Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters Brick

I think everybody might want to take a few minutes to enjoy the outdoors. I'll unlock the thread in a little bit.

WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY ONE HOUR SLUMBER!?

I think everybody might want to take a few minutes to enjoy the outdoors. I'll unlock the thread in a little bit.

Does it count as the outdoors if there are crickets, geckos, snakes, spiders, mantids, plants and a rain system? Cuz that's what I went and did, fed the geckos.

I'm done.

Fat Jozka wrote:

At Paizocon, the word was that randomization was out.

At PaizoCon, we were only talking about one set—the non-random Beginner Box Heroes.

Fat Jozka wrote:

Perhaps you can have a two-tiered approach. Sell random packets to retailers and simply open them up and sell them individually on the Paizo site. Then, perhaps, we can have the best of both worlds.

We've already announced we'll be offering singles here at paizo.com, just like we did—and still do—with D&D minis.

I'm in the obsessive mini collector category.

I've purchased many cases of other Wizkid's products and have been very impressed with their distribution. 25 cases of their products in fact, and I have had 0 issues with set completion. Case distribution, they do very very well IMO. Other companies could learn some things from their methods.

I will be purchasing one, or two, cases. I like the preview sculpts. I am confident that with Wizkid's handling the minis the distro will be more than adequate.

We do not currently have any concrete plans regarding a separate miniatures game. Is that something you'd like to see?

I'd like a Pathfinder-ish mass battles game rule set. I like to field the 250 skeletons, 200 zombies, etc. I own on occasion and it would be nice to have streamlined rules that are some what in tune with the RPG rules. I'm probably in the minority but I come from a wargaming background and really like a good war scene now and again. It would be handy to have rules for large scale battles.

Gary Teter wrote:

I think everybody might want to take a few minutes to enjoy the outdoors. I'll unlock the thread in a little bit.

WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY ONE HOUR SLUMBER!?

RISE, MY MINION! RIIIIIIIISSSSEEE!!!

As somebody who subscribes to a lot of Paizo stuff, I have questions on two topics:

1. Will there be one or more subscription lines for these miniatures? If so, how will those be handled?
(# of products, which products, avg $/month, goal of the subscription line? (complete set, individual sample, etc.))

2. In light of the randomness debate (on which, I am not taking sides nor offering opinions), how will product returns be handled?

We do not currently have any concrete plans regarding a separate miniatures game. Is that something you'd like to see?

Nah; if we wanted to play a minis game we'd all be playing 4e OH SNAP

We can't go far into discussion of secondary markets without gettng into opinion because we haven't seen how this is all going to play out. Without a game driving secondary market sales, can any of us truly predict how secondary sales of these minis will?

Truly predict? No. Educated guess. Yes! DDMs had over twenty sets. Not all of the sets were tied to a miniatures game. The sets that weren't were a mixed bag in the secondary markets in price. Common and Uncommons could be obtained cheaply. I see no reason for that pattern to change for Paizo/Wizkid miniatures. Rares that were highly sought after were expensive in the secondary market. The Elder Blue Dragon sells for over $50.00. I see no reason that the Huge Black may command comparable pricing. It may likely be the same for the Succubus and the Frost Giant too to demand higher pricing.

If the rares are what interest you, then buying the case may be the way to go. But if the commons and uncommons are all you are after, then waiting for the secondary market may be your best bet.

I know for many shelling out $300+is a great hardship. Quality prepainted miniatures aren't cheap to make. They are a bit of a luxury. Seldom do luxuries come cheaply.

Later,

Mazra

We do not currently have any concrete plans regarding a separate miniatures game. Is that something you'd like to see?

I don't have a strong desire for a miniatures game, but, if you did one, I'd much prefer a customizable game than the standard "mini x has stats y" type approach. Something that lets me build/modify the stats of my figures without going out and buying the magic figures with those stats. That may not be the type of product you're interested in producing though, because it inherently gets rid of chase rares and puts less emphasis on tournament-style play.

I applaud Paizo for taking this risk. And yes, I mean risk. The financial outlay for such a venture is vast and the hope for reward is limited. It is clear that their love of the hobby is high on their priority list. We should be grateful.

I'm not unhappy at this move (and have ordered a case) but is the risk really Paizo's? They're advertising this and licensing it (and will presumably stock a lot of them!) but isn't it Wizkids producing the things and taking the initial costs?

I'm not unhappy at this move (and have ordered a case) but is the risk really Paizo's? They're advertising this and licensing it (and will presumably stock a lot of them!) but isn't it Wizkids producing the things and taking the initial costs?

Well, I'm not much of a business expert, but I'd think that a failure of the Wizkids mini line would eventually reflect poorly on Paizo and risk depressing their sales. Not much of a risk, but it's still there.

Mazra wrote:

I applaud Paizo for taking this risk. And yes, I mean risk. The financial outlay for such a venture is vast and the hope for reward is limited. It is clear that their love of the hobby is high on their priority list. We should be grateful.

I'm not unhappy at this move (and have ordered a case) but is the risk really Paizo's? They're advertising this and licensing it (and will presumably stock a lot of them!) but isn't it Wizkids producing the things and taking the initial costs?

We don't know the business relationship between Paizo and Wizkids. We don't know how much investment was made by either company. You may be right and Wizkids may be shouldering the greastest risk. Then I will revise my previous statement: I applaud Wizkids and Paizo for taking this risk.

Later,

Mazra

I still say all this hullabaloo would be solved by simply adding an indication to the Press Release/FAQ that singles will be available here shortly after launch.

And, of course, people respecting the right of a business to charge whatever the heck they want for whatever kind of product they want to sell, and then making their own decision as to whether or not to buy said product, which is the right of the consumer.

I simply don't see any point in telling Paizo "Ur doin it wrong" here.

I said this before and I'll say it again: There's probably only a small handful of people on earth that know more about the collectibles business than Lisa. She knows what she needs to do to sustain the line. End of story, honestly. She'll do what she needs to do. Fear not. There's a good chance that if you won't buy these, someone else will. Like me, for example.

In closing, Sebastian, I love you. Will you have my babies? Cute little Rat-pony babies?

In closing, Sebastian, I love you. Will you have my babies? Cute little Rat-pony babies?

If you promise they'll have your beady red eyes and constant drool, how could I say no?

Jeremiziah wrote:

In closing, Sebastian, I love you. Will you have my babies? Cute little Rat-pony babies?

If you promise they'll have your beady red eyes and constant drool, how could I say no?

I thought that was the mini of this offspring in the picture with the Succubus.

I think everybody might want to take a few minutes to enjoy the outdoors. I'll unlock the thread in a little bit.

Are you kidding? Not everyone lives in Washington; it's 100 outside!

Sure Paizo employees can say "Hey Wizkids...there are a lot of people unhappy with your proposed plan" to which Wizkids can respond with "It's cool, we've already used this model with Heroclix, it will be fine".

Which I can say I have never seen sold anywhere except as unboxed singles. Just saying.

Not to mention HeroClix was itself a miniature game which drove the collection of HeroClix figures. Pathfinder miniatures are miniatures simply to by miniatures. There is no driving interest in pulling the handle on the one armed retail bandit.

Are you kidding? Not everyone lives in Washington; it's 100 outside!

Is that all?

Jeremiziah wrote:

In closing, Sebastian, I love you. Will you have my babies? Cute little Rat-pony babies?

If you promise they'll have your beady red eyes and constant drool, how could I say no?

Do they still poop skittles?

Cartigan wrote:

Are you kidding? Not everyone lives in Washington; it's 100 outside!

Is that all?

That's before humidity.

Aberzombie wrote:

Cartigan wrote:

Are you kidding? Not everyone lives in Washington; it's 100 outside!

Is that all?

That's before humidity.

Again, is that all?

I grew up in New Orleans. 100 degrees and 100% humidity was the norm during many summers.

Edit: Not to mention I spent several summers in my dad's Dry Cleaning and Laundry plant.

After giving this greater thought, I do not believe Paizo needs a miniatures game. It is highly likely the quality of these miniatures alone will be a driving factor in selling these miniatures. I believe that many if not most retailers will be opening boosters and selling the miniatures individually because of the greater income potential in doing so. The distribution model leads this way as well. If Wizkids/Paizo sells out, then there will be nothing restricting them from a second or third printing of the line, though with each printing there would be greater and greater risk.

I will be very surprised if we do not see a Rise of the Runelord set next summer. This is truly an exciting direction for Paizo and Wizkids to venture.

Later,

Mazra

I don't think this got answered in the rush to explain how the miniatures market should work to the professionals. Although perhaps I missed it - this is a daunting thread to reread.

Any clues or indication as to what the promotional black dragon will cost?

There's a lot of people who have talked about washing (especially with Devlan Mud) in this thread, has anyone actually tried that with anything WizKids have made before and have some pics of the result?

Pics - no, but yes I've done it with their DC and Marvel supers lines.

Their plastic can be a little ... odd ... (maybe a release agent that never quite comes off?), so what I've got to doing is spraying them first with a quick coat of Krylon Matte finish, then using the wash. Seems to bond way better that way.

The results is definitely pretty good. I've used a variety of the washes to good effect actually. My son and I did a joker with thraka green and leviathan purple washes, and it turned out really nice.

No price has been given yet for the Black Dragon if purchased with a case through paizo.com.

JMD031 wrote:

Sure Paizo employees can say "Hey Wizkids...there are a lot of people unhappy with your proposed plan" to which Wizkids can respond with "It's cool, we've already used this model with Heroclix, it will be fine".

Which I can say I have never seen sold anywhere except as unboxed singles. Just saying.

Not to mention HeroClix was itself a miniature game which drove the collection of HeroClix figures. Pathfinder miniatures are miniatures simply to by miniatures. There is no driving interest in pulling the handle on the one armed retail bandit.

My point is that Paizo is not who we should be complaining to.

No price has been given yet for the Black Dragon if purchased with a case through paizo.com.

Cheers.

Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap! PMG is pissed at me! I'm doomed I tell you! DOOMED!!!

Would love to see a Mini game - definitely brings in fringe buyers. Throw in any kind of prize packaging at all and you really pull in numbers that benefit not only that line but the stores supporting those events.

Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap! PMG is pissed at me! I'm doomed I tell you! DOOMED!!!

You misspelled DOMED.

These figs could easily be sold non random and do just as well, in my opinion. I've yet to see and argument that proves me or anyone else who says this wrong, because "Paizo said so and they love us!" doesn't count.

Neither Paizo nor WizKids have any obligation to make unsound business decisions just to prove you wrong.

It sounds like there's a real opportunity there for an enterprising gecko breeder to start up a business with his brother the plastic pusher, and show Paizo and WizKids how it should be done.

Wishing you the best of luck with that...

I'd like to add that in my hand, I have a Gremlins game pack from NECA/WizKids, and the sculpts and paint are awesome. I have complete faith that the Paizo minis will be equally awesome.

Now I just hope that the volume increases to the point that we'll see some reduction in cost. I also hope that the large figures are a little beefier than the troll in the CG sample is, and that the figures are less cartoony than that troll.

I wonder what the next Adventure Path mini line will be after Rise of the Runelords. I certainly hope it's Carrion Crown; let's have those Lovecraftian horrors!

I just hope they don't print a gunslinger mini, ever. Because having a single mini with a gun will ruin the fantasy nature of Pathfinder now and forever, and I will never purchase another mini. Ever!

I just use the crazy guy with an m16 with a bayonet over his head going "raaaaaaaaaaah!!!"

he's bodacious.

Random mini's..........I say "blerrrrrrrrrg."
It's the dark side of capitalism.

And, no......I don't buy them.
I do, however, reserve the right to say that, although I guess that's how they gotta do it to make money, it still makes me say: "blerrrrrrg."
Yayyyy. More sawdust in my meatloaf plox.

I am confused why my questioning of Lisa, or my questioning of their transparency in their marketing plan, makes me bad, or a conspiracy theorist. I work at a huge, national company, and I see how our marketing goes. That's what marketing IS.

Your company might lie to their customers. We don't.

Vic Wertz wrote:

I don't think that WizKids releases that info, and I don't know what it is, with one exception: a case should give you very nearly one of each rare.

For $275 per case, I would hope I'd get every one of them in a case, not "very nearly" all of them. I'm not about to spend that much money on a hope, not in today's economy and job uncertainty.

WizKids doesn't even normally *make* statements regarding the amount of duplication in a brick or completeness in a case, but we've impressed upon them that it's important to us, and to many of our customers, that they do so. They are going to extra effort for us, not just in making those statements, but in maximizing the percentage of bricks without duplication and the percentage of cases that contain full sets, because we've told them we think it's important.

I have every confidence that when customers start getting their minis, we're going to hear that a very, very high percentage of bricks have no duplicates, and that a very, very high percentage of cases contain complete sets. But when it comes to random sets, you're just not going to get 100% guarantees on that.

I don't really understand the thinking behind those claiming "It shouldnt be like this". I don't see what any of the significant parties have to gain by deliberately doing anything other than what they think will be most successful. Surely what they've come up with is something they think will work and is presumably the best possible option, in their opinion.

I can understand people expressing their view that they dont want random minis (although the existence of visible single minis for sale on a reputable site seems to ameliorate this concern somewhat). What seems strange are those saying 'it shouldnt be random' (or rarity based or whatever) - "It should be done differently". It seems to me you must be saying:

1) You know better than the relevant decision makers how their industry works, which just seems ludicrous to me.

2) The companies could do it another way, but their chosen strategy is good for the producers and bad for the consumers. (Essentially suggesting this random-based model is a cash cow with exorbitant profits which would be undermined by the completely feasible but less profitable non-random option). This seems equally discredited to me - where have all the entrepreneurs been when they should have been taking advantage of this goldmine?

Is there anyone suggesting Wizkids/Paizo are 'doing it wrong' who isnt suggesting one of these? Don't they seem silly to you?

I also find it interesting that this thread is so black and white. Can I not hate ONE thing Paizo does while still being a fan? I think the product is a good one, but I think the marketing is BS. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be here (Which makes the bossman telling me to shop elsewhere upthread weird to me).

I didn't tell you to get lost. I told you "I hope you find another company who will cater to your desires." That is, WizKids (and Paizo) recognize that the only feasible way to produce a decent-sized line of prepainted plastic fantasy miniatures is to do so by averaging out the higher costs of lower-demand (or more complicated) figures with lower costs of higher-demand (or less complicated) figures, and that means having variable rarities, and that means randomization.

I genuinely *do* hope you find another company who can produce a broad line of prepainted fantasy miniatures with a model that doesn't involve random boosters, but I don't believe you will.

How easy do you think it will be for retailers to stock single creature boosters? Burned 1 too many times and no one is going to buy any of them as opposed to multiple creature boosters where you have a better gamble of not being burned when purchasing another pack.

Funny, Wizkidz has been doing this for 4 sets with heroclix, at the same pricepoint. They sell like hotcakes at our store. In the amount of time we sell 5 boosters of 5 figures, we sell about 70 of the single figure blind boosters. As Vic says about 5 pages ago, its a proven model that wizkidz can provide spreadsheets of data on how it helps move product faster.

In other words, havn't been burned on it except for when the set size was under 20 figures. In my experience as a retailer, if you have less than a 25% chance to get a mini you will be excited about, you won't impulse buy a booster. Having one figure per booster means this will come faster, as there are less chances to get a certain figure. But splitting the LG and SM/MED means that when you reach that 25% overall mark, it might be 10% change of something you want in larges, and 30% in small/mediums if thats the case a purchaser is more likly to get a small.med single player pack than a multi figure pack on an impulse buy.

Can you consider a CASE subscription? I know for a fact I will be buying a case with every one that comes out... and then follow up with singles orders as needed until I get everything my little gaming heart could want. ;)

That's being considered, and is very likely.

And for people who have already made purchases, don't worry—if you subscribe (once subscriptions are available), we'll make sure we apply any subscription benefits that would apply to your existing purchases.

That is to say, if we offer, for example, a case subscription, and you've already ordered a case, then if you subscribe, we'll apply the benefits to the case you've already ordered.

(In short, don't hesitate to preorder just because you're waiting for subscription details.)

ehb1022 wrote:

I've never purchased theses types of minis before (always bought metal and unpainted). I preordered a case and would like to know whether they are 25mm or 28mm? I read through the thread and saw where someone asked but couldn't find the response.

If the WotC ones are any idication, they will vary a bit more widly than metal, but will always have 1 inch bases for small/medium, 2 inch bases for large, and 3 inch bases for huge.

We'll get to see the masters of the beginners box ones @ gencon, so I will have some wotc ones to compare with in my pocket.

I'm not sure, but I think there may be some small size variance between the paint masters and production figures due to the mold-making process and the different plastics involved. But they should be pretty close to Wizards' minis.

Rzach wrote:

Actually if you released a complete set I would buy it over a case. Unless you announce something like that though I will continue to save to preorder a case.

Actually, that's not a bad idea:

Paizo, if you read this: You'll be selling singles. Why not sell complete sets, too?

It's possible that we'll try... but keep in mind that since we're getting them in the same rarities as everyone else, putting sets together effectively means that we'll have more commons to sell as singles.

That is, if there are 10 commons for every rare (a ratio I totally just made up), then for every set we sold, we'd have have 9 extra commons left over, so it would effectively be thinning the rares out of our singles pool.

It's tricky, but we're considering it.

Caineach wrote:

Find comprable producs.

Done. Go to one of the online retailers that have tons of old D&D minis and have aggregated them into packs of certain things and buy a pack of 10 for ~$17. You now spend no time painting, have 10 miniatures that you wanted, and paid a per mini price of ~$2.

...which is only possible because they were packaged as randoms in the first place.

Um, no. Only WizKids and you know the price points on specific figures, and only WizKids and you know the exact number of figures pressed per run, per mold sheet. It would be quite easy for you to factor these things into your contract, without hurting WizKids. Do I believe that there is any way you could buy unlimited {Huge Demon #7} at whatever your discount is on a random box? (Which is what I think you think I'm saying) Absolutely not. Do I believe {Huge Demon #7} costs $X to produce, and {Giant Bug #3} costs $X/3 to produce, and you will pay a mark up on X, and get the figures you want to sell on this very web page? I do, and if you don't have that in your contract, well, you should have.

If I read you correctly, you're saying "Have WizKids tell you their exact manufacturing cost for each figure, and then order exactly the figures you want with a price based on that cost."

One big problem with that is that the exact manufacturing cost for a figure is determined very much by the quantity of that figure produced, so they wouldn't know the cost until we knew how many we wanted to order, and we wouldn't know how many we wanted to order until we knew the cost...

And that's complicated further by the fact that, as you pointed out, there's often more than one figure on each mold, and that means that those figures must always be produced in the same volume. So you'd need to know the relative volumes for each figure before you knew which ones you could group together, which you'd have to figure out in order to determine the costs, which would change the relative volumes...

But you know, even if you managed to work all that out, you'd be giving up one of the benefits of the single minis market, which is that the market determines the prices. Sometimes, some minis that cost a lot to make are available as singles for a much lower price than they would be if their price were based strictly on cost.

Averaging costs out over a large set, broken down into a few distinct rarities, is really the only feasible way to do it.

I doubt I'll buy too many, as the random bit really kills it for me. I see the economic reasoning, but if I have a game in two weeks, and I desperately a troll and four goblins, randoms aren't going to help. It would be faster and cheaper just to go to Reaper and buy four goblins and a troll.

Still, I can't say I won't pick one up here and there, just for the 'what the heck' of it. I do have a couple of questions, though, as I've never so much as held a WizKids miniature in my hand. I'm a painter, and have been for more than 20 years. The solid blocks of unshaded color on these things makes me nuts. If I get any plastics, they'll be taken on a tour of my painting table.

What I want to know is what kind of plastics are these things made of? Are we talking a hard, inflexible plastic that holds a paint job, like, say, GW/Citadel plastics, or are these the soft, flexible plastics like the Castle Ravenloft or the Reaper prepaints?

The "first ten" discount sometimes strikes me as a little odd. It seems like I could split my order of two cases and get the discount twice which feels kinda counterproductive, from paizo's perspective..

But if you did it as two orders, you'd have two shipping charges instead of one, so it would probably come pretty close to evening out.

(The point of that is that, when it comes to large orders, we want to offer something pretty close to free domestic standard shipping, and a worthwhile discount on premium or international shipping, and the "first ten" promotion happens to do all of that without adding a lot of complexity in either execution or communication.)

Bottom line, do whichever works out best for you—we don't mind!

What I'm arguing is the statement (and I paraphrase)

"We have to charge so much, and make them random, so you buy more than you need to give us enough money that we can make these at all. Our margin is so low, look at how we made this work!"

You're definitely getting the wrong message.

Let me try an entirely different tack:

Our goal is to produce a broad line of prepainted plastic minis. We'd like them to be some of the very best that this industry has ever seen, and we'd like to offer them at a reasonable price.

"Broad" means that we don't just want to make goblins and trolls; we want to make a range of figures that accurately represent the vast majority of things Pathfinder adventure parties will eventually run across. That means some of these will appeal to much larger groups than others, which means that the volume (and thus the cost) of some of them will be much higher than others.

"Best" means that we don't want to take shortcuts; we want to spend a little more on complex figures and intricate paint operations where it counts.

Some of these minis, then, will be produced at a much higher cost than others. But we'd like to keep the price reasonable, too, and we think that means around $2/4/6, depending on size.

Making them random is the key that allows us to offer minis that, using traditional methods, would have to be priced several times more than that, without actually having to *charge* several times more than that.

Could we do a non-random line? Yes. Would it feature a broad selection of figures, with complex sculpts and paint ops among the best the industry has seen? No.

For those of you not clear on this, even if Paizo pays the same as your local store, PAIZO MAKES ROYALTIES OF THE FIGURES THEY BUY.

Of course we don't. Many modern contracts that involve licensors purchasing licensed products specifically state that the licensee doesn't have to pay royalties on the products they sell to the licensor. Doing otherwise is known as "double dipping," and it's generally frowned upon in the world of licensing.

As somebody who subscribes to a lot of Paizo stuff, I have questions on two topics:

1. Will there be one or more subscription lines for these miniatures? If so, how will those be handled?
(# of products, which products, avg $/month, goal of the subscription line? (complete set, individual sample, etc.))

2. In light of the randomness debate (on which, I am not taking sides nor offering opinions), how will product returns be handled?

1. To be determined.

2. Just like any other returns, I'd imagine...

ThatWeirdGeckoGuy wrote:

For those of you not clear on this, even if Paizo pays the same as your local store, PAIZO MAKES ROYALTIES OF THE FIGURES THEY BUY.

Of course we don't. Many modern contracts that involve licensors purchasing licensed products specifically state that the licensee doesn't have to pay royalties on the products they sell to the licensor. Doing otherwise is known as "double dipping," and it's generally frowned upon in the world of licensing.

You and your facts and well informed opinions...