Miniature painting can be intimidating if you're just starting out. And even if you're not, come to think of it. It's expensive, too: there's a dizzying variety of options to get caught up on before you put brush to paint. D&D model-maker WizKids wants to remove those obstacles. More specifically, it's launching its own line of paints that focuses on entry-level hobbyists later this year. Dubbed 'Prismatic Paint' and made in collaboration with the experts at Vallejo, this range is primed to launch toward the end of 2021.
It's not the only release the company has planned, either: WizKids is also working on brand-new, sprue-based miniatures. Called 'Frameworks', these will provide customizable characters, large monsters, and boxsets that offer multiple foes per kit to populate adventures from the best Dungeons and Dragons books.
I hope they are priced competitively against Frostgrave. There are some great bits on some of those kits, but the overall minis themselves are not quite exciting enough to spend $GW or even $Conquest on.
More specifically, it's launching its own line of paints that focuses on entry-level hobbyists later this year. Dubbed 'Prismatic Paint' and made in collaboration with the experts at Vallejo, this range is primed to launch toward the end of 2021.
I wonder if this will be Vallejo's take on contrast paints ...
Sub'ed. I'm not particularly impressed by this though. I have been really impressed with their unpainted and painted assembled fantasy rpg fig lines though. They've got a huge variety in those with hundreds of SKUs already spread out between generic, D&D, and Pathfinder.
I know at least one of the Collector's Series DnD minis in the lasr few years has been plastic (Zariel from Descent into Avernus). That was a pretty decent attempt at hard plastic on sprue, not quite as sharp as GW's perhaps but it had solid detail, was well-scaled and if I remember right, it all fit together very nicely.
Definitely need that Balor though, especially if that's a Gargantuan 100mm base it's on, that's one massive mini! The Nolzur's/Deep Cuts minis are great for larger creatures already, but if this leads to affortable generic dragons, demons and such on the market in plastic then that's even better.
More specifically, it's launching its own line of paints that focuses on entry-level hobbyists later this year. Dubbed 'Prismatic Paint' and made in collaboration with the experts at Vallejo, this range is primed to launch toward the end of 2021.
I wonder if this will be Vallejo's take on contrast paints ...
Most likely. Contrast paints are just an ink wash and these are coming in bottles that acrylic artist inks are sold in complete with lid based dropper. I'll most likely pick a few up. If the colors are good and they are similar to Contrast it would be a welcome addition.
my inital reaction to prismatic paints was that this may have been Vellajo's response to GW's contrast paints (cause contrast paint is so handy but there are def people who'd rather buy Vellejo then citidel) but it looks like rather it's just a simple line of paints with clear names which I can understand why, Vellajelo is confusing as feth due to their huge range and names
Just had a chance to read the article in full. Here's the lowdown on the new paints from the article:
Created in partnership with the maestros of Vallejo, 60 paints will be making their way to stores at the end of this year for an undisclosed - but apparently affordable - price. These will be available individually (in pots with dropper lids) or via two boxsets. One, known as the Starter Case, includes 30 basic colors and serves as an entry-level option. The second is an intermediate bundle with 30 more complex effects. In other words? You'll be able to collect the entire Prismatic line if you buy both.
Although the range includes some formulations we've seen before (albeit in smaller pots this time), 20 are entirely new, D&D-branded additions. These hope to be more user-friendly than the competition with names like 'Scarlet Red' or 'Gunmetal' that do exactly what they say on the tin. In addition, each pot features easy-to-understand branding that'll tell you which kind of paint, wash, or effect you're seeing at a glance.
It will be interesting to see what these 'more complex effects' exactly are.
Ghaz wrote: Just had a chance to read the article in full. Here's the lowdown on the new paints from the article:
Created in partnership with the maestros of Vallejo, 60 paints will be making their way to stores at the end of this year for an undisclosed - but apparently affordable - price. These will be available individually (in pots with dropper lids) or via two boxsets. One, known as the Starter Case, includes 30 basic colors and serves as an entry-level option. The second is an intermediate bundle with 30 more complex effects. In other words? You'll be able to collect the entire Prismatic line if you buy both.
Although the range includes some formulations we've seen before (albeit in smaller pots this time), 20 are entirely new, D&D-branded additions. These hope to be more user-friendly than the competition with names like 'Scarlet Red' or 'Gunmetal' that do exactly what they say on the tin. In addition, each pot features easy-to-understand branding that'll tell you which kind of paint, wash, or effect you're seeing at a glance.
It will be interesting to see what these 'more complex effects' exactly are.
My guess would be some of Vellajo's "technical" paints. things like their crackle medium, varnishes etc.
I'm very interested in what kind of scults they have going.
There have been multiples time of when I would have LOVED to use a DnD model as a basis for a conversion, at least had parts that I would have loved to have pilfered to be foiled by their design and material.
The models are like modern DnD at least, unimaginative and of no interest to me, but I am curious about the paints and think it's a good thing at least overall in that it will get more people into the hobby (which is good, right?).
It's nice they're making these for the hobbyists, but I'll stick to the pre-painted (and occassional pre-primed minis. Got too much stuff on my paint table as it is.
lord_blackfang wrote: Archon is tooling these plastics btw. Balrog is great, the rest a bit bland.
To be fair, it's expected that the adventurer minis would be generic, as they have to roughly resemble a whole host of potential characters. I agree that some more imaginative monsters should have been included, though. It's really not too hard to find a minotaur-adjacent mini given that beastmen are a thing.
I will definitely look at how this will develop. There certainly is quite some space for them to explore and I would love to have some good versions of their various outsiders.
Giving people options of loadouts between the smaller models will be popular for a decent chunk.
If they can keep the price down to be competitive with the deep cuts models willl be a great option for people.
I would keep my Reaper Bone stuff for my NPC and mass monsters but having this would be a great boon to my players who have been talking about upgrading their starting minis.
BrianDavion wrote: it looks like rather it's just a simple line of paints with clear names which I can understand why, Vellajelo is confusing as feth due to their huge range and names
So names like aluminium, dark red, steel, or leather brown are confusing now?
Especially seeing pic of this paint range shows 'sea hag blue', GW style completely non-descriptive name
Don't like bottles though, feel like they are big downgrade compared to standard V ones.
Vain wrote: Giving people options of loadouts between the smaller models will be popular for a decent chunk.
That's the biggest missed opportunity I see here. It doesn't look like you can swap arms or heads among the range. Pilgrim Hat Dude has 2 or 3 options of each arm, nice options, but that's it. If you want to use something from the Druid you're going to have to get out your knife and putty.
Ghaz wrote: Just had a chance to read the article in full. Here's the lowdown on the new paints from the article:
Created in partnership with the maestros of Vallejo, 60 paints will be making their way to stores at the end of this year for an undisclosed - but apparently affordable - price. These will be available individually (in pots with dropper lids) or via two boxsets. One, known as the Starter Case, includes 30 basic colors and serves as an entry-level option. The second is an intermediate bundle with 30 more complex effects. In other words? You'll be able to collect the entire Prismatic line if you buy both.
Although the range includes some formulations we've seen before (albeit in smaller pots this time), 20 are entirely new, D&D-branded additions. These hope to be more user-friendly than the competition with names like 'Scarlet Red' or 'Gunmetal' that do exactly what they say on the tin. In addition, each pot features easy-to-understand branding that'll tell you which kind of paint, wash, or effect you're seeing at a glance.
It will be interesting to see what these 'more complex effects' exactly are.
My guess would be some of Vellajo's "technical" paints. things like their crackle medium, varnishes etc.
Their Special Effects Set has eight paints, leaving twenty two more paints. Even with the mediums and varnishes and pumice stone that's still a few items that we don't know about.
Archon's plastics are continuing to get better and better too.
If these kits and paints are going to be as easily accessible as modern D&D seems to be, even better.
I'd love to be able to wander in to some of the bigger retail chains and be able to grab this stuff.
Whether limbs are easy to swap or not isn't a big worry of mine (as I'll make it work like most of you) but the fact that they're including all the extra bits is certainly appreciated.
Archon's plastics are continuing to get better and better too.
If these kits and paints are going to be as easily accessible as modern D&D seems to be, even better.
I'd love to be able to wander in to some of the bigger retail chains and be able to grab this stuff.
Whether limbs are easy to swap or not isn't a big worry of mine (as I'll make it work like most of you) but the fact that they're including all the extra bits is certainly appreciated.
I doubt it, I've not seen the current d&d minis in most retail stores but D&D is carried in more places then say.. 40k, so you might see those little gaming stores that mostly sell CCGs and a few RPG books get some in.
My local Walmart has had the 5E starter box and dice sets in toys for at least a year. If there's money to be had the big box stores will look at it but I'd be surprised to see individual minis and paint for sale there as there's just too many options for both players to make, character wise, and for stores to carry and it would take up a lot of space for options that people may not have interest in for that local area.
If Wizkids did a box set that was paints, brush, and then a combo of minis (dragon, adventuring party mix for example) that could be something I could see there as it's an eye catching thing with all you need to starting painting.
Vain wrote: I would keep my Reaper Bone stuff for my NPC and mass monsters but having this would be a great boon to my players who have been talking about upgrading their starting minis.
Yep. RPG players do like their custom avatars, and multipiece sets, while not as versatile as a 3D printed custom miniature (eg. HeroForge) aren't as expensive. If anything, I hope these multipieces are designed in mind for swapability among sets, not just within one, since you'll have extra bits, and RPG players will want *that* special bit (especially familiars) for their character!
Archon plastics are quite good -- I think their Woodhaven Late Pledge has the same prices as their KS. So if you just want a load of mini's, go right to the source!
I'm still waiting for a starter set that has brush-on colored primers and washes. I've been using colored primers for my tabletop mini's with washes and don't miss the primer step, don't spend as much time with the hobby paint
The paints are "pots with dropper lids". Looks only like custom eye-dropper containers, though? It's heretical, but, for advanced tabletop, I prefer screw caps to pots to eyedroppers for convenience. Eyedroppers clog and my paint schemes don't need to subtle differences from mixing and a palette.
BrianDavion wrote: it looks like rather it's just a simple line of paints with clear names which I can understand why, Vellajelo is confusing as feth due to their huge range and names
So names like aluminium, dark red, steel, or leather brown are confusing now?
Especially seeing pic of this paint range shows 'sea hag blue', GW style completely non-descriptive name
Don't like bottles though, feel like they are big downgrade compared to standard V ones.
I'll believe you if you can tell me the difference in color between Foul Green, Sick Green, Goblin Green, Olive Green, Deep Green, Heavy Green, Livery Green, "Yellow Olive" (appears to be neither of those colors), Black Green, Heavy Black Green, Green Sky, Park Green Flat, Uniform Green, Military Green, and Bronze Green are without looking them up.
Vallejo does have some self-evident colors such as "Dark Red" and "Medium Blue," it's true, but things get a lot more confusing that than pretty quickly.
The paints are "pots with dropper lids". Looks only like custom eye-dropper containers, though? It's heretical, but, for advanced tabletop, I prefer screw caps to pots to eyedroppers for convenience. Eyedroppers clog and my paint schemes don't need to subtle differences from mixing and a palette.
As I mentioned above those are the type of bottles, with eyedroppers, that artist inks come in which is why they could be a contrast like paint. The ones I used would not work well with a thicker paint. Though Vallejo paints tend to be on the thinner side out of the pot. It's clear some are washes as there's one shown in the image so it could also just be normal paint line which would be much more boring.
BrianDavion wrote: it looks like rather it's just a simple line of paints with clear names which I can understand why, Vellajelo is confusing as feth due to their huge range and names
So names like aluminium, dark red, steel, or leather brown are confusing now?
Especially seeing pic of this paint range shows 'sea hag blue', GW style completely non-descriptive name
Don't like bottles though, feel like they are big downgrade compared to standard V ones.
I'll believe you if you can tell me the difference in color between Foul Green, Sick Green, Goblin Green, Olive Green, Deep Green, Heavy Green, Livery Green, "Yellow Olive" (appears to be neither of those colors), Black Green, Heavy Black Green, Green Sky, Park Green Flat, Uniform Green, Military Green, and Bronze Green are without looking them up.
Vallejo does have some self-evident colors such as "Dark Red" and "Medium Blue," it's true, but things get a lot more confusing that than pretty quickly.
Yeah, I've bought a handful of Vallejo paints before and it's tricky figuring out what is what sometimes.
Monkeysloth wrote: My local Walmart has had the 5E starter box and dice sets in toys for at least a year. If there's money to be had the big box stores will look at it but I'd be surprised to see individual minis and paint for sale there as there's just too many options for both players to make, character wise, and for stores to carry and it would take up a lot of space for options that people may not have interest in for that local area.
If Wizkids did a box set that was paints, brush, and then a combo of minis (dragon, adventuring party mix for example) that could be something I could see there as it's an eye catching thing with all you need to starting painting.
There were those "metal minis" (a beholder set, a dragon set) that were being sold in Walmart/Target for a while. If they had been plastic, I would have picked them up.
Monkeysloth wrote: My local Walmart has had the 5E starter box and dice sets in toys for at least a year. If there's money to be had the big box stores will look at it but I'd be surprised to see individual minis and paint for sale there as there's just too many options for both players to make, character wise, and for stores to carry and it would take up a lot of space for options that people may not have interest in for that local area.
If Wizkids did a box set that was paints, brush, and then a combo of minis (dragon, adventuring party mix for example) that could be something I could see there as it's an eye catching thing with all you need to starting painting.
There were those "metal minis" (a beholder set, a dragon set) that were being sold in Walmart/Target for a while. If they had been plastic, I would have picked them up.
Were those the same ones that had Harry Potter and some DC stuff too that were like 40mm in height?
Monkeysloth wrote: My local Walmart has had the 5E starter box and dice sets in toys for at least a year. If there's money to be had the big box stores will look at it but I'd be surprised to see individual minis and paint for sale there as there's just too many options for both players to make, character wise, and for stores to carry and it would take up a lot of space for options that people may not have interest in for that local area.
If Wizkids did a box set that was paints, brush, and then a combo of minis (dragon, adventuring party mix for example) that could be something I could see there as it's an eye catching thing with all you need to starting painting.
There were those "metal minis" (a beholder set, a dragon set) that were being sold in Walmart/Target for a while. If they had been plastic, I would have picked them up.
Were those the same ones that had Harry Potter and some DC stuff too that were like 40mm in height?
Pretty much, but I * think * the D&D stuff was 28mm.
So I was doing a bit of poking around the internet to see what else I could find about this stuff, and found the following site already listing stuff for pre-order(!) for the kits to come out in November.
most will be $10 at discount sellers. Not too bad for a PC model but not enough for me to want to buy for anything else unless I really like the sculpt.
Interesting to see the Balrog isn't in the first wave.
streetsamurai wrote: Haven't played d&d since 3 rd edition, but what is that flaming sword dude supposed to be? A warlock?
Yeah, a warlock. The three pacts in the PHB are pact of the blade (which lets you manifest a weapon), pact of the chain (bind a more powerful familiar), and pact of the tome.
These are a bit more expensive than I thought. The individual characters arent bad, but $40 for a hill giant is way too much IMO. The dungeons and lasers dragons, also made by archon, are only $30.
I'm waiting to see what those larger ones are as if it's overall awesome like the balrog that's not a bad price.
One to look and and consider is a minotaur on what? a 40mm base? Is it worth $25 when basically you'll not use 1/3rd of the things in the kit?
If there were two bodies for that price then I don't think it would be too bad after online discounts but still more then pretty much any plastic minotaur out there.
If these were designed so the head and hands could easily be swappable without drilling and setting your own magnets then maybe there could be an argument for the price. But that's clearly not what they're doing based off of the renders.
Monkeysloth wrote: most will be $10 at discount sellers. Not too bad for a PC model but not enough for me to want to buy for anything else unless I really like the sculpt.
Interesting to see the Balrog isn't in the first wave.
It may be missing it that list but it is on pre-order at mini market. $80 for balor. If it's scaled as the current nolzurs preprimed balor, to me that seems a lot since that would be half the height of the gw bloodthirster set with much smaller wings...
If can get it for less. Maybe 60 I hope?
And someone mentioned these aren't for beginners. The original press release in Feb that these were coming said it's for advanced modellers/painters.
The prices seem ridiculously high to me. Reaper sells Bones versions of these monsters for a fraction of the cost. Heroes are easy to find cheaper from Bones, Nolzur’s or by the bunch via plastic Frostgrave boxes. The days of paying $15 for a generic, bland hero mini are long gone.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The prices seem ridiculously high to me. Reaper sells Bones versions of these monsters for a fraction of the cost. Heroes are easy to find cheaper from Bones, Nolzur’s or by the bunch via plastic Frostgrave boxes. The days of paying $15 for a generic, bland hero mini are long gone.
And yet another well known company gets $35 for their Lieutenant figures, which usually have fewer options as well.
$15 for a figure that you can more easily kit bash, and comes with some choices is not that bad.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The prices seem ridiculously high to me. Reaper sells Bones versions of these monsters for a fraction of the cost. Heroes are easy to find cheaper from Bones, Nolzur’s or by the bunch via plastic Frostgrave boxes. The days of paying $15 for a generic, bland hero mini are long gone.
And yet another well known company gets $35 for their Lieutenant figures, which usually have fewer options as well.
$15 for a figure that you can more easily kit bash, and comes with some choices is not that bad.
GW is pretty much it’s own ecosystem. Those prices only make sense for customers who want GW minis for GW games. Once outside of GW, there’s nothing to keep customers from seeking better value from money. In this case, there are direct competitors with the DND minis, official and unofficial. Lots of GW customers only know of GW while any customers for this product line will be aware of Nolzur’s and other similar items since they will all be sold in the same places.
$15 seems pretty high for a single figure that will sit on the same shelf as the 2-for-$5 Nolzur’s minis or $3-$4 Bones heroes.
Monkeysloth wrote: most will be $10 at discount sellers. Not too bad for a PC model but not enough for me to want to buy for anything else unless I really like the sculpt.
Interesting to see the Balrog isn't in the first wave.
It may be missing it that list but it is on pre-order at mini market. $80 for balor. If it's scaled as the current nolzurs preprimed balor, to me that seems a lot since that would be half the height of the gw bloodthirster set with much smaller wings...
If can get it for less. Maybe 60 I hope?
And someone mentioned these aren't for beginners. The original press release in Feb that these were coming said it's for advanced modellers/painters.
Oh, wow. Geese that's horrible. No way I'd get that. If it's a huge on like a 100mm base then I'd consider it from at discount seller at the possibly $60 price.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:The prices seem ridiculously high to me. Reaper sells Bones versions of these monsters for a fraction of the cost. Heroes are easy to find cheaper from Bones, Nolzur’s or by the bunch via plastic Frostgrave boxes. The days of paying $15 for a generic, bland hero mini are long gone.
I think the prices are all on purpose to be a bit, and maybe this is too strong of a word, predatory by going after people newer to this side of the hobby that really don't know what prices are for other lines. A lot of places that cater to the RPG crowd out where I am dropped everything that wasn't wizkids for RPG minis so there's nothing in store to compare. If there is another mini line it's GW stuff.
So if you're liking mini painting, going to the local store for RPG night (there are a few stores by me that pretty much only cater to D&D and MTG and they're slammed packed of people all the time) and see a cool kit. You may want to buy it to get more into the hobby and since a lot of the stores don't carry a competing line to compare the prices you just look at the fancy assemble yourself or the normal one and not really think about how outrageous the price is. Especially if you look over at the GW equivalent in store and see it's even more.
Granted the prices need to be a bit higher as they're going to sell less of the kits vs prebuilts but not enough to justify such a swing in cost. the human figures are 3x the cost for a single one in their other lines.
Monkeysloth wrote: most will be $10 at discount sellers. Not too bad for a PC model but not enough for me to want to buy for anything else unless I really like the sculpt.
Interesting to see the Balrog isn't in the first wave.
It may be missing it that list but it is on pre-order at mini market. $80 for balor. If it's scaled as the current nolzurs preprimed balor, to me that seems a lot since that would be half the height of the gw bloodthirster set with much smaller wings...
If can get it for less. Maybe 60 I hope?
And someone mentioned these aren't for beginners. The original press release in Feb that these were coming said it's for advanced modellers/painters.
Miniature market's prices are meh a lot of times. So you should be able to find it at $79.99 pretty easily which is still sounding pretty crazy. Want to wait to see the scale though as that's a big factor.
Also doing a quick search, to see if anyone else had these, it looks to be wizkids is doing a price hike for a lot of their older, larger, minis from the unpainted lines (doubling the price from the looks of it). Which also includes increasing the packaging size which is odd as I never thought "boy, these minis are great but if only they had more waste associated with them".
If you've ever looked into the D&D boutique stores because of the current trendiness of the game there's some pretty dang crazy expensive stuff. Some even from wizkids like these props:
Which are actually more reasonably priced then these kits at $130 for what is basically an over priced Halloween decoration (which they themselves are overpriced). That's something that would sell at target for like $50 or spirit of halloween for $60.
Or giant dragon heads (which are pretty cool) which seam to be originally sold for around $400
Also doing a quick search, to see if anyone else had these, it looks to be wizkids is doing a price hike for a lot of their older, larger, minis from the unpainted lines (doubling the price from the looks of it). Which also includes increasing the packaging size which is odd as I never thought "boy, these minis are great but if only they had more waste associated with them".
That packaging comment wins the internet for the day...
These figures are primarily for RPG's, not wargaming. The idea is that, at least for PC's, you can customize your figure. IIRC, HeroForge charged $40 for a custom individual figure, so $15 may be reasonable. As far as I can tell from the previews, though, is that there's only one body, yet two of each option. While it's common for there to be half as many bodies as other bits on the sprue, all WK needed to do is put on another body, and *bam* you cut the cost per figure in half -- one figure goes to the player for their custom figure, the remaining parts the GM uses for an NPC or something.
And, of course, RPG players don't need as many miniatures to play as a wargamer would. They're going to spend $15 on one miniature, not $50 on a warband, or $100 on an army.
Closest direct competitor would be Northstar Game's Frostgrave generic fantasy miniatures on sprues, but their business model is to sell you a warband of plastic minions (and metal miniatures for personalities and monsters). An RPG'er *might* pass on a Northstar Frostgrave box because he doesn't need 20 figures for each class for $25+.
But, for monsters, GMs would want the cheapest miniatures possible -- especially since he's the one usually buying them. That's a key part of the business model of Reaper Bones. A GM is not going to pay $30 for a metal hill giant, but will pay $6 for a plastic one.
Well, we'll see. The $300 gorilla in the room is the 3D printer. Still not at an inexpensive price for miniature resolution, but we'll see in a few years...
Also, some people may not understand roleplayers here, I'm not talking the guy who sits around a table with a beer I'm talking the real hard core roleplayers, some of em get pretty attached to their characters. I know people who have paid good money to get art comissioned for their characters (it's partiuclarly common in MMO RPG circles but you also see it in table top)
So I can readily belive people'll pay good money for a customizable mini they can use as a character marker.
I don't think the price is that bad for the PCs just for that reason but these really aren't that customizable (most have 2 heads and 2 weapons), and you can't really kitbash easily with them without skill. Nor can you easily change things out as your character progresses. The dwarf in the image below is probably the one with the most options we've seen.
Also Heroforge is only like $20 for unpainted so $5 more which is a better comparison. They're $45 for colored prints.
The more I see of the monsters and the lack of real options the more I'm wondering who they're targeting with those.
The hag doesn't look like there's really any alternate builds outside of one hand, mostly just extra stuff to put where you want on the base. She's $25 as well. Who wants that?
The $50 Orc set shows how they're doing multiple model kits and there are 5 models and each one has two build options and it doesn't look like a chunk of the parts can be used on the other orcs (though I would like to see larger images to confirm that). again that's $10 an orc that you may fight once.
I think part of their plan is the quality or whimsy of the bits. You mentioned the Kobold and yeah, I don't need a $15 Kobold. But then I saw the boot helmet and said Awwwww.
The Warlock/Pilgrim Hat dude's flaming sword and shoulder demon move him into the solid buy category, even if I don't have a use for him or the dozen extra parts I'll have left over.
I agree the monsters are a bit odd, a lot of cost and work just to have an Orc with a sword vs and Orc with a club.
The Kobold is actually a set like the orcs so I removed that statement as we don't really know what the full modularity of those kits will be. Still, $10 kolbold.
There are some cool builds for the PCs. I think it would have cost them very little and been much easier to justify the cost if there were a peg system for swapping hands and weapons. The material is light weight enough that they should hold with non-round ones I would wager. And maybe I'm being a bit more critical because it seams like something that they should have done but didn't as what RPG player wouldn't love an easy way to do that? With heroforge only $5 more this would have been a great way to offer something they don't.
The dwarf is a great example as she has the stein and that player could swap to a shield or tomb when dungeon crawling and keep the stein for other instances. There are heads with expressions too but I'm not sure they'd stay on without glue, unlike the fighter next to her that has pegs. Though Bluetac might work for the dwarf heads.
BrianDavion wrote: Also, some people may not understand roleplayers here, I'm not talking the guy who sits around a table with a beer I'm talking the real hard core roleplayers, some of em get pretty attached to their characters. I know people who have paid good money to get art comissioned for their characters (it's partiuclarly common in MMO RPG circles but you also see it in table top)
So I can readily belive people'll pay good money for a customizable mini they can use as a character marker.
...but these minis aren't remotely customizable enough for these purposes.
BrianDavion wrote: Also, some people may not understand roleplayers here, I'm not talking the guy who sits around a table with a beer I'm talking the real hard core roleplayers, some of em get pretty attached to their characters. I know people who have paid good money to get art comissioned for their characters (it's partiuclarly common in MMO RPG circles but you also see it in table top)
So I can readily belive people'll pay good money for a customizable mini they can use as a character marker.
...but these minis aren't remotely customizable enough for these purposes.
we'll have to see I suppose. I see a lot of people buying mini's for d&d..... hell I see them buying AOS minis for it!
BobtheInquisitor wrote: The prices seem ridiculously high to me. Reaper sells Bones versions of these monsters for a fraction of the cost. Heroes are easy to find cheaper from Bones, Nolzur’s or by the bunch via plastic Frostgrave boxes. The days of paying $15 for a generic, bland hero mini are long gone.
And yet another well known company gets $35 for their Lieutenant figures, which usually have fewer options as well.
$15 for a figure that you can more easily kit bash, and comes with some choices is not that bad.
GW is pretty much it’s own ecosystem. Those prices only make sense for customers who want GW minis for GW games. Once outside of GW, there’s nothing to keep customers from seeking better value from money. In this case, there are direct competitors with the DND minis, official and unofficial. Lots of GW customers only know of GW while any customers for this product line will be aware of Nolzur’s and other similar items since they will all be sold in the same places.
$15 seems pretty high for a single figure that will sit on the same shelf as the 2-for-$5 Nolzur’s minis or $3-$4 Bones heroes.
except you cant customize those - not easily, and I've tried.
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BrianDavion wrote:
we'll have to see I suppose. I see a lot of people buying mini's for d&d..... hell I see them buying AOS minis for it!
Guilty! (well, not DnD, but for simplicity's sake, yes.
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Wha-Mu-077 wrote:
...but these minis aren't remotely customizable enough for these purposes.
Ah, but you're not factoring in the material.
In theory these are going to be made out of the same plastic that warhammer minis are - ABS, or a similar plastic. Which means that unlike the rubbery plastic that most DnD minis are made in which sevearly handicaps kitbashers, these minis can better take advantage of bits from each others kits, and even prey upon well established warhammer bitz boxes.
GW Consumers and WotC Consumers have a lot in common. Both exclusively buy GW/D&D products, refuse or are hesitant to consider other games, will scoff at materials from other companies but gladly pay 250% markup for something official and could be beaten to a bloody pulp by their respective company's henchmen and still justify forking over hundreds of dollars to them every month.
I mean to be fair at least part of it has to be visual style - a lot of DnD (and pathfinder for that matter - though not nearly as much) are pretty garish in their colors and tend toward the world of warcraft in design.
Now those are turn offs for me, and I assume most people who buy warhammer- but if that's the design ethos that has your fancy i can see why you would want to keep buying product to keep design themes consistent.
I think part of the is what keeps warhammer fans buying warhammer, as they tend not to pair too nicely with other ranges in size or design. (IMO)
Carlovonsexron wrote: I mean to be fair at least part of it has to be visual style - a lot of DnD (and pathfinder for that matter - though not nearly as much) are pretty garish in their colors and tend toward the world of warcraft in design.
That's more since 4e and 5e d&d. 3e a bit but it had its own style by a set of artists which used the same characters through the books. Like an in between from the old and new styles.
2e wasn't like that for most part although each setting had its own style with planescape having the most unique flair due to the artist who led the entire art style. (Tony diterlizzi? Can't spell it but it's the spiderwick chronicles guy) Dark Sun also had a much harsher muted pallette and even had more use or bones, skulls etc (metal is rare there so using bones and wood as weapons is common)
In theory these are going to be made out of the same plastic that warhammer minis are - ABS, or a similar plastic. Which means that unlike the rubbery plastic that most DnD minis are made in which sevearly handicaps kitbashers, these minis can better take advantage of bits from each others kits, and even prey upon well established warhammer bitz boxes.
Where are you getting that info as none of the articles linked state what type of plastic. And, shockingly, PVC plastic uses sprues as well as metal and resin if multiplart. Since everything Wizkids have ever made in 20 years of existence is PVC its safer to assume that's what these will be made out of until it's expressly stated it's HIPS or another plastic.
for kitbashing it would make a lot more sense for them to keep this as the same material as their other minis so players can combine the two easier. Ya, PVC isn't as good as HIPS for this, but you still can (just takes more skill) and why would they lock out people buying the hundred other minis they have for sale for other parts? Doing these kits in HIPS would just push people to buy from GW and other competitors that use the material.
These are being made for Wizkids by Archon/Prodos, in HIPS. This is known.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Dammit, actually I went back to check and Archon actually said they're making HIPS sprues for WotC, not Wizkids. I have no clue if those are out already or what Wizkids is then. Sorry for the confusion.
Iirc, wizkids said on their channel that it's similar to gw style plastic but fairly sure they saidnot quite as rigid... whatever that means regarding material differences.
Well I'll guess we'll have to wait a bit to see. I didn't realize WoTC was making anything minis related outside of their boardgames. Kind defeats the purpose of the Wizkids license if they are.
Assuming Archon misspoke If these do well, with the margins they're likely to see of these kits, I wonder if Hasbro will just buy Topps and thus wizkids? If these fail then no risk to Hasbro at all. Topps is mostly just an IP company these days and Hasbro loves owning all the IPs and no way they're going to let Topps get GW money from their IP.
WotC left the miniature business some years ago, and licensed everything out to WizKids or Gale Force 9. Even the minis in the boardgames are outsourced.
There is another option instead of HIPS. It is called Siocast, which is a new thing from a Spanish company. Corvus Belli is switching to it for their larger minis. It requires the sprues etc. It looks similar to HIPS but is more flexible. It appears to hold detail well, so it may be a much better choice for 25mm-30mm miniatures than is PVC.
Honestly, if these minis are in PVC, I have no interest in them. Otherwise, I may get some of the monsters.
Ugg, the GF9 resins are trash. So annoyed at that. I was looking at getting one of the dragon kits and the molds/casts are so bad you have to actually break the wings to assemble and then greenstuff things back together. Tons of really bad reviews for both of the dragons they sell as none of the parts/joints fit.
In theory these are going to be made out of the same plastic that warhammer minis are - ABS, or a similar plastic. Which means that unlike the rubbery plastic that most DnD minis are made in which severely handicaps kitbashers, these minis can better take advantage of bits from each others kits, and even prey upon well established warhammer bitz boxes.
Looking at how these models are broken down, I am doubtful these are the same type of plastic that GW uses. There are just to many carries (undercuts) to use in a press-mold given the part breakdown shown. More likely they'll be the softer plastic that WK uses on their other stuff or they'll be made of the type of plastic/resin that Privateer Press uses. Those use a different mold process similar to how metal minis are made which tolerates carries and undercuts.
Still, these are a great improvement for the RPG community.
Monkeysloth wrote: Ugg, the GF9 resins are trash. So annoyed at that. I was looking at getting one of the dragon kits and the molds/casts are so bad you have to actually break the wings to assemble and then greenstuff things back together. Tons of really bad reviews for both of the dragons they sell as none of the parts/joints fit.
Bought the wizkids unpainted stuff instead.
I've found the GF9 Collector's Series minis to be a real mixed bag. The human-sized minis are pretty fantastic, and while Orcus and Baphomet required some small filling and sanding, they mostly went together okay, nothing worse than any other large resin kit. The Dragon of Black Ice, meanwhile, is an absolute disaster of a kit at the price they asked for it. Terrible gaps requiring tons of GS to fill, at least three different types of resin (head and tail the traditional solod cast pieces, a much brittler, shiny stuff for the hollow body that warped like crazy, and the base is almoat closer to vacuum-formed plastic...)
Hopefully that's where this new line can come in; for the right centrepiece mini for a campaign, I'm not averse to throwing down £60ish if the quality is there, but with the GF9 stuff going downhill I'll take well-made mass produced stuff over the limited run but crap kits like that last dragon. Even middling plastic or PVC is going to hold detail netter than that,amd be easier to work with...
This is what Archon flexed on their Discord recently. From the blur I'd guess it's not out yet.
I have really no idea what wizkids and WoTC are doing then. Seams weird that a licensee is competing with a license holder. Though maybe that's just the mandatory WoTC copyright for a wizkids sprue?
Monkeysloth wrote: Ugg, the GF9 resins are trash. So annoyed at that. I was looking at getting one of the dragon kits and the molds/casts are so bad you have to actually break the wings to assemble and then greenstuff things back together. Tons of really bad reviews for both of the dragons they sell as none of the parts/joints fit.
Bought the wizkids unpainted stuff instead.
I've found the GF9 Collector's Series minis to be a real mixed bag. The human-sized minis are pretty fantastic, and while Orcus and Baphomet required some small filling and sanding, they mostly went together okay, nothing worse than any other large resin kit. The Dragon of Black Ice, meanwhile, is an absolute disaster of a kit at the price they asked for it. Terrible gaps requiring tons of GS to fill, at least three different types of resin (head and tail the traditional solod cast pieces, a much brittler, shiny stuff for the hollow body that warped like crazy, and the base is almoat closer to vacuum-formed plastic...)
I have one of the smaller resins and it was perfectly fine so i was really surprised about the larger stuff. Glad I stayed away from the big dragon kits.
Monkeysloth wrote: Ugg, the GF9 resins are trash. So annoyed at that. I was looking at getting one of the dragon kits and the molds/casts are so bad you have to actually break the wings to assemble and then greenstuff things back together. Tons of really bad reviews for both of the dragons they sell as none of the parts/joints fit.
Bought the wizkids unpainted stuff instead.
For the gold I used boiling water on the wings but still sculpted a section. The rest of it was fine. Their more recent sets are good. The avernus stuff. And their demogorgon, purple worm, beholder etc. But yeah it can be a bit of a strange situation. I don't mind it myself as I'm used to resin kits. I do prefer the detail on them vs the nolzurs line
This is what Archon flexed on their Discord recently. From the blur I'd guess it's not out yet.
That image makes me feel a lot better about this project. In fact, it's actually piquing my interest now and I may actually pick up something just to build and paint.
This is what Archon flexed on their Discord recently. From the blur I'd guess it's not out yet.
I have really no idea what wizkids and WoTC are doing then. Seams weird that a licensee is competing with a license holder. Though maybe that's just the mandatory WoTC copyright for a wizkids sprue?
Monkeysloth wrote: Ugg, the GF9 resins are trash. So annoyed at that. I was looking at getting one of the dragon kits and the molds/casts are so bad you have to actually break the wings to assemble and then greenstuff things back together. Tons of really bad reviews for both of the dragons they sell as none of the parts/joints fit.
Bought the wizkids unpainted stuff instead.
I've found the GF9 Collector's Series minis to be a real mixed bag. The human-sized minis are pretty fantastic, and while Orcus and Baphomet required some small filling and sanding, they mostly went together okay, nothing worse than any other large resin kit. The Dragon of Black Ice, meanwhile, is an absolute disaster of a kit at the price they asked for it. Terrible gaps requiring tons of GS to fill, at least three different types of resin (head and tail the traditional solod cast pieces, a much brittler, shiny stuff for the hollow body that warped like crazy, and the base is almoat closer to vacuum-formed plastic...)
I have one of the smaller resins and it was perfectly fine so i was really surprised about the larger stuff. Glad I stayed away from the big dragon kits.
Maybe per the terms of the lisence WOTC owns the mods and WK just produces them under lisence?
In theory these are going to be made out of the same plastic that warhammer minis are - ABS, or a similar plastic. Which means that unlike the rubbery plastic that most DnD minis are made in which sevearly handicaps kitbashers, these minis can better take advantage of bits from each others kits, and even prey upon well established warhammer bitz boxes.
Where are you getting that info as none of the articles linked state what type of plastic. And, shockingly, PVC plastic uses sprues as well as metal and resin if multiplart. Since everything Wizkids have ever made in 20 years of existence is PVC its safer to assume that's what these will be made out of until it's expressly stated it's HIPS or another plastic.
for kitbashing it would make a lot more sense for them to keep this as the same material as their other minis so players can combine the two easier. Ya, PVC isn't as good as HIPS for this, but you still can (just takes more skill) and why would they lock out people buying the hundred other minis they have for sale for other parts? Doing these kits in HIPS would just push people to buy from GW and other competitors that use the material.
It's mostly an assumption based on the other stuff archon produces; if it was going to be in the same material why would they be using archon at all?
To be fair, if it's not in a material comparable with ABS/HIPS I won't be interested in it. But I'll be very surprised if it isn't.
Archon is producing a lot of plastics for a lot of different people then. Cool.
I'll take that any day of the week over Siocast. It's not bad, but much like Bones it works best with bigger and thicker pieces. It feels very bendy and flexible with smaller model parts.
> These are being made for Wizkids by Archon/Prodos, in HIPS. This is known.
> Iirc, wizkids said on their channel that it's similar to gw style plastic but fairly sure they saidnot quite as rigid... whatever that means regarding material differences.
Assuming it's the same HIPS plastic as Archon's Dungeons and Lasers, the plastic is pretty good stuff. Easy to remove mold lines, at least! I haven't gotten around to the D&L miniatures (eg. animal companions) but had no trouble with it for terrain.
> I don't think the price is that bad for the PCs just for that reason but these really aren't that customizable (most have 2 heads and 2 weapons),
Yeah, I'm starting to wonder myself, especially for the figures with, as their two heads, one female head, and one male head. This doesn't give any market advantage over single-piece miniatures. For an RPG'er, the amount of customization for HeroForge *is* well worth the marginal cost.
Well, we'll see if there's room in the market for this stuff. It does have the "D&D" branding, and you can pick it off the FLGS shelf as an impulse buy. I'd still recommend a D&L late pledge for the RPGGM's, though...!
lord_blackfang wrote: Sorta wonder if any of the monsters are the same sculpt as Dungeons and Lasers.
15$ for heroes is a bit much for wargaming, but monsters are quite appealing.
They're not for wargaming, so it's all fine then. And i imagine they're more expensive than the generic thing cause licensing fees to use the logo. I still bet they'll sell like hotcakes, there's so much more RPG players than wargamers it's crazy.
They're indeed a bit expensive, I mean, they're quite a bit more than metal figures while not having much more in the way of customisation options. Part of it of course is the logo and everything, so it will still sell. But don't underestimate the cheapness of DMs like me!
Given the people popping into the this thread, I'd say there is genuine interest in them. Personally I've bough a single blister of the pre-primed figs and never plan to again. But this concept is very much tailored to someone like me, and I would assume others.
It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that. If we needed a map, we got out the graph paper.
Might be why our parents were happy to push us to RPGs—they were cheaper than Lego.
I use models for tabletop now, but they're nothing like my character. I use a model that we lovingly call Shovel Death, and he represents everything from my spell weaving casters to Jim Bob down the street.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that. If we needed a map, we got out the graph paper.
Might be why our parents were happy to push us to RPGs—they were cheaper than Lego.
My group uses them only because I'm the GM 90% of the time and I love using them. I'm the weird outlier on Dakka whos someone that love miniature gaming but rarely, if ever, actually wargames as I don't like competitive games that much(unless they're short boardgame stuff). So my years of collecting, outside of stints playing Heroclix and Infinity, have always been for RPGs. I've actually played more tabletop miniature games in the past year because of the Modihiphis Adventure Wargaming stuff the I have in the past 12-13 years combined (when I stopped playing clix games). I hang out on sites like Dakka as on RPG forums there are way more jerks willing to attack someone for liking the wrong game system then I've ever seen in wargames.
I more then willing to spend good money on something. But that something has to be pretty awesome and unique if it's outside the general price range for equivalents from others.
I also buy all the minis for my group as only one really actually likes minis and I just buy his as I'm buying the others so it's only fair. Heroforge, Desktophero and eldritch foundry have pretty much replaced everything for the PC minis. People can make on in less time then it takes be to brose reaper or wizkids current offerings.
I wonder if this is also spurred on a little by the rise of home 3d printing. I bought plenty of Nolzur's minis a year or two back, but as soon as I got a resin printer I could easily beat that range, along with Reaper and such, in terms of both variety and detail. Throw in the fact that between Blender and Meshmixer I can customise STLs and digitally kitbach to print whatever bizarrely specific mini I need for a player or monster and even things like Heroforge become pretty redundant. Obviously not everyone does this yet, and it's still a niche within a niche, but it's a rapidly growing one and the 3d printing market seems to cater far more to RPG folks than wargamers (largely due to the hassle of printiing armies versus the ease of a few minis for an encounter or session).
These (ar least going by the price) are positioning themselves as a 'quality over quantity' range, so it's possible they're trying to a) counteract the fact that budget ranges are increasingly being replaced by printers and b) capitalising on the fact that due to printing's relatively low cost, some of the market is going to have more 'spare' gaming funds to throw at the odd special model.
Licensing fees could be a part of it. Perhaps Wizards of the Coast believes that exclusive access to licensed customizable D&D miniatures should be a premium.
I was thinking that maybe, if the sprue Lord_Blackfang posted isn't related to wizkids, it could possibly be an attempt by Wizards to do a true Warhammer quest competitor (and decent and gloomhaven) with full plastic kits. That's jumping to a lot of conclusions but maybe they want to snag some GW fans by branching D&D out to high end boardgames instead of all the cheap things they've done in the past?
Breotan did seam to think the wizkids renders as they've been shown cut wouldn't work well in plastic (I don't understand plastic mold making enough to know if he's right) so it got me thinking.
Monkeysloth wrote: I was thinking that maybe, if the sprue Lord_Blackfang posted isn't related to wizkids, it could possibly be an attempt by Wizards to do a true Warhammer quest competitor (and decent and gloomhaven) with full plastic kits. That's jumping to a lot of conclusions but maybe they want to snag some GW fans by branching D&D out to high end boardgames instead of all the cheap things they've done in the past?
Breotan did seam to think the wizkids renders as they've been shown cut wouldn't work well in plastic (I don't understand plastic mold making enough to know if he's right) so it got me thinking.
On the one hand I think that is a bit of a jump too far, and yet GW's financial successes over the past few years are sure to have gotten the attention of hasbro/ wizards of the coast who are going to want in on that kind of action. So it's not totally unreasonable. But I don't think too likely...
wouldn't be the first time WOTC's jumped on a gaming bandwagon, back when WK's clix games where at their height WOTC jumped into the CMG market pretty big
Monkeysloth wrote: I was thinking that maybe, if the sprue Lord_Blackfang posted isn't related to wizkids, it could possibly be an attempt by Wizards to do a true Warhammer quest competitor (and decent and gloomhaven) with full plastic kits. That's jumping to a lot of conclusions but maybe they want to snag some GW fans by branching D&D out to high end boardgames instead of all the cheap things they've done in the past?
Breotan did seam to think the wizkids renders as they've been shown cut wouldn't work well in plastic (I don't understand plastic mold making enough to know if he's right) so it got me thinking.
On the one hand I think that is a bit of a jump too far, and yet GW's financial successes over the past few years are sure to have gotten the attention of hasbro/ wizards of the coast who are going to want in on that kind of action. So it's not totally unreasonable. But I don't think too likely...
GWs success does point out that people will fork over however much you want if you have an Official Brand Sticker on your product.
Monkeysloth wrote: I was thinking that maybe, if the sprue Lord_Blackfang posted isn't related to wizkids, it could possibly be an attempt by Wizards to do a true Warhammer quest competitor (and decent and gloomhaven) with full plastic kits. That's jumping to a lot of conclusions but maybe they want to snag some GW fans by branching D&D out to high end boardgames instead of all the cheap things they've done in the past?
Breotan did seam to think the wizkids renders as they've been shown cut wouldn't work well in plastic (I don't understand plastic mold making enough to know if he's right) so it got me thinking.
On the one hand I think that is a bit of a jump too far, and yet GW's financial successes over the past few years are sure to have gotten the attention of hasbro/ wizards of the coast who are going to want in on that kind of action. So it's not totally unreasonable. But I don't think too likely...
GWs success does point out that people will fork over however much you want if you have an Official Brand Sticker on your product.
you mean like Dungeons and Dragons, or Magic the Gathering?
There are some cool builds for the PCs. I think it would have cost them very little and been much easier to justify the cost if there were a peg system for swapping hands and weapons. The material is light weight enough that they should hold with non-round ones I would wager. And maybe I'm being a bit more critical because it seams like something that they should have done but didn't as what RPG player wouldn't love an easy way to do that? With heroforge only $5 more this would have been a great way to offer something they don't.
The dwarf is a great example as she has the stein and that player could swap to a shield or tomb when dungeon crawling and keep the stein for other instances. There are heads with expressions too but I'm not sure they'd stay on without glue, unlike the fighter next to her that has pegs. Though Bluetac might work for the dwarf heads.
Darn.
Now I really want Lego PC kits with different heads and arms.
I personally am not the biggest fan of Nolzur's (sp) because somehow, the human-likes feel off when I paint them and I find some parts to be a bit on the fiddly side. These look to be better proportioned and have a better material but still, it's much for what are still monopose figures with little in the way of actual choice.
There are some cool builds for the PCs. I think it would have cost them very little and been much easier to justify the cost if there were a peg system for swapping hands and weapons. The material is light weight enough that they should hold with non-round ones I would wager. And maybe I'm being a bit more critical because it seams like something that they should have done but didn't as what RPG player wouldn't love an easy way to do that? With heroforge only $5 more this would have been a great way to offer something they don't.
The dwarf is a great example as she has the stein and that player could swap to a shield or tomb when dungeon crawling and keep the stein for other instances. There are heads with expressions too but I'm not sure they'd stay on without glue, unlike the fighter next to her that has pegs. Though Bluetac might work for the dwarf heads.
Darn.
Now I really want Lego PC kits with different heads and arms.
Those do exist. 3rd party lego minifigs customizing companies are a big thing out here in the states. There's at least 2 stores dedicated to them in the valley I live in. You can tottaly get a ton of D&D options for them. Here's one that advertises as being for RPGshttps://adventurebricks.com/
Lego has no interest in going after any of them as long as they play nice with Lego's Trademarks (meaning don't use them) as they really don't have the patents for a lot of their brick designs anymore.
Monkeysloth wrote: I was thinking that maybe, if the sprue Lord_Blackfang posted isn't related to wizkids, it could possibly be an attempt by Wizards to do a true Warhammer quest competitor (and decent and gloomhaven) with full plastic kits. That's jumping to a lot of conclusions but maybe they want to snag some GW fans by branching D&D out to high end boardgames instead of all the cheap things they've done in the past?
Breotan did seam to think the wizkids renders as they've been shown cut wouldn't work well in plastic (I don't understand plastic mold making enough to know if he's right) so it got me thinking.
On the one hand I think that is a bit of a jump too far, and yet GW's financial successes over the past few years are sure to have gotten the attention of hasbro/ wizards of the coast who are going to want in on that kind of action. So it's not totally unreasonable. But I don't think too likely...
Oh, it's totally a not too likely but just a what if as I couldn't really think of what else they'd be doing if the Archon sprues weren't for Wizkids as they said and I think that if that is the case then Wizards doing a real premium game with maybe Avalon Hill helping is much more likely then Wizards getting back into skirmish wargaming where they've never had any luck outside of the PP Starwars minis (which was a decent game, I had an ewok army that took up 1/3rd of a board for trolling friends).
Since Hasbro has owned them they've tried several times get a wargame out: Chainmail, plastic D&D minis (which was a dumb game and most people don't realize it was a wargame), and I strongly believe 4E D&D started life as a wargame ruleset. A premium boardgame is a much lower risk, and easier sell, the starting with a wargame. If they wanted to branch out they can even just follow GW and make all the stuff in the boargame usable in the wargame.
I just can't see Hasbro being happy to have D&D, or Magic, being having only their main games and licenses for income. D&D has collapsed several times under Wizards in popularity and now that it's actually making money it make sense for them to branch out of RPGs and licenses and try to make it other things again. And Magic is one of the longest lived, continuously , popular games of any of our life times so the fact they aren't exploiting that game's IPs more is surprising. I know the magic fanbase has been very strongly opinionated about other IPs being brought into Magic but there's a lot of fluff and world building in Magic to be used elsewhere -- Like D&D books that have started coming out.
I have no particular interest in D&D miniatures, but I have no idea why people find the prices here high. GW recently released two witch hunter models with much less customizability than these, for $50 for the two of them. And it sold out. So why do you think people wouldn't pay $15 for a single hero with a lot of options? Obviously people will and have paid much more.
Albino Squirrel wrote: I have no particular interest in D&D miniatures, but I have no idea why people find the prices here high. GW recently released two witch hunter models with much less customizability than these, for $50 for the two of them. And it sold out. So why do you think people wouldn't pay $15 for a single hero with a lot of options? Obviously people will and have paid much more.
"yeah but that was for warhammer!"
in all seriousness though yeah I agree it seems god damned silly. especially as if I'm buying a mini for my 5th level fighter... I'm buying ONE mini, and thats that.
Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
warboss wrote: Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
sure but even if we accept that, how much does GW charge for a single character model?
if people are willing to pay that much I think it's a safe bet people'll put down 15 bucks for a D&D mini.
warboss wrote: Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
sure but even if we accept that, how much does GW charge for a single character model?
if people are willing to pay that much I think it's a safe bet people'll put down 15 bucks for a D&D mini.
But people aren’t paying that kind of money for figures without the GW brand. And anyone who will only buy the DnD brand will run right into the 2-for-$5 option in any kind of a search or browse for that brand. GW doesn’t have any more affordable options in-brand, while DND has many options, plenty of which are better looking than the $15 characters and $25-$100 monsters.
warboss wrote: Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
sure but even if we accept that, how much does GW charge for a single character model?
if people are willing to pay that much I think it's a safe bet people'll put down 15 bucks for a D&D mini.
But people aren’t paying that kind of money for figures without the GW brand. And anyone who will only buy the DnD brand will run right into the 2-for-$5 option in any kind of a search or browse for that brand. GW doesn’t have any more affordable options in-brand, while DND has many options, plenty of which are better looking than the $15 characters and $25-$100 monsters.
IDK, I think you're making some big assumptions. I mean honestly, it's not like the digital sculpts are any worse than GW ones, they just don't all have (sometimes) convoluted poses on tactical rocks, and have more realistic proportions- things that are actually rather attractive.
Likewise, I think you're missing that the value from them comes from NOT getting a lump of rubber with bent out of shape swords and spears that the 2 for $5's often seem to be (from my experience), but something you con customize -and in the hands of people who are willing to try thier hand at conversions (depending on the nature of the material they use) potentially open to so, so many more options.
And if these minis are in a scale more comparable with the rest of the various ranges then so much the better.
Is this gonna take down GW? No, of course not! But I think the idea has legs, and there is a market for them.
warboss wrote: Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
sure but even if we accept that, how much does GW charge for a single character model?
if people are willing to pay that much I think it's a safe bet people'll put down 15 bucks for a D&D mini.
But people aren’t paying that kind of money for figures without the GW brand. And anyone who will only buy the DnD brand will run right into the 2-for-$5 option in any kind of a search or browse for that brand. GW doesn’t have any more affordable options in-brand, while DND has many options, plenty of which are better looking than the $15 characters and $25-$100 monsters.
I think you guys underestimate what D&D players will pay, and I say this as someone who has painted minis for D&D for going on 30 years now. These look better, IMO, than GW's skull covered nonsense. I think the single PC figures will sell well. You only need one for your PC (or for each PC in the group), so people will spend a bit extra, particularly with the customizable bits to make the mini feel like its "theirs". Many of the parts look interchangeable (the heads are all either on pegs or designed to fit on pegs) and look more cohesive as a whole than, say, Heroforge. Plus the material is better.
The monsters are a harder sell. You need a good number of various types, and multiples of that type. Paying $40 for a hill giant (that you need 3-4 of in a high level encounter) vs $14 for a nolzur's/deep cuts... yeah, no. This isnt Warhammer where you'll use that $100 greater demon in most games. You'll use that $100 demon likely once.
But I AM buying that hag w the clear candy sprues!
$15 for your character is not bad, especially if it feels like an upgrade or like you are going “all out” for your character.
In my pathfinder group, one of the guys always gets a premium plastic hero forge mini for his character… which I think is like $40… with shipping. That’s great, but his mini is never really good enough to justify the price, so I think these D&d ones will definitely have a market…
But… instead of buying all new releases or buying 10 or more at a time, I do think most will only buy 1 or 2 of these…
…also, while I think the $15 is not bad… the $50 for 5 Orcs or kobolds… is a big no. Would I spend $15 for an important npc? Sure. Would I spend $10 on a random Kobold… no… also I don’t think I want to put as much effort in to assembling enough kobolds to do an encounter with either. The bones kobolds from bones 3? Had arms you needed to attach, and I didn’t want to do that for the 50 kobolds I got… much let’s assemble 7-12 pieces for 1 Kobold. (Just guessing on part count and exaggerating probable part counts to make it sound worse than it probably is.)
So to sum up… $15 for a character is not bad, but I don’t think these will fly off the shelves. $50 for 5 minion bad guys I think is bad, and because there are cheaper options that will be just as good compared to the time these will actually be in play, means the big sets probably won’t be very popular.
Yeah, I've seen in my group we'll splurge a bit for a character mini or named NPC monster (like Strahd, Asmodeus or such), but when it comes to mook enemies and the like, cheaper wins every time.
If they restrict this line to customizable PCs, I can see it surviving. The other monsters? Not likely.
The the monster multikits (orcs, kobolds) I feel they're charging more as they know they're going to sell less but at the same time have made that more likely the case by charging so much that I do think people will avoid them. But maybe they'll look at the PCs at $15 for 1 and think these are a great deal.
Smokestack wrote: $50 for 5 Orcs… at that point GW may be the cheaper option.
assumiong they're "in scale" you can get a box of 20 savage Orks for about that price. so yeah, assuming you don't mind the primitative motiff... it's cheaper
warboss wrote: Gw prices aren't the benchmark of what is fair and reasonable; they are closer to the absolute maximum that a market leader can force on a relatively captive consumer base.
sure but even if we accept that, how much does GW charge for a single character model?
if people are willing to pay that much I think it's a safe bet people'll put down 15 bucks for a D&D mini.
But people aren’t paying that kind of money for figures without the GW brand. And anyone who will only buy the DnD brand will run right into the 2-for-$5 option in any kind of a search or browse for that brand. GW doesn’t have any more affordable options in-brand, while DND has many options, plenty of which are better looking than the $15 characters and $25-$100 monsters.
That isn't true. Other companies have done fairly well with GW style prices on a per model basis (for smaller skirmish games, even if they're less for a functioning force on the table). Both Privateer and Wyrd come to mind.
And you're also ignoring that D&D is very much a brand of its own. It has its own pull that's as big or bigger than the 'GW brand,' and its very much hyper focused on the latest thing, even when there are better choices.
One of the biggest complaints with 5e D&D is that there isn't _enough_ to spend money on. While the complaints are more focused on the lack of books and game content, some people will jump at any opportunity to spend money.
Smokestack wrote: $50 for 5 Orcs… at that point GW may be the cheaper option.
assumiong they're "in scale" you can get a box of 20 savage Orks for about that price. so yeah, assuming you don't mind the primitative motiff... it's cheaper
A bit off topic but if you need budget monsters, EM4 has old Grendier plastics for literally pennies a model.
with the prices they've shown, i wonder if they are planning to market these outside the hobby store zone and more towards walmart/target type stores, so then they catch the people that know what dnd is kinda sorta, but won't be up on the much cheaper options out there
I feel like these will definitely show up in book stores that decided to slowly shift into being toy and puzzle stores. (I assume that trend continued, I haven't been into a US bookstore is quiet a while lol)
Carlovonsexron wrote: I feel like these will definitely show up in book stores that decided to slowly shift into being toy and puzzle stores. (I assume that trend continued, I haven't been into a US bookstore is quiet a while lol)
it continues at least in Canada, they've made bank off my mother during covid, she's discovered the joy of puzzles
Voss wrote: That isn't true. Other companies have done fairly well with GW style prices on a per model basis (for smaller skirmish games, even if they're less for a functioning force on the table). Both Privateer and Wyrd come to mind.
And you're also ignoring that D&D is very much a brand of its own. It has its own pull that's as big or bigger than the 'GW brand,' and its very much hyper focused on the latest thing, even when there are better choices.
One of the biggest complaints with 5e D&D is that there isn't _enough_ to spend money on. While the complaints are more focused on the lack of books and game content, some people will jump at any opportunity to spend money.
Yahbut don't GW, Wyrd, and Privateer have their own universes that 3rd party companies don't have miniatures for? With D&D and other generic fantasy game systems, I can pretty much use an orc, goblin, or PC from any miniatures line. In fact, GW destroyed their own generic fantasy Fantasy Warhammer universe, to replace it with their IP-owned Age of Sigmar.
WotC's (?) shot at the mass market (eg. bookstores, big box stores) was its "blind box" prepainted miniatures line. I think it ended with oil prices rising, which ended HeroScape as well. Prior, Wizards attempted the more hobby-oriented metal miniatures market with Chainmail. Still, WizKids released licensed D&D mini's (prepainted blind box, unpainted, plastic and papercraft terrain sets), thus showing that there *is* brand value to the D&D and Pathfinder names. The $15 question is if the brand will be worth these prices. (Me, I wish WotC would put out written adventures that used the miniatures and tiles from the D&D system games. The D&D system games have a greater economy of scale because of boardgamers. Of course, the miniature quality isn't on par with hobby miniatures, so those sprues had better be good!)
Carlovonsexron wrote: I feel like these will definitely show up in book stores that decided to slowly shift into being toy and puzzle stores. (I assume that trend continued, I haven't been into a US bookstore is quiet a while lol)
Kinda,
There are two B&N near me, one doesnt carry any games and only book,
one has a good selection.
Millinials and Gen Z have had a good relationship with book stores now and buy more from them.
Smokestack wrote: $50 for 5 Orcs… at that point GW may be the cheaper option.
assumiong they're "in scale" you can get a box of 20 savage Orks for about that price. so yeah, assuming you don't mind the primitative motiff... it's cheaper
A bit off topic but if you need budget monsters, EM4 has old Grendier plastics for literally pennies a model.
Voss wrote: That isn't true. Other companies have done fairly well with GW style prices on a per model basis (for smaller skirmish games, even if they're less for a functioning force on the table). Both Privateer and Wyrd come to mind.
And you're also ignoring that D&D is very much a brand of its own. It has its own pull that's as big or bigger than the 'GW brand,' and its very much hyper focused on the latest thing, even when there are better choices.
One of the biggest complaints with 5e D&D is that there isn't _enough_ to spend money on. While the complaints are more focused on the lack of books and game content, some people will jump at any opportunity to spend money.
Yahbut don't GW, Wyrd, and Privateer have their own universes that 3rd party companies don't have miniatures for? With D&D and other generic fantasy game systems, I can pretty much use an orc, goblin, or PC from any miniatures line. In fact, GW destroyed their own generic fantasy Fantasy Warhammer universe, to replace it with their IP-owned Age of Sigmar.
Certain creatures aren't in the SRD, so are WOTC IP. Mindflayers, Beholders, Displacer Beasts, etc. You can find "counts as"/knockoffs sure, but some people want the figure to look like the monster manual pic. Plus you have adventure tie-ins. GF9 does this with their resins and Wizkids does it with their blind box themed packages. I think people will buy a Minsc/Drizzt/Tasha figure for fun.
WotC's (?) shot at the mass market (eg. bookstores, big box stores) was its "blind box" prepainted miniatures line. I think it ended with oil prices rising, which ended HeroScape as well.
I think it was actually rising wages in China. D&D prepaints, Star Wars, and a bunch of other games disappeared. I think Hero Clix is the only one left.
WotC's (?) shot at the mass market (eg. bookstores, big box stores) was its "blind box" prepainted miniatures line. I think it ended with oil prices rising, which ended HeroScape as well.
I think it was actually rising wages in China. D&D prepaints, Star Wars, and a bunch of other games disappeared. I think Hero Clix is the only one left.
\
I've heard both oil and wages and considering how a few pennies per figure could really destroy profit on those (and people probably not wanting to pay more for the same thing at the time).
I know Star Wars was in part due to the contrast WoTC had with Lucasfilm. I had a friend at WoTC at that time and the percentage of sales that they were supposed to pay Lucas went up every couple of years and even though they were still selling decently once WoTC got to having to send around 20% to Lucas they no longer were at that point in the games life (and the RPG) so it wasn't worth renewing the license as a whole and not just the pre-paints getting replaced with something else.
I do miss her working there. Didn't really play most things WoTC made so she'd use her employee points for free stuff for the group here when she game into town. Whole cases of Starwars or D&D minis for free. Have the Colossal WoTC AT-AT from that.
the great recession also hit around the same time, which proably didn't help eaither as when a recession hits the first thing that dries up are luxery purchases, ESPECIALLY luxery purchases for little timmy.
Colour me interested. Character minis are cool, but very specific. Kobolds, orcs and such though are right up my alley. Not a fan of bendy plastic or heavy pewter, so...
Monkeysloth wrote: So this explains why the Frameworks line was so expensive. It's HIPS not PVC.
Yeah, the price turns me off a bit. I don't us GW as the baseline for single small sprue plastic prices personally but YMMV.
I think the monsters are still over priced I think but the humanoids are much more reasonable as they should be $12 with your average discount (and things are just getting more expensive in general now days so I'd not expect them to hit $10 a figure). Especially since you're getting actual reusable and mod-able bits vs PVC which is what most people originally thought they were.
$15, without discount, for a multipart customizable character seems reasonable. A single non-customizable GW character is in the range of $30+. These are one off purchases for the most part. It isn't like people are buying an army of female dwarf clerics for D&D.
Now the squads and large monsters do definitely get pricier.
I was referring to the Hag in the video being $25. Admittedly I wasn't clear at all though in my post. I fully admit I'm old man yelling at cloud sprue with regard to plastics pricing.
If the hag is on a 40mm base then I can see that price but there's no reason for it to be $25 outside of them charging more for figures they think will sell slower ala GW.
They have set expectations of $2.50 per miniature in their five dollar packs that usually feature two figures. Some people will buy the new ones but they have bred a market that expects two little dudes for a very cheap price.
I doubt these prices are going to attract anyone with a full bits box and any experience outside of the GW (or the expensive official DnD minis) bubble.
They should have just packed two sprues in a box so people could build two options or add gear etc. as their character advances.
Very little additional production cost for them, but gives it that premium feel of being able to have a pretty individualized character model that levels up. There was some metal manufacturer that sold sculpts of the same miniature at three different power levels. I always thought it was a cool concept.
I would buy two for the price they want for one if I were playing.
I have Marine bits from 20 years ago that I can still use with marines. But a different arm that can only fit on a certain ogre... what good is that? Unless I happen to find an ogre with the same proportions and who could use that particular arm.
For something like this a Hero Forge account and 3D printer seems the better investment.
Ahtman wrote: $15, without discount, for a multipart customizable character seems reasonable. A single non-customizable GW character is in the range of $30+. These are one off purchases for the most part. It isn't like people are buying an army of female dwarf clerics for D&D.
Now the squads and large monsters do definitely get pricier.
You hit upon the issue at the end. $15 for your character is a cheap-ish luxury you only need one of per campaign per player. The PC is important, will be in (nearly) every battle, and will get used every session. A $10 upsell is easy.
$25 for a single ogre, a monster you fight in groups of 3+ ($75), where you need trolls next adventure ($75) and it gets absurd. They're competing with $5 D&D branded ogres and trolls. And while the man sized Deep Cuts/Nolzur's aren't particularly great, their large/huge figures are much better. And at 1/5th the price, I think most DM's will trade the smallish drop in quality over the massive boost in quantity.
This is likely what WoTC is working with Archon with as there have been lots of attempts to make a D&D wargame over the years (heck, D&D started as one). I wouldn't be surprised if WoTC is looking at GW thinking about how they can mirror some of their success considering the immense popularity of some of their IPs.
Unlikely. WotC has already tried twice, first with a heavily revised version of Chainmail — they kept the name and changed most everything else— and then with the D&D Miniatures Game. They may license the name, but that would be it.
Chainmail was actually really popular, WotC canned it because they decided they didn't want to produce metal minis, not because of poor sales. A lot of the Chainmail figs were directly copied over into prepainted plastics for the early D&D Miniatures Game sets, which was also incredibly popular for many years. It's still a really good game, you can find all the stat cards and rulebooks online for 1st and second edition (D&D 3.0 and 4.0) and whatever your feelings are on 4th ed D&D, it translated REALLY well into a tabletop skirmish game.
I do wish there was a currently produced official ruleset to use the Wizkids stuff in, seems like a missed opportunity. At the very least, I can't believe there aren't conversion rules to use them in the D&D board games series (Wrath of Ashardalon, Castle Ravenloft etc).
Kalamadea wrote: and whatever your feelings are on 4th ed D&D, it translated REALLY well into a tabletop skirmish game.
My feelings on 4th is it stared as a wargame and when the higher ups freaked out about declining 3.x sales told people to get a new edition out ASAP and so they just took those rules and added some light RPG stuff and called it a day. I have no real evidence outside of people that I know that worked at WoTC at the time and they said that none of the first set of 4th edition books were play tested at a company level (meaning by WoTC employees not directly on the D&D rules team) like all the previous releases were and no one knew the game existed until it was officially announced (and one of the people that told me that actually worked on D&D books and had no clue). But 4th is a great wargame framework but horrible RPG.
Kalamadea wrote: and whatever your feelings are on 4th ed D&D, it translated REALLY well into a tabletop skirmish game.
My feelings on 4th is it stared as a wargame and when the higher ups freaked out about declining 3.x sales told people to get a new edition out ASAP and so they just took those rules and added some light RPG stuff and called it a day. I have no real evidence outside of people that I know that worked at WoTC at the time and they said that none of the first set of 4th edition books were play tested at a company level (meaning by WoTC employees not directly on the D&D rules team) like all the previous releases were and no one knew the game existed until it was officially announced (and one of the people that told me that actually worked on D&D books and had no clue). But 4th is a great wargame framework but horrible RPG.
My impression was that the D&D mini game was doing so well at the time that, of course, that was what 4E should be about supporting (the mini game stat cards & 4E rules were awfully similar, vs. the 3E stats). Unfortunately, mini costs spiked shortly afterward and the mini aspect/gae was discontinued. With as popular as the minis are again, I'm surprised they haven't picked up the mini game again.
I'll also mention "Swords & Spells" which was TSR's attempt to create a wholly D&D based tabletop miniatures game, and "Battlesystem", TSR's 2nd attempt. I played both BITD, and the original Chainmail back in the day. Very, uhm, primordial by our modern standards.
WotC seems to be focused on the next edition/pseudo-edition of D&D and the computer gaming. Everything else is licensed out. Who knows, maybe WizKids or FFG will try.
I'm still wondering how well this line will do. Miniatures guys are a very small sub-set of RPG gamers these days.
I think 4e was more influenced by WOW and the goal of being "balanced" at the expense of everything else moreso than the minis game. When 4e came out or was coming out, they basically torpedoed the minis game to make it better reflect 4e, not the other way around.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that.
Huh? Even back in 1E/2E, D&D had lots of minis. Grenadier, TSR and Ral Partha had official / compatible D&D minis way back in the 80s for sure!
Sure, you didn't have to, but they were definitely around!
$15 for a modern X-in-1 hero model is very reasonable for a RPG player who just needs the one mini for their PC, not an entire army (like the poor GM). And having dealt with Bones, if they're modern HIPS, so much the better for being able to use ordinary hobby tools and techniques for plastic scale models.
Red Harvest wrote: I'll also mention "Swords & Spells" which was TSR's attempt to create a wholly D&D based tabletop miniatures game, and "Battlesystem", TSR's 2nd attempt. I played both BITD, and the original Chainmail back in the day. Very, uhm, primordial by our modern standards.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that.
Huh? Even back in 1E/2E, D&D had lots of minis. Grenadier, TSR and Ral Partha had official / compatible D&D minis way back in the 80s for sure!
Sure, you didn't have to, but they were definitely around!
$15 for a modern X-in-1 hero model is very reasonable for a RPG player who just needs the one mini for their PC, not an entire army (like the poor GM). And having dealt with Bones, if they're modern HIPS, so much the better for being able to use ordinary hobby tools and techniques for plastic scale models.
Hell, even GW did an official line of AD&D miniatures back in the day, and Citadel Miniatures were used to promote D&D through breakfast cereal promotions.
Kalamadea wrote: and whatever your feelings are on 4th ed D&D, it translated REALLY well into a tabletop skirmish game.
My feelings on 4th is it stared as a wargame and when the higher ups freaked out about declining 3.x sales told people to get a new edition out ASAP and so they just took those rules and added some light RPG stuff and called it a day. I have no real evidence outside of people that I know that worked at WoTC at the time and they said that none of the first set of 4th edition books were play tested at a company level (meaning by WoTC employees not directly on the D&D rules team) like all the previous releases were and no one knew the game existed until it was officially announced (and one of the people that told me that actually worked on D&D books and had no clue). But 4th is a great wargame framework but horrible RPG.
4th was a replacement system. The original 4th edition (codenamed Orcus) was based on the Book of Nine Swords and other late 3rd edition books (like the Magic of Blue- I forget the official name, and the book with the Shadowcaster/Truenamer/Vestige channeller class- whatever that was called, it was a warlock but not called that because that already existed). But for whatever reason they axed that, and then scrambled for a replacement, because they'd already given Hasbro a timeline for a new edition launch. And a former/lead designer at the time basically muddied the relationship by Hasbro by making big promises that D&D could be a major money earning property like Magic or Monopoly and failed miserably (Hasbro has a fixed earnings threshold for that classification, and D&D earnings generally weren't high enough to even rate a mention in annual reports at the time- it was considered a pet or morale project for the Wizards division, and Hasbro didn't care about it as long as it wasn't actively losing them money and Magic kept making money)
That 4th edition as printed started out as a framework for a new edition of the miniatures game wouldn't surprise me at all. Everything happens on the battlemap and the rules implications are that nothing happens when the PCs aren't there, monster equipment isn't 'real' and nothing much matters out of combat time.
There were also the Minifigs minis for D&D. Many of these were based on the illustrations from the AD&D monster manual, much like what Otherworld minis do today. They were not as good as Ral Partha ( nothing else was as good as Ral Partha, really) or Grenadier.
Red Harvest wrote: I'll also mention "Swords & Spells" which was TSR's attempt to create a wholly D&D based tabletop miniatures game, and "Battlesystem", TSR's 2nd attempt. I played both BITD, and the original Chainmail back in the day. Very, uhm, primordial by our modern standards.
Respect.
That's at least 10 years before MY time.
Really? I thought that you were early to mid-80's. I played them in '78-'79, and then Battlesystem when it released in circa '85.
They really were not all that much fun. A good fantasy miniatures game didn't arrive until the 2nd edition of Warhammer.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that.
Huh? Even back in 1E/2E, D&D had lots of minis. Grenadier, TSR and Ral Partha had official / compatible D&D minis way back in the 80s for sure!
$15 for a modern X-in-1 hero model is very reasonable for a RPG player who just needs the one mini for their PC, not an entire army (like the poor GM). And having dealt with Bones, if they're modern HIPS, so much the better for being able to use ordinary hobby tools and techniques for plastic scale models.
Hell, even GW did an official line of AD&D miniatures back in the day, and Citadel Miniatures were used to promote D&D through breakfast cereal promotions.
Palladium is pretty funny. No concept of balance whatsoever, so it's entirely up to the GM to keep things in line.
Don't forget they're also lying scammers!
I'm owed a RRT MAC-II Monster and Armored Valks from the KS that those fethers never delivered. That they're liars and scammers is basically a given at this point.
I vaguely recall that Warhammer Fantasy was somehow D&D adjacent, but I wasn't aware that they tied into breakfast cereal marketing. That's really funny to me.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: It’s probably because I’m old, so very old, but every RPG group I’ve ever been in used only the books, paper and pens. We never used miniatures or tiles or anything like that.
Huh? Even back in 1E/2E, D&D had lots of minis. Grenadier, TSR and Ral Partha had official / compatible D&D minis way back in the 80s for sure!
$15 for a modern X-in-1 hero model is very reasonable for a RPG player who just needs the one mini for their PC, not an entire army (like the poor GM). And having dealt with Bones, if they're modern HIPS, so much the better for being able to use ordinary hobby tools and techniques for plastic scale models.
Hell, even GW did an official line of AD&D miniatures back in the day, and Citadel Miniatures were used to promote D&D through breakfast cereal promotions.
Palladium is pretty funny. No concept of balance whatsoever, so it's entirely up to the GM to keep things in line.
Don't forget they're also lying scammers!
I'm owed a RRT MAC-II Monster and Armored Valks from the KS that those fethers never delivered. That they're liars and scammers is basically a given at this point.
I vaguely recall that Warhammer Fantasy was somehow D&D adjacent, but I wasn't aware that they tied into breakfast cereal marketing. That's really funny to me.
Yeah, I'm old enough to remember them.
The cards came in packs of Shreddies.
Really? I thought that you were early to mid-80's. I played them in '78-'79, and then Battlesystem when it released in circa '85.
They really were not all that much fun. A good fantasy miniatures game didn't arrive until the 2nd edition of Warhammer.
1983-84ish the D&D cartoon and the basic set in the window of my local general store lured me in. I remember Battlesystem but never played it, never saw Chainmail in the wild. Never even heard of Swords and Spells.
Funny. These days 6 years goes by like water, but back then 6 years was an eternity.
RazorEdge wrote: I wonder if those Framworks Miniatures a test balloon for more. Maybe a skimisher with small Warbands sometime?
The relases say "wave one".
That's almost certainly projection of what you want vs what they're intending to sell. Sure, Wizkids would love for people to buy a several figures at $15 each for a skirmish battle game; however, there's no expectation for that sort of thing. This isn't being marketed as some sort of Heroclix game.
There are a LOT more than 4 flavors of D&D Hero:
* 2 sexes: male v female
* 7 races: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc
* 9 classes: fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, cleric, druid, wizard, sorceror, thief.
That's 126 combinations, so there can be a vast number of waves to follow if this goes well.
There are a LOT more than 4 flavors of D&D Hero:
* 2 sexes: male v female
* 7 races: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc
* 9 classes: fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, cleric, druid, wizard, sorceror, thief.
That's 126 combinations, so there can be a vast number of waves to follow if this goes well.
A lot more than that, your races list is based on 1st edition. In recent years D&D has added half dragons, cat people, bunny people, turtle people and who knows what else.
There are a LOT more than 4 flavors of D&D Hero:
* 2 sexes: male v female
* 7 races: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc
* 9 classes: fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, cleric, druid, wizard, sorceror, thief.
That's 126 combinations, so there can be a vast number of waves to follow if this goes well.
A lot more than that, your races list is based on 1st edition. In recent years D&D has added half dragons, cat people, bunny people, turtle people and who knows what else.
Yeah.
D&D is now a furry game.
Remember when sexual fetishes were something you explored in your private life rather than making them part of your public identity?
*zips hooded top all the way up and pretends to be asleep*
There are a LOT more than 4 flavors of D&D Hero:
* 2 sexes: male v female
* 7 races: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc
* 9 classes: fighter, ranger, paladin, barbarian, cleric, druid, wizard, sorceror, thief.
That's 126 combinations, so there can be a vast number of waves to follow if this goes well.
A lot more than that, your races list is based on 1st edition. In recent years D&D has added half dragons, cat people, bunny people, turtle people and who knows what else.
Yeah.
D&D is now a furry game.
I last played 3E, when D&D was still Tolkienesque in theme, hence barbarian & half-orc.
I'm not surprised that D&D has changed with the times to be 'more inclusive'. LOL
I'm not surprised that D&D has changed with the times to be 'more inclusive'. LOL
As ekwatts alluded to, it's more about really kinky nerd sexting.
Yeah, it isn't at all about "inclusivity". D&D was always inclusive. Infinitely so. D&D inherently doesn't care in the slightest if you're black, female, gay, and never has. You might even argue that that is the whole point of it.
What I'm talking about is the way certain fetishes have been transformed into "lifestyle choices". By extension, I guess, once you get your own statline in D&D, you've really made it!
A lot more than that, your races list is based on 1st edition. In recent years D&D has added half dragons, cat people, bunny people, turtle people and who knows what else.
Yeah.
D&D is now a furry game.
I actually enjoy the addition of tortles. The others, not so much. I just can't figure out why they decided to make the playable humanoid analog of one of the longest living land animals an incredibly short lived race except to "subvert expectations".
...
(well, not 
