Review: Pathfinder Minis: Heroes and Monsters

Alarian · Jan 24, 2012

Paizo has said some of the initial shipments of cases and bricks were missing the security tape on the individual boxes (I know the 1 case and 1 brick I bought were missing the security tape.) All later shipments had the security tape attached. If you got a box without it the tape, it was from the initial shipment.

All in all I was very happy with the mini's. Were there some I didn't like? (can you say Troll and Ogre which were both very cartoony) Sure, but you can never be happy with 100% of the mini's in something like this. But by and large most were great. My favorite is the Ettin. I even ordered a few extra of those on the secondary market.

As to the waste, I really don't think there is much of a way to reduce it. If they reduce the box size, it will limit the mini size and really only save a tiny bit of materials, and if they make the boxes too small, it becomes too easy for someone to stick one or two into their pockets and walk off. Plus, I'm sure they want their products to be noticed. Sticking them into tiny little packs makes for a not real noticeable product. Go into just about any store today and buy almost anything and 9 times out of 10 the packaging is excessive. The one thing I can thank Mitra on is they didn't use twisty ties and heat sealed plastic packaging on everything. That would have been a nightmare. I personally could have cared less about the packaging. My kids and I had a blast opening all the boxes. It was like Christmas in January!

cyderak · Jan 25, 2012

Honest and thorough review but i wholeheartedly disagree.

Pathfinder Minis blow D&D minis away!

For a couple reasons.
1. The sculpts are way more intricate than D&D minis.
2. The small paint differences is where Pathfinder minis are better than D&D minis. One example is the goatee on the ranger. (Although some of the Pastel colors could have been darker.)
3. Some of the most realistic spider minis I have ever seen. The Caveweaver scared the crap out of my daughter.
4. THE GOBLINS. These creepy little bastards make PC's afraid of creatures with small hands........smell like cabbage! And that maw full of pointy teeth that crawls its way almost all the way around their heads.

5. Three words.......HUGE BLACK DRAGON!!........That......Just......Happened!!

And as for the packaging, Quit yur whining and open your PATHFINDER BATTLES minis over a recycling bin. The cardboard and plastic sleeves are recyclable. And if you throw the packaging right into the bin there is no mess to clean up. As for why they do that, its to standardize packaging. If they did separate packaging for cases and "ready-for-sale" bricks they'd have to spend more money on logistics of moving that packaging around for changovers from one to the other and then instead of having one product to try and sell, you now have 2 different styles of packaging that your pigeon-holed into trying to sell. This way its sold one way and theirs no real surplus of one or the other.

Besides that, if you weighed out the amount of cardboard used on the older Pre-painted plastic minis lines like Star wars minis or D&D minis or the LOTR minis, per mini I think they'd be about equal. As for the flimsy-ness of the packaging........I don't know about you guys but I'm not going to be displaying the packaging from my Pathfinder minis. its going in the recycling bin. :lol:

MaddogRy · Feb 7, 2012

Pathfinder mini security

Im glad I came by and saw this thread. I ordered several random single packs of the new pathfinder minis just to test the water with them, and I immediately disliked the product due to its lack of security. The boxes I recieved had only a small strip of clear tape holding the lids closed, and with easy effort i could remove it without damaging or marking the package. I bought from trollandtoad and havent had trust issues with them yet, but obviously they are a business that generates significant money through selling the desirable and rare singles.

I resolved not to buy any more pathfinder packs because of this. But if they have added a better security feature I might be willing to try them again. Buying cases is difficult for me to justify (or try to explain to my wife

), so i just pick up a few of what i want every now and again.
Thanks for the update

TheAuldGrump · Feb 8, 2012

I agree with parts of this review, and disagree with others.

In particular the packaging, which is a give and take - the material used in the PFB minis is a bit more fragile than that of the DDM figures. The packaging does a better job supporting and protecting the miniatures, and they need that extra protection.

I do think that another approach could have been used - possibly cardboard strips instead of vacuum formed plastic. However, by its nature, it is very easy to make a vacuum formed packaging to custom fit a product.

I do not much like this packaging, but I do understand it.

The price... I am in an odd position on that one - I am likely to repaint any PFB figures that I get.

Compared to quality metal or resin miniatures of the human and smaller critters they lack detail. Compared to unpainted plastics from GW, Wargames Factory, or Mantic they also suffer. For painting (or repainting) these are pricy for the level of detail.

Compared to DDM... they fare much better. Taken as themselves, I think that they are a much more worthwhile purchase than DDM, even given the difference in price, at least for the human and smaller figures. (The DDM human and smaller figures were really pretty danged poor in my estimation.)

Detail.... Comparing only to DDM for reasons given above - the larger figures are comparable, with neither much better nor much worse, though the paint jobs on the PFB minis seem slightly better. I like the Large spider, and the Large ogre (or will after a repaint). The Large ettin... I have too many of.

The troll... maybe as an adolescent? Against the Reaper Pathfinder trolls he seems pretty small. I will be using him as a young 'un.

The frost giant, not bad, I will keep and repaint him.

But my favorite is the female druid in the very non exciting pose. She looks... practical. The medusa will be painted to match a figure by Studio McVey, a mirrored pose, similar dress, and the snake.

One or the other is using an illusion to change their appearance....

The Auld Grump

TheBigBlueFrog · Jul 25, 2012

The packaging didn't bother me, mainly because (a) I'm going to keep one brick's worth of packaging in case I sell the minis in the future, and (b) I have access to plenty of plastic recycling spots to choose from. The plastic inside the boxes is either PETE or HDPE. Pretty sure it's PETE. I'll just throw it in with my recyclable water bottles. The cardboard will go with my junk-mail recycling.

What bothered me most was the crooked arrows on the ranger and the crooked trident on the lizardfolk champion. That, and the inconsistencies between different bases. Some of the minis are on little discs which are glued to the bases. Some are directly glued to the bases. I'd prefer all of them to be on the discs, because it would make it easier to decorate the bases and have the feet not get bogged down in the basing materials.

prosfilaes · Aug 16, 2012

I know it's old, but for what it's worth, I bought a number of these one at a time at the game store to round out purchases. I spent an amount I don't want to think about, $5 at a time. Packaging them in larger batches would have meant I wouldn't have bought them.