Pathfinder Review: Pathfinder Battles - Rise of the Runelords Miniatures

Nikosandros · Aug 29, 2012

I'm also very disappointed with the fragility of those minis. today I received my booster case and two minis (actually, two rare minis!) were detached from their bases. :rant:

Mirtek · Sep 1, 2012

Herschel said:
2. The sets with the visibles were not a good move, they listened to market noise and those that complained they wouldn't buy without seeing still didn't.

To be precise they started to listen to them because the sales where already dropping and the tried to grab for that straw to turn them around. It's not as if everything was fine and they simply decided to give it a try out of the blue and then everything started downhill.

Actually they did not really listen to these people (or had a terrible failure understanding them). Those people didn't complain "we want to see a single one of the minis or won't buy", they complained "we want to see the minis or we won't buy". Showing them a single mini and leaving the rest as blind randoms was something nobody asked for.

Don't blame people for not buying something that they never asked WotC to try to sell them.

Zezicks · Sep 1, 2012

I purchased one of the huge boosters at my FLGS, just to get an idea for the new line. I pulled a Glabrezu, I mean "Treachery Demon" which is the one I was hoping for. I am generally impressed with the sculpt and paint work...but I just can't get on board with the price.

The miniature itself is pretty well painted, with a good amount of blending, and a good use of washes and highlights. The top of the miniature, where the shoulder plates become broader, starts to look a little cheap and plastic-like. The neon green tongue doesn't blend well inside the mouth, and I'll probably add some shadow toward the back of the throat to make it a little less stark. The paint work on the claws is the best part, with the green of the body on the rear getting a little more drab.

The sculpt is pretty good, and there are a lot of complex parts that had to be fit on after molding. To that end, I would have liked to have seen some better fitting here. One arm has a big gap between the arm and the shoulder where it's suppose to fit into. The back spines are a separate piece that was glued to the back. It looks OK, but it's easy to see that the piece was glued on later.

Is this figure worth $25? If I needed one for a game, then probably...maybe...kindof.

In my mind, these aren't much different from a collectable action figure. McFarlane had an awesome line of Dragon toys that were gigantic by comparison, you could see them in the package, they had more detail, and cost about half the price as a "huge" Battles miniature. I use some of the more traditional sculpts as dragons in my home games all the time. My question is, why are Pathfinder Battles so expensive? I just don't understand the marketing data they give us and the idea that they need to randomize them to offer the entire line.

In action figure sales, they spread the cost of creating the figures across the whole line. So in a line with a very large figure, there will also be one that's much smaller to balance the costs. They make sure everyone buys all the figures by 1. making them all desirable characters and 2. putting something else in the package that people will want, like Hasbro's "build a figure" line that includes a piece to a larger build-it-yourself figure.

And the idea that these action figures are more marketable doesn't really work for me either. McFarlane built his whole company around "action" figures that couldn't do anything but sit on a shelf. No articulation, no blinking lights...just really awesome sculpts dressed in some really awesome paint jobs. And many of his lines were extremely obscure. People bought them because they saw them sitting on a shelf and thought they looked cool. If I saw a Pathfinder Tarrasque sitting on a shelf as part of a Pathfinder Monsters line, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Maybe the comparison is totally irrelevant, but it's still something I'm wondering about.

While I don't regret the purchase, spending $25 on a random miniature that looks "pretty good" isn't going to happen more than once. I'll buy the ones I need after market, or spend the same amount of money on a Reaper miniature that will take a lot more work, but end up being far higher quality.

Jhaelen · Sep 3, 2012

Mirtek said:
Actually they did not really listen to these people (or had a terrible failure understanding them). Those people didn't complain "we want to see a single one of the minis or won't buy", they complained "we want to see the minis or we won't buy". Showing them a single mini and leaving the rest as blind randoms was something nobody asked for.

Don't blame people for not buying something that they never asked WotC to try to sell them.

Well, it was a compromise that didn't to work as well as they'd hoped. The packs with desirable visibles (e.g. demons, dragons) sold well, others didn't (e.g. aboleth, unicorn).

All in all it was too little, too late.