Wizkids to produce Pathfinder pre-painted miniatures

Pathfinder's Kyra the Cleric done-up in plastic

And so it begins. Back in January D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro quietly announced that it was discontinuing it's popular pre-painted plastic miniatures, leaving the field wide open for new takers to pick up where Wizards left off.

Enter Wizkids Games: makers of the highly collectible and widely appealing Heroclix miniature games (and their parent company Neca Toys). Announced earlier this week, Wizkids will be launching a new line of pre-paints for Paizo's Pathfinder RPG.

The minis will be all new scuplts of Pathfinder RPG characters and monsters. Now I know what you're thinking, "What about Reaper? Don't they have the Pathfinder license to produce metal minis?"

Yup. And according to Paizo and Wizkids, that's not going to change. It seems there's a market for both metal and plastic minis. I'm inclined to agree since each seems to fit different gaming purposes and even different target audiences (though many gamers collect both).

I think this is a good thing, possibly a GREAT thing. In fact the first release is slated to be a box set (magic words!) in October. From the horse's mouth:

“WizKids essentially created the pre-painted plastic miniatures category, and they’ve only gotten better in the years since,” said Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens. “We are thrilled to work with WizKids to bring our iconic characters to tabletops all over the world.”

Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box pre-painted fantasy miniatures will be available at paizo.com and through WizKids distribution partners worldwide starting in the fourth quarter of 2011.

If anyone is set up to be the next Big Mini on Campus, it's Wizkids. First, they they've obviously got the manufacturing and distribution channels to make a stake a serious claim. Any toy/game company will tell you that having partnerships overseas with plastics companies is essential to keeping product affordable.You've got two indy toy companies who've had to be scrappy contenders in a very competitive field.

Second, they've improved their products over the years. If you look at their early minis from the Mage Knight line the paint apps were not great--passable in most cases--but more recent lines are much cleaner, sculpts are tighter, and consistently so.

Third, they're fighters. They survived a previous shutdown and not one but TWO bu- outs--one with Topps and the current one with Neca. Now with Neca's grounding they've re-emerged, released several lines--the most recent two of which have sold out to retailers. Plus they've diversified into new products with their original Quarriors game and now have licenses with Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. Keep an eye on those last two properties: ST2 and the Hobbit are gearing up in Hollywood and families will be looking for games that can extend the experience. 

In short, I think Wizkids is a great company and I'm glad to hear that they've thrown their hat into the ring with this new direction. With the makers of D&D now out of the mini gaming business, I'm curious to see how Wizkids will step up.

What's your take?

Official announcements:

• Wizkids announcement
• Paizo's announcement and FAQ

R.I.P. D&D Minis 2003-2010

Well it's January and that means that Wizards of the Coast has to dump an under-supported and product line. The D&D line of pre-painted miniatures has officially been given the pink slip. Posted today on WotC's website--buried innocuously under the fifth heading "D&D RPG Product Release Updates":

Despite the best laid plans, sometimes we make changes to the D&D product release schedule. Usually this happens well before we’ve communicated our plans, but sometimes we must make changes to schedules that have already been announced. That happens to be the case we have here.

We have made the decision to depart from pre-painted plastic miniatures sets. Lords of Madness stands as the final release under that model. We will continue to release special collector’s sets (such as the Beholder Collector’s Set we released last fall), as well as make use of plastic figures in other product offerings. Check out the Wrath of Ashardalon board game next month for the latest example of this. Moving forward, we will continue to explore more options for players to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop, including Monster Vault and other D&D products that feature monster and character tokens.

I'm not at all surprised, as Wizards had already begun cutting back on releases and switching to cardstock tokens in all of their boxed 4E products (i.e., Gamma World, Monster Vault, etc.). While these were fine for boxed sets, the loss of the pre-painted minis is disappointing as Wizards was by far the largest producer of this cheap option for minis.

In addition, last fall, Wizard's parent company Hasbro (under the Milton Bradley moniker), stopped production on Heroscape, their constructable, miniature battles board game. The big "H" was watching sales dwindle after they dumped the original time/reality-hopping theme in favor of the almighty D&D. A stunted release of Heroscape under a Marvel Superheroes license led no where as well.

So what's the reason behind the poor sales for all these plastic minis and mini-related games? It's hard to be sure but I'd bet that poor shelf visibility and feeble marketing support are at least partially to blame. Wizards/Hasbro also seems to saturate the market with these products (and yet provide substandard marketing!) and then bail completely, much like the Star Wars RPG debacle in January of last year (Ah! It IS a tradition!).

I myself have bought bunches of the little guys (and some Heroscape stuff too for the scenery), which has been a lot of fun--and affordable for those of us who don't have time/cash to paint and prepare metal minis. While this might be a boon for companies like Reaper and their Legendary Encounters pre-paints, they're not running anywhere near the quantities or variety that WotC had. So there is no real heir-apparent.

Here's hoping the void is eventually filled. And frankly, at this point, I'd be happy to give my hard earned geek bucks to someone else. In the meanwhile, remainder stock will no doubt slowly dwindle from FLGS shelves...

My other fantasy muses

Yeah, Dungeon! my favorite boardgame cast a strong spell on the way I saw fantasy growing up in the 80s. And of course the box sets of D&D (and the accompanying illustrations) were also very influential. But there were a handful of other books, toys, movies, etc.--cheesy as they may have been. ;)

Man I played the hell out of Crypts of Chaos on my 2600. I never did have Adventure--and the official AD&D game was for the Intellivision (lame!). C of C not only sported awesome cartridge art featuring Luke and Leia stand-ins in a dream-like dungeon of weirdness--it was a FIRST PERSON GAME! The corridors of the dungeon would move toward you and wandering monsters would attack. You had mere seconds to get your wand or magic ring ready...which was usually out of charges. And I think the cart art still freaks me out....
 

 

 

Dragonslayer was one of the first full-length fantasy films I remember seeing and being impressed by. I saw it on VHS first and the scene with the baby dragons always made me quesy. Could have done without the page boy haircuts, but it still has one of the great wizard v. lizard battle scenes. Before this film, my idea of an amulet was a big, gaudy jewel--instead of the small, glowing crystal packed with white-hot magic featured in the film. Neat stuff!

Forest of Doom is a wonderful playset made by Dimensions for Children (a now defunct toy company) in a series of other great playmat-with-plastic-figures format sets. Reis O'Brien at Geek Orthodox has blogged extensively on the set which was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx figure line. I can't say much more than Reis has on the subject, except that from my own experience I loved the iconic figures. They represented to me the basic monsters, wizards, and knights that make up the storybook "fantasy" template. I still have the set in it's original box and I've featured figures from it in the past on Spellcard.

Dungeon of Dread by Rose Estes was my first choose-your-own-adventure type book (TSR called their line "Endless Quest"), of which I later graduated on to the Zork books. The adventure itself is pretty basic, but the great Jeff Easley cover had me conjuring up adventures in my imagination for years to come.

Finally we come to the D&D cartoon, which I know a lot of OSR gamers detest--but I had great fun watching it when I was young. It also represented several AD&D classes as characters on-screen for the first time, so I had a good visual of what they were capable of (even though the cavalier didn't have a sword!). Anyway, I picked up the box set when it came out a few years ago and wasn't disappointed. It even came with a game scenario starring the main characters.

I also had many of the D&D toys, including this bad boy:

...The Fortress of Fangs! It was filled with crazy booby traps and was a great companion to Castle Greyskull.

Anyway, those are just a few of the fun relics. What's in your vault--games, books, movies, posters? Anything off the beaten path that inspired you back in the day? Feel free to list in the comments.

Update: Reis has taken down his blog, so here are some other Dragonriders of the Styx resources out there:

• Action Figures CA (this one has some good photos of the set I had)
• Virtual Toy Chest
• Toymania
• Topless Robot posts on fantasy toys of the 70s and 80s

Another Motley Selection of Legendary Encounters Minis

These are a few I've had for a while, but they're pretty nifty nonetheless. I have to apologize for the lighting in my photos. It's been driving me bonkers to get decently lit shots with the macro focus on our craptastic camera. It serves it's purpose when we need it. Except for when I REALLY am counting on it (like for clear, close up shots like these). So today we have...

An ogre, one of my favorites actually in the line...

A nasty green cave troll!

A ghost, who's about as in focus as a ghost can get...

Some very Harryhausen-esqe undead warriors--notice that Reaper updated the shields between purchases. I think they've even updated them again since these came out...

 

And a few heroes, including an elf archer...

What is it about elves that makes them so hard to determine the gender? I thin this one is technically male, but who knows.

Next we have an "evil" warrior, I'd prefer to think of him as "slightly perturbed"...

And finally, a good one! This is Ranald, you've likely seen him in these posts to help provide scale, bad jokes, etc. I think of him as being more than slightly skittish. It must be the awkward way he holds his sword!

This last one should give you some idea of the size differences between the figures. The macro setting is a bit deceptive here as the skeleton is actually slightly shorter than Ranald.

As always you can click the images to see larger versions (hoping my bandwidth holds out!).

I've got just a few more of these guys to share so stay tuned!

From the Vault: Green Dragon Lurker

Just a quick post to show off my all-time favorite dragon figure. It's just a plain, green dragon with an old school feel because, well, it's old! It was included in the Forest of Doom playset made by Dimensions for Children (DFC) in '81.

It was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx series (so I'm told). Reis over at Geek Orthodox did a lengthy post on the whole series a while back, so I'll let him fill you in on the details. Some of the photos over there weren't holding up when I checked, but here's hoping they are back up. Here's an alternate set of photos just in case (scroll down a bit).

Anyway, who can resist this little guy? What a great pose!

New Legendary Encounter (Painted!) Minis

It's not the size of the mace, it's the size of the guy who swings it!

So Reaper Miniatures has released a new slew of Legendary Encounter minis (their pre-painted/plastics line) and I picked up a few at the Source last weekend.

I'm a big fan of these as I'm artistically challenged (this is familiar territory) and these little guys look better than the Wizards of the Coast line. In fact, it appears that Reaper has improved the quality of their paint applications making these a great value. My only problem is the selection of figs. It's not too many and we waited more than a year for this wave to be shipped. A wave of FIVE figures mind you. Also, Reaper chose one of the figures for this wave to be...a giant spider.

Yeah, it's got a nice sculpt and the paint job's pretty good--but seriously? Anyone could find a stupid plastic spider in just about any toy isle in Walgreens. (That's where I found mine.) I'd much would have rather had my hands on any number of nasties. This was just a poor choice on Reaper's part.

But I'm professionally painted!

(This pic isn't mine because I didn't pick it up. And I won't. Out of principle!

The rest of the rogues gallery fills out quite nicely, including:

A werewolf...
A mean lookin' bugbear....

And some much needed goblins!
Not a bad selection overall. I really hope Reaper continues this line, though I'd be much obliged if they'd be smarter about which monsters/characters would be most appealing. I already have several of these and I'm quite happy with them overall.

"You don't look like you're from around here."

Pirates vs. Undead, Pt. 2

So I wanted to post close-ups of some of the pirate and skeleton characters I mentioned a while back. When I found them in the toy shop out east, I was surprised that for they were actually painted considering how cheap they were (under $10 or so). Now they're not exactly Rembrants, but considering they were like 20 to a pack plus accessories, that's a pretty good deal.

So here's a few shots of the pirates, I've given them names:

Shipwright Dooley

Hale O'Volley

Chopper Daniels

Blackpowder Billy

First Mate Collins

...and Captain Crabbacke!

Next time: Skeleton warriors!

Beware the Blue Oriental Dragon!

I had blogged earlier about the virtues of using toy figures for gaming. In a little back-and-forth on the comments at Back in '81 I mentioned posting a few pics of the Safari Ltd. blue dragon. They call it a Chinese dragon (also known as a lung dragon) but I'd like to think she'd be just as easily found in other nearby Asian regions. Here's a few choice shots:

Profile with Reaper Miniatures knight (from the Legendary Encounters collection of pre-painted minis).

Big 'ol dragon booty. Be nice, just because her back is turned doesn't mean she can't hear you.

Now where did that dragon run off to?

Pirates vs. Undead, Part I

TO ARMS!

Two summers ago I picked up a couple of pirate figures while visiting family on the East Coast. I stopped in at toy shop and found these great pirate figures--about the same size as little green army men. They came with a bevy of pirate accessories: a dinghy with oars, a few sacks and crates of cargo, a ladder (!), and the requisite treasure chest with gold. The accessories are nothing to write home about (hence the lack of pics) but the figure pack has some darn decent minis and they were cheap too: about $8.99!

And that's not all! It came with a horde of scurvy, undead scoundrels! No doubt they're angry about having their sandy graves disturbed by the pirates trying to bury their treasure. The photos aren't lit so great, but you can click to enlarge and see some detail.

GARRRRR!

So of course you know this means war....
The trusty first mate leads a scrappy landing party through the wretched undead mob....

...on his way to rescue the Cap'n!

Is there anything better than pirates and skeletons duking it out??!

Enjoy landlubbers!

Thrifty Gaming Doesn't Have to Look Cheap!

I just commented over at Grognardia about using figures for gaming. I'm re-posting some of that material here.

Okay, so most RPGs use metal minis, which I love and I have far too many of. As a result, I'm big on being thrifty when it comes to stocking the monster lair--at least in comparison to what you typically pay for figures. For instance, an unpainted metal miniature of a dragon can be pretty steep.

So about a year ago, I began finding "bargains" by looking for toy figures that could double as miniatures in games. This is not new--I'm certainly not the first to do this. But I have founds some that suit my tastes and instead of plopping down $40 for an unpainted dragon, I found nice $12-$20 ones that are nicely sculpted, usually really well painted, and are way cheaper.

There are two toy companies that I've found to meet those three criteria: Papo and Safari Toys. (Papo is a French company from what I can tell that has no proper website, sorry.) *UPDATE: Papo DOES have a website!

Figures range from $3 and up. Apart from monsters, I found some reasonably-priced figures for around $4 or $5.

Now most of the figures in both lines are in the 3 and 3/4 range--your typical action figure (Star Wars, GI Joes, etc.) scale. But with some creativity you can use some creatures to great effect by making them look larger in comparison with most 1:25 or 1:28 gaming miniatures.

I have figures from both Papo and Safari and they each offer products adaptable to gaming. The downside is Papo isn't sold in the Twin Cities as much as it used to be. In fact, the two places I used to get them from have dropped them from their inventories in favor of Schleigh figures.

Schleigh is another company that's been taking over the medieval knight market. They have highly detailed figures with even better paint jobs, but their cost per figure-is much higher -$8-$15!!--and they don't offer a really diverse selection of beasties. Schleighs are becoming like a bad penny, turning up at every Target and crafty-kids toy store. While they deserve props for their animals, dinosaurs, and wild west lines (of which Papo and Safari have similar themes) they also hold the Smurf license. Admirable, yes, but that's another story for another time.

For my money, the Papo figures are much more imaginative because they offer many more fantasy monsters. Case in point: the Papo dwarf makes a great Fire Giant!

(That's a Reaper pre-painted plastic next to him for scale.)

Schilling* makes quite the dapper cyclops...

Papo makes the dragon at the beginning of this post. Safari Toys makes a plucky hydra.


Safari is nice because they make the Carnegie Collection which is their line of realistically detailed dinos and animals. Named for the famous entrepreneur and philanthropist who funded libraries and museums, no doubt.

So the reason that I love using these in games because even if they get up to to $20, their paint jobs are usually equal to or better than D&D minis, which often look blotchy to me, and the sculpts are still very detailed without getting bent or misshapen (a common occurrence with D&D figs). Metal minis, as I said before, cannot realistically compete. Painting and preparing metal miniatures is an entirely different pursuit that can become a hobby in, and of itself.

Other options for highly detailed baddies include Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's dragons series. However, some of those are hit or miss as far as durability or they are a little cheesy. Plus it's the guy who created Spawn and I'm not about to reward him for that. As a result I only have one or two of these guys. The rest are too over-the-top for my tastes with dragons clutching crystal balls and shit.

Anyway, just a little insight into keeping some extra cash in your pocket while getting some really great figures for your games. Ultimately, the cheapest option is to not buy anything--but who wants to do that?!

Note: Since the lighting is not great, I linked all pics to full-sized versions via Imageshack so you can at least see details. Your browser should give you a magnifying glass with a "+" so you can zoom in.

*UPDATE: Shout out to Back in '81, for catching that the cyclops is not a Papo figure. I didn't do my homework apparently! He's actually called "cyclopes" and is part of Schilling's Greek mythology line. I also made a few tweaks throughout this post, including adding some links and tidying up a bit. :)

Box Set RPG Idea!

Okay, so I was commenting over at Grognardia one of my favorite Internet haunts in the retro-clone/old-school gaming community about a box set for Swords and Wizardry. S&W is a free RPG that sort of simplifies D&D and makes it accessible to everyone:

• It's license free
• The artwork is all by gamers for gamers
• They even supply an MS Word file of the rules so you could hack your own ruleset--how cool is that!

I'll go into the specifics of my fascination with retro-clones some other time, but just know that I'm a big fan of anything you own is yours to pick apart and play with as you choose. This goes for gadgets as well.

In any case, it came up that one of the commentors had the happy dilemma of trying to figure out what type of bare-bones RPG to give to a nephew: a box set or a booklet. The box set has the distinct advantage of being this cool little kit of goodies. And I'm all about the goodies!

So here was my idea:

STEP 1: Get a box! I'm thinking about 9.5" x 6.5" x 1.25".

STEP 2: Make a top and back cover for it using free fantasy art. Try also Library of Congress using "monster" as your keyword.

STEP 3: Download the free PDF of Swords and Wizardry box set (or which ever version you prefer). Don't forget to get some character sheets!

STEP 4: Bookletize the PDFs; customize the cover with some more free art.*

STEP 5: Throw in some gaming dice, some nice inexpensive minis, and voila! You have a nice little gift set for your favorite little eye-gouger!

Now you could do all kinds of things to dress up the box set. If it's a gift, you likely could take artwork from anywhere like Deviant Art, etc. Just DON'T sell it--since it belongs to someone who worked hard to create it. Or better yet, make your own artwork (if you're more talented than say, me...)

You could also go nuts on minis (Reaper or D&D), dice, etc. Personally, I'd like an "advanced" set to have some dungeon tiles and maybe treasure/item cards, just to make it fun.

Variation: Superhero RPG
I learned to play RPGs on the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes game. A few tweaks with the art using free comics covers and some supers (via ebay if it's Heroclix, cause they went under). There are plenty of other hero minis too. Ostensibly you could do this with any theme, but the idea of a vintage comic cover as a 'game' is just extremely awesome in every way possible.

...now if only they still made the dice you had to color in with crayons like in the old days...

UPDATE:
They DO! They DO SELL THEM!!


*Props to Eiglophian Press for the booklet idea.