Pathfinder 1E Plastickrack - Pathfinder Miniatures Edition

[Aluvial]

Hello again,

My dragon came today and it is a really awesome sculpt. It is not huge. It is merely a large. I will be adjusting the base of mine.

I think now that I have the dragon and have heard the reports, I will be opening my boxes.

I will not pretend to know what it takes to get the distribution of miniatures in a case correct, but I know that the potential for getting the entire case is good and I like that aspect of the release.

I think the packaging is plainly to much though. That is a WHOLE lot of paper and plastic for these and surely that is driving the cost of the miniature up. I'm happy to support Paizo, and have been since the beginning of their Dragon mag days, but the cost is prohibitive to new (and this old) gamers.

I am for the profitability of selling a product, but I genuinely feel that the Paizo miniature line could be lowered in price and become even more profitable now that they released an article that says that they sold out of the first print run.

And there is another issue. Will this be the only print run of this set? I can only imagine what the secondary market will produce with the miniatures high initial cost.

I also realize that any initial miniatures line is going to have some issues, especially with scaling and cost. I for one would continue to buy these miniatures if they could keep up the standards and fix these issues. I have heard reports that rarity is an issue with some of the figures. my biggest issue with this is with common heroes. Heroes should be uncommon to rare mainly because they, and their NPC counterparts are singly used in most games. You never need 12 paladins. The only time I like to see common figures in the human realm is with warriors, pirate bands, thugs, bandits, townsfolk (although those might be uncommon too since how many times do you need copies of a farmer with a chicken as a club), thieves, and other types of groups where mob mentality is the order of the day. Common figs should always be reserved for groups that need to swarm the PC's to be successful. If these figures had stat cards for some type of minis game, the same thing should apply as to the RPGS game; that is to say that groups that are likely encountered as a group should be common in rarity. Let me add to that list by putting in town guards. I've seen a lot of city guards, but few town militia types. These would make a good common miniature. All the rest of the commons should be creatures or humanoid groups. When you put out Denizens of the Swamp for instance, having two types of common lizard man warrior would be helpful. Having common "witch doctor" or cleric lizardmen would not. that type of specialized lizardmen should be uncommon. In essence, keep the distribution in line with the likely numbers that would be needed for a good encounter. I've heard that I could expect to find 10 to 12 goblins in the case. That is perfect!

If some of these issues could be resolved you would have a loyal collector. I use the miniatures in my RPGS game and the pre painted are pastastic since I have little time to paint anymore.

To sum up, good, no, excellent distribution is a must, less packaging, adjusting of scale to keep up with 30mm standards, watch scaling creep (getting bigger with each release), and sensible rarity chooses are needed.

Eric, thanks for taking time out to respond. I think that alone might.be why I will be opening up the case later today.

Aluvial

 

[MerricB]

My minis arrived yesterday - a case plus the black dragon.

Of them, the Frost Giant didn't have one of his hands glued on (not the replaceable hand, the other one), and one Wolf had separated from the base.

They're nice minis. Paint jobs vary - the choice of colours for the town guard minis aren't that good - but the rare figures are very nice. I especially like the giant spider and the medusa.

Cheers!

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I got 2 bricks plus about half a brick in individual purchases so far. I have 34/40 from just this many (one of my missing minis is a common skeleton, and 2 are the uncommon elf wizard and snake), so the distribution is pretty good. I have not had one single mini be broken or off the base yet, but several were not securely held in their plastic cradle. I feel these are potentially more brittle than the DDMs, however, but I've yet to let my 4 year old really test that. I will note, however, that the hardness can vary within a single mini. Namely, the body of a mini is stiff, but the sword (which is NOT a separate piece) is flexible, so less chance of weapons snapping off through use.

The scale problems of the dire rat, troll and gnome are notable, but not as bad as some other prepainted minis initial releases. The people complaining about the sizes are comparing to DDM, which isn't really fair. These minis are designed around Paizo's illustrations and sizes, so as long as the sets are internally consistant, they should be ok. And that's the problem with the dire rat and troll. But Paizo has admitted the error for these and will correct them in future sets.

The "pc" figures are pretty good for prepaints, but not as good as the iconics from the previous release. Really, those first 4 set a pretty high bar, and the paladin is the only one of mine to come close. But the detail on some others is pretty remarkable, like the colored eyes on the medusa's big pet snake, or the beard and facial expression on the human ranger. The paladin has her holy symbol on her shield, and the goblins are downright awesome for prepainted minis.

In a week or two, I'll try adding some inks or a dip and see how well that improves the base paintjobs. If it is any improvement at all, it's a super-simple step that can produce a huge change in the quality of appearance in these minis.

I have to disagree with you in regards to complaints about size difference to DDM being unfair.

Paizo/WizKids would have known and expected that a large segment, if not the majority, of the people buying Pathfinder minis would also own DDMs. As such, for their customers to get the most use out of them, the Pathfinder minis should be scaled so that they can be used interchangeably with DDMs.

If they decide to make their minis a slightly different scale a few different things could happen. People who own DDMs and are considering getting Pathfinder minis will:

a. Buy Pathfinder minis, use their DDMs and Pathfinder minis together and just ignore the differences in scale between the 2 lines.
b. Buy Pathfinder minis and get rid of/not use their DDMs.
c. Not buy Pathfinder minis and just stick with their DDMs.

Given that the DDM line has been around for many years, has a much larger range of figures and represent a significant sunk cost for many people, I would expect that if the difference in scale was noticeable enough many people would go with option C.

This obviously results in lower sales of Pathfinder minis, so it is definitely in Paizo/WizKids interest to ensure that their minis are the same scale (or as close as possible) to DDMs.

Olaf the Stout

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I have to disagree with you in regards to complaints about size difference to DDM being unfair.

Paizo/WizKids would have known and expected that a large segment, if not the majority, of the people buying Pathfinder minis would also own DDMs. As such, for their customers to get the most use out of them, the Pathfinder minis should be scaled so that they can be used interchangeably with DDMs.

If they decide to make their minis a slightly different scale a few different things could happen. People who own DDMs and are considering getting Pathfinder minis will:

a. Buy Pathfinder minis, use their DDMs and Pathfinder minis together and just ignore the differences in scale between the 2 lines.
b. Buy Pathfinder minis and get rid of/not use their DDMs.
c. Not buy Pathfinder minis and just stick with their DDMs.

Given that the DDM line has been around for many years, has a much larger range of figures and represent a significant sunk cost for many people, I would expect that if the difference in scale was noticeable enough many people would go with option C.

This obviously results in lower sales of Pathfinder minis, so it is definitely in Paizo/WizKids interest to ensure that their minis are the same scale (or as close as possible) to DDMs.

Olaf the Stout

I will point out that trolls, in DDM, were not exactly consistent in scale, even within the brand. (Pretty sure that they were consistent within sets though.)

If it looks like a troll, I'll call it a troll. (Bigger than a human, lots of teeth, green... yup! It's a troll! )

The Auld Grump

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I will point out that trolls, in DDM, were not exactly consistent in scale, even within the brand. (Pretty sure that they were consistent within sets though.)

If it looks like a troll, I'll call it a troll. (Bigger than a human, lots of teeth, green... yup! It's a troll! )

The Auld Grump

I definitely agree with you there. I own about 6 different DDM Trolls and they definitely seemed to get bigger as the sets went on.

That doesn't mean that I was happy about it! (Not that I think that is what you are suggesting.) I'd still prefer it if they could be consistent with their sizing though.

Olaf the Stout

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I definitely agree with you there. I own about 6 different DDM Trolls and they definitely seemed to get bigger as the sets went on.

That doesn't mean that I was happy about it! (Not that I think that is what you are suggesting.) I'd still prefer it if they could be consistent with their sizing though.

Olaf the Stout

I'd suggest cheating a wee bit - see them big 'uns? Jotunblood trolls, those are.... If you have Advanced Bestiary or other template books, use the bigger (or the much smaller) trolls as the ones with templates.

The Auld Grump

 

[Erik Mona]

What is plastic calibration exactly?

What I meant is the thickness of the plastic, the bendiness, if you will. WizKids has a way of altering this within the same mini, so that some parts of the mini are more rigid than others. Getting this wrong means droopy swords, bendy bases, etc.

--Erik

 

[TheAuldGrump]

What I meant is the thickness of the plastic, the bendiness, if you will. WizKids has a way of altering this within the same mini, so that some parts of the mini are more rigid than others. Getting this wrong means droopy swords, bendy bases, etc.

--Erik

That just means that you need to be... creative....

(From Flaky Pastry.)



The Auld Grump

 

[Erik Mona]

my biggest issue with this is with common heroes. Heroes should be uncommon to rare mainly because they, and their NPC counterparts are singly used in most games. You never need 12 paladins.

Heroes & Monsters contains _zero_ common "heroes". The closest are the Watch Guard and Watch Officer, which we felt people would want multiples of. Beyond that it's stuff like orcs and skeletons and what have you. No good guys.

You can see a list of the entire set by rarity here.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing

 

[Stormonu]

This obviously results in lower sales of Pathfinder minis, so it is definitely in Paizo/WizKids interest to ensure that their minis are the same scale (or as close as possible) to DDMs.

Olaf the Stout

Obviously, it's not that great a concern since they "sold out".

The DDM line had some real problems with size creep over the line. There's some halflings that near the end of the line that could have been used as human figures in the Harbinger set.