Why the D&D Miniature Line Failed...

[Mokona]

Mistakenly, Wizards of the Coast worked more to prop up the miniatures Game and collectible prices than supplying miniatures to D&D roleplaying games.

Dragoneye and Harbinger were both selling quite well when they were taken out of print. So customers who wanted the iconic sculpts in those sets had to pay every increasing prices for standard RPG fare.

I bought up a lot of Dragoneye prior to the off sale date at $9.99 and later resold those same boosters for $25+ each. My profit is great and all but it would have been better business for Wizards of the Coast if they kept selling Dragoneye boosters for $12.99 for an extra 12 months or so. It was just obvious that with the popularity of dragons the set would sell very well for a long time.

Continuing sales of popular original sets also increases profit for Wizards because they've already paid for the design and sculpting of all those figures.

 

[rogueattorney]

I thought that the writing was on the wall for the DDM game ever since Hasbro reshuffled Heroscape under the WotC banner about a year ago.

It simply doesn't make sense to have the same company putting out two completely incompatable fantasy skirmish-level war games. (Squares versus Hexes!!!)

It makes quite a bit more sense to make one line (Heroscape) into THE collectable war game, and have the other line (DDM) completely focus on supporting the RPG.

For what it's worth, in my opinion the Heroscape figures are of quite a bit higher quality, are quite affordable, and packaged such that you can see what you're buying before you buy them. However, there is nowhere near the range of DDM, and more than a few figures that the D&D player would have absolutly no interest in (sci-fi and other non-D&D type genres).

 

[Glyfair]

Dragoneye and Harbinger were both selling quite well when they were taken out of print.

Traditionally CMGs have one large print run*. They aren't taken out-of-print, the print run just sells out.

WotC does, however, get around this. They did other print runs of Harbinger starters until the 2nd starter set was released (whenever they ran out-of-stock). They did a later print run of a couple of other sets (and I believe several Star Wars Miniature sets as well). Going back and doing additional print runs for a set is very much a rare occurrence, though.

 

[jephlewis]

If you want the intro-box-set and expansion set prices to be outrageously cheap, they could only include counters, at most, instead of painted miniatures.

I should have rephrased that:

Give the kids [and grown ups like me] lots of fiddly bits for an outrageously great value [it's gotta be cheaper than descent, or it's got to have more stuff than descent]

And i'm okay with unpainted minis.

Maybe WotC could come up with a newer style of counters: Painted images on flat plastic "cutout"-shaped figures that snap into flat plastic bases. That might be visually more appealing than the solid-color (White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green -- how M:tG!) 3-D miniatures that were included in the Parker Brothers "Fantasy Adventure Board Game" that was sold in the UK -- while simultaneously weighing less, due to being 2-D instead of 3-D. Also, plastic counters might be sturdier than paper counters.

That does sound pretty cool, but I personally would prefer an unpainted mini [if I really wanted to, I could always paint it]. I'm very fond of 3d elements, but different strokes for different folks.

Good point. IMHO, WotC should keep making actual minis, but not try to include actual minis in the kind of intro/expansion sets that jephlewis was talking about.
That way, the beginners could get their cheap starter packages; but after they had been playing with those for a while, they could graduate (or escalate) from those to the full D&D game with actual minis -- assuming they will eventually become interested in playing greater campaigns with more options.
[It would help if the intro/expansion counters were the same scale as the line of minis. (25mm? 28mm?)]

Some aspects of this are being discussed here:http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...-make-board-minis-game-market-toy-stores.html
I have come to see that making a board game based on 4E with dungeon tiles, minis, power, monster, treasure, trap, and random dungeon generation cards would be a good thing in and of itself, but marketed towards 1. being a board game and 2. for people who play the tabletop rpg and want a lot of 3 d elements in one package.
A 'better' 4E basic/starter game would be different, and may benefit from these plastic discs you mention, all the while keeping costs down.

 

[Felon]

Short answer: Dead on Arrival.

Longer Answer: They had no niche. Reaper fans tend to paint their minis, and they were much more expensive than most DDM singles (1 skeleton, $1.99. Elf Archer $4.50. Compare that to a decent DDM dealer, where skeletons are $0.50 and an elf archer is $2.00). They also suffered some distribution problems (not a lot of stores carried them) and there was concerns over the paint jobs (some were as poor as some DDM paints, not good when you're playing 2-3 times as much per figure).

There hasn't been a new figure since May 2008, which tells me they didn't sell well enough to justify continuing the license.

Heh. I recall all those folks in this forum who were holding up Reaper's line of nonrandomized plastic minis as rock-solid proof that WotC's insistence on randomization was just an evil, greedy, corporate marketing ploy. Guess folks should've waited to see if the line actually succeeded.

What a shame. I'd hoped those minis would find a niche.

 

[pawsplay]

Heh. I recall all those folks in this forum who were holding up Reaper's line of nonrandomized plastic minis as rock-solid proof that WotC's insistence on randomization was just an evil, greedy, corporate marketing ploy. Guess folks should've waited to see if the line actually succeeded.

What a shame. I'd hoped those minis would find a niche.

Has the line failed? I see nothing on their website or forums indicating that is the case. I personally own one of everything.

EDIT: Here is a post from yesterday stating that the line is behind on production but still going.

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=34712

 

[Zaukrie]

I too don't think the line failed, it has just changed.

For me (I own more than Wilder), I decreased my buying because:

price - 10 is just easier to buy a box on a whim than is 15

quality - paint and sculpt details were not so good the last few sets. Really quite bad when compared to some of the earlier sets. Just look at the new grick vs the old, or the new orcs. No comparison in common quality.

I "have enough" - that's mostly true for orcs, drow, and kobolds and goblins. That's largely true for most of the normal monsters and PCs.

I play both the roleplaying game and skirmish game. I was quite disappointed they canceled the skirmish game, but I'll still buy a few minis here and there, I'd think. But, the new price point moves the minis from cheap/affordable to luxury (imo), and I'm less likely to buy many more under this model than the old model.

 

[Herschel]

Not really. While you may often have interections with Farmer Brown, how many of those interections really require physical representations of multiple Farmer Brown types be shown on the table?

Quite often, actually. Orc/Goblin/Whatever raids on villages, forming untrained militia or mobs, truly generic townsfolk in market/crowded areas so important NPCs and PCs stick out, you name it. Just think of the brown tunic as a red shirt with a Starfleet badge on it. Also, repainting the hoods isn't hard if you want a differentiated group. I did a set for the community draft at Gen Con this year.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Has the line failed? I see nothing on their website or forums indicating that is the case. I personally own one of everything.

EDIT: Here is a post from yesterday stating that the line is behind on production but still going.

So how About Wave 4? - Reaper Message Board

Given the tiny number of minis they have brought in the 18 months since it was announced I can't imagine it is a resounding success. 17 minis total and I haven't seen a single mini from the 2nd group in any games store around here.

 

[avin]

I am very happy with the end of skirmish and focus on RPG, Demonweb has some bad and some really nice sculpts, 09 previews get me on a very positive mood.