I have tons and tons of minis, most of them unpainted.  With a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old, I don't have the time, nor do I like to leave small parts out where someone could get at them.  Oh, and a cat.  He likes to steal minis, too.  

I haven't bought any minis in a couple years, at least.  If anything, I'm more likely to start buying again after this.

Quote from: beeber;576115wow, that is a dick move.  i'm sure bricks & mortar stores are having a tough enough time as it is.

On the one hand, they probably shouldn't have done things the way they did, if they were going with kickstarter they shouldn't have done things through the game stores first.

On the other hand, times change. Its hard to lament for a "brick and mortar store" when the reality is that the whole economic system is changing.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Melan;576419Did... did this just go from two to two point seven million bucks in the last day? :eek:

And the RPG industry is dead, don't you know!

RPGPundit

Quote from: Sacrosanct;578129I've heard some folks banter about if this kickstarter is going to hurt mini sales.  Well, not for me.  I figure we won't get them until April or later next year (I expect delays), but the project got me all excited.  Yesterday I went and spent another $50 on minis to paint in the interim while I wait for my bones

I didn't even know about their Bones line until this Kickstarter. The timing was off for me to join in (thanks to moving expenses and other unrelated expenses), but now I'm keeping a very close eye on their Bones stuff, because I like affordable plastic minis, even if I never paint them.

I think the Kick Starter boom says that the fans want a lot of things but have been priced out of the market in recent years.  Show them a deal on something they want and they'll put the money down.  $2 a figure is acceptable $12 isn't.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;578129I've heard some folks banter about if this kickstarter is going to hurt mini sales.  Well, not for me.  I figure we won't get them until April or later next year (I expect delays), but the project got me all excited.  Yesterday I went and spent another $50 on minis to paint in the interim while I wait for my bones

Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense.  I think the final count was something like 13,000 or so at the $100 level?  I am pretty sure GW doesn't rely on under 15,000 hobbyists to make their hojillions of dollars a month.

I like the idea of plastics; less expensive, safer, and if they take paint as well as metal, the deal is sealed.  I am not convinced with the 'easily modified' bit, though.  I guess snipping off a hand or something and re-gluing to another fig is easy enough, but what about the Elf with the shield sized shoulder pads?  Most of the minis seemed like you would need to be a pretty good sculptor yourself to make even the simplest of changes.

The current Dark Heaven and Warlord figs are extremely detailed - which is great on a metal mold.  When you're dealing with plastic, however, it's really easy to 'attach' bits.  A GW plastic Space Marine, for instance, has several interchangeable bits - the figure comes with no arms attached and often a choice of torsos.  You mix and match to make the figure you want.  Because it's much easier to permanently attach something to a plastic mini, down the road they may come out with more 'basic' models with more customization options.  That's what I'd like to see, eventually.  

This is a good example of what I'm talking about:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1190055a

The picture shows a unit with a bunch of similar figures, but they're each slightly different.  When you look at what comes in the box you'll see that there is a base 'leg/torso' combination, and you add a head, arms, and decorations to that base.  With plastic, that's super easy.  The glue bonds permanently in 2 seconds.  With metal/metal, the glue can take a long time to tighten, and the seam is never very strong.  Plastic glues actually 'melt' the plastic and join them together - it's the kind of bond you can only get if you were welding your metal minis - and that isn't really possible.

Quote from: StormBringer;578241Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense.  I think the final count was something like 13,000 or so at the $100 level?  I am pretty sure GW doesn't rely on under 15,000 hobbyists to make their hojillions of dollars a month.

I like the idea of plastics; less expensive, safer, and if they take paint as well as metal, the deal is sealed.  I am not convinced with the 'easily modified' bit, though.  I guess snipping off a hand or something and re-gluing to another fig is easy enough, but what about the Elf with the shield sized shoulder pads?  Most of the minis seemed like you would need to be a pretty good sculptor yourself to make even the simplest of changes.

Plastic is friendlier to trim, cut , and shape. I have done mods on metal minis including crafting custom weapons from leftover bits and it is a time consuming chore.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;578290Plastic is friendlier to trim, cut , and shape. I have done mods on metal minis including crafting custom weapons from leftover bits and it is a time consuming chore.

Oh, yeah, I definitely get that.  My concern is that, like the one Elf pictured in the Kickstarter poster, there is still going to be a crapload of shaping that many hobbyists just aren't up for.  At a dollar or two per fig, probably not a huge deal.  But there are more than a few of them that modification just won't be feasible; arms tucked in or crossed over the torso, poses that are difficult to add things to, and so on.

Again, this isn't a huge problem to me, it just seems like a good portion of their marketing focusses on this ease of modifications.  Maybe they have some upcoming lines that make it a lot easier, and I am just jumping the gun or something.  

My biggest problem with plastics are things like bent swords.  With metal, you can easily straighten them out.  With plastic, you can't straighten it without a heat gun, and then you've got to be good that you don't overheat it.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;578317My biggest problem with plastics are things like bent swords.  With metal, you can easily straighten them out.  With plastic, you can't straighten it without a heat gun, and then you've got to be good that you don't overheat it.

It depends on the model and its use. If I am carrying lots of minis to game with I prefer plastic because metal can be so easily damaged in transit. If I am painting a mini to display then I still prefer metal.

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Quote from: Sacrosanct;578317My biggest problem with plastics are things like bent swords.  With metal, you can easily straighten them out.  With plastic, you can't straighten it without a heat gun, and then you've got to be good that you don't overheat it.

Definitely.  I do seem to recall a few metal minis some years ago where I had to straighten out a sword or spear or something, and the metal started creaking like it was going to snap, and it wasn't bending back properly.  I don't know what was going on, I assumed at the time they put some kind of stiffening agent in the lead to perhaps keep it from getting horribly bent in the first place.

I was pondering, however, if a change in material might also lead to a change in size and/or variety.  Right now, a decent sized dragon (for instance) is quite pricey, and it has to come in several pieces (wings, torso, tail, sometimes base) partially for packaging reasons, but mostly because it would be an unrecognizable lump from being shifted around in the case and crumpling under it's own weight.  With plastic, the same mini would have fewer pieces (maybe just wings), and primarily for packaging purposes.  

It would also be more economical to produce giants and other larger figs, including whole scenes like a tavern or a mad wizard's laboratory.  It could also lead to a larger standard figure size, say 30mm or 35mm instead.  Larger figures allow for more detail (and better scaling); thus novice painters would have a better 'canvas' to paint, and veterans would have more detail to work with.  Win-win, and the figs would still fit comfortably on a 1" battlemat.  Imagine this model another 10mm larger, and how much more detail it could have.  Additionally, like most figures, they could hold staves and such that are the correct size, instead of something that is clearly larger than their own forearms.  I am totally a fan of Ms Garrity's work, but there are certain physical limitations that can't be ignored; a correctly scaled staff would constantly bend under its own weight, or if you just looked at it funny.

As Exploderwizard mentions, metal is still the best for display, so a line of 'premium' metal miniatures for display or competitive purposes is likely in order.  On the other hand, a line of plastics that were more easily modifiable would make good business sense as well, especially if they are the larger size.  Nothing like the Vitruvian Man, of course, but perhaps a hand that is only slightly curled so as to place a weapon or something in, then give it a quick blast of heat to fit it into place, and a bit of glue for the final touches.  To make the joints even slightly movable would probably require a figure that would be too large to be economically feasible, even if it has really simple Stikfa like joints.  And they would still need a pretty significant amount of filler to cover the joints.  Zap-a-gap would still work, but a small stick of the plastic resin would probably work best.  But then we are back to the problem of overheating the rest of the model.  Knees might be ok with a tall boot or shin guard/kneepad combo piece, but elbows and shoulders would be a nightmare.

Speaking of Stikfas, a small pose-able frame might be cool, with some parts that snap over it like breastplates, various arm types and different heads.  But that would definitely require some kind of gap filler, as the snap on pieces would have to end a millimetre or two before any joints, and they would only work for similarly sized frames.  So, a line of forearms for dwarves/hobbits, another for human-sized, another for larger than human, and another for giants.  These can all be made from the same original, so it probably wouldn't bankrupt the company that made them, and they could be packaged together for financial reasons.

Just throwing out some blue-sky thoughts.  

I'm having an interesting chat about this with Ryan Dancey over in my blog.

RPGPundit

I didn't order the Reaper bundle. As it is, I'm sitting on 500 or so unpainted minis already, which I got for about a c-note. Maybe a good 2012 resolution would be


...Get these minis all painted by Christmas!