Pathfinder 1E Paizo Announces More Details about Minis Line

[delericho]

Well, good luck to Paizo... but they're not for me. I just can't justify the expense.

Vry interesting. It sometimes seems as if Paizo is aiming to become WotC anno 2005 or something like that.

Suits me. In retrospect, 2005/06 was pretty much the high point for WotC, IMO.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I am glad that the option for pre-painted minis is going to return.

I just don't have the time to paint my metal minis. When I'm running a game, it's nice to have a painted mini for at least the big baddy.

 

[Dykstrav]

Interesting. I'll certainly buy some of these.

The price point doesn't really bother me--what I care about is the quality. If they are as good or better than D&D Miniatures from between, say, Aberrations and Desert of Desolation, I'm all on-board. Four bucks a pop? Sure. That's still cheaper than buying a single metal mini and painting it myself. Unfortunately, the first two or three sets might not get there.

My big concern here is going to be the two major issues I had with D&D Miniatures late in their lifetime.

1) Quality. They've got to look better than army men with a two-color paint job or those things you get out of the quarter machines at the grocery store.

2) Too much of the same thing. I don't know if there was some unspoken assumption that new players were constantly joining the game and needed to start fresh or something... But D&D Miniatures were replete with miniatures that were too similar to one another for my tastes. Every set had a few sculpts of orcs, goblins, skeletons, or zombies. Why did it take until Dangerous Delves to get a rust monster? There were also several resculpts of things that you only really needed one of or one sculpt of: owlbears, dire rats, dire wolves, and ghouls had at least three sculpts each that I can think of off the top of my head.

For me to buy, there needs to be some unusual monsters that there aren't already a plethora of miniatures for. I don't need any more orcs. I understand that someone else might, so I won't get upset if they make a few. They just don't need two or three orcs in every damned set that comes out.

 

[kythri]

Please note, there is no Random/Common/Uncommon mix. It's random, but they have not gone the rare route. Instead, the larger minis just cost more.

There *IS* varying rarity. Vic Wertz confirmed this in a post at Paizo.

 

[kythri]

[*]They're doing special promo figures. Unless I'm misreading the blurb, that black dragon is a promo figure only available at stores that order cases. In other words, we're talking the MageKnight and HeroClix model here. I don't mind "rare" figures in DDM. I did mind "very rare" figures (very much so). Promo figures that are only available through specialist venues is one step worse than "very rare" minis for me. It guarantees that I have to go to the singles market, where supply may be tight and prices may be exorbitant.

I would imagine that the black dragon isn't going to be all that rare or unattainable. Paizo has stated that whatever the offer may be to retailers for obtaining the black dragon by purchasing a case, they'll extend that same offer to their website customers for a case purchase.

I would imagine other venues would end up doing the same. Not really specialist venues.

On the one hand, I can't say I'm entirely a fan of promo stuff that's "hard" to get, but on the other hand, I completely understand it - it's an incentive to make a larger purchase.

Marketing minis seems to be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation - I'm just glad that they seem to have found the least damning method of doing so, so that we get some more minis out there.

A wider selection of stuff to buy is nothing but good for the consumer, and the pricing on these isn't exactly horrible when compared to the alternative.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Randomized is a bad call, since that could be the poison pill that kills the whole thing, but I do get from their website that it was a necessary call, which makes me think that the only possible plan they could have gone with was destined for failure because of the limits on it.

Except its not a bad call at all. Its the only way thats demonstrated any measure of variety and decent prices. Otherwise all you get is the same old crap over, and over, and over, because orc with axe, goblin with short sword and kobold with dagger are the only things that sell enough individual units to justify the mold cost. Once you go random, everything now sells the same number of units, so you can actually have a line with room to grow and depth.

 

[Dausuul]

Merric's Law of Miniatures says, paraphrasing slightly: "Non-random packaging, cheap price, good selection: Choose two."

That's two, guys. Not one. Two.

I'm fine with the randomization, since I'll just buy on the secondary market anyhow. But like S'mon, $4 is about the top of my price range as far as medium-sized prepainted minis go. If that's the per-mini cost for random boosters, the best minis in the set are likely to head up to the $8-12 range, which is too rich for my blood.

It's a pity, because some of these look quite nice. Succubi are among the few monsters missing from my collection, and this succubus looks quite good. The frost giant is also solid, and the black dragon is positively awesome. So I'll keep watching this, but if secondary market prices go where I think they will, I'll likely pass.

 

[Cergorach]

I don't really care for paying rent or taxes for that matter, but as long as I want to keep a roof over my head that ain't jail, I'll have to cough up the dough ;-)

And as long as making miniatures is an expensive and/or risky business, we'll not get rid of either randomness or even higher prices. You have either expensive materials (metal), expensive molds (plastic), or labor expensive production (resin). The same goes for prepainted, you either have constant costs (folks painting the minis by hand) or enormous upfront costs (automated painting machinery).

Prices look bad initially, but when you go Case and discount, maybe prices won't be so bad (we'll see when they're available locally in Europe).

I'm really interested in mini's for Rise of the Runelords, it all depends on sculpt, paint, and price. And while I have legions of DDM miniatures I just like the look of some of the Pathfinder monsters (love the Goblin look), so I might buy only a small selection of the minis on the secondary market.

 

[filthgrinder]

This is a really interesting announcement and reaction from Paizo and the community. I think it would be interesting to see how the exact same announcement from WotC would be received. Not as nicely, I imagine.

However, Paizo did a great job at explaining why they are randomizing and using rare/common distributions. They did a good job in one post summarizing all the decision of why this is the way to do it. However, reading it, I can't help but think that they are all the reasons are exactly why the DDM line was discontinued.

All the negative comments about WotC's DDM line, can be applied to these WizKidz figures. Also, as for quality, these are pictures of the paint masters. There will most likely be a step down in quality from the paint masters.

All in all, I think it's great that there are more prepainted plastic minis, of the proper scale, coming onto the market. Right now, I think it's a little pricey for a crap shoot, especially with 1 mini per box. The after market is going to be an interesting place soon.

Would love to see the pricing and the collection of the non-random visible sets that are to come.

 

[frankthedm]

I missed that. Smart move by Paizo, minimizing the risk.

And it means paizo can stock singles without it looking too underhanded.