Getting a full set is unreasonable

[pawsplay]

Still, for the cost of a case of minis, I could buy a bunch of gaming books that I would actually use.

If you have the willpower to sell the rares, you can often make your money right back.

 

[Glyfair]

You said WotC has more minis; they don't. I realize that Reaper is only offering a few prepainted.... for now. Comparing their line which isn't even on shelves yet to a prepainted line that's been out for over 5 years is disingenuous. If this first release is a hit, you can guarantee they will go back into their catalog and release more and more prepainted plastics from their massive catalog of metal minis.

I doubt that Reaper's plastic line will have the depth of DDM, although I'm willing to be proved wrong.

By "depth" I'm not talking about number of miniatures, I'm talking about variety of miniatures. The disadvantage of plastic miniatures over metal is the cost of start up. Most of the cost of plastic miniatures is in set up, in metal it is in the actual materials. That means that a plastic miniature needs to sell a large number to be profitable. You won't be seeing niche miniatures in Reapers line, while DDM facilitates their production.

Well I think one thing thing that will help Reaper, is that their pre-painted line is perfectly legal in their Warlord mini-game. So if it sells well they have incentive from both roleplayers and those who play their wargame to put out a variety of models. In the end only time will tell. I am personally willing to support the business model I prefer.

I have to admit, I've never seen anyone play the game, The popular games around here are Warhammer & Warmachine, with some CMGs being the next rank down. I'm not sure how much that will help. Certainly not as much as having the ability to directly produce all the D&D published monsters (without doing it the round-about way).

 

[Jhaelen]

Boil some water and dip the mini in for a few seconds. The plastic will soften and enable you to make minor adjustments like straightening weapons, correcting warped bases, and making the occasional limbo champion stand upright. It doesn't adversely affect the mini at all.

If right after you do this, you drop the mini in a cup of water with some ice cubes(ideally, one that's had a chance for the ice to cool things down), it'll retain its posture even better, and the water won't hurt your mini.

Thanks for tips; will try!

 

[thalmin]

The water doesn't have to be boiling. I put a cup of water in the microwave and put it on the coffee setting. This way I don't scald myself while straightening the figure. Then the plunge into icewater.

 

[Felon]

I know I will get them through trades or e-bay but by buying THREE cases one would think they should get a full set!

Would one? I wouldn't.

It's a lot more economical just to buy a full set off ebay.

 

[IanB]

While I <3 D&D Minis, I do feel compelled to point out that Reaper's Troll is $4, its Ogre is $5, and its Minotaur is $6, with sculpts that are far and above better than any equivalent large humanoid figures WotC has done so far.

The price different is only going to get more dramatic when Reaper releases the mind flayer clone for somewhere in the $3-5 range, and a beholder clone for ~$10 or less.

This is verging well into opinion territory here; I personally find the Reaper ogre to be pretty lame, and clearly inferior to the Ogre War Hulk. The troll sculpt isn't anything special either (and I like it less than the uncommon Troll Slasher as a D&D troll.) I do like the minotaur.

And if they put out cheap beholders and mind flayers, great. That is likely to drive down the cost of the "real thing" on the secondary market.

 

[Pagan priest]

They already have (for several years in Metal at least).

They call them Bathlions (I think). Very Illithid like. The most recent one to come out was an Undead Version Last Year or early this year.

I don't buy Random (Burned waaaaayyyyy too many times in my Magic Playing days). Unless EVERY SINGLE rare is a Mini I REALLY want, I skip it.

As for why WotC does Random. I makes a lot of sense from a Stock-Keeping Point of View.

There have been what, a Dozen or so different Bar Codes Total for the D&D Miniatures Games so far? Only have to keep track of Inventory for a handful of items at a time.

Compare that to Reaper who has hundreds if not thousands of individual Units they have to track on a daily basis.

For a big company that would be a lot of overhead, plus all sort of headaches trying to get a system in place that worked well.

Bathalian, is what they call them. I love B'thuhl, Bathalian Pirate (#3135) a fine mind flayer er, bathalian swashbuckler with cutlass raised high.

 

[IanB]

You said WotC has more minis; they don't. I realize that Reaper is only offering a few prepainted.... for now. Comparing their line which isn't even on shelves yet to a prepainted line that's been out for over 5 years is disingenuous. If this first release is a hit, you can guarantee they will go back into their catalog and release more and more prepainted plastics from their massive catalog of metal minis.

I suspect that at any given time, the total number of in-print Reaper plastics will be significantly smaller than available WotC plastics, because of problems with stocking (potentially) hundreds of different SKUs. Reaper would have to have 120 different minatures on store shelves to compete with just *2* WotC sets in terms of variety - and on top of that, they'll have to convince stores to stock all that, in addition to their metal miniatures. Or maybe instead of their metal ones.

I find the prospect of the Reaper line being a significant challenge to DDM unlikely, personally, because of the logistical problems. What is far more likely is that they have a few nice sets of figures for specific, common needs (skeletons, orcs, ogres) and maybe a couple specialty things now and then. They're not going to do anything like their normal full line in plastic, unless they decide to ditch much of their metal business as well, IMO.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

You said WotC has more minis; they don't. I realize that Reaper is only offering a few prepainted.... for now. Comparing their line which isn't even on shelves yet to a prepainted line that's been out for over 5 years is disingenuous. If this first release is a hit, you can guarantee they will go back into their catalog and release more and more prepainted plastics from their massive catalog of metal minis.

No, I said that WotC have more prepainted minis, which they do. Yes, Reaper will have quite a few prepainted minis available if the first release is successful. Just keep in mind that WotC release 180 new prepainted minis every single year. In order for Reaper to even keep pace with WotC they would have to do the same. They may be able to do that (I don't know how many different minis are in their back catalogue) but you can call me skeptical at this point in time.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Imaro]

This is verging well into opinion territory here; I personally find the Reaper ogre to be pretty lame, and clearly inferior to the Ogre War Hulk. The troll sculpt isn't anything special either (and I like it less than the uncommon Troll Slasher as a D&D troll.) I do like the minotaur.

And if they put out cheap beholders and mind flayers, great. That is likely to drive down the cost of the "real thing" on the secondary market.

Yeah, and the Ogre War Hulk is $7 + shipping on Auggies(though I will admit it's a nice sculpt...don't know about 7+ nice though.) The Troll Slasher...You gotta be kidding me, that mini is ugly.

I don't think it will drive the prices down, because you still have the collectors and skirmish players who want certain figures for totally different reasons than roleplayers.

Oh yeah for anyone interested they made an announcement at Reapercon about some of the minis in the next set. Here they go...
"Goblins, Zombies, A Gnoll, An Ettin, A Demoness, Kobolds, A Bathalian, Ghosts, A Succubus, and A Giant Worm.”