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:

​

 

[Nightfly]

Shadowdark mini be like:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I cut appropriately sized disks out of cereal packets, and draw whatever it depicts in felt tip pen. Works for me.

 

[Clint_L]

I've been very unimpressed by the price and quality offered by Heroforge. I think it's a dead end and will be a niche for the forseeable future. 3d printed miniatures are either brittle, low resolution or, as in the case of those examples, both. I love the customization options that HF offers and sometimes play around with their model builder, but their product is way too expensive for anything but a novelty.

Archon (Dungeons and Lasers) does pre-painted terrain through some kind of spray/injection method at their factory, and the results I've seen online look pretty good. I should get a big load of their pre-painted caverns on my doorstep in a month or two, so I can give a first-hand report at that time.

What is interesting, is that in their backer survey for their next D&L KS, one of the options that Archon floated was pre-painted miniatures. If they can do HIPS pre-painted miniatures at the alleged quality of their pre-painted terrain, then that could be a game changer.

 

[mamba]

I cut appropriately sized disks out of cereal packets, and draw whatever it depicts in felt tip pen. Works for me.

yeah, about on par with the Wizkid offering, but much cheaper…

 

[doctorhook]

yeah, about on par with the Wizkid offering, but much cheaper…

Much more environmentally friendly than plastic bits too

 

[camelotcrusade]

Shadowdark mini be like:

I came here just to consider posting potato Jesus (aka Ecce Homo) and you beat me to it! Excellent.

Shame about all those with dashed hopes, though. I'm glad the company didn't get away with it this time.

 

[MGibster]

I've been very unimpressed by the price and quality offered by Heroforge. I think it's a dead end and will be a niche for the forseeable future. 3d printed miniatures are either brittle, low resolution or, as in the case of those examples, both. I love the customization options that HF offers and sometimes play around with their model builder, but their product is way too expensive for anything but a novelty.

Ditto. For the price point, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. Though I do have some players who are quite happy with theirs. Sometimes they'll order a miniature from HF when the campaign begins and I just hope for their sake their character is still alive when the miniature arrives.

 

[Belen]

I had heavily invested in the old WOTC D&D minis. I did not buy any of the WizKids stuff until the D&D 50th. I was struck by the lack of value and quality versus the older sets from WOTC. 4 versus 8 miniatures for 25 to 50% more.

I will never touch WizKids again. They are terrible and I warn people before they purchase.

 

[doctorhook]

I had heavily invested in the old WOTC D&D minis. I did not buy any of the WizKids stuff until the D&D 50th. I was struck by the lack of value and quality versus the older sets from WOTC. 4 versus 8 miniatures for 25 to 50% more.

Tbf, it’s been a long time since the DDM line from WotC and I think (lack of) profitability was the main reason why it was cancelled. So right there we can plausibly blame inflation and higher costs for a big part of the higher price, not necessarily greed on WizKids’ part.

Still, I don’t buy WizKids minis either. Like you, I had a buttload of the WotC minis, and long ago decided that they were a costly, addictive, space-hogging trap. No matter how many you have, it’s never enough for every possibility. So I’ve exclusively used cheaper methods for the past decade or so: tokens, printed standees, whiteboard with marker, or purely digital tabletop. These days the cost offends me, and so does the massive amount of plastic used for such limited utility.

 

[pukunui]

I have far too many of both the old WotC minis and the newer WizKids ones. I think the sculpts / paint jobs on the latter are generally better, but they are much more brittle than the former. The old WotC ones tend to bend, which is easy to fix with hot water, but the WizKids ones break so easily! (I suppose it's par for the course, though - the stiffer plastic Wizkids uses allows for more detail, while the more rubbery plastic that WotC used didn't -- it also tended to make the minis look like they'd been dunked in paint rather than hand-painted.)

For me, two factors combined to help me kick my plasticrack addiction: the post-pandemic shipping price hikes and the advent of D&D Beyond's Maps program. I can't afford to buy even the cheaper minis on the secondary market when it'll cost me an arm and a leg to ship them here, and there's no point in even using minis anyway, when I can get a more satisfying result with Maps displayed on a TV screen.

Now, if I could somehow justify a bigger table with a flat screen built in, then I could make the case for using Maps and minis ... but I doubt that day will ever come.