Miniatures - The Magic: The Gathering Way - Good or Bad?

[Umbran]

minis preconstructed? win =)

Preconstructed and painted minis are a win for many people, but not when they're packaged so that you don't know what you're getting.

A DM sets up his encounters, and wants minis for them. He doesn't want a random assortment of minis, he wants specific minis. WotC is gonna lose big time to all the folks selling minis in such a way as you know what you're getting.

[eidt: miserable typing. What is a "sot hat" anyway? ]

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I don't know if I want any. I'd like to avoid painting mooks so that's a bonus, the paint job looks like the ones I did in 3rd grade so that's a minus. We won't have to use the same mini's for every monster that's a plus, the bases may be the wrong size for 3.0 in some cases that's a minus.

I may pick up a few, too bad there is no secondary market on mage knight or hero clix around here so I don't see there being one on these unfortunately.

 

[Kichwas]

I posted the below on the Wizards boards a few days back. Susbstitute 20 Kobolds for 20 of nearly anything... For example, the 20 Goblins mentioned above which Reaper will give you just the same as they will 20 Kobolds.


*************************
20 kobolds...

From Reaper that would cost me $31.96. $25.56 if I buy them at a well known online discounter that has a good shipping record...

Can WotC guarantee me that if I buy their random figures I'll hit 20 Kobolds before I spend that?

With Reaper, I will have 5 different kobolds, repeated exactly 4 times. Can WotC guarantee me that with it's random packaging?

When I DM, which is what I mostly do, I don't look at my miniatures collection and then write my adventure. I write my adventure and then look at my miniatures collection.

The game -the story- is queen. It sets the demand. Not the toy.

Honestly I expect these random miniatures to fail.

The WotC miniatures are randomly packaged. Something I think will turn out to be a very bad idea.

It works for CCGs, and miniature based games where the mini determines your playing power.

But I've never heard of a DM who writes her adventures based on her miniature collection.

I expect the 3.5 focus on mini play will boost sales for companies like Reaper that have successfully learned to meet consumer demands in the types of miniatures people want to buy, at the price they are willing to pay.

Now if somebody does cheap, prepainted, and non-randomly packaged miniatures they will capture the market.

 

[Michael Tree]

If WotC sold pre-painted minis in non-random packs, so I could choose which minis I was buying, I would buy some for my game.

I will not buy random minis. That's utterly pointless to me. Maybe I'll buy some specific minis from stores that have opened boxes or bought unwanted ones from players, if they don't have too much of a markup on them.

It's that simple. I expect these minis will bomb as badly as Chainmail did.

 

[Technik4]

Not to be a devil's advocate but...

These minis will probably do better than Chainmail. Now, I love chainmail in fact I own damn-near every miniature released for it (and have many doubles and triples), but the proof is in the pudding.

How many times did I go to a store and see chainmail rotting on the shelves? Many. People bought one faction worth of stuff, then perhaps a single or two then waited for the next set. Stores had almost every miniature in its own single blister, and almost every time you would see them laying about. This is also true of some of the combo boxes, for instance a combo box that had the same stuff as the faction box wouldnt move.

So, do I think pre-painted miniatures marketed like Chainmail would do well? No. You would see high sales of certain miniatures and then a lot of old stock sitting around. They certainly wouldn't be able to have 80 initial miniatures, their first run would have to be like Chainmails - around 30-40 different miniatures. The price would be higher for big miniatures, and inevitably stock would rot. Then you release another set. Well, the old set hasn't moved, so where do you put the new set? In front of the old set. By the time a 3rd set comes out stores no longer have any space for them at all.

Now compare to their current plan. 2 different boxes, random packaging. They are able to release a lot more minis at a time, since they are random and people can't choose to not buy Female Dwarf Druid, they get her in a pack. They wouldn't otherwise be able to release such a figure as it only applies in very few situations. Additionally, when more sets come out you can reduce the amount of room you give to the core set and place the expansions in rows right next to them. It will take 2-3 expansions to use the same amount of room Chainmail (or a hypothetical Plasticmail) would take up.

This all shows that retailers are going to like stocking this stuff, especially if it sells. Additionally, whether d&d gamers like it or not, this game may draw some MtG players or other wargame players in. "Collect 'em All" is a proven business strategy, at least in the short term. One need only look to MtGs vitality to see that with good leadership the collectibe game can continue for a long long time.

Technik

 

[AuraSeer]

This packaging strategy was a success for M:tG only because there was a monopoly. If people wanted a powerful rare card, they had to buy from WOTC, because there was no other source. Even if you buy a card from a secondary dealer, he got it by paying for a lot of random crap, because there's no other way for the card to exist.

Miniatures are different because there are so many other companies that make them. If I'm looking for an elven archer, the game effect is identical no matter where I get it. One option is that I start buying WOTC minis, collect a bunch of useless dire ferns and blind kobolds, and pay quite a lot of money before I finally manage to find something I can use. The other option is that I get a blister pack from Reaper (or whomever), and pay only what the mini is worth.

Given the option, I don't want to throw money away on Yet Another Orc after I already have fifty. I'll keep buying indentifiable minis, thankyouverymuch, even if I have to use them unpainted.

 

[ForceUser]

Given the option, I don't want to throw money away on Yet Another Orc after I already have fifty. I'll keep buying indentifiable minis, thankyouverymuch, even if I have to use them unpainted.

See, I'm just the opposite. I never bought the metal orcs because it seemed a total waste of money to spend so much money on metal monsters, not to mention paints and time spent in the dull task of painting. But prepainted plastic - hey! Perfect! I'm actually looking forward to getting a bunch of common monsters; currently I just use numbered dice to represent monsters on the battlemat.

 

[Zander]

A DM sets up his encounters, and wants minis for them. He doesn't want a random assortment of minis, he wants specific minis.

Quite right. I very much doubt that the executives who decided to pack the minis randomly have ever played D&D. I'm being serious. I'd be surprised if they knew what a role-playing game was.

I saw some samples at UK GenCon and I found them pretty disappointing.

 

[Henry]

The last time I posted this, I had miniatures enthusiasts gritting their teeth in horror. So just for fun, I'll post it again.

I like the idea behind these mini's because I love to use mini's, but hate to paint them, and hate to spend 5 dollars a mini to pay someone to paint them.

Yes, dear friends, I'm THAT KIND OF GAMER. I'm the one who keeps unpainted lead and pewter mini's in a single level tackle-box, jammed together with no padding between, swords broken at the hilt, axeheads bent or snapped off from months of abuse in and out of my tackle box, legs pushed back forward to keep the mini from tilting over, and countless scars in the metal where they keep rubbing together with other mini's in the box.

For me, who loves minis but hates to mess with "assembly required," having a bunch of pre-painted resilient plastic mini's is a great idea. I don't plan to strip the paint off and re-do them, nor display them in a case when not in use - they are going into that tackle box, with my shield-orc with the bent spear, with my dual sword-wielder and his two snapped hilts, and my dwarven axeman with his puny-handled "club."

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

I have shelf upon shelf of gaming books that I've never used, because I never know when I might have an urge to run a campaign set in setting A, or using rule option B, or whatever. Similarly, I have around 80-100 miniatures, and I bought them not because I needed to use them at that time, but because they caught my fancy.

Now, the way I look at it, prepackaged random minis will increase the mini-per-dollar ratio. This can only increase the number of possibilities I have on my shelf, and increase the odds of having the right mini at the right time.

But, that could just be me. I rarely know more than a week or two in advance what mini I would need for a particular session, and probably woulnd't have time to properly paint it. Plus, if I have to spend seventeen bucks in order to get a hill giant mini that I might only use once, I'd probably be better off spending that seventeen bucks on 5 mooks that I know will be used again and again. With random packaging, I could buy 16 minis for that seventeen bucks, which would include several mooks as well as a few other critters. More critters = good in my book.