Dear Hasbro: about those minis

[kenobi65]

maybe Games Workshop can fill a hole in the marketplace by creating a new "wargame" that uses pre-painted plastic minis sold in "regiments" and "squads" which will replace the old metal-and-needs-painting Warhammer line that according to Ryan Dyancy is losing sales?

Given the highway-robbery prices GW charges for their unpainted minis, I shudder to think what they'd charge for the honor of having someone paint them for you...

 

[Shadowslayer]

The Tiles already come with some "suggested" dungeon layouts. I'm not sure WoTC would want to limit the theme too narrowly.
<snip>
Once we get sets entitled "Dregoth's Caverns of New Guistenal" I figure it will chase away too many players. However I do wonder how many more Tile Sets they can do. I still hope for a ship (six 7x8 tiles that show three levels of two types of ships) or something like that.

I hear you. All I mean really by packaging it as a complete dungeon is to do what thy're already doing, except add a booklet with some encounters and a map...pretty much like they do already with the Fantastic Locations. Heck, the fantastic locations booklets are so thin they need to put carboard in them to stiffen out the package. A sample dungeon with traps/baddies shouldn't be too tough.

Besides, they'll have to keep coming up with new themes if they want to keep selling tiles after the basic ones are covered.

BTW, I didn't realize they were doing a wilderness one. Thats pretty cool, as regular wilderness isn't well represented yet. (I was hoping they'd do those in poster size, but I can live with tiles.)

Also BTW, a ship woud rock! We could do S S of Saltmarsh again with minis.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Someone mentioned Mass Battles:

There are Mass Battle rules in the Miniatures Handbook. As far as I have heard, they aren't too popular (the usual comment is that those rules aren't that good).

People are requesting new rules here and there (and I think there was a lengthy post over at Wizards about it, with one of the big DDM people posting lots of stuff about it).


I recently had an idea of a new Minis Handbook Boxed Set, which would contain a new Minis Handbook (with all minis content, no D&D stuff in it) and some gimmicks, like 4 d20 (one for each faction, in the faction colour), Dungeon Tile quailty counters for all the scenarios therein, some maps, and so on.

The book would have new mass battle rules (as well as rules for aquatic fights, Minis campaigns, Single-player scenarios, a HeroQuest style Dungeon Crawl, Multi-Player fights with maps for those, and others.

All I know is that a lot of regulars liked the Idea quite a lot. I don't know if Wizards will pick the idea up, but that may bring new Mass Battle Rules.

Here's my business plan.

Sell, for about $50.00 a collection of about 80 commons and uncommons

That's a metric ton of minis for a huge sum of money. I think if you want to sell those for those who don't want to blow too much money on minis, you'll have to make them a lot smaller and cheaper!

Plus, the larger the packs, the higher the chance that each individual will find that too many figures are not to its liking and avoid buying it.

Sell mainly via mail-order (don't expect too many game stores to stock this).

As far as I know, Wizards is very protective of Brick and Mortar Stores. Very, very protective. I doubt they'd do anything like this.

Some collections:
Humanoid baddies (say 10 of 1 orc, 10 of 1 goblin, 10 of 1 kobold, some groups of 5, and a few singles, the unique might be just a "cool" orc or perhaps something a bit more "special")

"Yeah, well, but I don't care for kobolds - they suck, even if you have a thousand - but I'd need 30 orcs for that one mass battle. Does that mean I'll have to blow 150 on three of these packs?"

And that's beyond the general problems these packs would have, as said above by Charles.

 

[brehobit]

That's a metric ton of minis for a huge sum of money. I think if you want to sell those for those who don't want to blow too much money on minis, you'll have to make them a lot smaller and cheaper!

Not really. I think small packs will not price out nicely. I've blown well over $50.00 a pop on minis and I only use them for D&D (I've played DDM once...)

"Yeah, well, but I don't care for kobolds - they suck, even if you have a thousand - but I'd need 30 orcs for that one mass battle. Does that mean I'll have to blow 150 on three of these packs?"

I'm thinking in terms of what a D&D game would need. I *rarely* have more than 10 of a single type of baddy out. I don't think I've ever done it come to think of it.

And that's beyond the general problems these packs would have, as said above by Charles.

Yeah, and your comments about FLGS and Wizards is also fair. Around here FLGS are gone all gone (well one is still around, but a 20 minute drive away and not near anything else I go to, down from 3 within 10 minutes). So my personal (self-centered) perspective is that they are pretty much gone or going.

 

[Agamon]

Here's my business plan.

Sell, for about $50.00 a collection of about 80 commons and uncommons

I hope no one actually expects that minis sold this way by Wizards would be inexpensive. Commons are cheaper than uncommons are cheaper than rares in the secondary market because of availability and demand. For Wizards, though, a common orc costs the same to make as a rare warforged. You wouldn't get them at less than $1 a mini, and in fact, it'd probably be more expensive than the almost $2 a mini retail that it costs to buy a booster pack, regardless of 'rarity'. They wouldn't sell at such a high price, so I expect the quality of them would make the War Drums minis look great...

 

[kenobi65]

For Wizards, though, a common orc costs the same to make as a rare warforged.

Not necessarily. They have (roughly) the same amount of plastic, but rares tend to have more complex paint jobs, so there's a higher labor cost for them.

 

[rgard]

I hope no one actually expects that minis sold this way by Wizards would be inexpensive. Commons are cheaper than uncommons are cheaper than rares in the secondary market because of availability and demand. For Wizards, though, a common orc costs the same to make as a rare warforged. You wouldn't get them at less than $1 a mini, and in fact, it'd probably be more expensive than the almost $2 a mini retail that it costs to buy a booster pack, regardless of 'rarity'. They wouldn't sell at such a high price, so I expect the quality of them would make the War Drums minis look great...

I was wondering about the prices for these and came to a similar conclusion. I'd be willing to bet the pack of 8 orcs would cost $14.99; and this is due (as you said) to the fact that the production costs for 8 random minis is the same as 8 non-random minis. So i'm wondering why I or anybody else would buy 8 non-random minis for $14.99 when I could probably get the same ones from the secondary market for $8 to $10, shipping included.

Also, how WotC prices the current sets is based in part on how many they project to sell. You can accept a slightly smaller per unit margin if you plan to sell boatloads of them. I don't see that you'll have the same demand for old non-random as you do new random figs.

Some may want to pipe in that some of the upfront costs (sculpting and steel mold manufacture) could be avoided with re-issues and we already discussed this in another thread last year. After we debated it, it became clear the benefits we're as great as we previously assumed:

1. Specific race figures (i.e. 8 orc poses from 3 sets) could be spread out over many molds. Unless there is a separate mold for each fig (and plugged into a multi-mold frame for injection), you'd have really onerous production requirements requiring many molds for each set being loaded separately for the run. Don't worry, who ever is manufacturing the figs will pass the cost on to WotC and that will roll down hill to the consumer.

2. You'd still need to change the bases of the figs as they did for the two D&D Basic Games. I don't know if that is a separate piece in the mold and only the new base would need sculpted but that is still an upfront cost.

My gut feel is that non-random packs of previously issued D&D figs won't ever make it past the business case stage in the process.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[rgard]

Not necessarily. They have (roughly) the same amount of plastic, but rares tend to have more complex paint jobs, so there's a higher labor cost for them.

I suspect this won't be significant given the labor costs in that part of the world.

 

[morbiczer]

I suspect this won't be significant given the labor costs in that part of the world.

Actually I have read several times before, that the decision of what becomes a common, an uncommon, or a rare is at leass partially decided by the paint job of the figures. The more complicated it becomes (the more paint steps it has), the more likely it is to be an uncommon, or even a rare.

Regardless of how cheap labor in China is or not, if painting a figure takes four times longer than for an other figure, than you have to pay four times as much, because you need four times as many workers to do it in the same time.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

I was in my LGS this weekend and looked at prices of the GW minis for a pack of mooks vs the WotC and the GW were WAY more expensive and not painted. If WotC sold packs of mooks I'm sure they could not do it at the current prices, $2 per painted mini is a great deal if you ask me. I could care less if the mini was plastic or metal, and I have zero interest in painting.

If they did the mook packs I think you would see prices more on par with GW than what they are selling them for now. Random means lower cost, zero painting time.

And really I can understand fustrations with certain secondary market choices but really it is NOT that bad and there are a bunch of choices and ways to participate in the secondary market. I agree that it is more of a pain to use the 2nd-ary market than being able to go in to a store and get what you want.

Online if I want a pack of mooks I can get them for less than the retail price of $15/8 minis that my LGS charges, and I get what I want.

Here is also something I noticed. My LGS only had Bloodwar and War Drums. None of the older sets. I was able to find some Underdark and WotSQ at some book stores, but the LGS onlyhad the recent ones. The GW and Reaper singles all had lots of dust on manyof them. They have a good selection of many minis but most of them have been sitting there for some time. The WotC sell very well from what the owner told me. So as much as you all belly ache about mook packs I doubt it will ever happen. Even if WotC WANTS to do it to keep the players happy from a business standpoint it just wouldn't work. IT would raise costs significantly and stifle sales.

Personally I want half way decent mini's that are prepainted at a compeditive price. I don't want to pay 30 bucks for 8-12 orcs that I have to paint and glue. 2nd-ary market is a pain I know but at least it is THERE.