D&D General WizKids Issues Refund for Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Boxed Set

WizKids announced they will issue refunds to all customers who purchased the D&D Icons of the Realms: Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Boxed Set from their webstore. From the statement:

As a company, WizKids seeks to create products that enhance and add to the enjoyment of game play. We want our customers to build long-lasting, fond memories around game nights with friends and family using our products.

Unfortunately, we missed the mark on this goal with the D&D Icons of the Realms: Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Boxed Set. If you purchased this set through our online stores, we will be offering a full refund to those who are unsatisfied with their set. To begin a request, please contact customerservice@wizkids.com.

We’re aware of the recent reports and complaints and are taking them seriously. Our team is currently investigating these issues and taking action to make this right for those whose purchases were negatively affected and to ensure these issues do not recur in future products and reprints.

If you purchased your set from a local retailer, please return it at your point of purchase for a full refund. If you have any issues, please reach out to us for assistance at the email above. However, if you wish for a product replacement, we ask that you create a case through Wizkids Product Replacement. We will work with you to provide a product replacement and ensure that it meets the standards expected.

A Reddit thread posted on Friday, May 16, shows images of the miniatures and complaints of poor quality on the details of the pre-painted miniatures. Here are examples using promotional images from pre-order solicitations next to the images from the Reddit user:

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[Clint_L]

That Heroforge mini is a very acceptable quality considering how tiny it is IRL. Shrink that picture down on screen to actual height and the fuzzy details are going to hint at things just the way SNES sprites provided plenty of detail for characters 25-30 years ago.

This is obviously a question of subjective tastes and standards. My main criticism of Hero Forge is that, given the very high price tag by miniature collector standards, there is a huge disparity between what the customer designs and orders, and what they receive. I consider the miniature shown above to be extremely low quality, and they are also notoriously fragile. To me, Hero Forge feels like borderline false advertising, especially knowing the other options that are available.

(To put in context, I tend to get most of my miniatures from Kickstarters and my benchmark is $1 per miniature, compared to upwards of probably $30 after shipping, etc. for a single 28mm Hero Forge pre-coloured miniature).

Basically, you are paying a lot for their really cool customization options, and you do receive a version of the miniature that you customized but at an extremely low resolution compared to the render, and that has to be handled with kid gloves.

 

[BruceWright]

Love Hero Forge's ability to order a custom flat mini, though. The 3d ones aren't to my liking, but the 2d ones are VERY affordable and REALLY look great.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

(To put in context, I tend to get most of my miniatures from Kickstarters and my benchmark is $1 per miniature, compared to upwards of probably $30 after shipping, etc. for a single 28mm Hero Forge pre-coloured miniature).

Basically, you are paying a lot for their really cool customization options, and you do receive a version of the miniature that you customized but at an extremely low resolution compared to the render, and that has to be handled with kid gloves.

The pre-colored hero forge miniatures are less than great, but their grey resin figures are excellent. Not on the level of what the best sculptors can do, but they paint up nicely and they can be customized to look exactly like your character! Having a custom mini of the same quality sculpted would be $500+! The gray resin is pretty robust too, comparable to GW plastics.

Also, $1 per miniature is an extremely low price these days, at that price the manufacturer is barely breaking even, or maybe not even that! At a more realistic price of say $5 per character model, paying $25 to hero forge for a single custom character isn't too much.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I have a bunch of minis ive been collected since 3rd ed (and a few from 2nd). I have a lot of Drow thanks to the 3rd ed version of Chainmail.

I love having maps and minis when playing D&D in person. I still hate that sometimes I don't have enough bears or hobgoblins and have to proxy things. But I love having everything painted and on the map. I always offer to paint someone's mini if they bought a new one because I hate unpainted minis.

I say this as someone who had 3 40K and 2 Fantasy armies fully painted.

 

[Clint_L]

The pre-colored hero forge miniatures are less than great, but their grey resin figures are excellent. Not on the level of what the best sculptors can do, but they paint up nicely and they can be customized to look exactly like your character! Having a custom mini of the same quality sculpted would be $500+! The gray resin is pretty robust too, comparable to GW plastics.

Also, $1 per miniature is an extremely low price these days, at that price the manufacturer is barely breaking even, or maybe not even that! At a more realistic price of say $5 per character model, paying $25 to hero forge for a single custom character isn't too much.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a more realistic price." I assure you that I track what I pay for miniatures and 1$ per miniature is my benchmark for whether or not to back a Kickstarter. And that is irregardless of size. For example, I am paying just under that for the recently closed D&L Kickstarter; would you like to see a list of the miniatures? For Reaper's Bones 6 KS I similarly received about 500 miniatures and terrain pieces , many of them large+, for my $500 pledge. And my last Cthulhu Death May Die KS delivered at about $1/miniature as well, again many of them large or huge; I posted photos in the Fighting the Gray Tide thread as I painted them. Although I have bought some Wizkids booster packs in the past for fun, the vast majority of my PPM came in bulk from Troll and Toad, back when they still did that, and if you were patient and not chasing rare miniatures, you could get a ton of plastic for next to nothing.

So that price is entirely realistic because it is really what I pay. I seldom pay shop prices for miniatures because they are very inflated; though I do on occasion if there is something I desperately want. As I wrote, if you know what options are out there, the Hero Forge prices feel particularly egregious.

Whether or not what HF offer is worth it is, of course, an individual choice. I agree that their customization options are super cool. However, we were discussing the pre-coloured miniatures in relation to Wizkids pre-painted miniatures; I think those are incredibly expensive for what you get, and are extremely low quality compared to almost anything else out there. I cannot comment on HF's plain resin miniatures as I have no experience of them. I do have a considerable amount of printed resin terrain pieces from other sources and the quality of those is almost as good as molded sculpts, through I have never encountered printed resin that is as resilient as molded plastic, so perhaps the HF ones are of a higher strength than the resin I have dealt with. I'll take your word for it.