Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Mini Set by WizKids

[Cergorach]

To be honest, while Reaper makes excellent metal miniatures, they're plastic prepaints seem reasonably well painted but the price is atrocious when you compare it to WizKids doing it with an expensive property like Marvel or DC Comics. 3 (Reaper) Legendary Encounter skeletons cost $8.49, 3 orcs is $10.99. A pack of six prepainted DC HeroClix Green Lantern Corps Fast Forces Pack costs $12.99 and the quality on the images looks pretty decent. The one promotional Spiderman miniature looks quite good and is from many years ago, the paint doesn't look like it's draped on. I'm guessing that Reaper couldn't produce the amounts needed at a 'decent' price. Also keep in mind that WizKids has a good name with a lot of comic/hobby/toy stores, I suspect that Wizkids has made some serious money in it's heyday for those stores (almost as good as Magic, Pokemon, Yugi-yo). If store owners are going to order things, they'll have less trouble ordering a new WizKids product blind then they would from an ´unknown´ such as Reaper (or whatever brand they currently attach to their LE line). A reference to the Paizo Pathfinder starter set as a companion product might help immensely with pre-orders (comic stores that previously didn't carry Pathfinder or RPGs in general).

The prepainted Pathfinder miniature looks pretty well done, if it looks like that when you buy it in the stores I'll eat my hat ;-) And buy a set (i'll probably buy it if it looks as good as the D&D miniatures anyway). The coloring does look a little flat, but a quick dip should solve that problem...

I'm curious to know how many miniatures that first pack will have, will it be only the four hero's or also monsters.

 

[Dannager]

The iconic sample image provided above has a truly insane level of detail. I'm having a hard time seeing that level of detail on a mass-produced line that doesn't break the bank.

 

[Twowolves]

To be honest, while Reaper makes excellent metal miniatures, they're plastic prepaints seem reasonably well painted but the price is atrocious when you compare it to WizKids doing it with an expensive property like Marvel or DC Comics. 3 (Reaper) Legendary Encounter skeletons cost $8.49, 3 orcs is $10.99. A pack of six prepainted DC HeroClix Green Lantern Corps Fast Forces Pack costs $12.99 and the quality on the images looks pretty decent. The one promotional Spiderman miniature looks quite good and is from many years ago, the paint doesn't look like it's draped on. I'm guessing that Reaper couldn't produce the amounts needed at a 'decent' price.

Well, to be fair, the Heroclix minis you mention are randomized, while the Legendary Encounters from Reaper are WYSIWYG. And I might be off on the prices, but as I recall the LE minis aren't that pricey, but I admit they might have had a price increase since I last bought a 3 pack.

I do paint plenty of my own metal minis, and I was very excited when I saw that Reaper was making official Pathfinder miniatures. I also want thier LE line to succeed, so seeing Paizo go with another company makes me wonder if Reaper just couldn't beat WizKids' bid or if we are going to see the end of the Reaper official miniatures line in the near future. I certainly hope not.

 

[frankthedm]

I'm withholding judgment on these until i see the Biped to Monster ratio and final price. {I'm spoiled from the Plastic Mini Boom years of the mid 2000's ]

Well, to be fair, the Heroclix minis you mention are randomized, while the Legendary Encounters from Reaper are WYSIWYG.

If you are trying to be fair, take note the Green Lantern Pack isn't randomized.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, to be fair, the Heroclix minis you mention are randomized, while the Legendary Encounters from Reaper are WYSIWYG. And I might be off on the prices, but as I recall the LE minis aren't that pricey, but I admit they might have had a price increase since I last bought a 3 pack.

People are all like, "You paid more than $2 for an orc!" And I'm all like, "And you purchased five randomized boosters just to get one druid, and you ended up going on Ebay anyway." The price point for the common stuff is quibbling, unless you plan on literally building an army. And spending $4 for a "Baathalian" versus $10 and up for some kind of DDM mind flayer is a steal, particularly if you want a full inquisition of squidheads. The fact that are cheap deals on particular sorts of figures does not make it any less of a good deal to get three prepainted minis for under $6.

The only reason DDM ever worked for me was that I was completely unsentimental about selling rares and popular uncommons on Ebay. Over the course of the product line, I actually made about $400 profit while amassing a decent sized collection of minis for roleplaying. But I'm still trying to fill holes in my collection, with prepainted plastics, unpainted metals, and toys.

 

[Cergorach]

As already mentioned, the WizKids example is recent and non-random, you get what you see. I got the LE Reaper prices directly from the Reaper website. I find the simple miniatures from the LE line a tad expensive, the uncommon/rare (to coin DDM terms) reasonable. It's a shame those LE are hard to get here in Europe and when I can get them the price is even higher due to shipping or taxes/import fees. If WizKids can get this kind of quality against their regular prices, I'm all for Wizkids.

I also see no reason why Reaper can't continue to do metals. First of, they serve a whole different crowd. If Rackham is any indication, going exclusively pre-painted and killing of the metal will loose you a ton of customers. I also don't expect that Wizkids will release on a high pace, so Reaper has all the possibility to keep ahead of the pre-painted plastic curve with their metals. More choice is always good for the consumer.

As for DDM (and SWM), the later sets provided me with reasonably balanced collections when I bought six cases, cost me $1.5 per miniature, whether that was a common creature or a Rare creature. Sure it cost a lot of money to buy those six cases, but you build up your collection quite quickly.

 

[IronWolf]

Does this mean we are going to start using minis in our games?

Perhaps! Should we use minis more?

 

[Crothian]

Perhaps! Should we use minis more?

If we had a bigger table....

 

[IronWolf]

If we had a bigger table....

Christmas - we all chip in and buy Shaylon a bigger table on craigslist!

 

[Erik Mona]

We will absolutely keep doing metal miniatures with Reaper. We adore their sculpts, and look forward to working with them for years.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing