Are miniatures dying?

[Talakeal]

I have recently noticed a disturbing trend in miniature manufacturers. Most are drastically cutting down on their range. Games Workshop has recently discontinued their entire metal range, and only a small percentage of them have been recast in their inferior (imo) Finecast material. Reaper hasn't released any new models in almost six months, and it is doubtful they will ever do so in metal again now that their new "bones" material is released.

WoTC more or less stopped producing D&D miniatures.

I was recently going through my bookmarks and found that every single other miniature manufacturer I had purchased from are now either out of business, sold out of everything, or have released nothing new in a year.

What is going on? I know that the price of metal has gone up, did that really kill the entire industry? Is there some new company out there I don't know about?

[Rhynn]

There actually seem to be a lot of smaller miniatures manufacturers popping up, many with Kickstarters to pre-fund ranges of minis. A lot of them seem to be connected to the Old-School Renaissance movement, putting out classics like pig-faced orcs.

Wish I could link you to a bunch, but I just come across them trawling the OSR blogs, and I'm not that interested in minis myself...

[Tyndmyr]

Well, Reaper is all tied up in the Bones backlog. The stuff they have available for merchants to order is spotty as hell. Presumably it'll be fixed in time, though, and the minis from them are quite nice.

There's another decently large mini kickstarter up at the moment.

Games Workshop ain't bad...but they're new to the finecast stuff, and thus, they have some bugs to work out of the process. Bubbles, etc, that kind of thing.

The big problem is that minis were just getting really expensive. There's a fire giant model in metal over at another store in the area...but it's like $42. I like models, but at prices like that, it gets harder to justify a large collection. Don't even get me started on GW prices.

So, the industry is adjusting to new materials, new manufacturing methods, stuff like that. Some companies just can't, and some won't. Those will sadly die, or turn into much smaller companies...but someone, somewhere is still gonna be making nifty minis.

[Zahhak]

I cannot remember the exact term, but in economics there's a principle that explains a lot of this. If you have two objects that both do the exact same thing, but one costs more and offers no objective benefits, no one will ever buy it. Miniatures are just kind of a "nice thing to have", even in gaming since you could use coins if you really wanted to. Metal minis may be nice if you really want metal minis, but they cost more to make than plastic and offer no objective benefits. With the price of metals rising, people who might actually want metal are jumping ship to plastic.

Basically, because plastic does the exact same thing, even a small increase in the price of metal is going to cause large drops in demand, so the companies that make them are dropping them.

[Talakeal]

I cannot remember the exact term, but in economics there's a principle that explains a lot of this. If you have two objects that both do the exact same thing, but one costs more and offers no objective benefits, no one will ever buy it. Miniatures are just kind of a "nice thing to have", even in gaming since you could use coins if you really wanted to. Metal minis may be nice if you really want metal minis, but they cost more to make than plastic and offer no objective benefits. With the price of metals rising, people who might actually want metal are jumping ship to plastic.

Basically, because plastic does the exact same thing, even a small increase in the price of metal is going to cause large drops in demand, so the companies that make them are dropping them.

I wish we could get some nice plastic minis. All it seems anyone wants to make anymore is resin and rubber minis that are impossible to work with and fragile as all heck.

[Tyndmyr]

The big problem is that typically, the quality plastic minis(think, GWs boxed product) require injection molding, which require custom cut steel molds and fairly expensive hardware. So, it doesn't make sense unless you're engaging in some serious quantity.

We may eventually see Reaper or someone get back into that, but right now, finecast level stuff is almost as good while being vastly easier to get into.

[Talakeal]

We may eventually see Reaper or someone get back into that, but right now, finecast level stuff is almost as good while being vastly easier to get into.

Not to turn this into a rant against Finecast, but it is not, imo, "almost" as good. More than 50% of the finecast products I have bought have been seriously and irreparably miscast, and while I have plenty of 25 year old metal and plastic models that are still serviceable I have finecast models which are barely a year old and are already seriously warped from environmental factors alone.

[Eldan]

Interesting. I love finecast and detest metal.

It's heavy. So, it's difficult to transport and the glue never seems to stick. My old metal models fall apart all the time, even if I reglue them. They have bad balance, too and if they fall over, they can easily crush terrain pieces or smaller models. Then, the paint never seems to stick on them, they chip far too easily.

Finecast, on the other hand? Takes paint nicely, it's light and from the two dozen models I've bought so far, worst I had was a bent sniper rifle.

[Zahhak]

impossible to work with and fragile as all heck

difficult to transport and the glue never seems to stick

What the crap are you people doing with your minis? Unless you're using Warhammer minis, just buy a bunch of cheap plastic ones and call it a day. Holy crap.

[Grinner]

You all are going about this in the wrong way. C'mon. Metal miniatures? Injection molding? What is this? The 80's? Get with the times. 3D printers are continuously being improved, and there's such a wide variety of materials. On top of that, 3D modelling tools are now freely available, and 3D scanners can be built on the cheap.




Obviously, you should be making your minis out of chocolate.

[endoperez]

You all are going about this in the wrong way. C'mon. Metal miniatures? Injection molding? What is this? The 80's? Get with the times. 3D printers are continuously being improved, and there's such a wide variety of materials. On top of that, 3D modelling tools are now freely available, and 3D scanners can be built on the cheap.




Obviously, you should be making your minis out of chocolate.

See the discussion on prices. 3D printing is expensive. The advantage of 3D printing is that printing 1 object is cheap. The start-up costs are in getting the printer and materials, you don't need to make molds or whatnot. Minis are sold in bulk, so if they are sold at all, it should be cheaper to create them in bulk, with materials and techniques that might give both better detail and better material properties.

[Grinner]

See the discussion on prices. 3D printing is expensive. The advantage of 3D printing is that printing 1 object is cheap. The start-up costs are in getting the printer and materials, you don't need to make molds or whatnot. Minis are sold in bulk, so if they are sold at all, it should be cheaper to create them in bulk, with materials and techniques that might give both better detail and better material properties.

You gotta think of the possibilities, though. What could happen when you defeat a unit in play?

You eat it, naturally. Victory will never have tasted so sweet.

[Talakeal]

What the crap are you people doing with your minis? Unless you're using Warhammer minis, just buy a bunch of cheap plastic ones and call it a day. Holy crap.

I like plastic models, but they are hard to come by.

Finecast snaps when dropped off a table, melts when left in the car, and the limbs / weapons bend in the carrying case and unlike metal can't be unbent without a risky boiling procedure. Also they are flexible, and though I haven't brought myself to paint one yet but I can't imagine the paint job wont flake off when it happens.

[MukkTB]

I like having a mini for my character because my character will be in every fight. The orcs we're gonna fight once and kill can be these pink D6s. The skeletons can be penny's.

[Anxe]

I think minis are dying out partially because of the success of Roll20 and Maptools. If people can play online without minis, they don't buy them. I've only bought three in the last four years since I switched to online meetups with my group.

EDIT: And for 3D printing, the tech isn't there yet, but that is a super cool idea. You could even just drag and drop a model from say, Skyrim, into the printer and out would pop the perfect Argonian mini to represent your lizardfolk armies.

[Gamgee]

I've had some failed attempts to use mini's, they bog things down too much. We use our imagination.

[Joe the Rat]

Don't forget the cardboard heroes crowd. It's easy for online publishers to crank out 2-3 sided art, fill a sheet, and sell the pdf. Fills the role without the heavy investment (plus you can triple your orc army by printing three copies).

It's nowhere near the joy of do-it-yourself painting, and they are a little, er, flat. But if it's just about getting feet on the ground, the cheap options abound. (far cheaper than that 3-D printing)

[endoperez]

EDIT: And for 3D printing, the tech isn't there yet, but that is a super cool idea. You could even just drag and drop a model from say, Skyrim, into the printer and out would pop the perfect Argonian mini to represent your lizardfolk armies.

.... not quite, no. In most games, the models are in some custom format or packaged in some way so that the players don't have easy access to them.

Once you're past that hurdle, you'll have the Argonian naked, standing straight, arms straight and to his sides, neck straight up, face pointing straight forward, tail pointing straight back. You don't actually want to print the Argonian model, but the in-game model in a specific pose with specific equipment. And don't forget to include some sort of a stand, or a way to attach the model to a stand, and/or to balance it so it doesn't fall over.

Then that equipment might be faked in various ways which are incompatible with 3D printing. Let's say he has a spear with feathers in it. Those feathers might be 2-dimensional rectangles with to depth, and the feather-shape faked into them with transparency. Games use all sorts of fake tricks all the time, and many of them won't work with 3D printing.

If you get that hurdle sorted, you still have the problem of scale. In one game, 1 meter might be 1000 units. In another, it might be 10. It's pretty common that two models from different games have a 100x times size difference. Thankfully the 3D printers will not let you even try it when the model is that big, but size differences could easily be problematic, and of course you'd also have to pay for the model of the human that's only 2/3rd of the height of all your other humans.

The best bet would be that some companies embrace 3D printing and let you buy a "print code" or something that you can redeem in your closest 3D printing shop. One code for "Argonian warrior with sword and shield", another for "Argonian mage with a staff", buy 10 get 1 for free. Each of these models would be made from the same models used for the game, but would be edited by the artists to work well with 3D printing.

[Rhynn]

Also, good luck "printing" a texture (essentially a 2D picture) on that model, even if you could get around the fact that in games like Skyrim there's not just one or two, but countless textures that are combined in complicated ways...

I'm holding out for nanoprinters (and skullguns).

[Balain]

Our gaming group talked about the D&D minis. We all liked them the problem was in how they were packaged. Also made fun of in the comic. A box of 8 random figures...then later 5 or 6 random figures.

If you are using them in a roleplaying game and not just collecting them, you want like a box of orcs or better yet a box of orc archers, a box of orc swordsman, etc.

[Felhammer]

Minis in general are not dieing, not in the least. Metal minis, however, are going the way of the dodo bird. Metal is just too expensive these days.

In general, plastic and resin is cheaper (for the company) and easier to work with (for the hobbyist). Metal is heavy and very fragile (if the model comes in multiple pieces). I can't tell you how much trouble I've had with metal Warhammer models (sigh).

Resin is a good alternative because, as I understand it, you can use the same molds you were using for metal models and stuff resin in there with only a minor amount of work. Which is great because the only other method of getting high quality non-metal models is very, very expensive (i.e what GW does with their normal plastic kits).

WotC stopped making minis because their product was aimed at two very different crowds - RPers and Wargamers - neither of which was fully satisfied with WotC's distribution method. The product languished for a while but was eventually transformed into the RPer-oriented booster that had 1 model revealed for the world to see. However, this cheesed off stores because they were often left with a backlog of boosters whose revealed mini was unpopular (I'm looking at you speckled gray Unicorn!). In the end, the entire line was dropped because the product still did not satisfy RPers (who just wanted to buy a box with 10 kobolds or that one awesome hero). Also, the switch to CAD design over physical sculpting really dragged the quality of those last few sets down quite a bit.

Interestingly, I remember seeing another game a few years ago - whose name escapes me at the moment - that utilized many of the old designs for WotC's D&D miniatures line.

WotC still makes minis for some of their board games but at those games are expensive, so it doesn't make sense to buy the entire game just for the unpainted minis.

WotC had to stop making Star Wars minis when they gave up the license. Fantasy Flight has taken up the cause but only for ships thus far.

Paizo continues to make cheap plastic models in the vein of the old D&D minis.

WizKids makes some really nice plastic miniatures. Most are Superheroes but they do make Star Trek, LotR, Halo, Gears of War and Street Fighter minis.

Privateer Press is still going strong but they are drawing their metal down over time.

Corvus Belli's Infinity game utilizes a ton of high quality sci-fi, metal minis.

Malifaux has some amazingly pretty models, most of whom are metal.

[endoperez]

Also, good luck "printing" a texture (essentially a 2D picture) on that model, even if you could get around the fact that in games like Skyrim there's not just one or two, but countless textures that are combined in complicated ways...

I'm holding out for nanoprinters (and skullguns).

The textures probably wouldn't work at the smaller scale. They'd have to be painted manually, like most minis, and as such would require materials that accept paints well.

[The Dark Fiddler]

You gotta think of the possibilities, though. What could happen when you defeat a unit in play?

You eat it, naturally. Victory will never have tasted so sweet.

If that's all you care about, /tg/ once had an idea for a wargame using candy pieces as the units. Intended to be a beer and pretzels game, where you'd just go buy some candy and play. Never really made up rules for it, but I've had some sort of sitting in the back of my mind...

EDIT: And for 3D printing, the tech isn't there yet, but that is a super cool idea. You could even just drag and drop a model from say, Skyrim, into the printer and out would pop the perfect Argonian mini to represent your lizardfolk armies.

If I recall correctly, there's a patent expiring in about a year that will make 3D printing a lot more affordable and accurate.

[Jalor]

Not to turn this into a rant against Finecast, but it is not, imo, "almost" as good. More than 50% of the finecast products I have bought have been seriously and irreparably miscast, and while I have plenty of 25 year old metal and plastic models that are still serviceable I have finecast models which are barely a year old and are already seriously warped from environmental factors alone.

Games Workshop will send you a new one for free if it's miscast when you get it. Of course, that doesn't do anything about the ones that warp after you get them, but you just need to be really careful about how you store them (i.e. not near an open window).

Of course, this is coming from a DEldar player with an all-plastic list. The other guys in my group insist Finecast isn't that bad, and I take their word for it because they're the ones who actually have them.

[zlefin]

so what are the costs on 3d printing for models?

[Anxe]

so what are the costs on 3d printing for models?

The current cost on the printer is $2000 or so. After that you have to buy the plastic or whatever you're using to actually build the mini. Quick search on Google showed that at $5 per pound. That's... A lot of minis. The material cost is essentially irrelevant. It's the model cost that will matter. Some artist has to make it. My idea was to copy it from video games, but endoperez poked all sorts of holes in that idea. I imagine they'll eventually be worked out, but it'll take time.

[kidnicky]

I don't want to sound cheap, but the prices for even plastic minis are just two damn expensive for what I'm willing to invest in D&D. I can't pay 10 bucks a guy and end up with a decent enough group of chars and combatants for a campaign. Not when WotC has at least 3 different boxed sets for like 20 bucks each that include nice tokens. When I need someone/something not covered by a token, I draw it on a 1 inch square of paper. It doesn't take long to draw a 1" b&w picture,and it's not like it's going in the Louve, it just has to resemble the guy it's supposed to be.

[JusticeZero]

Next time I have a local group, I might try using Lego figures. I don't have any, but they seem easier to customize characters to fit.

[Ravens_cry]

Paizo continues to make cheap plastic models in the vein of the old D&D minis.

Though their medium humanoid figs still can use some work, they do awesome plastic larger figs. Better than the D&D ones I would say. The Troll Champion really stretches the definition of the Large Size category, but, damn, it's an awesome fig.

[ellindsey]

I happen to own a 3D printer, which I am planning to use to make minis for the game I'm running.

There are a number of downsides to the technology. The surface texture and detail are nowhere near as good as what you see with conventional cast metal figurines. 3D printed figures are really only good as representational markers on a battle map, a step up from using cardboard cutouts. You could I suppose sand, fill, and paint them if you wanted them to look really pretty, but that's a fair amount of work. The cheap home 3D printing technology also doesn't do overhanging shapes well, so many figurines will have to be printed in pieces and then glued together.

On the plus side, once you've bought the printer, the plastic feedstock is fairly cheap.