Alternatives to WotC Minis

[Drkfathr1]

I would definately buy pre-painted, non-randomized plastic mini's. I cant believe no one else has jumped on that yet! Right now I use paper counters, Fiery Dragon's and my own. My players and I definately like having something to represent everyone in combat, but I can't afford to buy booster after booster trying to accumulate the mini's that I need. The secondary market isn't any better really, the costs are just outrageous thanks to the common/uncommon/rare deal. In some cases its cheaper to buy the metal figures of the rare monsters, like Illithids, Githyanki, etc. Of course, if you can only do monsters from the SRD you wouldn't be able to do them anyways, although you could always do a similar version...

Specific sets with goblins, orcs, ogres, trolls, skeletons, zombies, gnolls, bugbears, etc would be great. I would even like to see sets of Aberrations, Giants, Elementals, and various monstrous beasts.

 

[jodyjohnson]

As a consumer/collector I wish you the best and would only benefit from another producer of prepainted minis.

That said I would probably only buy a small fraction of the line (either I'll already have more than enough of that type, or the cost will be higher than I would pay to have more).

And which figures I need would be purely random guess work from your side and the store owner's.

Most of the figure types people are listing are available in DDM on the secondary market at <$1 and have variety. And those are the figs that Wizards will keep coming out with set after set.

The biggest niche that DDM is missing right now (mounted figs will probably start flowing before you get them out of production) are Huge and larger figures.

The huges will fill in eventually, but I doubt they'll do gargantuan or larger within the year (likely never as part of DDM).

But then again, I'm probably not in your target market since if a certain creature was ever made (metal or plastic) I probably already have it (Ral Partha 2nd Ed line, old Ral Partha, Reaper, 25th Anniversary, Grenadier, DDM, plastic toy animals, etc).

 

[DaveMage]

I think part of the reason others have not done so is that start up costs may be prohibitive.

Also, a company cannot use the d20 license to produce miniatures (i.e. stick the d20 logo on the packaging), so any such minis must be based only on open game content. To use the d20 license in this way would be a violation of the d20 system guide 5.0.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Another weapon / armor combo that is sorely lacking is the wizard or wizard-like miniature who isn't holding a damn staff and wearing a robe.

I can't tell you how long I've been looking for a good unarmored character who doesn't look like a reject from a Harry Potter casting call - bonus points if he's using a bow (cross or otherwise!).

 

[Jupp]

I somehow do not see that a well painted figure could cost less than 4$. I mean, everyone who ever tried painting more than 10 minis in his life knows how much time it takes to get at least average or decent quality with the paint job. And the time investment is huge even for those average paint jobs. I consider myself above average leaning towards good and it takes me at least 10+ hours at minimum to get a mini in that quality.

Thinking more about it even 4$ is insanely cheap.....So, how could you expect a prepainted mini for <3$ that does not deserve the rating "aaaarghugly" and without having it painted by either people with slave-like salaries in China under inhuman conditions or by inhabitants from the next state prison?

 

[kengar]

I somehow do not see that a well painted figure could cost less than 4$. I mean, everyone who ever tried painting more than 10 minis in his life knows how much time it takes to get at least average or decent quality with the paint job. And the time investment is huge even for those average paint jobs. I consider myself above average leaning towards good and it takes me at least 10+ hours at minimum to get a mini in that quality.

Thinking more about it even 4$ is insanely cheap.....So, how could you expect a prepainted mini for <3$ that does not deserve the rating "aaaarghugly" and without having it painted by either people with slave-like salaries in China under inhuman conditions or by inhabitants from the next state prison?

All factory pre-painted figures are ugly. The paint jobs are always hideous. That's a given. I am pretty sure the process is automated, NOT hand painted. I'm not looking for a good paint job. I'm looking for recognizable.

BTW, 10 hours?! I am a pretty mediocre painter, but I can paint a basic orc mini that gets a 5-6 rating on CMON in less than 2-3 hours (which is leaps and bounds better than any prepainted plastic figure you'll ever find). I think you're being too hard on yourself if you think that much effort yields only "leaning towards good."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I'd like to see restricted IP creatures in miniature form, prepainted or otherwise; beyond that I can't say I'd be terribly interested.

I don't care for the D&D minis, although the game itself looks like good fun. Pre-painted? Meh. Pre-painted SOFT plastic? Meh. And random?

Random MINIS?



Collectible cards were, obviously, a brilliant and hugely successful venture. I'm not sure collectible minis have the same staying power. MtG is much cheaper, much more portable and vastly quicker to play - even a pair of vintage blue control decks will deck each other long before even a quick game of D&D minis wraps up.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I somehow do not see that a well painted figure could cost less than 4$. I mean, everyone who ever tried painting more than 10 minis in his life knows how much time it takes to get at least average or decent quality with the paint job. And the time investment is huge even for those average paint jobs. I consider myself above average leaning towards good and it takes me at least 10+ hours at minimum to get a mini in that quality.

Thinking more about it even 4$ is insanely cheap.....So, how could you expect a prepainted mini for <3$ that does not deserve the rating "aaaarghugly" and without having it painted by either people with slave-like salaries in China under inhuman conditions or by inhabitants from the next state prison?

I thought I saw on a WotC mini box that they were made in China? It's hard to find anything under $50 that is not made in China these days...

And, while you may decry the slave-like salaries of Chinese workers, $1,000 a year goes a long way in China and people making $3,000 to $4,000 a year there are doing well for themselves. China has a long long way to go in regards to working conditions overall, but you have to consider the market there as well - you can buy DVDs for 50 to 75 cents, where the same thing in America is $15-$25 or more. I have a lot of relatives over in China on the wealthier East Coast and one thing some of them noticed when coming to America to visit is that there are far fewer cellphones and fewer big screen TVs here.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

IThinking more about it even 4$ is insanely cheap.....So, how could you expect a prepainted mini for <3$ that does not deserve the rating "aaaarghugly" and without having it painted by either people with slave-like salaries in China under inhuman conditions or by inhabitants from the next state prison?

Well, if they want to compete with WotC they're going to have to learn Lesson #1 of Business: your labour costs must be competitive. So, in short, if they're not willing to have them made in China or India or Mexico or wherever, they're not going to be competitive and they might as well flush this pipedream right now.

 

[Wonger]

All of the people who say the painting is crap or the plastic is junk compared to more traditional metal minis are absolutely right - but that has no bearing on how well these could sell.

I think there is a vast number of DM's out there that just want a cheap way to represent monsters. It doesn't need a perfect paint job. Look at the success of Fiery Dragon's counter collections. I've bought 5 collections from them for the mere fact that I wanted something to represent monsters better than an army man or a blank cardboard square. I'd much rather have mini's for my monsters and NPC's but to get what I want, I'd have to spend a large fortune and take years to paint them in metal. Or I could spend a small fortune and have a bunch of crap that I don't want with WotC's minis, just to get the things I do want.

If there was something out there that let DM's represent monsters and NPC's with mini's, and that could be bought as needed, rather than random, I can't help but think a ton of DM's would get them. I know I would.