The NEXT STEP: Maps & Minis

[Emryys]

CMG has brought many many new gamers into D&D because they bought the minis, then decided to try the RPG. A new flood of players into traveller would be a great thing. And the Goose selling millions of minis would be great as well.

Perhaps what Traveller needs is a "minatures game"...

DDM is played on maps, so perhaps a revival of Snapshot!
Release various deckplans with scenarios for boarding actions and sets of minatures for the game. This way there may be 2 markets for the minatures... the Traveller minatures games and the Traveller roleplayers...
I'd sure like the deckplans and minis...

Just a thought

 

[Imperator58]

I think I pretty much said that, on the previous page or thereabouts... but, glad to see someone's of the same mind!

Just for the record, I didn't mention anything in my post about collectable miniature games but since the subject has been raised, thats another consideration.

No no no no NO! I will NOT see Traveller stoop to the level of CMGs with the poor-paint jobs, crappy "bendy" plastic, and having to buy pack after pack after pack to get the miniatures you want.

It's metal, hard plastic, or NOTHING!

Weeelll, though I don't totally agree with the rant - I'd LOVE a minis game/RPG setup for Traveller with lil' Chinese-made figures in mass quantity on the cheap - I would also be cool with the hard plastic. Mongoose and Games Workshop have both made fabulous boxed sets of this kind, and since the latter is still doing so for LotR it must be reasonably profitable.

 

[BenTOGS]

Just for the record, I didn't mention anything in my post about collectable miniature games but since the subject has been raised, thats another consideration.

No no no no NO! I will NOT see Traveller stoop to the level of CMGs with the poor-paint jobs, crappy "bendy" plastic, and having to buy pack after pack after pack to get the miniatures you want.

It's metal, hard plastic, or NOTHING!

My, my, getting a little frenzied there, mate. How do you feel about retreating from the Eastern Front?

 

[GamerDude]

It's metal, hard plastic, or NOTHING!

My, my, getting a little frenzied there, mate. How do you feel about retreating from the Eastern Front?

I want mine sculpted from the stone from meteors.

Baring that, sculpted on the heads of pins... {J/K}

 

[AKAramis]

My personal preferences, in descending order:

1) Type of figures
1.a) Paper minis as TrueType fonts
1.b) physical minis.
1.c) other forms of paper minis

2) medium for physical minis of characters
2.a) medium plastics (like Zvezda or Caesar used, or Battlelore)
2.b) hard plastics
2.c) soft plastics (like MicroMachines figures used. they were 12-15mm, BTW...)
2.d) the new hard metal minis. (I hate them... hard to clean, hard to modify)

3) medium for physical minis of ships
3.a) hard plastics
3.b) medium plastics
3.c) modern hard white metal

4) Scale - people
4.a) 15mm
4.b) 20mm or 1/72
4.c) 28mm
4.d) 25mm
4.e) 52mm

Why do I like font-based paper minis? Because I can easily do them up in any scale from 10mm to 52mm. Yes, sparks will print out that big... ISTR 125pts or so.

 

[captainjack23]

Just for the record, I didn't mention anything in my post about collectable miniature games but since the subject has been raised, thats another consideration.

No no no no NO! I will NOT see Traveller stoop to the level of CMGs with the poor-paint jobs, crappy "bendy" plastic, and having to buy pack after pack after pack to get the miniatures you want.

It's metal, hard plastic, or NOTHING!

My, my, getting a little frenzied there, mate. How do you feel about retreating from the Eastern Front?

This defence will be carried out WITHOUT REGARD FOR THE GAMER POPULATION !!!!! IF WE ARE DEFEATED IN THIS OUR GREATEST TRIAL THE GAMING PEOPLE DO NOT DESERVE TO EXIST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Imperator58]

Unfortunately, manic posts like that tend to be Thread-Killers, as afterward other folks either go "Oh, for Chrissake" and lose interest, or actively just don't want to be associated with it.
But I think the topic's a good one, and hate to see constructive discussion on the subject end just 'cos of some spazzing. Traveller could use some maps and minis - what kind and how many is open for discussion, certainly.

 

[Mark A. Siefert]

So... If some one demands some quality rather than the garbage that we usually get, you're declared "manic."

Nice.

 

[Sturn]

Read his post one more time. It completely made sense and he was just trying to keep the thread alive.

----

As for quality in plastics, I don't see a problem at all. There are quality plastic/rubber minis. As has been pointed out, many, if not most of us, do not have the time to paint armies of minis. My plastic Star Wars minis look much better then my metal un-painted Star Wars ones. :lol:

Tell me if this is about par for the course - PC metal minis with nice paint jobs fighting unpainted or primed NPCs. That was normal for me in my earlier gaming years even when I had more time to paint. Also I had such things as the "ogre" figure playing his part as hobgoblin, ogre, giant, etc since I didn't have the money or time to have sets of each. And, I had carboard chips standing alongside the metal figures when I didn't have enough of them. Plastic minis came along, and wham, I now GM with painted figures that actually represent what they really are, in enough numbers, and not stand-ins or primed figures waiting for paint.

And by the way, I have boughten very few of the boxes themselves. The industry is kept alive by those like me searching for the individual cheap minis I want online. Just a randomn guess, but I bet half of what is purchased off store shelves ends up online.

Bring on the pre-painted randomn boxes. They have done wonders for D&D and StarWars games.

 

[Imperator58]

Yah, and I don't get the goings-on about horrible quality pre-painted minis. Most of them are pretty darned decent. NO, a mass-produced plastic mini painted by some hapless Chinese woman in a factory looking to feed her kids won't match up to the loving care lavished upon a Player Character mini painted by a skilled hobbyist, but for the most part they're close enough to rock 'n' roll.
Additionally, despite the ventings about increased cost, you still get a lot more for your money with the plastic prefabs than with unassembled, unpainted metal.
To me, it seems like a good affordable plan.
BUT, I'd still be game to take the middle ground: polysteyrene unpainted kits. Cheaper than metal, still lets you make your own. ALTHOUGH I'd have to say Mongoose needs a different plastic: The ones for Starship Troopers weren't quite plysteyrene, and model glue tended to just pop free! Don't know what the deal was there. Frustrating.

 

[Jame Rowe]

I'd rather see them come in randomized clear boxes so I know what I'm getting.

 

[AKAramis]

I won't blind-buy minis. Period.

See-through random boxes, maybe.

 

[klingsor]

Wargamers and RPGers hate randomised miniatures, if you just want an army, or a squad of Imperial Marines, then rarity is just an inconvenience and randomness a complete pain in the behind. We are potentially a good market for them, make the random boxes but use the same moulds and painters to knock out some non random troop sets for us. It seems so simple and obvious to this one in a state of darkness.

 

[zozotroll]

All old debates and ideas on the D&D forums. And to steal a quote, they sold like chocolate covered diamonds sprinkled with crack. The olnly people that get left out are those that only buy the occasional pack, and they are not that big a buying source to be a problem.

At the two FLGS I talk to D&D minis dont sell by the peice or the pack, they sell by the case. Over half the total sales go out in that manner.

The thing is, you can use those minis in a lot of different games. I am not sure there is a big enough sci-fi crowd to generate the same sort of sales. I certainly would buy a case or two and more if they released more than one set. But that is just one guy.

As for wargamers not likeing them, I find that hard to get a grip on. Since Axis and Allies has changed to 15mm minis, they cant keep them in the FLGS. Not only do you get two vehicles for $5 each, you get free infantry with them. Hard to beat that with metal prioces. Now if you only collect one army, it can be a problem. But you can always trade what you dont want to your opponent who has a different army.

I know I have German AK, late war west and mid and late war eastr front. Plus Brit 8th army, American torch, and normandy and bulge, and a goot start on the 442nd RCT. The only thing I dont really collect are Japanese, and russian, but if I get a bunch of them saved up, I will start.

Most wargamers I know over the last 35 years didnt collect minis in the dozens, they collect them in the thousands. Random drops the price which is never a bad thing for me.

 

[EDG]

I've used the same bunch of pre-painted miniatures for years for our D&D games. Doesn't matter that they don't exactly represent what they're supposed to represent - we just want things a bit fancier than counters with numbers on them so we can see what's going on.

TBH the only crappy looking ones I've seen were the first generation of Mage Knight minis - those DID look pretty awful. But the painting on the plastic minis has improved vastly since then - the D&D ones are really good IMO (much better than I could ever paint, certainly).

 

[Sturn]

I'd rather see them come in randomized clear boxes so I know what I'm getting.

I won't blind-buy minis. Period. See-through random boxes, maybe.

I think this would defeat the purpose of them being randomn in the first place. Folks would just look through the boxes until they found what they wanted. Might as well sell them in packs or as individuals. Thus, the extra profit margin that would make the venture more worthly for a company like Mongoose would be lost.

Want to see them first? Buy them from an online buyer. Go look at ebay if you don't believe these things move in large quantities. I run a Star Wars campaign. After I plan an adventure, I go look online for the specific minis I'm missing. They are always there.

I hated the plastic randomn mini concept also at first. Love them now.

Wargamers and RPGers hate randomised miniatures, if you just want an army, or a squad of Imperial Marines, then rarity is just an inconvenience and randomness a complete pain in the behind.

I'm a RPGer and love them. You don't have to buy them blind, as I said above.

As a comparison, say you need some Imperial Stormtroopers for a Star Wars game. Go do a search online, they are there for cheap in droves. If randomn Traveller mini boxes were even a fraction as successful, I imagine Imperial Marines would be just as easy to get.

.....And to steal a quote, they sold like chocolate covered diamonds sprinkled with crack........ I am not sure there is a big enough sci-fi crowd to generate the same sort of sales.

The Star Wars sci-fi minis have sold almost as well. Perhaps caramel covered rubies sprinkled with meth? :lol:

I've used the same bunch of pre-painted miniatures for years for our D&D games. Doesn't matter that they don't exactly represent what they're supposed to represent - we just want things a bit fancier than counters with numbers on them so we can see what's going on.

And now many want things a bit fancier with minis that actually look like what they are supposed to be. It's possible now and I love it. Wasn't possible back in the 80's during the golden age.

Edit: In my haste, misread EDG's post the first time. My example still applies, so left it in.

To continue my example, I easily and cheaply obtained a Stormtrooper platoon, down to an officer and the exact mix of weapons the squad members carry. You can look at my minis and not only tell what they are, but what weapon each is carrying!

 

[EDG]

As a point, I bought my first few packs of Mage Knight minis as packs - I didn't care what I got, I just wanted enough to play a game. After that I bought any I needed on an individual basis, because the FLGS sold them that way.

With the D&D minis, I've always bought them on an individual basis.

 

[Mark A. Siefert]

I can't believe what I am reading here...

Bendy-plastic, pre-painted, collectible miniatures are, and forever shall be, CRAP. They are poorly molded, poorly painted (need I remind you of BF: EVO?), and can not be modified or re-painted to a degree to make them look any less like some cheap toy you got out of the quarter vending machines you find in the annex of your local supermarket.

When we have so many examples of GOOD sculpting and miniature production, from GW to Reaper, from the work of Bobby Jackson to the Perry twins, what do some want for Traveller? Lousy, cheap, garbage. Has no one any pride in this hobby anymore? Has our attention-deficit society of convenience made gamers so lazy that we want our figures painted for us? Why not? They play WoW and call it "gaming" even though the computer is doing all their imagining for them!

Why are we willing to sell out to the lowest common denominator of gaming? Why!?

 

[EDG]

Um, Mark? Wipe your chin, your froth is getting everywhere .

I don't have the time or inclination to paint or assemble miniatures - pre-painted ones are perfect for me (and cheaper than the metal ones, too). There's no faffing around with painting, you just get 'em out of the box and play.

Everything works in their favour - they're pre-assembled, pre-painted, convenient and above all cheap. And frankly, they're nowhere near as "crap" as you make them out to be in terms of quality - the paintwork and modelling is fine on them now (and what's more, they don't weigh a ton and I can throw them all into a plastic bag and carry them around without worrying about bits chipping off them when during transit). And more to the point, my bendy-plastic pre-painted "crap" miniatures work absolutely perfectly for the purposes I use them for.

That's not to say that there's no place for metal miniatures, but they're very much for people who are a lot more "serious" about their miniatures gaming (and who have a heck of a lot more money to blow) - for the rest of us those, plastic works fine.

 

[AKAramis]

I can't believe what I am reading here...
[snippage of rabid froth]

Why are we willing to sell out to the lowest common denominator of gaming? Why!?

1) the choice, for me, is Plastic or Nothing. Metal is too expensive to get shipped, and too expensive to make

2) Prepaints are acceptable, as are unpainted

3) I've had more broken metals than plastics over the years... and the new metal, rather than bending, simply snaps and shatters. It also takes glue less well, and is far harder to modify.

4) Plastics are far lighter to carry

5) soft plastics and medium plastics modify just fine, thank-you. True, different glues work better. But I can also paint-weld plastics, while the new metals are too heavy for paint-welding. (Paint-welding: using paint instead of glue; GW acrylic paint works nicely for that on polystyrene.) Further, I can reshape them with just boiling water, not needing a torch and pliers.