The Griffin's Crier

I feel my hobby's days are numbered...

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.p ... ntry374366

Damon.

[a pause to mourn the passing of unpainted minis]

Awesome. Simply awesome. This is what I've wanted from D&D minis forever, and I can't wait to see what minis they're going to have in this line.

Yeah, Damon, I certainly understand your apprehension. It does look like a major shift away from traditional minis from perhaps our most reliable source of standard miniatures.

However, I too am heartened by this news. Thank you for posting the sites where I can buy individual D&D minis, because that's how I'd prefer to buy my minis - just buying the ones I want. If reaper is going to do that with plastic prepainted minis, I am excited about it, as I suck at painting minis. So, this looks cool to me.

As I said, I do fully understand how, while individually this might look good, it does seem to presage big changes in the industry, or at the very least one of the industries biggest companies, and that doesn't bode well, you are right, for traditional minis.

Reaper has posted a release list with prices:

http://www.reapermini.com/

Damon.

Next set from Reaper in the pre-paints:

The next 2 sets of Legendary Encounters Releases will include Goblins, Zombies, A Gnoll, An Ettin, A Demoness, Kobolds, A Bathalian, Ghosts, A Succubus, and A Giant Worm. Would those be helpful?

Here is the thread on the subject: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.p ... opic=25632

Damon.

Here's an update: Aug 7 for release.

And pics: http://www.reapermini.com/gallery/LegendaryEncounters

Damon.

Well if the were significantly cheaper and repainted nicely, I could see these being a success. But from the catalog it looks like most are in the $4.50 range and hideous. It's kind of a shame, since there is a market for this, but nobody's really exploiting it right.

They ought to be making the bulk minis that people don't have the time or inclination to spend a lot of time painting. If Reaper offered a dozen passably-painted goblins for $20 they'd make a killing. But instead it's unique stuff - Stuff which that deserves a metal mini that you put your own colors on.

WotC went wrong off the other end of the scale, making pre-painted dragons and charging heavily for them. Don't get me wrong - Big Red and the other iconic dragons look amazing - but how many broke gamers are going to plunk down big dollars they could instead spend on nachos, dice, and splatbooks?

Admittedly, I'm no expert - but I think they'd be better off doing sets - stuff like town guard, tavern brawlers, kobolds, orcs, goblins, etc would all be cheap plastic pre-paints. Then they could tie-in their metal range with a kobold chieftain, captain of the guard, orc shaman, etc.

edit: Just looked at the last link and they ARE doing orc and skeleton 3-packs. They're all the same pose, but it's a step in the right direction!

I think you're very right here, Brendan. (IIRC, Damon has mentioned the same point once or twice on here too, and also that grouped packs of mook figures make way more sense than randomly packaged CMGs.) It's the perfect application for pre-paints.