Hello again,
My dragon came today and it is a really awesome sculpt. It is not huge. It is merely a large. I will be adjusting the base of mine.
I think now that I have the dragon and have heard the reports, I will be opening my boxes.
I will not pretend to know what it takes to get the distribution of miniatures in a case correct, but I know that the potential for getting the entire case is good and I like that aspect of the release.
I think the packaging is plainly to much though. That is a WHOLE lot of paper and plastic for these and surely that is driving the cost of the miniature up. I'm happy to support Paizo, and have been since the beginning of their Dragon mag days, but the cost is prohibitive to new (and this old) gamers.
I am for the profitability of selling a product, but I genuinely feel that the Paizo miniature line could be lowered in price and become even more profitable now that they released an article that says that they sold out of the first print run.
And there is another issue. Will this be the only print run of this set? I can only imagine what the secondary market will produce with the miniatures high initial cost.
I also realize that any initial miniatures line is going to have some issues, especially with scaling and cost. I for one would continue to buy these miniatures if they could keep up the standards and fix these issues. I have heard reports that rarity is an issue with some of the figures. my biggest issue with this is with common heroes. Heroes should be uncommon to rare mainly because they, and their NPC counterparts are singly used in most games. You never need 12 paladins. The only time I like to see common figures in the human realm is with warriors, pirate bands, thugs, bandits, townsfolk (although those might be uncommon too since how many times do you need copies of a farmer with a chicken as a club), thieves, and other types of groups where mob mentality is the order of the day. Common figs should always be reserved for groups that need to swarm the PC's to be successful. If these figures had stat cards for some type of minis game, the same thing should apply as to the RPGS game; that is to say that groups that are likely encountered as a group should be common in rarity. Let me add to that list by putting in town guards. I've seen a lot of city guards, but few town militia types. These would make a good common miniature. All the rest of the commons should be creatures or humanoid groups. When you put out Denizens of the Swamp for instance, having two types of common lizard man warrior would be helpful. Having common "witch doctor" or cleric lizardmen would not. that type of specialized lizardmen should be uncommon. In essence, keep the distribution in line with the likely numbers that would be needed for a good encounter. I've heard that I could expect to find 10 to 12 goblins in the case. That is perfect!
If some of these issues could be resolved you would have a loyal collector. I use the miniatures in my RPGS game and the pre painted are pastastic since I have little time to paint anymore.
To sum up, good, no, excellent distribution is a must, less packaging, adjusting of scale to keep up with 30mm standards, watch scaling creep (getting bigger with each release), and sensible rarity chooses are needed.
Eric, thanks for taking time out to respond. I think that alone might.be why I will be opening up the case later today.
Aluvial
My dragon came today and it is a really awesome sculpt. It is not huge. It is merely a large. I will be adjusting the base of mine.
I think now that I have the dragon and have heard the reports, I will be opening my boxes.
I will not pretend to know what it takes to get the distribution of miniatures in a case correct, but I know that the potential for getting the entire case is good and I like that aspect of the release.
I think the packaging is plainly to much though. That is a WHOLE lot of paper and plastic for these and surely that is driving the cost of the miniature up. I'm happy to support Paizo, and have been since the beginning of their Dragon mag days, but the cost is prohibitive to new (and this old) gamers.
I am for the profitability of selling a product, but I genuinely feel that the Paizo miniature line could be lowered in price and become even more profitable now that they released an article that says that they sold out of the first print run.
And there is another issue. Will this be the only print run of this set? I can only imagine what the secondary market will produce with the miniatures high initial cost.
I also realize that any initial miniatures line is going to have some issues, especially with scaling and cost. I for one would continue to buy these miniatures if they could keep up the standards and fix these issues. I have heard reports that rarity is an issue with some of the figures. my biggest issue with this is with common heroes. Heroes should be uncommon to rare mainly because they, and their NPC counterparts are singly used in most games. You never need 12 paladins. The only time I like to see common figures in the human realm is with warriors, pirate bands, thugs, bandits, townsfolk (although those might be uncommon too since how many times do you need copies of a farmer with a chicken as a club), thieves, and other types of groups where mob mentality is the order of the day. Common figs should always be reserved for groups that need to swarm the PC's to be successful. If these figures had stat cards for some type of minis game, the same thing should apply as to the RPGS game; that is to say that groups that are likely encountered as a group should be common in rarity. Let me add to that list by putting in town guards. I've seen a lot of city guards, but few town militia types. These would make a good common miniature. All the rest of the commons should be creatures or humanoid groups. When you put out Denizens of the Swamp for instance, having two types of common lizard man warrior would be helpful. Having common "witch doctor" or cleric lizardmen would not. that type of specialized lizardmen should be uncommon. In essence, keep the distribution in line with the likely numbers that would be needed for a good encounter. I've heard that I could expect to find 10 to 12 goblins in the case. That is perfect!
If some of these issues could be resolved you would have a loyal collector. I use the miniatures in my RPGS game and the pre painted are pastastic since I have little time to paint anymore.
To sum up, good, no, excellent distribution is a must, less packaging, adjusting of scale to keep up with 30mm standards, watch scaling creep (getting bigger with each release), and sensible rarity chooses are needed.
Eric, thanks for taking time out to respond. I think that alone might.be why I will be opening up the case later today.
Aluvial
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