Non-random D&D Miniatures

[Doghead Thirteen]

Did the mods edit out large parts of your post, or did you just forget to add sense?

Nope, I just added a barnload of asterisks instead of a chain of swearing taking up a page and a half.

That should give you an idea how strongly I feel about this 'collectable miniatures' business. That is NOT the way to out-GW GW. GW are selling a lifestyle of the over-the-top, cartoony and commercialised. Either you can get something alternative (to GWish) or you can be second fiddle. Well, so far all their competitors have seen what sells well and not grokked WHY it sells well.

Until they do (or GW prices themselves out the market) get used to seeing a wall full of Warhammer.

Only way I'll buy plastic is if they're well-made multipart kits. Look at Airfix or some-such to see what I'm talking about. If they're something other than that, I expect solid metal, packaged in blister packs or poly bags so I can see what I'm buying. Metal is far cheaper to cast than styrene; sure, resin is cheaper than metal, but it's also as fragile as glass. A one-man-band can afford to produce metal figures; injection moulding plastic requires a piece of machinery costing as much as a Ferrari, and moulds machined from solid steel. Metal miniatures are cast in rubber moulds costing about £50 tops, ran on a centifuge costing less than £2000. That means that a much lower investment company can produce metal miniatures, leading to much greater variety of minis. When you can make moulds for 200 different figures in metal for the cost of making a mould for 1 in plastic, you can afford to produce all the really weird stuff.
Besides, metal figures can take much finer detail than plastics, obviously enough leading to a much higher quality figure.

 

[Pbartender]

But with all the reasoning here, I think a major consideration is that WotC is doing the same thing they have done with the d20 market. They are focusing on the lines they think make the best sense for them (and experimenting where they aren't sure) and allowing other companies the market they don't feel would be strong enough for them.

Agreed.

 

[MerricB]

Merrick's Law

Get the spelling right, please.

It is _Merric_

 

[Glyfair]

Get the spelling right, please.

It is _Merric_

There is a "Merrick's Law" in evolution, apparently. "Lost structures as wings, fingers, and so forth, cannot be regained."

 

[Zaukrie]

Only way I'll buy plastic is if they're well-made multipart kits.

You mean minis I need to assemble, then paint to cover up the assembly? No thanks. The primary appeal to the current minis is I don't need to do any of that (except on really cold days when I might feel like teaching myself how to paint).

Metal minis are considerably more fragile, and since they don't come in bundles and bundles, I'll care if I break one or two (as opposed to the all too common orc or dwarf in DDM).

To Mark CMG: can't find the link to the company that used to make orcs and elves in pre-painted, non-random sets - the name is probably in one of our many threads on this topic. I think Dwarven Forge either does, or did, make pre-painted minis - but they aren't/weren't cheap.

To the person that would be ok with 150 minis in 5 years - ever see that gum commercial where they make gum that lasts forever? They put themselves out of business.

How many minis do you sell as a company if you only put out 30 a year? Once a DM has 3-5 packs of orcs at that rate, how many more do people buy? The reason WotC can continue to make money on this stuff is that they put out the weird/rare/unique stuff, that enough people want, that people buy the packs. If they only concentrated on orcs/drow/elves/dwarves/humans - they'd put themselves out of work pretty fast.

 

[3catcircus]

I don't want to see a lot of reprinting, since it would seem to clog the channels with old product and hurt the collectability, but new molds in new sets are fine. With non-random sets, you would get the consistent mold, but I doubt you'd run into long term viability of any one product, and so you'd have the same situation as current DDM. As stuff goes OOP, it would be harder to get.

And that attitude is part of the problem with why they won't make non-random packs. By calling them "collectable," and assigning rarity, they artificially inflate the value. And I seriously doubt that they limit the production run of "rares" vs. "commons." If I am running an injection mold factory, I'm offering a better price if my customer wants more rather than less for any given production run. There is no reason to *not* produce lots of any given mini, regardless of "rarity."

I'm guessing the biggest espense *isn't* the plastic. It *isn't* the painting labor. It is the time and effort to stat the stupid things and print the cards. You could easily eliminate the cards and the costs for a non-random set would probably be equal to the costs for a random set with cards, if not less.

Want to play DDM? Go online and get the stats and print them out before play. In fact, if eliminating cards reduced costs, they could probably charge the price differential for access to the stats online, which would also allow them to get a true accounting of how many people buy the minis vs. how many of them use them in DDM.

 

[smootrk]

Get the spelling right, please.

It is _Merric_

whoops. sorry, no offense meant.

 

[JustKim]

And that attitude is part of the problem with why they won't make non-random packs. By calling them "collectable," and assigning rarity, they artificially inflate the value. And I seriously doubt that they limit the production run of "rares" vs. "commons." If I am running an injection mold factory, I'm offering a better price if my customer wants more rather than less for any given production run. There is no reason to *not* produce lots of any given mini, regardless of "rarity."

Of course they produce more commons than rares. Do you really believe the frequency of a figure is imaginary? There's only one rare in a pack (excluding huge packs), and only one of a given rare in a case. When you buy a case, you're almost guaranteed four of every common and two of every uncommon. You will never find more than one of a rare.

So what reason do they have not to produce lots of the rares? Rares are typically more detailed sculpts, painted in more steps, and often in more pieces than commons or uncommons. They are more expensive to produce. They're the kind of miniature you should expect to pay $10-$20 for unpainted, unassembled, unmounted.

I don't think you understand the miniatures economy as well as you believe. The cards are certainly not what forces the price and distribution of DDM.

 

[thalmin]

To Mark CMG: can't find the link to the company that used to make orcs and elves in pre-painted, non-random sets - the name is probably in one of our many threads on this topic. I think Dwarven Forge either does, or did, make pre-painted minis - but they aren't/weren't cheap.

I think you are referring to Dwarven Forge. Those figs were also painted in China.

 

[mmadsen]

Charles Ryan, as well as other Wizards people, talked about it here, in an earlier thread (or threads. I know that one of them was quite recent and I think that a link to it is in this very thread).

Why Miniatures are Randomized