Reaper Minis?

[Storminator]

ideally I'd love to be well off and have a large gaming and painting room, but, sigh, not an option

When house shopping we rejected many, many houses for insufficient gaming space.

PS

 

[WhatGravitas]

Ugh, even unpainted, Reaper Minis look miles better than plastic minis. It'll be a sad day when quality metal minis are history.

What I really want are unpainted plastics with the details of metals.

Seriously, I love metal minis (and have to take some new photos), but they're hard to transport. And three times a year, I get home (as in old home), where my old group lives. And packaging painted metal minis for a plane flight is a royal PITA, because they're prone to chipping (though varnishing helps) and because they're just so freaking heavy compared to plastics.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Storminator,
lucky bugger

My pal's ideal is to win the lotto, so he can have me as his personal DM and minipainter, well paid, of course

My ideal is to win the lotto, buy a castle, with a dungeon, and let him paint my minis!

Frankthedm,
repaer has lots of creatures, they've got TONS of bugbears and gnolls, which I like, and also derro, kobolds and goblins, hwihc arne't too common.

Sigh, wish I'd bought a Grenadier fire giant, 20 odd years ago, had a "kriss" style sword and an obelisk...quality wasn't as good as Reaper, but...you know, nostalgia

 

[doppelganger]

QFT.

Pre-painted plastic minis for the win - they are cheaper, so much more convenient, don't require painting, and are easier to store.

This

 

[Asmor]

What I really want are unpainted plastics with the details of metals.

Seriously, I love metal minis (and have to take some new photos), but they're hard to transport. And three times a year, I get home (as in old home), where my old group lives. And packaging painted metal minis for a plane flight is a royal PITA, because they're prone to chipping (though varnishing helps) and because they're just so freaking heavy compared to plastics.

Cheers, LT.

What about Warhammer minis? You can get a box of high-quality plastic minis for about $35, which has 12-24 minis in it depending on their size. Assuming you're okay with assembling and painting them, it's not a bad price at all.

There's lots of options, too. Boxes of zombies, skeletons, lizardmen, archers, soldiers, goblins, rat men, etc.

 

[WhatGravitas]

What about Warhammer minis? You can get a box of high-quality plastic minis for about $35, which has 12-24 minis in it depending on their size. Assuming you're okay with assembling and painting them, it's not a bad price at all.

Yes. While some suffer from GW generally higher prices, the rank and files DO look pretty good. However, there's a sad lack of variety, because the 12-24 mini boxes consist of very similar stuff.

Which is cool once, but you can only have so many lizardmen/orcs/goblins until it gets boring (and useless). Also: It's fun to paint very different minis, an painting all sorts of monsters is fun. And useful, as D&D has that wide range of monsters.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Xsjado]

QFT.

Pre-painted plastic minis for the win - they are cheaper, so much more convenient, don't require painting, and are easier to store.

I suspect you either don't know what QFT means or you just didn't read my post. You've basically stated the opposite opinion. Maybe you were being sarcastic, I hope so.

Plastic minis are great for monsters and the like, but it just seems a bit lack-lustre for a PC or important NPC. Not to mention the satisfaction of painting our own models. For me that is a big draw; to look at a mini and think "whoa that looks awesome, wait a minute, I did that!" Painting is a whole other hobby in its own right and a nice relaxing activity for when you're sat in front of the telly. Painting clubs are also a great way to socialise with gamers who aren't in your RP group, so its all good as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Asmor]

I suspect you either don't know what QFT means or you just didn't read my post. You've basically stated the opposite opinion. Maybe you were being sarcastic, I hope so.

You never actually stated your opinion, you implied it. You stated that there was no comparison between the two, which he agreed with, but then he stated an opinion in stark contrast to your clearly implied opinion.

Suggesting he was being sarcastic would imply that he didn't actually feel that pre-painted plastic minis are the superior option, which I suspect he does.

Thus he wasn't being sarcastic, he was being snarky.

 

[wingsandsword]

My FLGS has a big wall of Reaper minis. I've bought a few and painted them, not as replacements for plastic, but for when the collectable mini format really hurts.

Here's an example from a few years back:

I wanted to have an illithid villain in my upcoming adventure I was running the next week. I didn't have any illithid plastic minis, and all the ones out were rare and had irritatingly high prices on the secondary market. (I haven't kept up with D&D mini releases, I don't know if any non-rares ever were made).

So, for a plastic mini of a creature I want I can order it online and pay ~$12 or more after shipping and it might get here in time for the game next week. . .or I can go down to my FLGS and pick up a Reaper mini. For a lot of WotC "Product Identity" monsters they have creatures that look an awful lot like them but with a different name (Bathaglian for Illithid, Phase Cat for Displacer Beast, Eyebeast for Beholder. . .). Since those distinctive creatures typically have expensive secondary-market costs it was actually cheaper for me to buy a metal mini and spend a little time painting it myself than it was to just get a piece of plastic.

If the big advantage of randomized minis is they are cheaper, that's defeated by the secondary market costs being ridiculously high on minis for creatures that may be rare in minis distribution but most DM's would want to use.

Also, Reaper has a lot of minis of things you don't often see D&D minis of, like a lot of townsfolk minis if you want bystanders for your tavern brawls ect.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

If high prices and lost demand are killing Reaper, then they may be stuck with laying off most of their staff, and going with limited release + high quality minis for collectors.