Catching Up, Looking Ahead

Friday, June 5, 2015

Whew! What a roller-coaster the last few weeks have been here at Paizo HQ and beyond! Two weeks ago from this moment we were deep in the throes of PaizoCon 2015, which is rapidly earning a place in my heart as the best PaizoCon to date! It's always such a wonderful experience getting to spend a weekend with Pathfinder players tossing dice and throwing back beers, and this year's show was no exception.

Actually, it was a bit of an exception in that the new, larger hotel space at the Doubletree Hotel allowed for more focused gaming and a slightly more relaxed atmosphere, conjuring memories of the earliest PaizoCons. I had a wonderful time chatting about Pathfinder Battles with fellow minis enthusiasts, and from the attendee reports I've read so far, everyone on hand seemed to appreciate the two full booster boxes of Pathfinder Battles figures we packed in every attendee's goodie bag. These packs primed the pump for my favorite PaizoCon event, Erik Mona's Miniatures Trading Afterparty, now in its SEVENTH consecutive year.

This year I seeded the party with a few samples from the forthcoming Dungeons Deep set, which is now shipping to paizo.com customers and should be hitting retail stores any day now. Folks were very positive about the new figures, and I was very proud to show them off. Dungeons Deep is one of my favorite Pathfinder Battles sets to date, and I'm confident you're going to really enjoy it.

PaizoCon was also special from a Pathfinder Battles perspective in that I announced the very next set of Pathfinder Battles figures at the Preview Banquet—The Rusty Dragon Inn! I've long wanted to base a set loosely around a tavern theme. Not only does it provide a great excuse to produce dungeon dressing suitable for the tavern environment, but it also allows us to feature several NPC and even player character-appropriate figures in a naturalistic way. Of course, The Rusty Dragon Inn set will also include a nice mix of monsters, but we'll get to those shortly.

Before that, however, let's preview the one figure from Dungeons Deep that somehow slipped through the cracks: the Anghazan Idol! Anghazan is an ape demon lord in the Pathfinder campaign setting, and his blood-soaked idol—based on one of the first metal miniatures Paizo ever created back in 2006—seemed like a natural (ahem) fit for our first round of dungeon dressing.

The Anghazan Idol comes complete with blood-stained hands and cheeks, and works well as any primitive stone idol, either in a dungeon or in the wilderness. I've teamed it up with a gaggle of dancing Charu-ka from Legends of Golarion in the photo above to put it in its proper context.

While out in the Sun, I noticed the idol's special, somewhat secret feature. The green gem at the crown of the idol is, in fact, translucent plastic, and it caught the light of the Sun in a really interesting way (did I mention that I love summers in Seattle—these outdoor dioramas will definitely be vanishing in a couple months as our weather turns terrible). Check out the gem in particular in this close-up shot:

Anyway, the Anghazan idol is, in many ways, the most modest of the dungeon dressing in Dungeons Deep, but I hope you'll discover that it's got a charm all its own.

But what about the Rusty Dragon Inn?

The big Pathfinder Battles news out of PaizoCon was, of course, The Rusty Dragon Inn, currently set for release in the fourth quarter of 2015! As I said, I've wanted to do a tavern-themed set for a long time, and I'm thrilled with the characters, creeps, and critters we've been able to fit into this set.

Ever since the line debuted, I've been trying to balance the different requests I get from customers and retailers. Generally speaking, super-collectors want stuff they don't already have, while retailers (who often break boosters down for singles) say they want figures suitable for player characters, since that's what their customers most often want to buy.

Well, the Iconic Heroes boxed sets are serving the need for straight-up heroes admirably (and sets 4, 5, and 6 are currently in the works!), but that still leaves the need for NPCs. But again, they should be NPCs that not everyone already has—a tall order after 15 years of prepainted plastic figures.

Anyway, I think we did a pretty good job making our selections. Honestly I'll be thrilled to have the figures in The Rusty Dragon Inn set for my own gaming, in which fights seem to break out in taverns nearly as often as they do in dungeons!

Let's take a quick look at many of the figures I revealed at PaizoCon, and get into some of the whys and details I didn't have time to cover during my banquet presentation.

No tavern set would be complete without a Serving Girl, here with a tray laden with food and drinks. This figure takes inspiration from Wayne Reynolds's cover to the NPC Codex, and I can see plenty of uses for this figure—mostly involving getting caught in an area of effect spell, but hey, that's tactically important too! The Serving Girl is a Medium, common figure.

There always seems to be a Merchant lurking about in the inn right before things go down, so he was another obvious inclusion in The Rusty Dragon Inn set. Whether you use this guy as an NPC to be protected, as an alchemist player character or adversary, or as a villain with an amazing mustache to twirl, he's bound to make an impression on your players. The Merchant is a Medium, uncommon figure.

We've been doling out city watchmen for a long time in the Pathfinder Battles line, and with The Rusty Dragon Inn, we're finally providing a no-nonsense commander. Decked out in the familiar blue from previous watch figures, the City Watch Commander cuts an imposing figure, fists on hips, ready to kick some ass. We based her look on Kasadei, a character from both Dawn of the Scarlet Sun and the Pathfinder Comics series, but she can really be anyone you want, including a player character. The City Watch Commander is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Of course, a set filled with nothing by NPCs would likely doom the line, so I'm pleased to report that The Rusty Dragon Inn also includes a bunch of monsters!

We've had really good luck picking a couple of adversary types and providing multiple figures within a set, and The Rusty Dragon Inn is no exception. This time, we're focusing on monsters that, while not exactly welcome in an urban setting, certainly aren't out of place there.

The first focus race this time is GHOULS, one of my all-time favorite fantasy races. Yes, we've done a few ghouls in previous sets, but The Rusty Dragon Inn allows us to plumb the pages of the Monster Codex in particular to present even more ghoulish goodness. The Ghoul Champion depicted here, for example, is just one of a small handful of amazing ghouls that we'll reveal over the weeks to come. He's a Medium, rare figure.

The set also focuses on bugbears, a staple humanoid enemy race that has long been plagued by inconsistent or just flat-out unappealing figures. Here we see the imposing Bugbear Tyrant, a Medium, uncommon figure.

And, because I love you guys, here's a bonus reveal that we didn't show off at PaizoCon. It's one of my favorite figures in the set, a nasty, sticky… thing we can only call: the Quivering Cube. The Quivering Cube is a Large, rare figure that comes complete with skeletal remains and some gear visible within it. Hooray!

Lastly this week I'd like to mention that the replacement figures for the badly produced Feiya and King Irovetti figures that were originally going to appear in Dungeons Deep have been moved to The Rusty Dragon Inn instead. WizKids simply wasn't happy with the quality of the figures, and they want to make them as awesome as possible. I'm eager to see how they turn out.

And that's it for this week, folks. Tune in next Friday for even more amazing reveals of all-new figures from The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Dungeons Deep Miniatures Pathfinder Battles The Rusty Dragon Inn
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Marco Massoudi wrote:
I think it would be a great idea to split the line into 2 different ones

Let me try and illustrate why that "can't" work. The price-per-unit is driven down as the units-produced goes up, yes? So selling more minis of whatever particular mold means that its price is cheaper, yes?

So what happens when you are able to pick exactly which minis you want? You do so. And you don't pick any of the ones you're on the fence about. And you certainly don't pick any that you don't like at all.

Bottom line is that cherry-picking reduces overall sales, which drives up overall price. The individuals market compensates for that by being more expensive overall.

Long story short is that just like getting rid of random packaging, doing the obvious 50/50 monster/NPC split would be bad for the line overall.

Don't stop thinking though.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

I don't think the battles line needs to be, nor could it ever actually be painted at the same standard as iconics. For the reasons stated by Vic I think the iconics will always be better painted.Iconics just illustrates they can do it. In fact what really needed is less, they need less paint on the faces. It's applied too thick and obscures the details. The battles line is at the correct price point and quality for me, and I'm very happy with the minis, they look great on the tabletop. I'm not upset by the quality of the line, the cost, range of minis etc. I just wish they'd use less paint on the NpC faces, the line is almost perfect in my eyes.


Vic Wertz wrote:


I'm not saying that at all! Sculpting is one thing, and painting is another. It's certainly true that what might seem to be a paint problem is sometimes a sculpt problem (melty-face Feiya, for example), and processes that improve sculpts will therefore help some of these problems. So should moving to digital sculpts help? Sure. But are digital scuplts that the only reason that Iconic Heroes look so great? Absolutely not. I'd say it's not even the *main* reason. The main reason that the Iconic Heroes sets looks so great is because they spend more time and money painting every single figure.

Vic, sorry about my late response and thanks for you reply.

First of all, I want to clarify that I am NOT someone who is dissatisfied with the line, even though it may sound like it from my recent posts in this thread. I have been a subscriber since the beginning and it's never gotten to a point where I have felt any need to cancel.

But that said, since I really do love my pre-painted plastic minis, I want them to be the best they can and therefore are disappointed when we get minis with really poor paint jobs, especially if they don't match (or come close to) the previewed pictures. And that's all I am trying to clarify, that they are recognized as mistakes and being worked on to resolve. And there have been times this has happened, like with Feiya and Queen Illeosa (although we haven't gotten those yet).

Now I am not expecting replacement minis for the poorly painted faces (which is a bit unfortunate, but understandable), but as long as you (Paizo) keeps on WizKids to improve the quality and WizKids doesn't become "ok" with the quality of the minis now, and I am stil talking about the quality of the humanoid faces again.

Because the minis in general (besides the faces) have been fabulous, and I'm not talking just the iconic line here. So I hope the lesser quality paint jobs (with the faces) have been realized and working on to be resolved, instead of a "this is just how it is sometimes".

Thanks for reading. :)

Liberty's Edge

Does this bugbear mold mean that you're retconning the hunchback bugbear look from the Bestiary?


Vic Wertz wrote:
Hobbun wrote:

So I guess I just don’t understand if they have the capability to paint that way with the iconic line, why humanoid faces a lot of times look quite bad in the main sets. What is done so differently in the iconic line compared to the main sets?

Quite simply, the figures in a standard booster are priced at $15.99 for 4 figures, meaning a $4/figure average, while the Iconic Heroes minis are $29.99 for 6 figures, meaning a $5/figure average, which is to say they cost about 25% more per figure. And pretty much all that cost goes into additional paint operations, including additional touch-up work.

I get the Iconics are higher price and quality. I will give you that, but what is WizKids excuse when you look at how many human faces they do in their Heroclix lines and we don't see the melted faces there like we do in the Pathfinder sets?

Just saying, it seems like a problem that should be resolved by now. I realize this is not a Paizo problem, but it does not mean the question is not a valid one.


Having recently gone through some of the older mini sets looking for figures for PCs, I was impressed by how much worse Skull & Shackles and Shattered Star were than anything in Dungeons Deep. I think they really have improved, although you don't realize how much until you put older humanoid faces and newer ones side by side.


The Rusty Dragon Inn set should've been a set that focused solely on Townsfolk and Dungeon Dressing. I'm actually a fan of the dungeon dressing pieces - though, not the ones that have been revealed thus far for this set - but I really resent them taking up a monster slot. Plus, with only six pieces per set, it kills me to see any of them miss the mark, like the Cart and Wagon. I mean, they aren't horrible or completely useless pieces, but they'd be way less of a disappointment in a set that contained, say, 20ish dungeon dressing pieces. And maybe if they weren't rare; okay, the sculpt is probably complex, what with the wagon wheels, but we all know they're just going to be painted a flat brown and, for a rare, that's unacceptable.

Also, speaking of rares, dungeon dressing needs to come in varying rarities. The Chest in Dungeons Deep was rare but the Mimic was uncommon? When would I ever need more Mimics than chests? The Bubbling Cauldron, Iron Maiden and Sarcophagus were appropriate rares, while the Chest and Brazier should've been uncommon. The Anghazan Idol could've gone in either rarity. Stuff like barrels, crates, tombstones, broken pillars and similar simple sculpts requiring limited paint jobs would all be great commons - because they aren't complex and they're all things one might hope to get 4-6 of when buying a case. And more complex stuff, like a town square fountain complete with translucent blue plastic for water, wicked looking thrones made of dragon bones and teeth, an alchemist's table covered in beakers and bottles and glittering crystals, and an ornate altar to a forgotten god would be appropriate - and awesome - rares. And uncommons could be stuff like a large-sized table (what's a tavern setting with no tables for people to sit at?), and a DDM-styled Arcane Portal, and large bookcases lined with books. There's certainly ideas enough to warrant a set with more than a mere 6 dungeon dressing pieces and rarities for those pieces other than just rare.

And Townsfolk don't have to be useless non-combatants. Sure, you'll get stuff like the Serving Girl, Dancing Girl and Merchant, but the Pious Guard, Guard, City Watch Commander and even Half-Elf Bard would fit into the same set. Because 'townsfolk, to me, refers to anyone you might find in and around a town or city. A Filthy Beggar, a Doomsayer, a Farmer, a Sellsword, a Dark Alley Rogue, a Shepherd, a Town Mayor, a Butcher... Even animals, like the Draft Horse and Riding Dog, could be part of the set. Livestock, pets and vermin. Maybe you aren't keen on the uncommon Cow or rare White Stag, but the common rat and common spider could definitely find a home in your game, or some of the pets are ideal animal companions.

You could easily get a 50-figure set focusing on Townsfolk and Dungeon Dressing. And you could probably put one of those sets out every 18 months or so (one a year would be too many). Provided, of course, the sales of such a set matched the more monster-and-NPC focused sets. And if the sales were abysmal? Well, I think that'd a pretty clear statement that those sort of miniatures just aren't all that desirable by the masses and, as such, probably shouldn't be shoehorned into regular sets either, lest you diminish the overall appeal and damage sales of those sets as well.

Grand Lodge

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CurseTheseMetalHands wrote:
And if the sales were abysmal? Well, I think that'd a pretty clear statement that those sort of miniatures just aren't all that desirable by the masses and, as such, probably shouldn't be shoehorned into regular sets either, lest you diminish the overall appeal and damage sales of those sets as well.

The problem is that a set with abysmal sales would have a strong probability of killing the line completely.


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CurseTheseMetalHands wrote:
And if the sales were abysmal? Well, I think that'd a pretty clear statement that those sort of miniatures just aren't all that desirable by the masses and, as such, probably shouldn't be shoehorned into regular sets either, lest you diminish the overall appeal and damage sales of those sets as well.

That's a false conclusion. If a burger joint were to try selling a meal that was "french fries, french fries, and a side-order of french fries", it would probably tank. Nobody would buy it. Strangely that wouldn't invalidate that french fries, when accompanying a burger and a drink would sell very well.

Variety is key in this line. Some people would shy away from a monsters-only set. Some people would shy away from a heroes-only set. So you mix the two, and people who like monsters and people who like heroes both buy cases. Balancing the mixture to entice more purchases is the hard part.

Dungeon dressing has probably proven itself a viable third option, given what demand appeared to be. So we'll probably continue to see a few in each case, and that's likely the most sensible approach.

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