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Hi,

My friend and I (JamesY is my usual dakka alias) have had an idea for a new service within the wargaming industry, but before we can continue, we need to conduct some market research to see if there is a demand for it. I have created a quick Surveymonkey to help us gauge this, and would ask that, if you have a couple of minutes to spare, you do us the kindness of undertaking it.

Many thanks for your time, it is greatly appreciated With any luck, we may be sending fantastic new models, from a range of manufacturers, to you in the near future.

It depends on the material. A grab bag of plastics every so often? I am definitely down for that.


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Depending on price.

Low post count.

Scetch at best.

Ill pass.

took survey, random models from various manufacturers...not really a thing. Minicrate from PP is kinda similar, but focused on one range.

Good survey questions, hope my answers help you out.

A subscription service would be a neat idea, but it would need to cater to the individual gamer and style of play.

I.e my Tau Rapid Reaction Force doesn't have tanks, so if I got a tank sent to me it wouldn't be useful.

Take note of my bit about the shipping costs though, this was where I nearly tripped up and almost stopped my venture in it's tracks.

Occurs to me this would be more valuable if it was sprues, not miniatures. I don't necessarily want miniatures that don't relate to my armies, but I always want bits that can be used here and there.

It might be a good service if you can work out a deal with manufacturers to get a very good price on promo sprues or figures that will be sent out to a lot of gamers. If some Kickstarter using companies want to get customers excited, they could send you a bunch of production minis from the last Kickstarter or whatever that you could then send out to interested gamers. Companies like Mantic or Warlord could send promotional sprues so that each subscriber gets a taste of the new plastics. The whole venture would have to operate at low cost to the end consumer, though, like a magazine subscription. People might pay to find out what's new in gaming, but they probably won't pay close to the amount they would spend on a similar number of miniatures for a specific project.


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I wonder if it would make financial sense to pledge to a number of Kickstarters and then make sample bags to send to people who might want to have some minis but not a whole pledge. Like, every subscriber gets a hero and three zombies from this game, a hero and a monster from that game, etc. premium subscribers get KS exclusive minis, etc.

Boardgame KSes tend to reach a very low dollars per miniature ratio, so a bag with a dozen minis from four high profile campaigns might cost only $8 but sell for maybe $15 and cover a three or six month period? Something like that?


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Something like a Mantic crazy box or a Battlewagon Bitz bits bag, but made up of promotional giveaways and broken up pledges is what I am thinking.

Thanks for all the surveys taken and input so far, it is all very valuable and extremely helpful.

@Bobtheinquisitor thanks for all the suggestions. We are very conscious of price/usefulness. Once we can establish that there is a demand for such a service, we can start more meaningful dialogues with manufacturers, and KS is definitely something we are considering as a launch pad.

@Byte We all had a low post count once. As I said, my personal username is JamesY, where I have over 3000 posts, if that helps with legitimacy? I have started a new profile for this venture to keep it separate from my personal hobby, and so that those I am working with can post in my absence.

@thekingofkings Thanks for taking the survey, and for the reference to minicrate, I will look at that to see how they are doing it. It might not be a thing yet, but seeing if it could be is what we want to find out.

@Supershandy Thanks for the valued input. I will definitely be focusing on postage issues. I have a great detail of retail experience, including online sales (hence my involvement), and so will be looking for ways to ensure safe/reliable/affordable distribution.

Thanks again for your time, and please keep taking the survey

Just an FYI Gamingforge, a while back another poster in Nottingham tried doing exactly what you are talking about. He tried to use Kickstarter and was denied because it does not meet their criteria of actually creating anything and he ended up going to Indiegogo. So there is definitely demand and there are already companies doing this.
I will have a look and see if I can find the thread later.

Filled it in. For me, it's more about keeping control of my pile of models and to stop it growing beyond the ability for me to actually get them painted...

As a business owner (about 4) here is the standard advice I give everyone before starting a business.

Are you prepared to lose the following things:
1. All of your money?
2. All of your friends?
3. All of your family?

If the answer is yes, then proceed. Otherwise, GTFO.

If you proceed, make a business plan and have a professional look it over.

Edit: Typos! Arrrrggggghhhhh!

@ingtaer that's really useful to know, thanks for pointing it out. I'll have a search and see what is out there in terms of similar services, we are aware of one focused on providing paints.

@zedmeister thanks for taking the time. We are aiming to keep the model count, and therefore cost, low, so it isn't burdensome.

@Easy E it's good advice, and thank you for it. Marc is the driving force of the enterprise, and has already given up a very successful career in academia to pursue it, so the willingness to make sacrifices is definitely there.

Thanks to the 43 people who have taken the survey so far, and to anyone else willing to do so. The average completion time is 2 minutes, so it really won't take long

I completed the survey.

Good luck!

@ Gamingforge, sorry it took a while to find;
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/683918.page
Failed kickstarter;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1625281219/mini-crate-a-box-full-of-tabletop-surprises?token=5b8283dc

That user dropped off the face of the planet shortly after. As is noted in the thread Spikey Bits in the US do the same thing as a subscription with a large crate at the end of the year.

Excellent questions, survey completed

Survey complete - hope it helps with whatever you have in mind

 Byte wrote:
Low post count.

Scetch at best.

Ill pass.

What an extremely odd post to make.


Filled out, good luck with the project and look forward to hearing from it

@ingtaer really appreciate you taking the time to find that, thank you. It is interesting reading, especially regarding KS. Whilst it has ruled that out for us (luckily it wasn't our plan A), the reception to the idea, and the different in product that we have in mind, is encouraging. Thanks again

@Thedraconiclord and GA cheers both! Really appreciated.

@Winnertakesall thank you! I really don't blame Byte's scepticism, there has been a large amount of spamming dubious looking links to what I assume are supposed to be American Football game s on here over the last six months. God knows where they actually direct to. That was why I was open about having another account, I'll just have to live with the mild embarrassment if it comes to nothing.

Thanks again to all that have taken it, 66 so far. I'll close it on Sunday (unless we hit the 100 quota by then), so if you haven't taken the survey, and have literally two minutes after filling out the mammoth one that GW released today (I have filled in mine ), we'd be exceedingly grateful. In the meantime, I'm going to bug Marc to upload more pictures to the paintingforge gallery, as (although I'd never tell him this to his face) he's painted some really beautiful stuff lately, and it really needs sharing

Got it done for you. As you said, it was short and quick! Good luck.