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Hey everyone!

We're currently working on developing a new miniature skirmish wargame, and we could really use your input on pricing our miniatures. Our focus is on delivering high-quality, detailed hero miniatures, each with its own unique look, ranging from 75mm to 110mm in size. Our squads or warbands will typically consist of 3 to 8 miniatures.

So, we want to know: How much would you be willing to pay at maximum for one miniature? Your feedback will help us determine fair and competitive pricing for our upcoming game.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Thank you for your help!

Well, that entirely depends.

What style are they? How detailed? Resin, plastic or metal? What’s the overall genre of the game?

If a model is to my tastes, I’d be inclined to shell out fairly decent money. But if it’s an aesthetic that’s not for me (anime, Chibi etc) then no matter how nice the sculpt, I’m not gonna buy.

And everyone has their own tastes and preferences which I dare say will impact their buying habits to equally differing degrees.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that entirely depends.

What style are they? How detailed? Resin, plastic or metal? What’s the overall genre of the game?

If a model is to my tastes, I’d be inclined to shell out fairly decent money. But if it’s an aesthetic that’s not for me (anime, Chibi etc) then no matter how nice the sculpt, I’m not gonna buy.

And everyone has their own tastes and preferences which I dare say will impact their buying habits to equally differing degrees.

The miniatures have a dark fantasy/grimdark aesthetic, fairly detailed and will be made from HIPS. It's warband vs. warband gameplay experience with asymmetric rules.

Materials, quality, style, scope - what kind of growth marketing are you doing (cheap entry point options etc...).

Monopose, modular, multiple parts (if multiple parts are they able to use magnets for hot swapping or not).

Distribution methods - direct only, 3rd party resale (often comes with discount but not always).

What's the GAME around them like? Have you lore, artwork, stories, good solid gameplay?


Hearing the height of the models but not the scale is also curious. The scale of the game is often a huge factor in choices people make. If you're going with a less used scale how is that going to impact terrain and board details for your game? Will you be producing all that as well?
If its a common scale then that helps as thta means people have tables and terrain to play with etc.



edit also what's the history of your team? Not just the company but the team - how skilled are they with your chosen material; who wrote the rules, are they well known?
You appear to have posted that you've only very recently got into the wargaming market. Are miniatures a thing you've done for years outside of it (busts, sculpting etc...) or is the entire field totally new?

Value is a tricky thing to pin down somewhat and what makes people willing to pay for something can vary. GW is often argued as being overpriced compared to the competition; yet often they've subtle elements of quality people don't realise (eg high grade parting); they do have a huge lore; art and importantly a huge gaming player market.

It really depends-for me, a lot of it is on the rules.

If the rules are dope and fun, I'm happy to support the company making them by purchasing cool minis.
If the rules aren't, I generally won't be interested.
I'm a gamer first and modeler second.

Argan wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that entirely depends.

What style are they? How detailed? Resin, plastic or metal? What’s the overall genre of the game?

If a model is to my tastes, I’d be inclined to shell out fairly decent money. But if it’s an aesthetic that’s not for me (anime, Chibi etc) then no matter how nice the sculpt, I’m not gonna buy.

And everyone has their own tastes and preferences which I dare say will impact their buying habits to equally differing degrees.

The miniatures have a dark fantasy/grimdark aesthetic, fairly detailed and will be made from HIPS. It's warband vs. warband gameplay experience with asymmetric rules.

I just want to be clear here: you’re making a 3-5 mini per side skirmish game of 75mm+ scaled minis, and you are investing in high-impact polystyrene sprues?

Are these 75mm humans who will scale with no popular wargame? Or are you making cool, scale-agnostic monsters?

How many different minis come on a sprue? How many optional bits will there be?

I’d pay more for a sprue with 3-5 minis and lots of leftover bits than I would for those same 3-5 minis with no options.

No more than what GW would charge me for a single "normal size" character - Ie, SM Captain #57, The Red Gobbo, etc. so around $35/$40 is my max.
I'd prefer to pay less of course.

Another thing to consider is who’s going to have compatible scenery and terrain.

One of the issues GW’s 54mm game Inquisitor floundered was….it was 54mm, and terrain collections were 28mm.

So as well as buying into another game? At the scale you’ve mentioned I’m looking at buying and/or building terrain specifically for said game.

That’s further effort and cash expenditure for would-be players, and something easily overlooked.

Another hurdle is is the sticker price.

If its going to be larger models then chances are that's going to require a higher price, but your photos and renders and all will look similar in size - online - to 32mm. Yes people will know they are "bigger" but might not appreciate by how much. Thus your prices, even if very reasonable for the size of model, could look higher than other games.

Sometimes a loss-leader starter set (or just very low profit or break-even) can be an ideal way to tempt people into starting with the hope that they then draw others in and buy more models from you at regular prices. Just two factions in a single starter at a lower than normal value can be a huge draw - just look how well GW does with their big discounted boxed sets (though I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are not loss-leaders just reduced profit options compared to their regular retail pricing)

Honestly, pricing is a pretty wide "depends" for me. Far more important, IMO, is the sculpts and, if there's a game attached with them, how good the game is.

With a non-standard scale (e.g., not 28-32mm or 10-15mm), it does make things like terrain and other "accessories" a bit harder to use your existing collection (one of the big reasons I've avoided Shatterpoint and some other supposedly good games, they're at a weird scale). So, for me, it'd have to be both a really good game and really good sculpts to pique my interest at all. If that was achieved, though, then I could see paying anywhere from $20 to $50 (maybe more) US depending on size of model, material, etc.

 Overread wrote:
Materials, quality, style, scope - what kind of growth marketing are you doing (cheap entry point options etc...).

Monopose, modular, multiple parts (if multiple parts are they able to use magnets for hot swapping or not).

Distribution methods - direct only, 3rd party resale (often comes with discount but not always).

What's the GAME around them like? Have you lore, artwork, stories, good solid gameplay?


Hearing the height of the models but not the scale is also curious. The scale of the game is often a huge factor in choices people make. If you're going with a less used scale how is that going to impact terrain and board details for your game? Will you be producing all that as well?
If its a common scale then that helps as thta means people have tables and terrain to play with etc.



edit also what's the history of your team? Not just the company but the team - how skilled are they with your chosen material; who wrote the rules, are they well known?
You appear to have posted that you've only very recently got into the wargaming market. Are miniatures a thing you've done for years outside of it (busts, sculpting etc...) or is the entire field totally new?

Value is a tricky thing to pin down somewhat and what makes people willing to pay for something can vary. GW is often argued as being overpriced compared to the competition; yet often they've subtle elements of quality people don't realise (eg high grade parting); they do have a huge lore; art and importantly a huge gaming player market.

We will show you this all in time! Now we are just researching and gaining feedback to make the necessary adjustments. I painted miniatures more than I played The rules are still in the playtesting phase, we are planning to start playtesting by ourselves this weekend and make the necessary adjustments for balancing ect. When the game is fully balanced to our taste, we would like to invite you to playtest the game as well by sending all the pdf files if that would interest you But yea we are still in early stage. With the feedback we have received at this moment we will rescale it to 32mm.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Argan wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that entirely depends.

What style are they? How detailed? Resin, plastic or metal? What’s the overall genre of the game?

If a model is to my tastes, I’d be inclined to shell out fairly decent money. But if it’s an aesthetic that’s not for me (anime, Chibi etc) then no matter how nice the sculpt, I’m not gonna buy.

And everyone has their own tastes and preferences which I dare say will impact their buying habits to equally differing degrees.

The miniatures have a dark fantasy/grimdark aesthetic, fairly detailed and will be made from HIPS. It's warband vs. warband gameplay experience with asymmetric rules.

I just want to be clear here: you’re making a 3-5 mini per side skirmish game of 75mm+ scaled minis, and you are investing in high-impact polystyrene sprues?

Are these 75mm humans who will scale with no popular wargame? Or are you making cool, scale-agnostic monsters?

How many different minis come on a sprue? How many optional bits will there be?

I’d pay more for a sprue with 3-5 minis and lots of leftover bits than I would for those same 3-5 minis with no options.

Hmm thanks for your feedback! Basically, the idea was that humans would be 75mm other races 90mm and the monstrous ones 110m. But the feedback that we gathered right now is that most players would like to keep the 32mm scale. So we will go back to the drawing board.

I think that going to 32mm scale is a good idea. Gaming with bigger pieces can soon look like you are playing with children's toys...

 JamesY wrote:
I think that going to 32mm scale is a good idea. Gaming with bigger pieces can soon look like you are playing with children's toys...

And we play with ADULT toys!

 JNAProductions wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I think that going to 32mm scale is a good idea. Gaming with bigger pieces can soon look like you are playing with children's toys...

And we play with ADULT toys!

And also miniatures.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
I think that going to 32mm scale is a good idea. Gaming with bigger pieces can soon look like you are playing with children's toys...

And we play with ADULT toys!

And also miniatures.

Indeed, to both.

The problem with soliciting advice/feedback on vapourware is it that there isn't anything to comment on, and it can quickly get super negative and wish-listy. Get your product to a level where it can be reviewed, even if it's just a PDF of the rules and a few mock up art pieces/3D renders then brace yourselves ha haa

Check out the "Battle Bikez" Incident on this very forum for how not to market your currently non existent game.

Argan wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Materials, quality, style, scope - what kind of growth marketing are you doing (cheap entry point options etc...).

Monopose, modular, multiple parts (if multiple parts are they able to use magnets for hot swapping or not).

Distribution methods - direct only, 3rd party resale (often comes with discount but not always).

What's the GAME around them like? Have you lore, artwork, stories, good solid gameplay?


Hearing the height of the models but not the scale is also curious. The scale of the game is often a huge factor in choices people make. If you're going with a less used scale how is that going to impact terrain and board details for your game? Will you be producing all that as well?
If its a common scale then that helps as thta means people have tables and terrain to play with etc.



edit also what's the history of your team? Not just the company but the team - how skilled are they with your chosen material; who wrote the rules, are they well known?
You appear to have posted that you've only very recently got into the wargaming market. Are miniatures a thing you've done for years outside of it (busts, sculpting etc...) or is the entire field totally new?

Value is a tricky thing to pin down somewhat and what makes people willing to pay for something can vary. GW is often argued as being overpriced compared to the competition; yet often they've subtle elements of quality people don't realise (eg high grade parting); they do have a huge lore; art and importantly a huge gaming player market.

We will show you this all in time! Now we are just researching and gaining feedback to make the necessary adjustments. I painted miniatures more than I played The rules are still in the playtesting phase, we are planning to start playtesting by ourselves this weekend and make the necessary adjustments for balancing ect. When the game is fully balanced to our taste, we would like to invite you to playtest the game as well by sending all the pdf files if that would interest you But yea we are still in early stage. With the feedback we have received at this moment we will rescale it to 32mm.

The core problem is if you've nothing to show no one can really tell you what they might be willing to pay for it.
Your best would be to research the value of other games in the market and what they sell for at retail new and that will give you your bottom and top end rough pricing for what the market might take. Accepting that some at the bottom end will be hobby businesses that don't really turn over much and at the top end you might have the likes of GW and market leaders that are able to charge more because of other factors.



So there's a lot that goes into it and asking people to guess based on basically nothing, there's just nothing for people to really measure the value of what you offer.
Also so much hinges on your designs and sculpting and product quality. Until you've stuff to show people have nothing to measure you against.

From the finance side it also depends on your operating costs; there's no sense in pricing yourself so low that you can't afford to run the company and even selling at break-even whilst it might let you lower your prices to compete; it can end up with you burning out because there's no safety net; no money to invest into expansion etc

You also need a good pitch or business model to convince wargamers who have spent hundreds of dollars on a skirmish wargame, as well as whatever number of hours painting miniatures for it to switch to your game system and miniatures. Or, rather, you need to convince a wargamer **to convince his gaming group** to switch. Frostgrave and Kings of War started with an agnostic miniatures ruleset, while Archon's started with inexpensive high-quality miniatures. CMON and FFG slapped an IP on it, after multiple failed attempts.