Starship Troopers goes pre-painted

[pogre]

I read Mongoose is not going to release any new models until next April. The new models will come pre-painted.

They are also releasing a new near-future game called Battlefield Evolution in January also with pre-painted miniatures.

I don't play Mongoose games any way, but I wonder if more companies will decide they need to go pre-painted to compete?

 

[frankthedm]

Here is the thing.

People who paint metal figures to game with are a niche market. {this includes unpainted plastics, though the machinery to make them is much more costly]

People who will buy prepainted figs are a mass market.

A small company can be happy with niche market profits, like a benign micro-organism in a small animal. As a company makes money, It has the option to grow or simply make a modest profit off the niche market. If it chooses to grow, the company, which was fed by the niche, finds the niche can no longer support the size which it has chosen to grow to. This bloated parasite then latches onto a bigger market, or dies if it only attracts niche market prey, sicne now it has too many of it own internal parasites to support on niche market profits.

 

[pogre]

Frank -

I think you hit Mongoose's assumption on the head.

Mongoose thinks: Pre-painted is necessary to hit the bigger market.

It will be interesting to see if this is a valid assumption. As you stated, there is an assumption of a bigger market that may or may not be there.

Rackham is also coming out with a pre-painted sci-fi game.

We'll see if these companies are right. I honestly do not know.

 

[nyrfherdr]

Interesting...

I think it is also true that you will attract a market based on your assumption. If you want to be all about the game, then pre-painted makes complete sense.

Games Workshop has certainly shown that you can continually attract gamers and teach them the hobby of painting and modelling and make a pretty big splash out of it.
Their assumption is that it isn't just about the game. But their business model is to sell toy soldiers, not game material. The hobby aspect is a big part of their approach.

It will be interesting to see the results of this new approach to tabletop miniature games.

 

[Cergorach]

From my own perspective:
i've stopped buying unpainted metal/plastic minis, i have enough to last ten livetimes painting them (to any standard). I'm not saying i won't buy anymore i'm saying that i'll only buy if i'm certain that i'll paint them in the short term. Add to that that i haven't painted in a while (i'm pretty certain that most of my GW paints have dried up) and need to invest in some new painting supplies.

When i look at my former D&D games i used mostly fantasy minis. Low level monsters come in larger lots, painting twelve+ orcs might be fun the first couple of orc, but when you also have to do the 12+ goblins, human bandits, etc, etc. Painting becomes a chore, add to that that i'm not a great painter or a speed painter, a lot of metal minis ended up bare on the table. That doesn't help player immersion.

When prepainted plastics showed up enforce i gave them a look over (mageknight) and was very disapointed, man where those paintjobs crude, i would be better off if i dipped my own in the paint pots... Add to that that the ones that were accaptable were rares and extremely expensive.

Then WotC came out with the D&D minis game, was a little better then mageknight, but still a very bad paintjob. A few expansions later (Archfiends i believe) i was tempted to buy a few packs, the paint job was a lot better, but still not impressive. I was torn, but let my players decide, when they came across the hill giant they blew a casket and were sold. I've been buying cases of the stuff ever since (although i haven't played D&D for a while).

In short: They are relatively cheap when compared to metal (and GW plastics), don't eat up a lot of your time for painting (save money on painting supplies), easy to store (i store them in plastic bags in big plastic boxes), can be thrown at annoying players without breaking or (permanently) poking out an eye ;-)

Same goes for the Star Wars minis, i always wanted some of those old SW minis, they were either unavailable or extremely expensive. Add to that the fact that they were rather small compared to the current day 'standard' of 30mm. And you'll have one disappointed SW fan...

Although i would have bought some metal storm troopers if they came out, i would never have bought the cases of SW minis i have now (i have three AT-ATs standing on a pile of gaming material for example).

I love the Rackham minis, but i currently don't have the inclanation to paint them, thus i'm not buying them, thus i'm not playing the gave (repeat circle). Same goes for Warmachine. If Rackham came out with prepainted minis, they are afordable, nice, and the game is fun/challanging i'll buy some (and knowing rackham, i'm certain that they'll deliver on most aspects i find important).

I'm also a long time Battletech fan, 10-20 years ago you couldn't get your paws on any BT minis. And if you could you would pay through the nose for them, so i have very few actual mechs. Since the WizKids released MechWarrior: Dark Age i bought a case, was disappointed, but saw the potential. A couple of months ago i bought some 200 WMDA minis for less then 1/10 of the 'new' value, there's some interesting stuff in there that might entice me to some conversion work and actual painting...

Battlefield Evolution sounds like a newer version of Armageddon (their mech game), if so, and the mechs were on scale with the classic Battlemechs, were kewl, nicely painted and not to expensive, they might draw a lot of mecha/BT fans...

I think that most companies that sell prepainted minis are aiming for folks that have more disposable income then time (meaning time to paint mini compared to what an hour costs them) amd people that have no inclination/talent to paint minis. There are a lot of people out there that are interested in playing with minis but are discouraged when they find out that they need to paint themselves (or find out that painting minis takes actual skill). Add to that a collectability factor and an arms race fator to it and you insure that people buy a lot and will keep buying them. Thus making large production runs possible, making them cheaper to make, making them more afordable for people that don't have a lot of disposable income...

I'm also looking forward to the SW space ship game, i'm not overly concerned about costs (assuming that they keep it close to the othe SW game), i am concerned about scale...

Just my few euro cents...

 

[Kem]

Hmmmm. Don't have any friends that want to play Starship Troopers ( ) but those would make excellent bugs for Warhammer 40k

(I also use demons and devils modded to have eldar weapons for that army )

 

[Bobitron]

The quality looks very good for prepainted stuff and I'm curious to see how that translates in production. I don't play the game, but I might pick up some to use in an RPG game. I've been considering running a Starship Troopers one-shot for a while now.