War Drums- Too Many Humanoids!
- Thread starter satori01
- Start date
MerricB said:
Meet Reality? Come on I made a mistake on the minatures rarity.
I'm not a collector, I use these things in play of D&D. To Error is to be human, to forgive is Divine. I forgive you for your rudeness
(Actually just ribbing you, I could care less about the comment).
I know Merric you are fond of the minatures and buy alot of them.
I bought a case of the Underdark set and have one Loyal Earth Elemental. Yet, in that same case I received 2 Artemis figures. Random sorting and limited sample size pretty much means it comes down to a crap shoot for what you will get.
I like the random sorting of the minatures in that I might get something that I otherwise would probably never use. The Warbound Impaler is a perfect example of that. MM3 monster, that given all of my monster books would probably never use, but I like the mini so much I will use it.
I like the kid at Xmas aspect of the packages, unfortunately right now I feel like the presents are all too often socks and toothbrushes instead of new bikes and train sets.
Buying rare minatures as seperates seems to expensive to me. I can buy pewter individuals for less than the plastic, and I can paint the pewter better then the plastic. A McFarland Dragons 2 figurene sells for $11.99 at the local Tower Records. Is $24.99 for a Brass Dragon alone worth it?
Again, is it unreasonable to ask for WOTC to develop what many have called for from day one of the announcement of the plastic minature line, themed packages. You guys like it the way it is, and I am sure you will keep on buying. I am more of a peripheral buyer, but when I buy, I buy alot. At this point I'm not getting what I want, and think I am done buying.
Assuming I am not alone, and given the plastic toy competion out there, the question becomes how much market share could WOTC create by a little inovative thinking?
What DM that uses minatures, or many players for that matter pass up
an assortment of monsters from the Summon Spell list for $8.99?
DaveStebbins
First Post
It might be a little unreasonable to assume WotC haven't looked at the economics involved with making themed sets (by which I assume you also mean non-random sets). I don't pretend to be privy to inside information, but what I have seen of the company tells me they've tried to look at it several ways and not found non-random sets viable.satori01 said:
DDM works for retailers in part because it is a single SKU and takes a set amount of shelf space. Non-random sets become extra SKUs, extra trouble to reorder, take extra shelf space and potentially take sales away from the main line. I can understand why retailers like the random boosters even when many (most) buyers do not.
Are these random figures or non-random? If they are non-random, how many different sets will there be? You might be able to get all the SMI list for that price, but at the higher levels, you wouldn't even be able to get a complete set of, for instance, SMVI monsters for that price point, and you're already talking a dozen and a half extra SKUs (Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally) for a retailer to buy and display and keep track of.satori01 said:
I agree with you that non-random figures would be cool, heck I think almost everyone agrees. IMO though, it's just not economically feasible outside of the secondary market.
-Dave
Glyfair
Explorer
Plus, I can easily take a humanoid and make it a recurring creature throughout he life of the campaign. I can have a challenging orc only encounter at 1st level and at 20th level. That doesn't tend to crossover to other creature types.MerricB said:
Personally, I'd much rather have common humanoids than common "other creatures." Give me a reasonable selection of creatures I'm likely to use. Keep the really odd stuff out of the common figures (how many people really needed multiple Nightstalkers, Mycanoids, or Tanarukks?).
In fact, that's why companies like producing them. Much less work and expense keeping track of the SKUs.DaveStebbins said:
"Hmmmm...Mad Slashers aren't moving, what can we do about that?"
With this model they can afford to do some of the oddball miniatures without a huge gamble that there is enough of a market. If fact, I'll wager that there would be more humanoids and common creatures if it wasn't random, because it's not as much of a risk.
I honestly do not think that is true. At what point do you reacht the too many Orc, Elf or Dwarf factor. I have goblins form 4 or five different sets, in all probably around 15-25 different goblins, possibly more. Now with the small sized minatures ,and especially the earlier sets the goblins are horribly painted. Add in LOTR pewter minatures and I have 3 or 4 possible distinct tribes of around 10 minatures each.. Factor in about the same ratio for Dwarves, Orc and Elves and I have to say I realisticaly do not need any more. I certainly do not want any.
I will even go further and admit to throwing away, the more poorly painted humanoid minatures of the first sets, as I ran out of room, and knew I was embarassed to use them.
People that buy a case of every set have to be sick of seeing the near same pose in many of the sets or what is worse the reissue of certain minatures through Chainmail into plastic sets, ala the skeletal Equine.
I agree too many sku's hurt a line of product, but as many of the molds have already been created, producing say all of the natural creatures, or all of the Elementals, or all of the Dragons, and having the automated machine sort said pre made minatures into new packaging is not that expensive.
Creating new markets for minimal start up costs is a very sure fire way to generate new profits. Moreover, the gross margin on these minatures I would guess is in the 70% range, each box sold will generate a pretty hefty profit.
We are not really talking about creating new molds, but rather more selective packaging of pre existing minatures , with some supplemental adds. Again I suspect the profit generated per box, would even with the start up costs for such a line not be reduced to below 50% gross margin.
I will even go further and admit to throwing away, the more poorly painted humanoid minatures of the first sets, as I ran out of room, and knew I was embarassed to use them.
People that buy a case of every set have to be sick of seeing the near same pose in many of the sets or what is worse the reissue of certain minatures through Chainmail into plastic sets, ala the skeletal Equine.
I agree too many sku's hurt a line of product, but as many of the molds have already been created, producing say all of the natural creatures, or all of the Elementals, or all of the Dragons, and having the automated machine sort said pre made minatures into new packaging is not that expensive.
Creating new markets for minimal start up costs is a very sure fire way to generate new profits. Moreover, the gross margin on these minatures I would guess is in the 70% range, each box sold will generate a pretty hefty profit.
We are not really talking about creating new molds, but rather more selective packaging of pre existing minatures , with some supplemental adds. Again I suspect the profit generated per box, would even with the start up costs for such a line not be reduced to below 50% gross margin.
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DaveStebbins
First Post
I realize I am only a single data point (on the other hand, so are you), but I am not tired of seeing humanoids and, since I never bought any Chainmail minis, I don't mind seeing those as part of DDM. There's the problem when you generalize, it almost never applies as broadly as you mght think.satori01 said:
You might be surprised at how quickly plastic wears out injection molds. Having worked in the molding industry for over 15 years, I can guarantee that these molds, after the end of the production run for their set, are nearly scrap (if they aren't, then WotC is paying way too much in material costs for the molds). Since these molds are most likely EDM machined, they're also very expensive to create, even in China. It is very common to explore re-use of mold and the refurbish costs would have been factored in to any decisions WotC made.satori01 said:
-Dave
BSIE 1989
PE 1999
DaveStebbins said:
They certainly have. Indeed, in the very early days, they planned on making two "War Party" sets. However, the response from retailers and distributors was extremely poor, and they were scrapped.
I have a feeling that the figures could have been bought individually at the time for less than what Wizards could sell them for!
Cheers!
MerricB said:
You've made this comment on past occasions and it always makes me wonder why you say this. While it is true that humanoids can be advanced with character classes (as many monsters can), goblinoids, orcs, and other races primarily remain as low-level threats. And halflingss, elves, and dwarves are creatures that players are rarely going to fight at all. Humans, of course, tend to be the exception.
It seems pretty clear that humanoids dominate the minis sets explicity for the DDM skirmish game. The good guys have to fill out their teams with humanoids; there just aren't a lot of good-aligned monsters out there. Moreover, all teams need a cheap rank-and-file to fill out there teams, and humanoids fill that role out pretty well.
Having said all that, I don't mind humanoids. In fact, I want more--just so long as they're useful for representing PC's. Many of them are just too plainl-looking (for a game that's largely about the magic bling). And way, way too fixated on sword-and-board.
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