OMG! What are Rackham doing?!?!?!

[tooshy]

I read this on Rackham\'s website...

\"Rackham has always been a pioneer on the miniatures gaming scene, and the aesthetic quality of our miniatures remains uncontested. It is the talent of our sculptors and painters, as well as the expertise developed by our studio, that made the excellence of our miniatures our strongest hallmark.

In the future, most of our miniatures will be made of plastic, assembled and painted. However, our quality requirements are intact: we shall remain faithful to our image; our miniatures will always be some of the most remarkable and charismatic available on the market.

Our primary qualities are unchanged. Nevertheless, it is an important change for you as it is for us...<snip> \"

Bloody plastic, pre-painted models They cannot be serious... or can they ???

PS I originally put this on the Rackham forum here, but thought it might get noticed more here. Apologies to any moderators who think this is in the wrong place :redface:

 

[Sand Rat]

Sounds like the Hero Clicks model to me.

 

[generulpoleaxe]

they are going to be replacing the troops for confrontation and ragnarock with the types of pre painted plastic that you see with AT43.

it\'s not a move i like, but i doubt they care what people like me think as i only buy the occasional mini.

as a business move, it is a smart one, it will bring in a lot of people who before didn\'t want to paint there stuff because of the daunting detail. painters will still have the characters to paint.
it\'s the regular gamers that also like to paint the highly detailed minis that they are annoying with this move.

 

[Onis Lair]

I heard about this some time back. The bad thing from what i hear is that the prepainted plastics will not be all that much cheaper then the white metal figures they sale now. The differance will be really seen in paying say $7 for a wolfen instead of $15 and then having to put it together and paint it. The move is closer to WoTC\'s D&D minis then heroclix. Financially it\'s a good move for rackham as typically plastic is more favored by battlegamers due to weight, less hassle with assymbaly, transport and no need to paint them.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

Pre Painted=Crap

Can\'t say it any better than this.

 

[StarFyre]

hmmm

*agrees with Jeff*

Sanjay

 

[uberdark]

leave it to rackham to make themselves a worse company than gw.... but hey this means a bunch of older minis will start going out of the store and they will stop altogether right? i bet they will have a huge sale online pretty soon.

oh and from what i was told by a friend who works at wal mart as a manager.... at-43 is set to be sold there this fall for christmas and the prices of the mini\'s are going down as well.

something to consider.

 

[No Such Agency]

Well, I guess now\'s the time to check out the approximately 15,000 other miniature companies out there Fear not, your precious Wolfen will still be readily available on the auction market, from the n00bs who bought a bunch and then got bored of painting them.

 

[frenchkid]

Ooooh tooshy siting !!
I\'d heard this a will ago. But I also seem to remember that they would keep producing some \'collector\' minis meant for the sole purpose of painting. Isn\'t that what they\'re doing with AT-43 ?
And their forgewolrd emulation is also a pretty good sign that they aren\'t going to let painters down all together.


And if they do...... well kraken\'s there to replace them

 

[Legacy Account]

I guess Rackham have seen how producing stuff in China is the way forward financially. Shame GW didn\'t/haven\'t realised this....

Good on them if it makes them some cash and keeps prices down.

I just bought some of those \'Tannhauser\' plastic minis that come pre-painted in a game box. The plastic is cheap, bendy and very pliable. The castings are, however, of a splendid quality - just like AT-43 figs.

The pre-painting on their AT-43 stuff is not bad, and extremely easy to just overpaint. Don\'t see the problem as long as sculpt and cast quality remain high.

 

[darkartminiatures]

Makes you think if they actually get a larger market with doing this. I mean, if they are trying to get more of the \'lazy ones\' to buy pre-painted stuff don\'t they think that the lazy ones would also not be bothered reading rules and spending hours playing a few turns when they can just buy a computer game? I think it will put off the regular customers from buying and they are trying to get to a market that doesn\'t really care about tabletop-boardgames IMHO.
But, saying this they must know what they are doing....or do they? even GW are not that bold.

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by generulpoleaxe

as a business move, it is a smart one, it will bring in a lot of people who before didn\'t want to paint there stuff because of the daunting detail. painters will still have the characters to paint.
it\'s the regular gamers that also like to paint the highly detailed minis that they are annoying with this move.

i agree. my l.g.s. had to sell off all his rackam stuff really cheap as no-one would buy it. shame really. it opens up their figures to a wider market and as scott said:

Originally posted by Spacemunkie

Good on them if it makes them some cash and keeps prices down.

Don\'t see the problem as long as sculpt and cast quality remain high.

if the quality is still good, just strip \'em. it could work out better for us. cheaper=more sales=more profits=(hopeully) more, better quality stuff (fingers crossed)

 

[Avelorn]

There might be a shortterm boost but in the end, the hobby will be more of a fling I think as they won\'t have as many faithful customers. Not sure Rackham is up for it either.

Well we\'ll see what happens, won\'t we?

 

[DrEvilmonki]

their pre paints can be paintedover as seen by orbs great work. I know a lot of players who are not interested in painting at all and would love this option.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Is this going to be a phased in thing or done all at once?

 

[JakeSh]

That is very disappointing. AT-43 in Wal-Mart? Frightening!

Fortunately (for me), my local shop had a 60% off sale on Rackham last year. I have soooo much of it now. The problem is they did this because nobody here plays Confrontation, so they stopped carrying new Rackham figures. I don\'t know if this will boost their sales or not, but their pewter stuff apparently has never sold well anyways (here at least).

 

[NerdyOgre254]

Oh no... please let them be better than the WotC minis. i mean it just shattered my opinion of them when i got a free box (for promoting D&D) and the miniature has it\'s axe bent out of shape. i won\'t buy a blister miniature if it has bent components that i can see (especially if the components are thin, like staves or something). plus the paint jobs on WotC minis... shudder. the AT-43 mini paint jobs looked okay, but i\'d rather do it myself. i liked the look of the big chunky one in the box set, but i wouldn\'t buy it just for that.

 

[Ebonbuddha]

Hmmmmm....I will hold my tongue until I see them. I have always been a fan of Rackham and I think I always will. I guess we will see.

 

[DrEvilmonki]

Originally posted by JakeSh
That is very disappointing. AT-43 in Wal-Mart? Frightening!

Well that just smacks of elitism really, what you don\'t want to be involved with the great umwashed?

 

[Ebonbuddha]

Magic the Gathering did the same thing in the 90s. I don\'t know if it was a good thing or bad. ???

Originally posted by JakeSh
That is very disappointing. AT-43 in Wal-Mart? Frightening!