NEWS: April releases for Reaper

[Nathan Caroland]

[Gonzoangel]

WOOHOO, more Dwarfy goodness :thumb:

[Nathan Caroland]

WOOHOO, more Dwarfy goodness :thumb:

Dwarf? Where .. I see an Ewok!

[Spacemunkie]

My god, why do they bother......

[LeadAsbestos]

I like the model of my ex-girlfriend (what is it, really?), and the spider is nice too.

[gi6ers]

not for me, just more of the same dullness, if you want a giant spider head over to the heresy site.....

[Ritual]

Boring stuff! :sleeping:

[vincegamer]

I think the Medussa is fairly cool.

The dwarf I can't say unless they have an angle that shows his face (he's looking at the sky and I like the pose though not keen on the armor - looks exactly like 3/4 of the elf armor Reaper does).

I want to like the knight, I really do, but someone needs to tell him its a sword, not a baseball bat.

BatterrrrUp!

[EricJ]

you know, for a while I thought reaper was about the turn the corner in quality, they were putting out some really nice sculpts and raising their standard. This batch seems like a big step backward! (which seems to be the trend lately)

[Nathan Caroland]

Well, odd as she may look, I think the Medusa (that's the fugly chick up top there) would actually look pretty decent when done up properly. I might have to pick one of these up for the hell of it and see just what she looks like in hand.

[witchfire]

why does reaper still waste theyr time with Dark Heaven minis

why dont they just dump that brocoli based line (keep a few monsters)

& put more effort on the Warlords line

[Nathan Caroland]

Simple answer to that and some other comments above of why do they bother, is that they sell and make them money.

Might not be what I would go out of my way for, but to be honest, when you look at it, they are selling the miniatures relatively cheaply, retailers are getting a good discount so they can buy up a ton of the stuff if they want, and then of course it is in your face all over the place in stores, etc.

It might not be a big seller, but if on the day you release it you sell fifteen thousand of them to distributors and retailers who automatically grab a few of everything new, well, you've just paid for the sculpt and all that went into rather nicely.

Makes sense, and in the long run, I'm rather envious in that sense. Where I may sell at best a hundred miniatures on my opening day of release (and that has only happened once), they sell multiple thousands.

Now you know why, atleast from my point of view.

[Wren]

At the store where I work we sell loads more Dark Heaven minis than Warlord minis. By many more I mean I would guess we sell 5-10 DH minis for every WL mini. (Likewise 5-10+ for every Privateer Press mini, and more like 50+ for every mini from Reaper's other lines, and for our other lines like IWM, Mighty Armies and a few other odds and ends.) If the store could carry only one Reaper line, it would be a no brainer which to pick. The vast majority of minis we sell are to role-players. Their main concern is how well the mini represents their character class/equipment/race (or NPCs), with secondary concerns of many folks not wanting anything with any assembly complexity, and many people looking for lowest possible prices. WL doesn't meet those needs as well as DH does, as the figs are more likely to be multi-part, cost a bit more, and have poor representation for many common RPG races and professions. Now granted, if we could get a bit more interest in Warlord the game, that would improve sales, but the RPers would probably still add up to more sales overall.

That said, I agree with the comments that this isn't the most inspiring batch of minis from a painter's POV. Some weeks I end up bringing a new release or two home with me from work, some weeks I just stick 'em up on the pegs with a mental 'enh', and this was an enh week for sure. (I sort of like the medusa, but there's just something about the way that her head is tilting forward that I found very awkward looking, the more so because of the niceness of the pose from the shoulders down.) I can't fault Reaper for looking first to the RPers needs, but hopefully they will aim for a nice balance between that and more of the artistry that painters look for.

[GreyHorde]

Agreed; from where I sit, 'not the most inspiring' pretty much covers it. Oh, well, they can't all be gems. I wonder if they're just filling spots in the production schedule, saving better stuff for ReaperCon and the big summer conventions just around the corner.