Why the D&D Miniature Line Failed...

[Dragon Snack]

The farmer had nothing to do with the line changing form. Price increases, lower quality, WotC promoting DreamBlade over it (with lots of prize money for the big tournaments), and economic realities (oil prices, transportation costs, economic meltdown in the US and China) all played their part in the demise of (the current incarnation of) DDM.

I obviously can't dispute what you know or don't, but if you asked, you'd find dozens of EN Worlders with more than my 2000 or so DDM figures.

I'm pretty sure I have over 2000. Another player in my old group has multiples of almost every mini produced (including rares), so if there have been 1,063 minis produced so far (according to a previous post) he has well over 2,000 as well. Neither of us played the skirmish game (well, I demoed it at Gen Con to get the free promo figures, but that's it).

And as far as I'm aware, WotC has always deliberately and openly left open the possibility of reissuing old minis.

Actually, originally they specifically said that once a set was retired NONE of the minis would be reissued. That's why the Harbinger Kobold were almost $2 each (or more) at one point. But it didn't take them long to backtrack on that...

WotC has had more success with randomized prepainted plastic than any nonpainted metal line of minis.

REALLY?

Point(s) Of Information:

DDM is at 1,063 minis (including special editions and Icons), the majority of which are no longer produced or available in distribution (last 4 or 5 sets, so 240-300 available). It's been produced since 2003.

Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends has 1,374 minis in the line (NOT including special editions or boxed set Dragons), almost every single one is still available (direct from Reaper by you or your game store) and more of them are available from distributors (Alliance's "Deluxe DHL Assortment" has 450 minis in it, so there are at least that many). It's been around since 1996.

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.

You have to remember that Reaper is really just a small mom and pop shop, even if they have been around for a while. Notice how ReaperClark repeatedly said "significant investment" in the thread that Pawsplay linked? Reaper is a small company and the value of the US dollar and transportation costs can have a bigger impact on their purchasing power (especially compared to WotC).

The line was a success, so much so that it outstripped their capacity to keep up with the demand. They don't do the plastics in house, it has to be outsourced. If WotC has had problems with their outsourced mini production (by their own admission), it's no wonder Reaper did as well.

 

[jokamachi]

Whoo-hoo!!! Pig Farmer!!!!!

 

[Holy Bovine]

The line was a success, so much so that it outstripped their capacity to keep up with the demand. They don't do the plastics in house, it has to be outsourced. If WotC has had problems with their outsourced mini production (by their own admission), it's no wonder Reaper did as well.

That does make sense - I didn't realize Reaper wasn't doing their plastics in house.

 

[Mokona]

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

I hate to disagree but in this case (D&D) they did reprint. Dragoneye was printed a second time with the higher $12.99 MSRP. The second print run was about 50% of the first printing of Dragoneye which is quite a lot. I believe the first print run of Dragoneye was stickered with the higher $12.99 price (the 2nd run was printed on the packaging instead of on stickers).

Harbinger was of significantly lower quality than Dragoneye because Wizards of the Coast was learning very quickly off of their first attempt at pre-painted miniatures. They wanted to raise the price from $9.99 to $12.99 because the reprint would have happened after that price increase. Certain Wizards employees didn't believe the higher $12.99 price could be justified for the lower quality Harbinger miniatures so Harbinger expansion packs were never reprinted.

The Harbinger starter set was kept in print artificially until it could be replaced with the Aberrations starter set.

 

[AllisterH]

This may sound blasphemous but I don't think Reaper's Legendary line is one that we should point to.

For one, the quality on average is about the same as WOTC (usually, Reaper figures tended to be the best in the business) but what got me was the price point.

I'm not sure if anyone pointed this out, but on average, I found that Legendary figures were significantly more expensive. I'm talking like commons like skeletons I can get for around 40-50 cents while the equivalent Reaper figure would be at least a dollar more....Similarly, uncommons were still more expensive for the Reaper line or at best, equivalent in price.

Seriously, check out the differences in prices between two equivalent figures, maybe I'm just getting screwed by my sources though

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure if anyone pointed this out, but on average, I found that Legendary figures were significantly more expensive. I'm talking like commons like skeletons I can get for around 40-50 cents while the equivalent Reaper figure would be at least a dollar more....Similarly, uncommons were still more expensive for the Reaper line or at best, equivalent in price.

You can buy some skeletons for 40-50 cents, but there are plenty of DDM figures of that sort that go for nearly a buck. I think the 50 cent price point is a sign of a surplus of some figures. If you look at Star Wars minis, you will see that they are rarely as cheap.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Plus the lack of random distribution.

Plus some stores aren't selling individual units so unless you're going the route of the ole net...

Plus they're not limited.

It'll be interesting to see what happens down the line.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think the reason the line failed was because it lived its natural lifespan and then died off.

The first half-dozen sets or so were great. Quality continuously improved and lots of different monsters got produced.

But then the quality took a turn for the worse (I think it was around Aberrations) and at the same time they were running out of new monsters to produce. It quickly became a rehashing of the same monsters over and over again (bugbears, anyone?).

People (mostly DM's) had accumulated enough of a DDM horde that they could represent most of the monsters they wanted/needed. The DDMs became all about the uncommons and rares and that spelled the deathknell (no pun intended!).

Probably one of the biggest reasons for the decline of DDMs was too many minis. 60 figs every 3-4 months was too much. They should have either reduced the number of figs or reduced the frequency of new sets (I think the latter would have been the better idea).

I know my collecting started declining around Aberrations and over the past 3 sets my purchases have noticeably dropped off. I think I didn't buy more than half of the figs from the Demonweb set and that's a first for me.

 

[pawsplay]

I think what killed it for me was that a lot of the minis I wanted for gaming were uncommons and rares. As far as the skirmish game goes, it was all right, but didn't work well except as a two player game, and I felt the later monsters with their "exception-based" special abilities were pretty lame. Some of the abilities seemed really contrived, which broke the suspension of disbelief I really needed to get into a skirmish game.

I also feel that in general, the later sculpts were not as good. Even though there were some technical improvements in how the minis were made, I did not like the change in style, the distorted anatomy, the figures pushing the envelope of how big a figure could be and still be Medium or Large, etc.