Reaper Miniatures Kickstarter

[S'mon]

As far as the medium term goes, certainly I'd expect a dip in sales after the Kickstarter batches are delivered, but I expect to be be buying plastic minis from Reaper separate from the Kickstarter, eg:

a) I'm getting giants, but I may decide I want even more giants.
b) I'm getting the Chronoscope minis, but I may decide I want additional copies of the more generic ones; same for orcs etc.
c) I want a pit fiend but not the 4-arm demon, so I'm likely going to wait until the pit fiend is available separately and my PCs are Epic; then I can likely buy the pit fiend for around the $15 it would cost me right now to get the two in Kickstarter, maybe even a bit less.
d) I'm highly likely to buy new plastic stuff they've not included in Kickstarter; likewise I'm likely to buy some of the pay-extra minis eventually, when I need them and can get them retail on short-order rather than wait 7 months. I wouldn't pay $50 for Nethyrmaul unpainted (around £15/$22 is the most I'd consider - that's what I paid for WotC's prepainted Gargantuan Black Dragon), but I might pay $8-$10 for a cool Large mini I found I really needed, even though I didn't pay $5 to get it in the Kickstarter.
e) I love their prepainted plastics Dark Heaven Legends; if they get some of these Bones into the prepaints line I'll likely buy them over again, at a premium price.

 

[D'karr]

I love their prepainted plastics Dark Heaven Legends; if they get some of these Bones into the prepaints line I'll likely buy them over again, at a premium price.

And this type of "additional" retail sale is exactly what will boost Reaper's sales.

If I got a check for 1.7 milion dollars to produce on the "future" of my company, I wouldn't worry about the "300k" I spent on shipping the "one time dividend check" to my investors. That still leaves 1.4 Mil to work with and that "300K" is a one time cost.

The retail sales of my future line is what would have me excited. Instead of an expansion to my new line of 30 miniatures I just got a boost of cash to expand my line by 200+ miniatures.

I'm pretty sure that the guys at Reaper are jumping for joy right about now.

 

[EmbraCraig]

About $72k to go until Vampire pledges get the Owlbear and Griffon... 14 hours ago when I was heading to bed, we'd just unlocked the Iconics II set and that goal was $250k away.

The river of cash doesn't really seem to be showing any sign of slowing down yet, does it?

 

[Treebore]

So, are the reaper paints in the kickstarter a good bargain for a newbie painter? I always hear people talking up citadel paints for their quality. Will I be disappointed in the reaper paints?

It would be very, very difficult to beat the deal on these paints. You might get lucky to find a one time opportunity at a "Going out of business sale" to beat this price. So yes, you can buy these paints knowing it would be very hard, if not impossible, to get a better deal anywhere.

 

[D'karr]

So, are the reaper paints in the kickstarter a good bargain for a newbie painter? I always hear people talking up citadel paints for their quality. Will I be disappointed in the reaper paints?

It would be very, very difficult to beat the deal on these paints. You might get lucky to find a one time opportunity at a "Going out of business sale" to beat this price. So yes, you can buy these paints knowing it would be very hard, if not impossible, to get a better deal anywhere.

Quality wise the Reaper paints are superb. The ones in this offer have very high pigmentation which makes the colors, even when diluted, very vivid.

I like both paints, and for a newbie there will be no real difference in the quality of the paints.

The big selling point for me about the Reaper paints, when compared to the Citadel paints is the bottle. Reaper uses a "dropper style" bottle which allows you to very accurately select how much paint you want to work with. However, the Citadel paints use a "flip top" bottle, as of now, if I'm not mistaken. This flip top bottle end up exposing the entire paint to the elements while you are painting. In my experience it makes them dry up a lot faster.

Unused paint that dries up in the bottle is not a value to the customer. That's why I much prefer Reaper paints. These are their starter sets which have a great deal of variety in colors. If I recall correctly each of those colors by themselves comes in a 1/2 ounce bottle, and costs about $3-$4 retail. You are getting 12 colors for $18 dollars, about half-off retail price. I'm not sure that you can beat that price anywhere.

 

[Holy Bovine]

So, are the reaper paints in the kickstarter a good bargain for a newbie painter? I always hear people talking up citadel paints for their quality. Will I be disappointed in the reaper paints?

Citadel used to be a high quality paint line. Sadly the modern kind just don't hold a candle to Citadel paints of the 90s. I find them very 'watery', diffcult to get an even coat and, for some reason, the smell of them is very strong.

That said I haven't tried any of the Reaper line of paints but do plan to get Paint Sets 1 & 3 (imo these give you an outstanding range of colours especially if you have little to no paints currently) and for $36 for 24 bottles they are a steal. Most model paints run twice that easily.



Reaper has also announced that after the KS ends there will be a Pledge Manager app of some sort. This will allow you to allocate your pledge dollars and, more importantly, add additional money to you pledge. While this won't count towards getting new stretch goals unlocked it will allow you to defer some of the cost to a little bit later (they plan to have all pledges allocated within 30 days of the KS close).

In other words if you can afford $1 right now in a couple of weeks you can up your pledge to $100 (or whatever) and still get all of the minis at the Vampire level + whatever bonus minis you want as well. While Reaper has stated they would much rather people pledge now they are perfectly willing to accept these additional add-ons.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Hmm just upped my pledge again for the Hydra and have reading the above conversation about the paints I am seriously thinking about upping again and getting these paints, which would easily put me in for over $300.

I think this is a love/hate relationship with Reaper and myself right now. I love all the minis, but I hate spending a lot more money than initially planned!

This is on track to hit over $2million if it keeps going this strong and fast, makes you wonder what else they have up their sleeves!

 

[S'mon]

Reaper has also announced that after the KS ends there will be a Pledge Manager app of some sort. This will allow you to allocate your pledge dollars and, more importantly, add additional money to you pledge. While this won't count towards getting new stretch goals unlocked it will allow you to defer some of the cost to a little bit later (they plan to have all pledges allocated within 30 days of the KS close).

In other words if you can afford $1 right now in a couple of weeks you can up your pledge to $100 (or whatever) and still get all of the minis at the Vampire level + whatever bonus minis you want as well. While Reaper has stated they would much rather people pledge now they are perfectly willing to accept these additional add-ons.

That's not what their FAQ says, though:

Options are additional product you can receive by increasing the amount of your Vampire or Undertaker pledge by the option amount, unless otherwise stated.

To get an Option, that is not available to all Levels, you MUST first have pledged the Vampire Level or a Level that includes the Vampire Level.

To add the Option, click the "Manage Your Pledge" button and simply increase your pledge amount by the Option amount shown.

After the project ends we will send out a survey to all backers. At that time you will be able to select the specific Options you have funded.

Do you have a source for them saying you can increase pledge amount later to buy more +$$ minis?

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I believe that [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] is correct here. They keep sending out updates telling everyone to pledge the amount that they want to spend to buy all their minis before the end of the KS.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Here's the source. Kickstarter Discussion Thread - Reaper Message Board - Page 167

They do not want to promote it too highly, because money added after the kickstarter ends does not unlock goals, and won't help bring in new buzz and new backers.