Reaper prepainted minis - how was the result?

[Dragon Snack]

Decent quality (but then I paint my own as well).

Prices comparable to the MSRP of DDM, but higher than the secondary market for commons (and most uncommons).

Limited range at the moment (but over 1,000 sculpts to choose from just in their DHL line). Some LE specific sculpts have been hinted at (large Dragons, IIRC).

Works fine with DDMs, although you may want to add round bases to the Reaper figures.

The launch was very successful for Reaper, they sold out the first batches.

They aren't going to be a serious challenge to DDMs though (as much as I would like to see it), since Reaper is a small company.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Personally I think Reaper went about this the wrong way. They should be making those minis that are expensive to buy on the DDM secondary market. Dragons are the obvious choice, but several of the Demons and Devil minis are also quite expensive. Basically any of the minis that are in the Rare category for DDM.

You can get cheap Orcs, Skeletons, etc., on the secondary market already. You can't get a cheap Dragon. If they made them and sold them for a little bit less than what the Dragons were currently selling for on the secondary market (i.e. still fairly pricey) I think they would sell very well. As it is I feel like Reaper are cutting off a part of their market.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Fifth Element]

Personally I think Reaper went about this the wrong way. They should be making those minis that are expensive to buy on the DDM secondary market. Dragons are the obvious choice, but several of the Demons and Devil minis are also quite expensive. Basically any of the minis that are in the Rare category for DDM.

You can get cheap Orcs, Skeletons, etc., on the secondary market already. You can't get a cheap Dragon. If they made them and sold them for a little bit less than what the Dragons were currently selling for on the secondary market (i.e. still fairly pricey) I think they would sell very well. As it is I feel like Reaper are cutting off a part of their market.

Good observation. I bought a Reaper minotaur, but for the most part my reaction was "Oh good. More orcs and skeletons. I only have dozens of those already."

Though that seems to mostly be the first wave. Looks like more variety is coming.

 

[Thurbane]

Just another thought: if yo guys are hard-up for cheap pre-painted minis, look into buying up some old mage knight minis, then bust them off the base and remount them. I'm pretty happy with the 30 or 40 I've done this way.

I'm not familiar with these, anyone have some more info?

 

[WhatGravitas]

Good observation. I bought a Reaper minotaur, but for the most part my reaction was "Oh good. More orcs and skeletons. I only have dozens of those already."

Though that seems to mostly be the first wave. Looks like more variety is coming.

Yeah, if you look at the future releases, you'll see Purple Worms, Succubi, Mariliths, and Mind Flayers.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I still haven't seen any of the Reaper prepaints in person (though what I've seen of them online looks good), but I did recently find some of the plastic Confrontation minis. Very nice indeed.

 

[blargney the second]

Personally I think Reaper went about this the wrong way. They should be making those minis that are expensive to buy on the DDM secondary market.

Bingo. Go after the rares market that WotC has created. It'll be really easy pickings and I'd snap them up in a heartbeat.

 

[pogre]

The only decent paint job in the first wave was the minotaur. I agree with others who have stated it was a mistake to start with super common monsters.

 

[kenobi65]

I'm not familiar with these, anyone have some more info?

Mage Knight was WizKids' first "clicky base" game (later followed by HeroClix, etc.):
http://www.wizkidsgames.com/mageknight/

The minis are a little bigger than traditional D&D minis, and the bases are considerably bigger than the 1" standard (which is why you would want to re-base them). IME, many of the paintjobs were pretty awful, but, as the game's been mothballed by WizKids, you can probably get them pretty cheaply on the secondary market these days.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

The only decent paint job in the first wave was the minotaur. I agree with others who have stated it was a mistake to start with super common monsters.

I don't know about that.

After all, all the first run were pretty simple scuplts (and the transistion from Metal to Plastic is not an easy one).

By keeping to just a few creature types (Skeletons, orcs) you have a much better shot at developing some good QA procedures (both in prodution & painting). It looks like they want to make sure they do it right before they really jump out there with other options (which seem to be coming).

As someone who has to usually game at my local store instead of my house, I like to have a bunch of very similiar monsters (All these Skeletons are Gnolls, & all these Orcs are Sahuagin, etc).

If I have enough spare change on game nights, I'll keep picking up a Skeleton, Orc or 2.

If they keep relying on their old Dark Heaven Legends Sculpts for the Base Mini, we could see a lot of cool plastic figs by this time next year.