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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[Paul Farquhar]

Not for those of us with the artistic skills of a visually challenged Gerbil. On Crack.

I would say minis are aimed at people of an artistic inclination. If you lack artistic interest there is no reason to get them.

It's not really a matter of being skilled, it's just a matter of deriving pleasure from it.

 

[Bae'zel]

I don't NEED minis and cool physical terrain. I WANT them because I get satisfaction in collecting, building and painting them.

I wouldn't buy pre-painted stuff though. Defeats the purpose.

 

[Jadeite]

Considering that those minis are the usual Wizkid quality, they should offer refunds till they stop using renders for advertising.

 

[Dausuul]

For anyone curious where Heroforge quality is today, here's a photo of a Heroforge mini I got a few weeks ago, along with the 3D render on the HF website.

IRL it's much harder to see the mold lines (at least it is for me, though my vision is not what it was, and it wasn't that great to begin with). Mostly they just make it look dull and drab rather than vivid. I'm going to see if I can improve it with a touch of acrylic paint here and there, hoping the acrylic can smooth out the lines.

And the color detail is pretty darn good. In the photo, you can actually see the yellow eyes and the slit-shaped pupils, and the shading on the horns is perfect. If the texture were smooth, I'd have no complaints*. I think another five or ten years of improvement in the underlying technology could result in some really amazing minis from Heroforge.

But if you're ordering today... well, this is the difference between the end result and the render.

*Well, okay, one complaint: I wish it were a bit heavier. Plastic minis obviously won't have the heft of metal ones, but the HF plastic is so light I feel like it's going to blow off the table if I sigh too hard. I'm debating whether it's worth the effort and expense to attach a weighted base.

B

 

[Mistwell]

You reckon? I’ve got a good spread of WotC minis from the early Harbinger days through the later pre-WizKids days.

The old Harbinger minis could be pretty awful, and a lot of the 4e ones look dunked in thick shiny coats of plasticy paint compared to the minis from the middle WotC years.

I’ll have to dig a few minis out from various sets and do some comparison photos for y’all cos honestly none of the BG3 minis in the OP look any worse than minis I’ve seen from both WizKids and WotC.

I’m actually surprised WizKids has offered a refund. The fact that these are BG3 minis must be the key factor here.

I'll have to get them out and take a picture. Maybe I am mis-remembering?

 

[Abstruse]

I just sold off a bunch of the old WotC and the WizKids pre-painted minis solely because I don't play in person anymore and would rather invest that money in VTT stuff I'll actually use. But I've always accepted the quality isn't going to be as good as hand-painted because I'm paying for "almost good enough I guess" and I'd rather get 10 goblins for a full massive encounter that's kinda crappy than pay the same price for just one well-painted monster.

The reason I bought them rather than paint myself is I never enjoyed painting minis. I'm going to give it another try with BattleTech minis soon, but my only attempts to paint minis prior ended up ruining them and I found it more frustrating than relaxing. Not slight against people who do enjoy it, it just wasn't for me at that point in my life. But I still wanted minis and terrain to put on the table when I played, so I got the pre-paints.

It's the difference between ordering fast food and cooking a fine gourmet meal at home. Some people don't have the talent or temperament to do the latter, but they still have to eat.

 

[J-H]

I've never had the time or interest in painted minis... I use minis for my players and flat tokens (Dice of Rolling/Etsy) for enemies.

I get tempted to pick up enemies from time to time, but I never use just ONE mind flayer - then I need a bunch, and then I need more, etc... I will confine my purchasing habits to "dice" instead of minis. It's cheaper.

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.

If I was playing in a long campaign (instead of just DMing) that quality is really tempting for a custom colored mini.

 

[Valetudo]

Gale looks like he's got the downs.

 

[Clint_L]

There are as many approaches to doing TTRPG battles as there are GMs, and there is no right way or wrong way.

I'm certainly not going to criticize folks who love and collect pre-painted miniatures (PPM). They are not well painted by the standards of hobbyists like me who enjoy painting miniatures, but they are well designed to look good on the tabletop, assuming you aren't really scrutinizing details. I have different standards, which sounds condescending but it's really not; I recognize that I am a hardcore hobbyist who gets great enjoyment from painting miniatures and terrain, collecting enough for almost any situation, tracking them them, storing them, and everything else that goes with it. Of course I am going to have different standards, and I do scrutinize details. And my painting ain't that great, not by the standards of some folks in the hobby (see the "Fighting the Gray Tide" thread over in the Geek Talk subforum and check out miniatures by @MGibster and @reelo, for example).

And there are folks who collect PPM just for its own sake - they chase rares and are often completionists. Many folks never intend to use them as game aids; collecting is the point. That's no different than any other collectible hobby, and again, who am I to judge?

If you use a VTT, or theatre of the mind, or bottle caps, or whatever and it works for you, then I think that's great too.

So when I write that Wizkids PPM or Hero Forge miniatures are of lower quality than metal or HIPs molded miniatures, painstakingly hand painted, I'm not trying to yuck someone else's yum. I think it is objectively true, and is relevant to this particular thread because of Wizkids offering refunds (extraordinarily unusual!), but it's not to say that there is anything wrong if you are a huge fan of those things. Most people are not a huge fan of spending thousands of hours on the hobby and have better things to do with their time. There's no one true way.

I think these particular miniatures look pretty par for the course for Wizkids PPM, and I have repainted hundreds of Wizkids PPM so I know their standards very well. I'm very interested in the particular circumstances that led to a refund being offered in this specific case.

 

[AlViking]

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.

Heroforge is decent if you can paint, especially if you have a 3d printer, the detail is good and we enjoy having customized minis. The color printed ones though just aren't worth it, I just use the coloring to give me ideas of how to paint.