WotC Discontinues Minis: How Much Does It Affect You?

[tvknight415]

Five years ago my answer would have been different, but after discovering Fiery Dragon's Counter Collection Digital, the answer is now N/A.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'm a little disappointed but c'est la vie.

I have thousands and thousands of minis. Last time I counted it was over 2000 and that was years ago so who knows how many I have now.

It got to the point where I'd be buying and buying (secondary market) because new sets came out so often that I wouldn't have even opened the packaging on previously bought minis before new ones came in.

I liked that the releases slowed down over the past couple years. It let me catch up and really I don't need that many new minis.

I'd be happy if they released a single new set each year but it's probably not worth doing for WotC. I think they reached the saturation point where they were getting diminishing returns on their sales.

 

[carmachu]

No effect. I use only non-Prepainted miniatures, so I can customize them to my likes and wants. I've got reaper, GW, rackham, otherworld miniatures, pathfinder, anything that ticklesmy fancy and fits what I want to do.

 

[JasonZZ]

Not at all. FAX Studio and cardstock FTW.

Sent from my HERO200 using Tapatalk

 

[Pseudonym]

Pretty self-explanatory title, really. How much does the recent news about Wizards of the Coast discontinuing their miniatures line affect you and/or your game?

We won't notice in either of the two groups I play D&D with. With the game I am running now I am using the tokens from the various Essentials boxes. The DM for the other game with that group has a metric ton of D&D and Star Wars minis already, so we can always find something to work for whatever we need in what we already have at our disposal.

My other group is pretty picky about using painted Reaper figs for their characters and monsters. I don't think we've once used a WotC plastic mini at that table.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Not at all. Tokens, on the other hand...

 

[Ourph]

I voted "not at all" because the poll seems to be set up to ask for negative consequences and I don't forsee any negatives. However, if they replace the plastic minis with cool boxes of cardboard tiles and tokens, it will have a major positive impact on my gaming group. We love tokens and would prefer an alternative to minis that is easier to cart around between games.

 

[Hippy]

It will effect in the long run somewhat. I have maybe several hundered figs, but lately we have moved to D20Pro for mapping and the virtual minis have taken over from the battle mat and WOTC or metal minis. My ultimate goal is to do the projector and mini combination for the best overall table top experience, however a projector is out of my price range right now. So consequently we have been using virtual minis with my HD 23" computer monitior (I paid $200 for 3 months ago). We can zoom in as needed (I have a player with vision problems), and the speed of mapping is greatly increased (no drawing out the map time, etc.) Best of all the graphics can be found anywhere on the net and utilizzed in the software. I can use the actual artwork for a monster and turn it into a mini on the screen in a very short time frame. No substiutions for creatures! What you see is what you fight!

While I tried to do both at the same time, using the D20Pro to map and reflect the setup on the battle mat, it got too time consuming and players would forget to move their mini to match the computer screen, and vice versa for me as DM. In the end the computer won out. I have not used my minis now for the last four sessions and don't anticpate I will be any time soon.

That said I still will miss the mini line. I hope that another company (Paizo I am looking at you) may consider taking up the pre-painted market (metal or plastic). I hope for plastic since you can't break them unless you really try, but I know the cost to produce them is getting worse all the time. I Know other companies will fill the void somewhat with metal, but I don't have time to paint that often, even though I am a amateur artist. I would prefer to put brush to canvas not metal with the time I have, which is not much with a wife and three young children.

hopefully the future will see multi-packs with themed figs like goblinoids, aberations, elementals, outsiders, etc.

Cheers!

Hippy

 

[megamania]

small bits of lemon curry is good.


Seriously, how does this affect my game?


I have money to spend on Reaper Miniatures and paint again.


I believe we all saw this coming and if possible- planned ahead for it. I have looked over and catalogued my figures. I bought extras of whatever I felt I needed and that's about it.

The hobby is not dead but either it has moved away from me or I have outgrown it. I am not the only one either. Sorry but it is the way of life.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I sold off great swaths of my collection over a year ago recouping my costs plus a tidy profit. I still have about 1500 minis and am never short for D&D games. I'll miss picking up new booster packs but I also look at this as an excuse to get back into painting minis again. When the pre-painted ones were decent quality (honestly about as good as I would do on your average medium sized mini with about an hour of painting) and cheap I didn't bother. As quality dropped and price increased (howcome those two things never happen in reverse? :/ ) I found myself buying less and less. With Lords of Madness, despite it being one of the best sets of the last 4 years, I bought very little (about 5 boosters worth) so I'm not going to see much difference in the future.