TheRPGSite

This is a thing that is happening.

WizKids press release. (http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2014/02/07/wizkids-partners-with-wizards-of-the-coast-for-dungeons-dragons-miniatures/)

Thoughts?

I don't know very much about wizkids, but I did get that star trek attack wing and the miniatures for that are really bad.

As long as they aren't click-base, more handfuls of easily stored and transported generic bad guy miniatures, or character miniatures for the non-discerning player, are fine by me.

They'll probably be pretty much just like the ones they produce for Pathfinder.

Quote from: The Butcher;730051Thoughts?

WizKids' plasticrack is pretty decent in my experience, so this is probably a good thing.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730090WizKids' plasticrack is pretty decent in my experience, so this is probably a good thing.

Concur.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730090WizKids' plasticrack is pretty decent in my experience, so this is probably a good thing.

Their Star Trek: Fleet Captains game was an appalling mess. Minis so flimsy that the cards sliding around unfettered in the box was breaking the minis.

That and lots of misglued ships. Nacells on backwards, wrong ship, glue blobs, you name it.

Oh and the ships would break if you held them wrong and turned the dial or dropped them just so.

WizKids though was really good about fixing the problem and even went in and retooled the problematic box insert that was funnelling the loose cards into the ship area. Notably fewer Broke-in-box instances after that.

I have about 2000 of their MK figures (which I think is now defunct).

Ironically, some of the sculpts from their Dungeon line (the heroes) were apparently from the old official D&D figure line

Quote from: thedungeondelver;730056As long as they aren't click-base, more handfuls of easily stored and transported generic bad guy miniatures, or character miniatures for the non-discerning player, are fine by me.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730090WizKids' plasticrack is pretty decent in my experience, so this is probably a good thing.

Basically, yeah.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;730056As long as they aren't click-base

I have that sinking feeling D&D Next will be identical to a Heroclix game.

Quote from: hagbard;730171I have that sinking feeling D&D Next will be identical to a Heroclix game.

Then they'd have to chuck the entire playtest rules and go a totally different direction if that were the case.  It's nothing like Heroclix.  It's mostly like a version 2.5 D&D core-books game.

Quote from: The Butcher;730051Thoughts?

My first thought is that I doubt I'll like the sculpts if they adopt the "modern D&D fantasy" look that Wizards has been using.  I prefer a look closer to historical armor and arms, or to traditional swords-n-sorcery.

That said, maybe they'll change direction on that, or maybe there will be some sculpts that I'll like.  It's hard to go wrong with skeletons and zombies and generic spearmen and things like that.  Reasonably priced, that kind of mini would be welcome.

Quote from: Omega;730164Their Star Trek: Fleet Captains game was an appalling mess.

I had Mage Knight and Marvel figures, and never encountered a problem.

I'm amused that people are getting worried about someone making cheap minis for D&D.

My thoughts are - Good for them.

I think Wizkids can do as good a job on this as WoTC did but I wonder if they are going to do anything about the problems that plagued D&D minis before:

Almost nobody except GMs bought the miniatures because the boxes were blind. Players would not buy because they only needed the one mini to represent their character, and what were the odds of getting that one mini in a pack?

To boost sales WoTC created a separate game to go along with the miniatures, which I don't know anyone that played the stand alone games. Seems like a waste of resources.

It seemed like half of the minis WoTC produced were a speciality tied to their theme du jour, when I needed a band of orcs I ended up with a warforged dragonborn.

I guess I will hold out to see how they are packaged or marketed. I do have a need for cheap plastic minis for the tabletop but I also wish there was an officially licensed un painted mini line fot PCs (Reaper ?)

My biggest nostalgia moments still include Ral Partha and Grenadier licensed D&D minis

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;730278I guess I will hold out to see how they are packaged or marketed. I do have a need for cheap plastic minis for the tabletop but I also wish there was an officially licensed un painted mini line fot PCs (Reaper ?)

Reaper do some pretty awesome pewter PC-suitable minis for around £5. They're a bit short on fully dressed, non-babelicious female minis, but otherwise a very good selection, even tiefling and dragonborn stand-ins. No 'Goliath' or 'Shardminds' though AFAIK. :D

I'm rather looking forward to this...DDM (and the recent boardgame approximation) were good, but it was all combat themed.

Thus, when my players need to meet an NPC that isn't brandishing a weapon, I'm rather challenge. The "Farmer holding a pig" mini comes up a lot, and isn't satisfying when it's time for the ol' damsel in distress.

Hopefully wizkids will provide some more not-just-for-battle figures.

If they are as well done as the Pathfinder minis, I'll pick up a few.

Quote from: Doom;730308Thus, when my players need to meet an NPC that isn't brandishing a weapon, I'm rather challenge. The "Farmer holding a pig" mini comes up a lot, and isn't satisfying when it's time for the ol' damsel in distress.

Hopefully wizkids will provide some more not-just-for-battle figures.

I agree. I tend to use my noncombatant minis ten times as often as any of the combatant ones. Reaper do a nice Townsfolk set, some of which are now available in plastic, and I use a couple of old TSR Ravenloft vampire brides painted as (living) concubines/prostitutes/underdressed damsels. Also have a couple of the Hasslefree harem girls, but one of my female players doesn't approve so those stay home. :( After that it's resorting to either the Pig Farmer (I have two) and/or ancient '80s Citadel lead.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730228I had Mage Knight and Marvel figures, and never encountered a problem.

Yes, with mage knight it was how they handled the game rather than the minis.

Quote from: S'mon;730312Also have a couple of the Hasslefree harem girls, but one of my female players doesn't approve so those stay home. :(

This made me laugh.

If it's a collectible series, they can shove them all up their ass, no matter how good they are.

Quote from: CRKrueger;730359If it's a collectible series, they can shove them all up their ass, no matter how good they are.

You can just buy the individual figs from resellers like Troll & Toad (US) and Tritex (UK). Often the stuff you need lots of is Common and actually cheaper on resale. Also, chances are the initial PC figs release will be a non-random blister pack, as they did for Pathfinder - and those figs are noticeably higher quality than most of the line.

In my experience, the monsters will probably be worth taking a look at but the human/demihuman PC minis will suck major balls. I am spoiled by decently sculpted & painted minis and I have never seen a PC type prepainted plastic come near what I could paint myself.

If these are collectable like DDM and the Pathfinder, then fuck it no thanks... I will not but blind collectable pre-painted crap miniatures...

And Wizkids doesn't have the best track record for quality...

Quote from: S'mon;730312Also have a couple of the Hasslefree harem girls, but one of my female players doesn't approve so those stay home.

Is it the manacles? I'll bet it's the manacles.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730422Is it the manacles? I'll bet it's the manacles.

Heh or the stripper pole. ;)

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;730413If these are collectable like DDM and the Pathfinder, then fuck it no thanks... I will not but blind collectable pre-painted crap miniatures...

And Wizkids doesn't have the best track record for quality...

same here

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730422Is it the manacles? I'll bet it's the manacles.

She hasn't mentioned the manacles, so I'm guessing it's the nudity. :)

Quote from: Exploderwizard;730425Heh or the stripper pole. ;)

I didn't think stripper pole and high heels fitted medievalesque fantasy settings too well, so I don't have that one. Seemed kinda limited use.

I am buying a good 3d printer in the next few months...minis are high on my priority list :)

Why do people put money, time and effort into miniatures when chess pieces are easy to come by, represent almost anything, and are abstract enough to let your imagination work its magic?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;730537Why do people put money, time and effort into miniatures when chess pieces are easy to come by, represent almost anything, and are abstract enough to let your imagination work its magic?

Because they're fun.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;730537Why do people put money, time and effort into miniatures when chess pieces are easy to come by, represent almost anything, and are abstract enough to let your imagination work its magic?

Miniature collecting, and painting is a hobby of its own. No minis are required to play an rpg at all, even chess pieces. If you happen to enjoy painting them and they are close at hand, why not use them?

This is okay news. My interest in WizKids is more MK stuff.

I use the Mage Knight figs for my OSR fantasy stuff.  They look good enough and more importantly, if they fall off the table or if some dork spills his coke on the minis, nobody has a heart attack.

I have pro-paints for Warhammer, but I am the only one touching my minis 99% of the time when playing wargames. In the wargame world, its assumed etiquette that you are hands off other dudes' toys unless you ask.

At RPG sessions, I find the opposite with players moving and grabbing figs on a regular basis. Thus, buying Mage Knight and HeroClix in bulk on eBay for often less than 50 cents a mini makes sense for me.

And when I travel to cons, I like using paper minis with plastic stands. No hassles at the airport and keeps the bags light.

I would be more delighted if someone released miniatures based on the art of Trampier, Sutherland, or Otus, as opposed to whatever Wizkids or a lot of these miniature companies use.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;730537Why do people put money, time and effort into miniatures when chess pieces are easy to come by, represent almost anything, and are abstract enough to let your imagination work its magic?

I typically GM in a noisy room with lots of other games going on. Minis & battlemats save a lot on description, provide a focus of play, and help players from being distracted. They're particularly useful if I'm tired/unwell and not up to giving a good description.

To those of you hoping for non-blind buy, I'd suggest not holding your breath. The economics of making the tooling mean there's no fathomable reason a company would do that for a miniature range like D&D requires.

Quote from: Bobloblah;730667To those of you hoping for non-blind buy, I'd suggest not holding your breath. The economics of making the tooling mean there's no fathomable reason a company would do that for a miniature range like D&D requires.

Well, we can hope they'll do some multi-figure sets. The Pathfinder PC set seemed decent value; the monsters set was a bit too expensive for me though.

Quote from: Bobloblah;730667To those of you hoping for non-blind buy, I'd suggest not holding your breath. The economics of making the tooling mean there's no fathomable reason a company would do that for a miniature range like D&D requires.

Um, sorry no. The tooling costs are subsumed in the mass pressings when it comes to big business games since they oft have a dedicated or preferred plant they use.

No CMG has ever "needed" to be collectible other than to gouge the gullible.

Couple of companies have switched away from collectible to one degree or another.

So D&D minis could be sold like HeroScape minis no problem.

They likely wont though.

Do you know anything about tooling? As it happens, I do. A miniature that only a fraction of your audience buys, and then, only one of, does not give a good return on the cost of the tooling (e.g. how many Liches do you need?). If the return is poor or non-existent, why put the money into it? The other edge of that sword is that if you ignore certain miniatures due to lack of profitability, your entire line may suffer because customers can't get exactly what they want. If you simply increase the cost of every individual miniature to cover the difference, you soon cross the threshold per figure that reduces sales. The best option quickly becomes blind-buy where you force everyone to subsidize less popular miniatures, while still keeping individual miniature costs low enough not to greatly impact sales.

You can rant all you want about "gouging," but the fact remains that without blind-buy, you are unlikely to ever see a complete line of D&D miniatures.

In response to your comment about Heroscape, the economics of a miniature game are very different, as the rules are structured to drive purchasing. If D&D was also a true tabletop miniature game they could potentially support non-blind-buy, but I still doubt they could do that with a range extensive enough to cover the complete RPG gamut of miniatures.

Quote from: Bobloblah;731128Do you know anything about tooling? As it happens, I do. A miniature that only a fraction of your audience buys, and then, only one of, does not give a good return on the cost of the tooling (e.g. how many Liches do you need?). If the return is poor or non-existent, why put the money into it? The other edge of that sword is that if you ignore certain miniatures due to lack of profitability, your entire line may suffer because customers can't get exactly what they want. If you simply increase the cost of every individual miniature to cover the difference, you soon cross the threshold per figure that reduces sales. The best option quickly becomes blind-buy where you force everyone to subsidize less popular miniatures, while still keeping individual miniature costs low enough not to greatly impact sales.

You can rant all you want about "gouging," but the fact remains that without blind-buy, you are unlikely to ever see a complete line of D&D miniatures.

It is truly a miracle how Reaper Miniatures stay in business then. Not a random mini in the collection and they have been a viable business for a long time.

Cute. I'm sure you don't mind waiting for as long as it's taken Reaper to build up their range, then?
;-)
I'm fairly certain they still don't have anything approaching a "complete" range for D&D. Not to mention that they did most of that in metal, which has vastly lower startup costs, but far higher production costs.

They've made the switch to plastics largely by doing a couple very successful Kickstarters (which means giving away product as repayment for a zero interest loan), and even in those Kickstarters you couldn't buy only what you wanted, you had to buy a bunch of miniatures and accept the ones you didn't want alongside the ones you did. Sound familiar?

I mean really...Reaper isn't some kind of refutation, it nicely illustrates the very problems I'm talking about.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;731132It is truly a miracle how Reaper Miniatures stay in business then. Not a random mini in the collection and they have been a viable business for a long time.

Sorry to keep splitting these into two posts.

Another point about Reaper: were WotC/Hasbro willing to accept the return on investment that Reaper has had over the years, they could no doubt release a line of non-blind-buy miniatures that would please everyone here. What's the expression that's been tossed around about publishing OSR material? You, too, can make dozens of dollars in the lucrative world of RPG publishing!

With minis that's at least hundreds of dollars (yes, I'm exaggerating), but what MBA holding the purse strings at WotC is going to go for that?

Quote from: Bobloblah;731128Do you know anything about tooling? As it happens, I do. A miniature that only a fraction of your audience buys, and then, only one of, does not give a good return on the cost of the tooling (e.g. how many Liches do you need?). If the return is poor or non-existent, why put the money into it? The other edge of that sword is that if you ignore certain miniatures due to lack of profitability, your entire line may suffer because customers can't get exactly what they want. If you simply increase the cost of every individual miniature to cover the difference, you soon cross the threshold per figure that reduces sales. The best option quickly becomes blind-buy where you force everyone to subsidize less popular miniatures, while still keeping individual miniature costs low enough not to greatly impact sales.

You can rant all you want about "gouging," but the fact remains that without blind-buy, you are unlikely to ever see a complete line of D&D miniatures.

3D printing will fix that problem.

Quote from: Bobloblah;731134I'm fairly certain they still don't have anything approaching a "complete" range for D&D. Not to mention that they did most of that in metal, which has vastly lower startup costs, but far higher production costs.

It's pretty much complete for 1e-2e AD&D, certainly closer than WotC ever got for 3e-4e, which have huge numbers of weird critters - eg there were no 4e Dark Sun minis at all AFAIK. But yes the main thing is that Reaper make metal minis, where small runs are viable but you have to pay $5-$7 or more per mini.
By the time Reaper's second Kickstarter fulfils they will have an impressive range of unpainted plastic minis. These will be available for individual purchase. They are doing this by covering all the upfront costs with the Kickstarters, then they charge lots of money for unpainted plastic that has negligible production cost - I can buy prepainted metal minis from em-4 minis for less than the cost of Reaper's unpainted plastic Bones minis at my FLGS.

Their range isn't "complete" for AD&D 2nd in any real sense. I haven't looked at it with an eye to AD&D, but I'd be surprised there, too.

Their Kickstarters are going to benefit them immensely, and were brilliantly executed.

Quote from: Bobloblah;731151Their range isn't "complete" for AD&D 2nd in any real sense. I haven't looked at it with an eye to AD&D, but I'd be surprised there, too.

Their Kickstarters are going to benefit them immensely, and were brilliantly executed.

Ehhh... I think they covered it pretty darn well from Aboleth to Zombie.

They may have skipped the Peryton which is my answer to this thread:


http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=28981 (http://%20http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=28981)

But really how far into the insane do they have to go to be a complete line?

I think their website was even where I saw one of the original articles on making your own gelatinous cubes.

As far as WizKids goes.. how about more of a hybrid in the miniature line? Some blind sets for the more collectible "elite" creatures and some non-blind sets for orcs, goblins, etc?

I'll definitely take your word for it being complete. The last time I looked at buying miniatures from them was just over 3 years ago, and they really didn't have everything (or anywhere close) to what I needed at the time.

As for Wizkids, I certainly hope they do some pre-packaged sets. As I mentioned, all is not lost even if they don't, as there should be a reasonable secondary market.

Back to the original point, I think a lot of people are reading something into my posts that isn't there; I haven't said it's impossible to produce miniatures this way (non-blind-buy for the D&D RPG), just that it makes no economic sense for WotC, Wizkids, or someone similar to do so.

Quote from: CRKrueger;730359If it's a collectible series, they can shove them all up their ass, no matter how good they are.

Ditto.

Quote from: S'mon;730375You can just buy the individual figs from resellers like Troll & Toad (US) and Tritex (UK). Often the stuff you need lots of is Common and actually cheaper on resale. Also, chances are the initial PC figs release will be a non-random blister pack, as they did for Pathfinder - and those figs are noticeably higher quality than most of the line.

I will absolutely not go out of my way just to give someone my money.

Either sell them to me in a manner and at a price I like or go piss up a rope.

Quote from: Bobloblah;731151Their range isn't "complete" for AD&D 2nd in any real sense. I haven't looked at it with an eye to AD&D, but I'd be surprised there, too.

They have to rename a bunch of stuff for fear of copyright infringement, eg the Kuo-Toa are called Tiik, so checking everything will take you a long time! Obviously they're unlikely to have a Tirapheg or other piece-of-crap-no-one-uses monster mini. I'm not 100% they have all the classic AD&D monsters, not seen a Githyanki analogue yet AFAICR (But I had not really looked - Googling found this (http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/48284-02765-astral-reavers-3/?fromsearch=1)), but they certainly have a huge range. And they do a bunch of modern stuff like dragonborn. Overall they have a lot more and different minis than WoTC ever did.

Quote from: S'mon;731237Overall they have a lot more and different minis than WoTC ever did.

This I certainly believe! In fact, I'm surprised people aren't more upset about the prospect of dragging out the release of a "complete" range with an endless stream of variations on the same thing. To me, this is more about the company attempting to milk customers for as long as possible.

Quote from: Bobloblah;731139Sorry to keep splitting these into two posts.

Another point about Reaper: were WotC/Hasbro willing to accept the return on investment that Reaper has had over the years, they could no doubt release a line of non-blind-buy miniatures that would please everyone here. What's the expression that's been tossed around about publishing OSR material? You, too, can make dozens of dollars in the lucrative world of RPG publishing!

With minis that's at least hundreds of dollars (yes, I'm exaggerating), but what MBA holding the purse strings at WotC is going to go for that?

I'm sure Reaper makes a reasonable profit or they wouldn't be in business. Telling me that I have to accept random fugly figures because some Hasbro executive needs to finish paying for his 6th vacation home isn't much of an incentive to buy them.

I backed both Reaper kickstarters because I like the company. After the kickstarters the minis become available to buy individually. By going in on the KS yes there are groups of minis sold together. The difference is that for accepting the minis in such lots you pay way less than retail for them.

If Whizkids wanted to offer random minis for such a price break to pay for tooling then perhaps there would be interest.

I would rather buy from a smaller company that actually likes what they do then a megacorp thats only interested in squeezing every dollar out of the consumer.

Quote from: Mistwell;730516I am buying a good 3d printer in the next few months...minis are high on my priority list :)

When these get a bit cheaper, I suspect that minis will be on the short list of "the first industries destroyed by this new technology".

Quote from: RPGPundit;731288[strike]When these get a bit cheaper[/strike]When the resolution gets way, way better, I suspect that minis will be on the short list of "the first industries destroyed by this new technology".

FIFY - I've seen printed minis and they ain't pretty.  That technology has a way to go.

Quote from: RPGPundit;731288When these get a bit cheaper, I suspect that minis will be on the short list of "the first industries destroyed by this new technology".

Currently the home 3d printers are still not up to the levels one would like. Lots of issues yet to be hammered out.

BUT, they are inproving steadily and some of the 2k range home printers are getting darn good and the striation problems are getting less.

Big problem is cost. A spool of plastic can be 50-100 bucks to print off say 25 minis according to one owner I talked with.

That price may drop too. I've only looked at a few of these so far. Theres a site up with a good breakdown of the pros and cons of various models of printer.

High end 3d printers are still though cost prohibitive for good quality prints.

Give it say 5 years and I think the stage will be set. Possibly sooner at the rate of advancements.

I don't see why Wotc or Wiz couldn't just use the existing molds (thousands?) and pump the suckers out in a big box of unpainted basic minis- 20 orcs for $20 or somesuch.  MM Gigapack for $100?  Why not exploit the bought and paid for resources that already exist?

Quote from: Piestrio;731217I will absolutely not go out of my way just to give someone my money.

I'm unclear on how typing "goblin miniature" into a search engine constitutes "going out of your way" to buy something, but whatever. I'm sure your face is deeply hurt by the spiteful way you sliced off your own nose.

Quote from: RPGPundit;731288When these get a bit cheaper, I suspect that minis will be on the short list of "the first industries destroyed by this new technology".

Probably not, for much the same reason that home printers didn't wipe out the book publishing industry. 3D printers are potentially nice and versatile tools, but it's extremely unlikely that they'll be price competitive with the cost savings of mass production at any point in the near future.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;731295FIFY - I've seen printed minis and they ain't pretty.  That technology has a way to go.

If it follows the trend of pretty much every other piece of advanced technology in recent history, as it gets cheaper it will be simultaneously getting way, way better.

RPGPundit

There are already printers that print in resolutions far below the level of detail needed to do miniatures. They're very expensive, but that's because the tech is new. It's like LCD televisions at the beginning of the 2000s being 1000's of dollars, then a few years later, you're picking them up for a few hundred.

The deal with 3d printers is that demand needs to increase so businesses will start competing with each other and drive costs down. 3d printing is still considered a niche hobby, so no 'real' manufacturers are bothering with it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;731809If it follows the trend of pretty much every other piece of advanced technology in recent history, as it gets cheaper it will be simultaneously getting way, way better.

RPGPundit

About six or seven years back, color laser printers hit rock-bottom prices.  I remember seeing them for $69.99 at Newegg.com.  Almost bought one.

I didn't though, and it's a damn good thing I didn't: it turns out that "cheap" was just that.  Cheaply made, cheaply supported.  They were awful trash.  Some reviews there had people saying the printers were dying after 300 pages, that toner carts were cracking open and puking out cyan or magenta toner all over desks, leaving a powdery (toxic) mess to clean up, that drivers didn't work, etc.

Now if you look, the cheapest models clock in at around $230 (there's a $200 one - with an overall 2-star...erm, egg...rating).  

Point is, people said the same thing about color desktop laser printing over a decade ago, and...no, we're not there yet and not going to be there for a good long while.

I'm not saying it won't happen, I am saying you're not going to be knocking out dozens of finely cast (although finecast, you might get that quality...) orcs or superheros or hoplites any time soon.

With my 2-year-old and 4-year-old held in rapt thrall by the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, and 4YO Zane is playing Hero Kids with me, I'd love it if someone released miniatures based on the old LJN characters and the D&D cartoon monsters.  Bullywugs and Orcs done in the cartoon style, Strongheart, Warduke, etc...

Yeah, I know, there was a WOTC Warduke...  But I want pig-face orcs in red livery, dammit.  And Venger.

http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2014/02/details-on-wizkids-d-miniatures-plans.html (http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2014/02/details-on-wizkids-d-miniatures-plans.html)

QuoteThe D&D Miniatures line will have both 6-figure starter packs whose contents are known, and 4-character booster packs that will have blind content

Quote from: colwebbsfmc;731847With my 2-year-old and 4-year-old held in rapt thrall by the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, and 4YO Zane is playing Hero Kids with me, I'd love it if someone released miniatures based on the old LJN characters and the D&D cartoon monsters.  Bullywugs and Orcs done in the cartoon style, Strongheart, Warduke, etc...

Yeah, I know, there was a WOTC Warduke...  But I want pig-face orcs in red livery, dammit.  And Venger.

Last year someone did a fairly large portion of the cartoon characters as "chibi" style minis. Still got somewhere I hope the D&D module based on the action figures. Quest for the Heartstone.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;731806I'm unclear on how typing "goblin miniature" into a search engine constitutes "going out of your way" to buy something, but whatever. I'm sure your face is deeply hurt by the spiteful way you sliced off your own nose.

It does not bother me one bit.

If Wizards doesn't want my money then that's their problem.