics.
As a side note, Paizo doesn't make paper miniatures. Pathfinder Paper Miniatures are produced under license. Paper miniatures PDFs weren't aborted, and are still being produced.
Sorry for my thoughts being all over the place in this post. It's more a series of ideas related to the topic than one complete idea.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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As a side note, Paizo doesn't make paper miniatures. Pathfinder Paper Miniatures are produced under license. Paper miniatures PDFs weren't aborted, and are still being produced.
Not only are they still being produced, but they've kicked things into high gear!
They've got three (possibly soon to be four) artists working on doing full sets for each adventure path, meaning you buy the set, you have minis for every single monster you need to run that AP issue.
As to the OP's statement that doing AP sets was a mistake, and that they should have just done the Bestiary, I have to disagree. Producing sets for the APs lets them play to paper minis strengths - providing cheap, full-color, easy to assemble minis for unique NPCs. That's not something you can get so easily from pewter, or really at all from plastic.
EDIT: What does the market rulebook say about inserting random minis into visible slots so that, while each shipment is random, you can still see what you're getting? Is that a no-no?
Big fat no-no. In any set there are going to be minis that are more desirable, and certain minis that very few people want. Making a random mini visible means that the packs with popular visible minis will sell while the packs with unpopular visible minis won't. The end result is that you'll sell far fewer packs in the end than if you hadn't made one mini visible, and a lot of the packs left on the shelves will have minis people want but won't be bought because they don't like the visible one.
The most successful model has been, to my knowledge, fully random sets (perhaps with a guaranteed large or huge mini in the pack). The reality is that we as consumers have a price point we're willing to pay for a pack of minis. In the end, that price point is not one the market can support. It's a shame, but us D&D players are a stingy lot.
EDIT: What does the market rulebook say about inserting random minis into visible slots so that, while each shipment is random, you can still see what you're getting? Is that a no-no?Big fat no-no. In any set there are going to be minis that are more desirable, and certain minis that very few people want. Making a random mini visible means that the packs with popular visible minis will sell while the packs with unpopular visible minis won't. The end result is that you'll sell far fewer packs in the end than if you hadn't made one mini visible, and a lot of the packs left on the shelves will have minis people want but won't be bought because they don't like the visible one.
The most successful model has been, to my knowledge, fully random sets (perhaps with a guaranteed large or huge mini in the pack). The reality is that we as consumers have a price point we're willing to pay for a pack of minis. In the end, that price point is not one the market can support. It's a shame, but us D&D players are a stingy lot.
to further back Scott's point, the WotC minis line did that exactly and it proved to fail. Beholder and Balor's instantly went for $5+ more than the Fire Salamanders, Venus Flytrap thing, or the Oh so loved Unicorn (now in Grey!). I went to some stores and the packs varied in cost from $20-$35 based on the visible mini, and usually the more expensive ones were gone in days while the others are still there....
Merric's Law of Miniatures: Non-Random Packaging, Cheap Prices, and a Large Range of Figures: Choose two.
I'll never understand why the companies don't get it. They either go like WOTC did and make these random sets that no one wants to waste money on because they do not know what they are getting. if WOTC just sold singles or packs of goblins and orcs and the like I bet they would still be making minis.
Over a period of 7 years, WotC produced 21 randomized sets giving us more than 1300 unique miniatures.
Reaper, who produced "singles or packs of goblins and orcs and the like" has given us 41 unique miniatures over the last 4 years.
So which company had the successful product line?
You may remember that WotC produced two sets of Player's Handbook Heroes - non-random visible PCs. How well did they sell? (Here's a hint... I bought my PHH minis at 75% off retail when companies were dumping the stock they got stuck with).
So what does the customer really want? Lots of cheap pre-painted miniatures - and to get them we'll buy semi-randomized cases or give our money to websites that open the cases and sell singles. Because that's the only thing that will work. Merric's Law.
Let me add, Scott Betts gave an excellent explanation.
Someone might say the "masses" want plastic pre-painted miniatures, but I think those statements are coming from someone who has not played with a custom painted pewter miniature for their character...
As a GM though, I understand the frustration when it comes to mooks and minions. Why buy and paint up a set of 10 creatures that will be used in one fight? Personally, I find it relaxing and fun, but not everyone has the time or funds. In that case, yes some pre-plastic miniatures work well enough. However, the target buyer is the GM, and those are the minority in the gaming market. A product focused towards the GM is going to make less money then a product a both GM and player can use. Thus, the risk of such a product is a big deal.
For players, there is nothing better than finding a pewter miniature that closely matches your character, painting it up (or having someone competent paint it for you), and using it during a campaign. CalebTGordan is right... it's like driving a Ferrari.
But for GMs, pewter minis suck. They're more expensive, they require painting, they are heavy, they require special protection, they take up more storage space, and they are a huge pain to transport. Pre-painted minis are ideal for GMs.
Personally, I have over 5000 minis for D&D of which 1745 are unique pieces. If they were pewter, I'd have maybe 1/3 of them painted by now, but only if I had sacrificed my D&D playing time in order to paint them for the last 8 years. They take up about the same volume of storage space as my 620 Warhammer 40k minis. At the beginning of each AP module, I search through my 30+ cases and pull out all the minis I will need for the module, placing them all into a single storage case for transport to the game location each week.
When one talks about the "masses" who want minis, it's really the GMs that matter as we are the ones that spend the most money and have the largest collections.
Merric's Law of Miniatures: Non-Random Packaging, Cheap Prices, and a Large Range of Figures: Choose two.
Ah, thanks for this. I knew the law but couldn't remember who to attribute it to. Rad.
When one talks about the "masses" who want minis, it's really the GMs that matter as we are the ones that spend the most money and have the largest collections.
This point cannot be emphasized enough. Players buy a handful of minis (assuming they don't just use one of their DM's minis, which happens a lot). DMs - especially career DMs - buy hundreds, if not thousands. One of the reasons I'm such a fan of WotC's new flat token pieces they package with their boxed sets is that I can have all the physical representations of monsters I will ever need, for a comparatively low price. Heck, I'd totally buy random packs of those sorts of tokens, too.
Personally, I have over 5000 minis for D&D of which 1745 are unique pieces. If they were pewter, I'd have maybe 1/3 of them painted by now, but only if I had sacrificed my D&D playing time in order to paint them for the last 8 years. They take up about the same volume of storage space as my 620 Warhammer 40k minis. At the beginning of each AP module, I search through my 30+ cases and pull out all the minis I will need for the module, placing them all into a single storage case for transport to the game location each week.
Question for you, and sorry as this gets off topic from the thread at hand. But how do you store your minis?
I don't have anywhere near the amount of minis as yourself, maybe about 2000 total, but right now I have them all all filled in 'Giants of Legends' boxes. lol I know, poor storage for them, but that is one thing I like about plastic miniatures, you don't have to worry about them breaking unless you are 'trying' to break them.
But I am thinking of actually seperating them and organizing them in something like a clear plastic tupperware type containers.
From what I read of your posts, you have the prepainted plastic minis as well. How do you store those at home? You indicate you have 30+ cases, what kind of cases do you use?
If I had to chose between buying cheaper unpainted miniatures or more expensive pre-painted ones, I'd go for the cheaper ones.
I used to paint all my miniatures myself, even taught a class on it, and was fairly good at it. I can't do that anymore because of various reasons, but if I wanted to paint up lots of miniatures I could do so quickly with two simple techniques. I describe them here in the post I posted earlier in the other Paizo miniatures thread:
Btw, for those who don't like to paint or think they lack the skills to do so OR just want to spice up the prepainted plastic miniatures, there are two very simple techniques for adding shading and such to miniatures.
What you do is just paint the miniatures in base colours, this should be doable by anyone who can colour within the lines of a colouring book. :-D
For the prepainted miniatures, this step isn't needed, obviously (but they probably have to be washed thoroughly with soapy water).
What you do then is either dip the miniatures in a special miniature coloured varnish or just buy some coloured varnish (dark brown usually) from Home Depot or where ever.
After dipping them, shake off the excess varnish (usually in a box) and let the miniature dry.
The other method is to use a special Wash colour, Games Workshop produces a range that's pretty good. This is easier to work with, but also more expensive. You just splash the wash on with a brush and let it dry.
Here are some examples of a base colour + dip miniatures:
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3
Sample 4
If you want more examples you can try googling for stuff like miniatures or models + dipping, that should get you started.
Isn't there a bit of compromise available, though?
Here's what I mean:
I want some pre-painted plastic skeletons and go to my store of choice to purchase them. I currently have 2 choices (maybe) to do so.
1) Buy a random pack and hope like hell there's a skeleton in it.
2) My store breaks open packs to cherry pick minis and sell them at an inflated price.
Neither of these much appeal to me so I simply decide to have d4s represent skeletons, it ruins the versimilitude of the encounter but I save a ton of cash.
So nobody wins here. I don't get what I want and "Pre-Painted Plastic Minis Inc." doesn't get a sale.
However, I think that there's a third option available that would please everyone.
Randomized miniature within parameters... or randomized theme packs.
I go to the store and see that there are some minis now available from the "Undead" line. 10 to a pack and I'm guaranteed at least two zombis and two skeletons per pack. There's also a chance of getting 1 of 5 uncommon or 1 of 5 rare minis as well. (Vampire lord, special paint zombies, Van Helsing rip-off, what-have-you.) To drive the collectors, put the pictures of the uncommons and rares right on the packaging.
You can appeal to players and DMs alike by doing "Warrior" packs, "Scout" packs, etc.
Wouldn't that fit Merric's "Law of Miniatures" and be a successful business model? I know that it would get people of my mindset to buy what I consider to be "forced collectables". Something that I am excessively loathe to do because it feels like a scam. (Yes, MtG feels like a consumer scam to me because the rarity of cards is pre-determined instead of being a happenstance by-product of printing realities. I'm not saying that it isn't a genius business model or unethical, I just don't want to consume it. ;) )
Is that your work?Here are some examples of a base colour + dip miniatures:
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample 3
Sample 4
Alas, no. The first three samples are done by a guy who's already a very accomplished miniature painter who wanted to try out the dipping technique. So he just primed some dwarves for the experiment and then painted them with basic colours (as seen in some of the photos), then dipped them and shook off the excess varnish. That's all there is to it (and anyone can basically do it). He did it as an experiment to see how they turned out. The extra bonus from this method is that the miniatures are varnished, so the paint won't chip off as easily.
The fourth sample I found through a simple google search and isn't a dip-technique, but rather washes. I have some more links from my own research into these techniques, but they're in my bookmarks on my other computer.
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Isn't there a bit of compromise available, though?
Here's what I mean:
I want some pre-painted plastic skeletons and go to my store of choice to purchase them. I currently have 2 choices (maybe) to do so.
1) Buy a random pack and hope like hell there's a skeleton in it.
2) My store breaks open packs to cherry pick minis and sell them at an inflated price.Neither of these much appeal to me so I simply decide to have d4s represent skeletons, it ruins the versimilitude of the encounter but I save a ton of cash.
So nobody wins here. I don't get what I want and "Pre-Painted Plastic Minis Inc." doesn't get a sale.
However, I think that there's a third option available that would please everyone.
Randomized miniature within parameters... or randomized theme packs.
I go to the store and see that there are some minis now available from the "Undead" line. 10 to a pack and I'm guaranteed at least two zombis and two skeletons per pack. There's also a chance of getting 1 of 5 uncommon or 1 of 5 rare minis as well. (Vampire lord, special paint zombies, Van Helsing rip-off, what-have-you.) To drive the collectors, put the pictures of the uncommons and rares right on the packaging.
You can appeal to players and DMs alike by doing "Warrior" packs, "Scout" packs, etc.
Wouldn't that fit Merric's "Law of Miniatures" and be a successful business model? I know that it would get people of my mindset to buy what I consider to be "forced collectables". Something that I am excessively loathe to do because it feels like a scam. (Yes, MtG feels like a consumer scam to me because the rarity of cards is pre-determined instead of being a happenstance by-product of printing realities. I'm not saying that it isn't a genius business model or unethical, I just don't want to consume it. ;) )
Well, with skelingtons you have some other options - Reaper.
http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/a/asylumMiniatures/v5748btpy89cp
Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis.Tell that to Reaper, GW, and Privateer....
In fairness, GW apparently just finished phasing out pewter for their new resin material. In equal fairness, doing so resulted in a dramatic increase in prices across their produce line (though since when do they ever miss a chance to jack up prices?)
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For you metal purists please keep these items in mind;
1. My german shepherd swallowed one of my wotc dwarf PPM's, I found it in the the yard, mostly OK (still got tossed out...gross). I also did a durability test and drove over one with my car, only a little scratched
2. Recently I had an Ikea shelf that I had hung, but missed the studs, fall on my displayed painted metal and my repainted/modded PPM. Every freaking one of my metal minis was banged up, bent, broken, chipped and in 1 case irrevocably crushed. The PPM were just fine the only damage was a troll slasher that I turned into a aquatic troll had a bit of damage on the mod. There were ddm, wizkids and 'other' PPM in the display.
3. Most PPM have great detail and look amazing in the hands of a skilled artist. Google 'runelord' if you don't think so.
I love PPM in what ever form I can buy my plasticrack I will.
(and pack o' XXXX will never sell well, sorry they won't ask any retailer that has had a pack of ogrin/space marine/reaper 3 pack of orcs on the shelf for a 1yr+)
In fairness, GW apparently just finished phasing out pewter for their new resin material. In equal fairness, doing so resulted in a dramatic increase in prices across their produce line (though since when do they ever miss a chance to jack up prices?)Or they do like Paizo, these pewter minis that no one wants to paint. Yes there is a market for the pewter, but the masses do not want to paint their minis.Tell that to Reaper, GW, and Privateer....
I'll repost what I wrote in the other Paizo miniatures thread:
Actually, the shift to plastic (a resin/plastic mix actually) hasn't increased the cost of the miniatures. It's just bad information giving from GW. The shift has just been announced at the same time as they are doing a(n) (annual) price increase, something they've done for the last several years each June.So the two actually have nothing to do with each other.
Isn't there a bit of compromise available, though?
Here's what I mean:
Randomized miniature within parameters... or randomized theme packs.
I go to the store and see that there are some minis now available from the "Undead" line. 10 to a pack and I'm guaranteed at least two zombis and two skeletons per pack. There's also a chance of getting 1 of 5 uncommon or 1 of 5 rare minis as well. (Vampire lord, special paint zombies, Van Helsing rip-off, what-have-you.) To drive the collectors, put the pictures of the uncommons and rares right on the packaging.
You can appeal to players and DMs alike by doing "Warrior" packs, "Scout" packs, etc.
I like this idea as well, though it seems like it would require a large volume of miniature sculpts with specific themes (though there may be some overlaps, like Arcanists packs may have Lich Wizards, which are also in the Undead packs). Without this expansive list of sculpts, dividing them between themes would make each theme's pool of sculpts quite small.
That's assuming you break it down as far as "scouts." Martial characters, Divine characters, Arcanists, Undead... I can't think of a way to narrow monsters down in a satisfactory manner.
Keep in mind that WotC recently ended their contract with Wizkids. Wizkids lost a great amount of future income because of that. They are going to want to find something to replace that loss.Just a note for clarity. WotC and WizKids have never had any sort of relationship. Wizards of the Coast created their own miniatures with their own vendors. WizKids has done the same thing with their HeroClix and MageKnight lines in the past. But there was never a contract between the two.
-Lisa
It's so cool that you and your staff not only personally respond to people on these forums, but you are always taking the high ground and never insult people even when your decisions are being criticized. That is the pinnacle of being a grown up. I know that's just good business sense, but so many people seem incapable of letting things go and not taking criticisms to a personal level.
From what I read of your posts, you have the prepainted plastic minis as well. How do you store those at home? You indicate you have 30+ cases, what kind of cases do you use?
Most of my minis are stored in Stack-On 14-1/2" 17 Compartment Storage Box model SBR-18 (R indicates red). Picture
My large minis are stored in ArtBin Super Satchel 1 Compartment model #s 9000AB or 6955AB. Picture
For transport, I use a Super Satchel 9001AB and/or one of the Stack-Ons.
I never found a case for huges I was particular happy with, so I'm using some plastic box I found at Target.
I want some pre-painted plastic skeletons and go to my store of choice to purchase them. I currently have 2 choices (maybe) to do so.
1) Buy a random pack and hope like hell there's a skeleton in it.
2) My store breaks open packs to cherry pick minis and sell them at an inflated price.
For also have the options of
3) Reaper's pre-painted skeletons.4) Crystal Caste's pre-painted skeletons.
5) Do what so many other people have done and purchase the skeletons as singles from one of many online-retailers.
I go to the store and see that there are some minis now available from the "Undead" line. 10 to a pack and I'm guaranteed at least two zombis and two skeletons per pack. There's also a chance of getting 1 of 5 uncommon or 1 of 5 rare minis as well. (Vampire lord, special paint zombies, Van Helsing rip-off, what-have-you.) To drive the collectors, put the pictures of the uncommons and rares right on the packaging.
You can appeal to players and DMs alike by doing "Warrior" packs, "Scout" packs, etc.
Wouldn't that fit Merric's "Law of Miniatures" and be a successful business model?
That would be Non-Random Packaging and Cheap Prices as the two picks. You end up like Reaper with a small range of miniatures or WotC's PHH line which failed miserably or WotC's partially-random visible minis sets which also failed miserably.
OK let me rephrase, the masses do not posses the skill to paint in a high quality fashion, also the money to buy large amount of pewter minis and the time to paint them, so that you have a monster manual of them, well thats a bit much.The market for cheap mass produced minis is there. And if they can be painted and still sold at a reasonable price point, the market for them is even bigger.
One thing I think you're not picking up on is that making pre-painted plastic minis is expensive. It is VERY hard to make a profit on them.
Case in point: Reaper Miniature has a line of NON-random, pre-painted plastic minis called Legendary Encounters. (Also mentioned elsewhere in this thread). When Legendary Encounters first came out, there was great hope that they would fill in a great need for non blind miniature packs. Many miniature fans (including myself, though I am a metal minis collector) thought they would sell very well.
Thing is? They haven't sold well (to the best of my knowledge). They started coming out in 2007 and there's only 35 items in the line now (some of which are out of stock) because they just weren't selling. The line is still active and has some nice models on it, and there's always hope for the future that they'll do better. But they weren't the saving grace of pre-painted plastics everyone hoped they would be.
The market you are saying is there... is lacking. You're right, people will buy them, but not enough to offset the costs. I honestly hope that I am proven wrong in this.
NOW, that said... a friend of mine has started using the miniatures that come in the D&D board game boxes, e.g., the Ravenloft board game. They aren't PAINTED... just single color plastic minis. I wonder if those could sell well, cheaply. They wouldn't solve the painted problem, but might be good for people who want cheap minis. Especially indeed for mass monster sets like goblins, orcs, zombies, and skeletons. But I have no idea how much that would cost or if it would really sell any better than any other miniature enterprise.
OK let me rephrase, the masses do not posses the skill to paint in a high quality fashion, also the money to buy large amount of pewter minis and the time to paint them, so that you have a monster manual of them, well thats a bit much.The market for cheap mass produced minis is there. And if they can be painted and still sold at a reasonable price point, the market for them is even bigger.
One thing I think you're not picking up on is that making pre-painted plastic minis is expensive. It is VERY hard to make a profit on them.
Case in point: Reaper Miniature has a line of NON-random, pre-painted plastic minis called Legendary Encounters. (Also mentioned elsewhere in this thread). When Legendary Encounters first came out, there was great hope that they would fill in a great need for non blind miniature packs. Many miniature fans (including myself, though I am a metal minis collector) thought they would sell very well.
Thing is? They haven't sold well (to the best of my knowledge). They started coming out in 2007 and there's only 35 items in the line now (some of which are out of stock) because they just weren't selling.
Um.. the reason they are out of stock is because they are selling. Very well, in fact. Better than our ability to resupply them, it turns out. We've gone through 4 full print tuns in four years, just released 4 new models, and are about to release 4 more.
Have they been the holy grail of minis? No. There's thousands of people that don't even know LE exists. Legendary Encounters is the marketing style the OP is asking for, but the volume isn't quite there yet, in terms of # of mini choices for the consumer. But it's getting there! We're making them happen, but we've all seen plastic come and go, and take companies down with them. We're trying to do this right, and not sink our ship, which has been the leading name in metal figures for two decades.
Don't forget also that the launch of this line came right before the recession began. We had battle plans, and we had to make changes, and it has been frustrating for all of us, both as consumers and as the manufacturer.
Oh, And I think I can say there is a market for pewter figures - It's kind of my job to make them, and I sell a few million each year ;)
Um.. the reason they are out of stock is because they are selling. Very well, in fact. Better than our ability to resupply them, it turns out. We've gone through 4 full print tuns in four years, just released 4 new models, and are about to release 4 more.Have they been the holy grail of minis? No. There's thousands of people that don't even know LE exists. Legendary Encounters is the marketing style the OP is asking for, but the volume isn't quite there yet, in terms of # of mini choices for the consumer. But it's getting there! We're making them happen, but we've all seen plastic come and go, and take companies down with them. We're trying to do this right, and not sink our ship, which has been the leading name in metal figures for two decades.
Don't forget also that the launch of this line came right before the recession began. We had battle plans, and we had to make changes, and it has been frustrating for all of us, both as consumers and as the manufacturer.
Oh, And I think I can say there is a market for pewter figures - It's kind of my job to make them, and I sell a few million each year ;)
My mistake then. I had gained the impression that they were not doing well from other discussions of pre-painted plastic miniatures--and that generally, they're not well known or talked about--but that teaches me not to gather information from hearsay. :)
Please bear in mind that I think Legendary Encounters are *great*. I get frustrated when people say, "But there are no prepainted plastic minis that aren't random" and I want to beat them over the head with the Reaper Catalog. I had no intention of undercutting them--but it just didn't appear to me like the line was growing. Maybe you need to get out there and spread the word a little more. :)
Have they been the holy grail of minis? No. There's thousands of people that don't even know LE exists.
If there's only thousands of people that don't know of LE, I'm saying you're doing very well. Because I'd guess that there's billions of people who don't know about Pathfinder. :P
Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan. I get all the LE minis (except the dinosaurs). Love the rats, by the way.