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Posted By Boss_Salvage on 09/07/2007 7:13 AM

This whole "Rackham only does prepaints now" deal is, at best, unfortunate.

- Salvage

I wish you were wrong   But every day tells me you're right.

Posted By Caern on 09/07/2007 10:59 AM

Posted By Jezrael on 09/07/2007 10:02 AM
The figure's sculpts aren't as good either. They seem alot more flat. I guess thats because they have to be one peice for prepainting.

 

You know, I'm not going to get into a debate about sculpts. Everyone has their tastes, no one has to like anything by any company. But if you're going to make informed remarks about the sculpts, it would at least pay to have seen one in real life. They're multipart, and the statement that you think they're one piece shows you haven't really ever seen one.

I guess I stated an incorrect opinion based on my perception on the couple of pictures I have seen. I have seen the AT-43 pieces in person and I do not like them. They are not the amazing miniatures I had dreamed of when Rackham was rumored to have a sci-fi game in the works.

 

My opinion is that I do not like the way the new miniatures look compared to how the old stuff looked. I am sorry if that offends you sensibility.

I also meant to say that I hope that Rackham does not ruin their employee’s lives. I always have a sensitivity to those who suffer from the greed and corporate senselessness of their superiors.

While I understand the first part, their metal sculpts are sweet, that last part is silly. Greed? Prepainted may be the thing to keep them going. Its the biggest advantage they now have. Their scuplts are nice, but suffer from the problem everyone else have....who has time to paint yet another army or game?

Being able to play right out of the box is great for those of us who dont care about painting...

the wulfen are sweet. as for the paint jobs. they are better than most peoples so for some people this might be a godsend.

Actually this part shows, that you not even cared to inform yourself whats going on with Rackham and honw they handle business. They might be problematic sometimes when it comes to PR and organization, but else I do not see any reason for something like this.

Oh my gosh some of you guys are such knee-jerk reactionary fanbois. My opinions are about my perceptions of everything I have read from multiple sources and a synthesis of input from other people.

I perceive that these changes by businesses are about the making the quick buck. Even though I am very excited about GW' apocalypse I will openly admit it is the same thing. Corporate business generally does not go for steady and stable growth. They usually take a gamble on the next big thing. That is what I see Rackham doing. The original statements about prepaints that they made did not imply liquidating the metals. That is what I am annoyed at. I would think that keeping some of that product for the painter/collector would have been good business.

There are those of us who still prefer to paint/ model/ create their own armies. I realize that you can paint over them but its still not the same thing.

P.S.

I am half just fighting with you all for the fun off it. It's nice to have something to argue about other than my theology and ecclesiology classes in seminary.

So don?t get too offended. I love people not companies.

Guess what Fire Industries is for?

And around here most people got into Confrontation because they have a small collection of Rakham figs. These figs were picked up because they are amazing and people want to paint them. The rules weren't great, so people didn't play it as much, but they still bought the figs. I just don't see a reason to buy the prepaints. I like amazing figs and not toys. They come across more as toys, like the clix stuff. It will be hard to get past that perception for a lot of people. The hero models don't even compare to the metal ones. My armies all have non standard color schemes, and would have to repaint the minis anyway.

I don't hope they go under, but I hope they change their mind. The armies are small enough it is easy enough to paint a few figs for it, no matter how slow of a painter you are.

The biggest thing Rakham had going for them was the amazing minis. Not a lot of people do it for the background or the rules.

Well, the problem is: Out there are more gamers than painters. And exactly ignoring this fact for quite some time nearly killed Rackham. You are right, the miniatures are more for gamers than painters, but it will sell much better in the future because the majority wants to play. A painter just picks his few minis, a gamer buys the whole bunch. So, you have to face it, Rackham is producing toys.

Your perception is wrong. Sorry to burst your bubble.

While every company wants to make money.....this isnt a move for that. I can see it more as a move to fill a niche that isnt there, a prepainted game that comes right out of the box playable. Thats one of the joys of AT-43....I have FAR too many models lying around that I know I may never get to...and so many other nice games, but again, who wants more unpainted models?

Rackham's move is more to fill a role...playabe right from the get go. Wotc and heroclicks may also be prepainted....but who wants a random ponzi scheme?

Posted By Duncan_Idaho on 09/08/2007 2:30 PM
Well, the problem is: Out there are more gamers than painters. And exactly ignoring this fact for quite some time nearly killed Rackham. You are right, the miniatures are more for gamers than painters, but it will sell much better in the future because the majority wants to play. A painter just picks his few minis, a gamer buys the whole bunch. So, you have to face it, Rackham is producing toys.

That'd be fine with me if Rackham made a concerted effort to maintain their production of artistic sculpts too.  Even a few  special sculpts for the  painting/modeling fans every month would go far toward not alienating their existing customer base.   They've said that some models will still be made in metal, but haven't done so in anything but a few forum posts as far as I know.  The majority of Rackham fans feel like they've lost the artistic quality first company they loved.

The problem even today is: The artists buy that few stuff, that only sale via Fire Industries makes some sense financially, but this and some special metal releases will have to wait until the core business is back on track.

Most of the people at my shop buy the miniatures to paint and play. We don't play clix. I know there are a decent number of people that do, but we don't. We have multiple, painted, small confrontation forces. We don't play much, but we still have a lot of the figs.

But like you said, in a way these are like the toys bought at Wal-mart, and a lot of traditional gamers won't step foot into it. Helldorado seems to be more the way people are looking. Great sculpts to paint, and an interesting looking game. They may pick up a few people here and there, but a lot of the current gamers around our shop have no interest in it. it will be interesting to see what happens, but they are pushing a great many of the players around here away from the game. We may pick up some of the metal figs they put out, just to paint, but Infinity and HellDorado are getting a bunch of us.

I would imagine that any pre-painted miniature game would need to have a simply rock solid rules set, to the point of being better than nearly any other miniature game ruleset out there. The only other way to even make a dent would be to be collectible, which doesn't seem to be the way they are taking this.

The whole point of miniatures wargaming is being able to paint and build the army that you want. Pre-painteds reduces the game more to the level of a CCG or even bloodbowl: great games that are fun, but aren't exactly what you're going to spend tons of money on.

No. Thats YOUR reason for wargaming. But thats not everyones.

Some people dont give a crap about painting, and just want to play.

Without doing a survey though, I would suspect Carma, that it is a large percentage of the hobby, especially with people that already buy Rakham figs. All the furvor about Confrontation wasn't about the rules, it was the amazing sculpts. That is what brought it to the states in the first place. I don't think it would have made inroads otherwise. It's not that innovative compared to anything else.

You are also trying to break into a section of players that the whole modeling/painting aspect is deeply ingrained into. Sure, people play clix games, and people will play with the new Rakham prepaints, but you have to convince an entire hobby that what you are doing is better than what they already do. The people that come to shops are mostly people that are already part of the big painting/modeling aspect.

One of the reasons I originally got into the games was because of the sculpts. I found out at that point it was a small skirmish game, and that I could easily buy and paint the really nice figures without really breaking the budget I already spend on the hobby. Now they have to convince me that the rules and the prepainted figures are better than what I have been doing before. To do so, it would have to be cheaper, which it isn't. A lot of the clix players buy just masses of the figures, which they perceive are cheap. Now you have to convince them that the expensive figs (non-collectible) are better than what they are already doing for a much greater expense.

I would just suspect with a very large percentage of the crowd Rakham is going to have an uphill battle. Our hobby tends to be based around the "whole hobby" aspect. Now they have to convince us that the product they are putting out is amazing enough to get.

Like I said earlier, it will be interesting to see. I just don't see what they are doing as being the big innovation that they think it is. It just doesn't have all that much to offer a large group of us.

Yes rackham had great scuplts. I loved them. I have 3 armies worth sitting on my shelf....with 7 figures painted.

Many people dont care for painting. Its a chore. Something you have to do, not something people WANT to do. Or many that can do well.

Or places like Blue Table Painting and others wouldnt be doing what they're doing. And well.

We'll see.....AT-43 is doing nicely, so we'll see if pre-painted confrontation can do as well.

At my store guys that don't even paint there armies took one look at the underwhelming AT-43 boxes we got in and said they were not impressed. These are the guys that are just into playing and not painting. They are a huge minority too.

Infinity is becoming a new standard for small skirmish around here because people like the rules and the models.

Posted By Jezrael on 09/09/2007 9:00 AM
At my store guys that don't even paint there armies took one look at the underwhelming AT-43 boxes we got in and said they were not impressed. These are the guys that are just into playing and not painting. They are a huge minority too.

Infinity is becoming a new standard for small skirmish around here because people like the rules and the models.

So those guys must be unimpressed with the click paintjobs too, because as far as I can see the Rackham prepainted plastics are the gold standard right now. 

Rakham does have decent prepainted figures in comparison.

AT-43 is bombing in KC as far as I can tell from talking to store owners. There are a few players here and there, but it has a lot of competition for the dollar.

Which is somewhat surprising considering 40k sales at some of the shops had dropped to less than 1/3 of what it was last year. It would be the best time for AT-43 to make inroads.

It will be interesting to watch.

Around here full hobby guys are slowly but surely a group of people that becames smaller. Those buying minis just because of the looks and not of the rules are where the majority frequenting the shops a few years back. Sad but true.

Posted By Duncan_Idaho on 09/08/2007 12:44 PM
Guess what Fire Industries is for?

To prove that Forge World isn't the only guys who can put out a stupidly expensive resin dragon?

Posted By Drake_Marcus on 09/09/2007 9:18 AM

Posted By Jezrael on 09/09/2007 9:00 AM
At my store guys that don't even paint there armies took one look at the underwhelming AT-43 boxes we got in and said they were not impressed. These are the guys that are just into playing and not painting. They are a huge minority too.

Infinity is becoming a new standard for small skirmish around here because people like the rules and the models.

So those guys must be unimpressed with the click paintjobs too, because as far as I can see the Rackham prepainted plastics are the gold standard right now. 

Clicks? People buy those? The only clicks that actually sell around here are the AVP ones. But nobody ever even suggested that clicks were good looking.

I thought people bought clicks because of its collectible aspect.

Posted By malfred on 09/09/2007 10:06 PM
I thought people bought clicks because of its collectible aspect.

No one buys clix because the minis look lovely surely.  Just as no-one buys magic cards because the artwork is good!

They buy clix because the game is "fun" and they enjoy whopping their opponents by pulling out a "rare" that's worth a £bazillion on the internetz.

People continue to buy the "blind" packs because they are desperate for that one "uber" card/model that will get them the automatic win.

Its an invidious business model based on an addiction to gambling and other base aspects of human nature, as far as I can see. 

The other reason Clix works is that because of the random nature of packaging then the manufacturers can sell them at (say) £10 a packet.  Which is impulse-buy and pocket money territory. 

With Rackham (or Mongoose) prepaints they charing £20 for a unit of 6 or 8 foot troopers.  Which you now are only worth a handful of points and therefore aren't really worth that in game terms.  Fork out your £20 and all you have done is advance your army one tiny increment with not chance of gaining that "fantastic, cool" model that is "awesome".  No, for the fantastic, cool, awesome model you have to fork out another £30 or more....  and get just that.

Selling clix is like boiling a frog.  You know, that old thing where you can boil a frog alive buy putting it in cold water and gradually heating it up.  Selling AT-43 or CoAR is more like trying to boil the frog by chucking it straight into the pan of boiling water - so of course it will jump right back out again.

Get the money off the kids £10 a time and they will spend loads.  Ask them to buy £20 or more, and what is even worse - show them what they are actually going to be buying rather than sell them the "hope" of getting the best model, and they are more likely to run away.

Jep, even if you show them that they pay much more for CCG over the course of time, quite some people rather ignore this fact wholeheartedly.

@Forgeworld
True, they are not that cheap, but if you realize that they have extremly low production runs and that bigger models are produced on a customer to customer base, this levels out a bit. Onyl problem with Forgeworld I have ist the bedn pieces, no such problems with FI/Rackham resins up till now. And besides, the dragon is really worth its price, it´s rahter huge.

Posted By Osbad on 09/10/2007 12:57 AM

No one buys clix because the minis look lovely surely.  Just as no-one buys magic cards because the artwork is good!

They buy clix because the game is "fun" and they enjoy whopping their opponents by pulling out a "rare" that's worth a £bazillion on the internetz.

People continue to buy the "blind" packs because they are desperate for that one "uber" card/model that will get them the automatic win.

Its an invidious business model based on an addiction to gambling and other base aspects of human nature, as far as I can see. 

The other reason Clix works is that because of the random nature of packaging then the manufacturers can sell them at (say) £10 a packet.  Which is impulse-buy and pocket money territory. 

Get the money off the kids £10 a time and they will spend loads.  Ask them to buy £20 or more, and what is even worse - show them what they are actually going to be buying rather than sell them the "hope" of getting the best model, and they are more likely to run away.

Which is kinda funny because the best selling Clix in our store are the new AVP ones which are all WYSIWYG.