Pre-Painted Plastic Minis!!!

[DDK]

come play at my studio creamsteak, we can melt down a pewter/lead mini and recast it into a victory trophy or henchmam, your choice

"A Theocracy saying is, “Cold weather is Pholtus’s way of telling you to throw another heretic on the fire."

There's a little bit of Greyhawk in all of us

 

[Nathal]

Too many people have been assuming these would be the hard, detailed 'sprue' type plastic from Hero's quest, or from GW's boxed set. It is much more likely that these will be those abominations of vinyl that Army men are made of, or that Mage Knight are made of. Expect a lot of swords/staves/spears to be bent, and which may never be bent back. Also expect a lot of loss of detail due to globby, greasy enamel grade paint.

Please let it not be so! I would expect much greater quality from Hasbro than that! Bent weapons is totally unacceptable and such crap could easily switch me into the naysayer camp.

I am assuming that Hasbro could produce hard plastic---and well sculpted---plastic miniatures, to scale, at a cost allowing for DMs to create the skirmish-size collections of his dreams. Shame on them if they do as you warn and muck it all up...

 

[Nathal]

There are pre-painted mini's out there that are, quite frankly, crap. They're more expensive than regular mini's too since they're hand painted.

I voted yes because I'm betting the quality will be better than crap and, ultimately, I think it's a good idea for the poverty stricken and artistically challenged and those who simply want to game without the bother of the ordeal that accompanies mini painting.

I'm just hoping they're either colour molds or they're machine painted. If they're hand painted then the job will be crud (gotta rush through 'em) and they'll be more expensive in which case I won't be interested in buying them.

Amen to all that this man said. I hope Wizards is watching this thread...

 

[orbitalfreak]

I think they'll be pretty decent, in that they'll be recognizable as certain creatures. I'd love to have a horde of painted lead and pewter minis, but I don't have the funds to do so. I'll be happy with some decent figures.

I'm also of the mind that mini's are sacred works of art and shouldn't be reduced to just blobs of color and plastic, but this way we'll be getting the best of both worlds. Other companies have made and will continue to make high-quality metal minis for painting, and WotC will be doing inexpensive (I hope not "cheap", since that implies bad quality) figures for the masses without the time/money/desire for metal minis to still have a respectable show of force at the table.

 

[dpdx]

As the owner of a Dwarven Forge orcband set and (chest, barrel, bucket, etc.) set, in pewter, I have no trouble with prepainted stuff as NPCs/props/whatever.

But I painted my elven ranger PC's mini, and I suspect that it's a lot like Doc Midnight selling PC caricatures; one's interest in painting a mini increases proportionally to one's interest in what that mini represents, and increases disproportionally so with regard to having a plastic "stand-in"...

 

[Majin Cthulhu]

I'm a fan of the prepainted and plastic aspects of the new minis, but I'm worried about the collectable aspect. If I'm trying to run a game using the new minis, I don't want to open pack after pack in desperate search of a few hill giants for my next adventure.

I realize that I can just make my own counters by writing " hill giant" on a piece of paper, but I am worried that the randomization of the figures will result in limited applications as a DM's tool.

 

[Aaron L]

I hate minis and battlemaps.

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

I would love to see decent price, decent quality, prepainted plastic mini's. I can not paint mini's. I don't have the steady hands for it. Hell if a mini requires to be put together or cut, I can't do it. So I would love something that would allow me to use mini's. Although counters are also nice.

 

[Churchill]

Heretical?

Right. Time to be branded a heretic...

Miniatures are place holders, time savers and argument preventers. ("No, I distinctly said my character moved THERE, not there.")

I'm extremely utilitarian about these things. Dice and circular plastic tokens work in a pinch for me.

Now, if it were possible, I'd much RATHER have a beautifully painted figure for every character and monster...but that isn't really possible.

One of the guys I game with does absolutely amazing mini work (painting and customizing), but there's a time (his) and money (mine) problem with getting what I'd really like as far as a figure assortment for our weekly game.

If these plastic figures are inexpensive and look something like the things they're supposed to represent, then that's a huge step up from dice and chits.

One thing I've never really been able to understand is people heaping opprobrium on something they haven't seen yet. To paraphrase Harlan Ellsion, the only valid opinion is an informed opinion. And I don't see how an opinion can be informed without some kind of direct experience with whatever is being castigated.

I'll go away now.

 

[NiTessine]

Well, I'll say one more thing... If nothing else, the sculpts will probably be decent, and we always have brake fluid for the paint...