Yeah, but way too slowly for my taste. I like the line, but I pretty much already have everything from the line as a DDM mini already. The only ones I may be interested in are the one that looks like an illithid and the female ranger. The line has been out for about three years and has way less minis than one set of DDM. Come on Reaper. If you make them, I will buy them.
Future of D&D Miniatures
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
I bought a bunch of their skeleton archers and spearmen recently and was not impressed. Very poor quality IMO--the sculpts were fine, but the plastic was so soft they could hardly stand up, and the paint job was below even DDM common standards (I plan to drybrush 'em with white to make them look a little less flat, but most people buying prepainted plastics don't have that option).
Reaper's metal minis are second to none, but they have yet to master prepainted plastic. DDM, on the other hand, has been getting much better of late... for example, they seem to have licked the "floppy weapons syndrome" that plagued earlier sets.
Last edited:
No more floppy weapons here! Smiling Bob's a man with a firm grip on his 2 handed sword!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn36KqWoi7s&feature=related]YouTube - Enzyte Commercial Theme Song With Smiling Bob (short version)[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn36KqWoi7s&feature=related]YouTube - Enzyte Commercial Theme Song With Smiling Bob (short version)[/ame]
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Right. and in the imaginary game we play, it's impossible to go, "Yeah guys, Orcus is this big" and slam the mini out on the table? I will NEVER be that confined to any edition that it stops me from using something in the game. Hell, next you'll tell me you can't use the McFarline dragons because they don't confirm to some size in the book or aren't in the game.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
1. Quality control. This isn't necessarily getting the best paint job or necessarily the best sculpt but making sure that figures are of at least a similiar quality to each other and that SCALE is enforced from head to toe. No one wonders if that's a fat crouching human instead of a dwarf, the goblin's head isn't bigger than another goblins' body, etc...
2. Tied into existing product/product as it comes out. PHB3 just came out at least one freak race. WoTC has been slipping the minotaurs into the DM's packs for a while but those crystal suckers? Not a one there. Same problem with the Dragonborn. No one knew those were going to be in the PHB? It literarlly took like a year to get 2 non-random figures, and one of them an extremely niche?
3. Reoffering the popular figs as collectors sets: Some of the older sets had draconians, demons, devils, etc... that are still popular and could easily be put into themed packs like the beholder pack coming out. There's a huge library of figures and not using that is baffling.
4. Legends pack. Drizzt was one of the most expensive figures for its time. Taking characters out of the new york times best sellers list and making figures out of them as opposed to generic figures? Go specific and if the sculpts are good enough, people will want to use them for their own characters anyway.
5. If using visible figures, let the retailers tell you which ones they want as opposed to suffering a random order. I don't have a ton of gaming stores around me, but they all discounted the grey dappled pony, I mean unicorn. It'll be a great way to insure that whoever screws up the visibles the first time isn't the same person making the selections the next time.
6. Stop explaining why things can't be done. Stop talking about lead time. Stop talking about bad sculpts. Stop talking about the steps in the process. This is WoTC, not Bob's Friendly Figures. Some of the figures from the Heroscape line are of much more intricate detail and use and were cheaper. Just stop. If it's a question that keeps coming up the head of the department needs to find out WHY is can't be done.
7. Dungeon boardgame. Why WoTC hasn't done this old boardgame with prepainted plastics, or even plastics that aren't painted, is beyond me. For god's sake, there was an old version of Dungeon with Ral Partha figures in it. This should be a no-brainer, especially if they're willing to go the $60+ route as they are with the Ravenloft game.
I'm sure there are some other things I'm missing but those are the things I'd focus on as head of the line.
2. Tied into existing product/product as it comes out. PHB3 just came out at least one freak race. WoTC has been slipping the minotaurs into the DM's packs for a while but those crystal suckers? Not a one there. Same problem with the Dragonborn. No one knew those were going to be in the PHB? It literarlly took like a year to get 2 non-random figures, and one of them an extremely niche?
3. Reoffering the popular figs as collectors sets: Some of the older sets had draconians, demons, devils, etc... that are still popular and could easily be put into themed packs like the beholder pack coming out. There's a huge library of figures and not using that is baffling.
4. Legends pack. Drizzt was one of the most expensive figures for its time. Taking characters out of the new york times best sellers list and making figures out of them as opposed to generic figures? Go specific and if the sculpts are good enough, people will want to use them for their own characters anyway.
5. If using visible figures, let the retailers tell you which ones they want as opposed to suffering a random order. I don't have a ton of gaming stores around me, but they all discounted the grey dappled pony, I mean unicorn. It'll be a great way to insure that whoever screws up the visibles the first time isn't the same person making the selections the next time.
6. Stop explaining why things can't be done. Stop talking about lead time. Stop talking about bad sculpts. Stop talking about the steps in the process. This is WoTC, not Bob's Friendly Figures. Some of the figures from the Heroscape line are of much more intricate detail and use and were cheaper. Just stop. If it's a question that keeps coming up the head of the department needs to find out WHY is can't be done.
7. Dungeon boardgame. Why WoTC hasn't done this old boardgame with prepainted plastics, or even plastics that aren't painted, is beyond me. For god's sake, there was an old version of Dungeon with Ral Partha figures in it. This should be a no-brainer, especially if they're willing to go the $60+ route as they are with the Ravenloft game.
I'm sure there are some other things I'm missing but those are the things I'd focus on as head of the line.
Steel_Wind
Legend
In Defence of Random Packaging
Ok. Now, I hate random packaging as much as anybody, but I do have to admit that sometimes, it really does serve my purposes.
I'm currently GMing Star Wars:SE set in the Old Republic (awesome system for Star Wars, btw) and so that's been the thrust of my mini mania for the past three months or so. In that time, I've picked up two complete sets of the earliest mini lines, and about 600 or so others. And I have bought probably 10 or so KotOR boosters at retail.
Last night, I found a link to a cheap mini source and I went to town on a shopping spree. There were TONS of cheap commons and uncommons on this website and I stocked up, big time. Admittedly, Star Wars perhaps suits the repurposing of minis far more easily than does D&D, but the point is - I grabbed encounter after encounter after encounter. 10 or 15 of the same common and uncommon minis here there and everywhere. This was the third time I had done this when buying minis for Star Wars - so I was really filling in the gaps with my purchases.
By the time I was done, I had dropped about $150 and bought 350 minis. Add in shipping at $50 (I'm in Canada and it was a big package of minis = higher shipping cost), and I was in for about $200. At just north of 50 cents a piece for a CRAP LOAD of minis that I wanted in numbers that make them highly usable in play - that's a price for a product that just can't be beat.
Moreover, for those of you who have looked at WotC's Star Wars mnis and compared them to DDM - you'll have to agree the for the most part, Lucas' Licensing's power to reject minis for sale by WotC that do not meet Lucas quality requirements has meant that SW minis are of significantly higher quality than most of the D&D minis are, overall.
So, would that shopping spree have been possible in a world of specific non-random packaged minis? No. I have to admit - it wouldn't be.
I bought 90% of the 600 or so DDMs that I have by the case. In comparison, I have bought more than 90% of the 1,000 SW minis that I have by the lot on ebay - or as singles online. And I've still paid less for the SW minis because of random packaging.
Part of this benefit is that SW common minis seem to sell for a helluva lot cheaper than DDMs (many are 10 to 25 cents a piece!) but whatever the case, I do have to say that sometimes this method of retailing and distribution in the primary market has served me well when purchasing in the secondary market.
Seems only fair to acknowledge the good with the bad.
Ok. Now, I hate random packaging as much as anybody, but I do have to admit that sometimes, it really does serve my purposes.
I'm currently GMing Star Wars:SE set in the Old Republic (awesome system for Star Wars, btw) and so that's been the thrust of my mini mania for the past three months or so. In that time, I've picked up two complete sets of the earliest mini lines, and about 600 or so others. And I have bought probably 10 or so KotOR boosters at retail.
Last night, I found a link to a cheap mini source and I went to town on a shopping spree. There were TONS of cheap commons and uncommons on this website and I stocked up, big time. Admittedly, Star Wars perhaps suits the repurposing of minis far more easily than does D&D, but the point is - I grabbed encounter after encounter after encounter. 10 or 15 of the same common and uncommon minis here there and everywhere. This was the third time I had done this when buying minis for Star Wars - so I was really filling in the gaps with my purchases.
By the time I was done, I had dropped about $150 and bought 350 minis. Add in shipping at $50 (I'm in Canada and it was a big package of minis = higher shipping cost), and I was in for about $200. At just north of 50 cents a piece for a CRAP LOAD of minis that I wanted in numbers that make them highly usable in play - that's a price for a product that just can't be beat.
Moreover, for those of you who have looked at WotC's Star Wars mnis and compared them to DDM - you'll have to agree the for the most part, Lucas' Licensing's power to reject minis for sale by WotC that do not meet Lucas quality requirements has meant that SW minis are of significantly higher quality than most of the D&D minis are, overall.
So, would that shopping spree have been possible in a world of specific non-random packaged minis? No. I have to admit - it wouldn't be.
I bought 90% of the 600 or so DDMs that I have by the case. In comparison, I have bought more than 90% of the 1,000 SW minis that I have by the lot on ebay - or as singles online. And I've still paid less for the SW minis because of random packaging.
Part of this benefit is that SW common minis seem to sell for a helluva lot cheaper than DDMs (many are 10 to 25 cents a piece!) but whatever the case, I do have to say that sometimes this method of retailing and distribution in the primary market has served me well when purchasing in the secondary market.
Seems only fair to acknowledge the good with the bad.
Last edited:
But have ANY of those lines been as cheap as the DDM line were?
pawsplay
Hero
Haven't had that problem.
Not even. I mean, your opinion is your opinion, but I think the Reaper stuff tends to be quite adequate, compared to the schmear jobs on some of the DDMs. I used to own a drow cleric that looked like one of her rival divas threw a bucket of water on her face.
Master, no. Demonstrate they can produce quality at a good price point, yes. And my impression is that the Reaper stuff has few or no floppy weapon problems, whereas the mounted character in one of the last DDM sets looked like he was going to run around hitting people with a rubber banana.
pawsplay
Hero
Eight figures at $15 works out to $1.88 per figure for Demonweb.
Reaper:
Three goblins $2.99
Werewolf $3.99
Three skeleton archers $5.79
Evil human warrior $4.49
$17.26 / 8 = $2.15 per figure.
So I'm going to say yes, it's been done.
Fifth Element
Legend
I rebase all the Reaper plastics I buy - you have to for some of them to even be able to stand up on their own (minotaur, for instance).
