Which miniatures lines would you like to see added to the site next? A few possibilities that have already been floated are:
Heroclix
Mage Knight
Heroscape
Attack Wing
In addition to prepainted miniatures, would you be interested in listing unpainted miniatures as well (such as Reaper Bones)? What about miniatures in other scales (like Axis and Allies, World of Warcraft, and so on)?
Finally, for miniatures that come with stats (like Heroclix), would the listings for those miniatures need to include the stats, or would you be ok with just the figure?
Those are great lines to add if you can!
My other suggestions are: Arcane Legions, Arkham Horror, Auggies Dungeon Crawler, Cadwallon, Dreamblade, Horrorclix, World of Warcraft, Scene-a-Rama and Reaper! Now I threw a bunch at you, but if I had to guess, the most important would be Auggie's Dungeon Crawler, Dreamblade, Horrorclix, World of Warcraft and Reaper. If you added them this site would be something that no other is. In fairness if you simply added a few of the ones mentioned it would be! Especially the Mage Knght which has a HUGE collection of minis! Anyway to get your number of posts listed next to your name along with emojs to the site?
Just a comment: Dungeon Crawler belongs to Gifted Vision; I believe Auggie's is just the only seller of them other than Gifted Vision. (I did stumble across one other seller carrying them, once.)
(And, as you've probably noticed, the DC sets are already here.)
Yep, the DCM figures are right here: http://www.miniscollector.com/dungeon-crawler.
I've already commented on how I feel these lines are a lot of work for too little payoff (but I do grant that including them would make this...The Greatest Miniature Site in existence!! ...However, it is already that. )
But, if you feel you really have the time & energy for this great undertaking, I would suggest there be some way to shield Find a Figure results from unhelpful bloat. Something like a checkbox, for "Include atypical lines?"
(Ideally, perhaps each figure line could be presented in the Find a Figure parameters, and you could click a box for "All" or for individual lines...and your preference could be stored as your default setting.)
As to the suggested lines...
I think Mage Knight would have the most direct appeal for this site's current users.
Heroclix might attract the many Heroclickers, but I don't know much about them, or whether they'd care about the stats. The sheer number of figures would seem daunting, even without listing the stats for every one. As I've mentioned, this line has a large number of fantasy-usable figures, especially when you include its non-super hero sets.
I might recommend WoW. Not because its pointlessly large figures are much use, but just because there aren't so many, so it wouldn't be so tiring to add.
Heroscape had some intriguing minis, but the line was defunct almost before anyone had noticed it. Since it hardly attracts new players, and many of the early sets are nearly impossible to get (or jaw-droppingly expensive), I feel this would not be the most profitable line to add. Then again, even I have a couple dozen of these, so who knows...?
Attack Wing just offends me. Repackaging Icons of the Realms more expensively did not win them any friends... (But it did leave one retailer with such a surplus that I snagged a veritable army of Sun Elf Guards for a few cents on the dollar!)
Dreamblade: I have never met a Dreamblade player. I'm not sure they exist. Well, ok, there are probably a dozen fanatical players who would adore having all the minis here. And some of them are delightful minis...and others leave you just scratching your head.
Cadwallon does have nice minis, but they're hard to find (& metal, though I've been surprised by how light a metal).
Arkham Horror might attract some interest. Even with no intention of buying many of the minis, I'd spend time admiring them in the gallery.
Bones. I have a few. Oh, how I would clap my hands in glee, if only they would return to offering them painted as Legendary Encounters... Reaper has claimed they intend to...but we're still waitin'. Although Bones need no rebasing, unlike most of the lines proposed, I think adding them would only attract a few folks, and wouldn't benefit most current members. (Now that I've said that, I'm sure there's a gaggle of rabid painters who want to lynch me. They're probably the same guys who touch-up & repaint their prepainted minis to make them even better... Oh, how I envy them the time & skill!)
Horrorclix should be included, if Heroclix is, just for completeness.
Arcane Legions & Scene-a-Rama are mostly unfamiliar to me, except that Arcane Legions have those pesky pegs on the bottom. I can't imagine they have enormous followings, but their fans are probably dedicated.
No other lines come to my mind (well, except Miniatures Factory, which is just a few plastic farm animals glued to bases, available at Coolstuffinc, but now sold out).
Oh! I'm not sure this would be appropriate, but Ertl produced 1/64 scale (mini scale) farm animals. I've wanted to let mini gamers know they exist. The cows, horses, & sheep work especially well. (The pigs & geese seem a bit small, the chickens just add flavor; the goats seem good, but I don't have any yet.) Ertl no longer produces these, but ebay always has them.
ahh, but if we listed obscure mini-sized toy lines, such a slippery slope might lead to mini-sized terrain...such as Idyllwild Games' Dark Age Outpost!! (Oh, how I kick myself for not having tossed a hundred bucks to their Kickstarter...*sigh*)
OK, my mini-mania is overcoming me, so I'd best end this...
I agree brontoceratops that it would take a massive effort to add some of these other lines, but as you so precisely stated "adding them would make this...The Greatest Miniature Site in existence".
So what would you guys like the focus of the site to be? I've always thought that the focus would be PPM figures for use in roleplaying games. If we branch out from that, what would be most important? Seeing more PPMs, regardless of what their use is? Or minis for RPGs, both unpainted and prepainted?
I say keep the focus of the site entirely on painted miniatures. There are so many painted miniature lines that including unpainted right now would be overload. I say you should include any prepainted line that works for RPG's of the fantasy setting as priority. It seems that's where your primary interest may be anyways. This should definitely involve lines that have some crossover such as Dreamblade, Horrorclix and even Heroclix, but whatever mini line you add should be based on RPG's with at least some sort of fantasy flavor.
I would agree. I love miniatures, but I collect them expressly for playing fantasy RPG's.
Honestly, for me, the site is currently at its optimum: adding unpainted, oddly-scaled, or bulky-based figures would diminish the site's focused beauty.
But maybe more folks would be attracted with a wider figure base (though I think the site needs more exposure, rather than more content).
Of course,,, "One Site to Rule them All!" ...does have an undeniable appeal... ;)
I'd definitely like to see the D&D Attack Wing miniatures on the site as they are also by WizKids and are reprints of their D&D minis lines, with a few alternates. The same goes for the HeroScape miniatures that were in the D&D waves they released.
Of course I'm biased because I have a bunch of minis in these sets and would like to be able to track them and know what I have :-)
I'm not particularly concerned about the stats right now, just as I don't really need information from the stat cards that came with the 3e/4e miniatures.
Hey KatoKatonian:
I personally see no reason why those line shouldn't be added as well. They are after all mini lines which we think should be included. I can just image if this was able to be accomplished how awesome this site would be for us as well as others that will gather to the site.
I'm a huge vote in favor of adding ATTACK WING. I grab them when I absolutely know I need to have miniature X for the final combat. I mostly have a slew of varied dragons and they are generally cheaper than the "Huge' specific mini. As it's just Chris coding miniatures into the site, let's keep to the pre-painted ones for now. As I add my collection into here, I'm finding and submitting onesie / twosie fixes to the existing sets.
Let's get what we've got, get it in good and then slowly add collections based on what we've got at the house. Digging through pewter unpainted minis looking for my version of Orc Warrior with whatever color scheme I've done him up in sounds awful.
But hey, to each his own. Love the site!
Attack Wing only has 41 unique figures (according to what I just found on the WizKids site), so it shouldn't be a big deal to add them in. I've gotten lots of requests for them, so I'll try to have them up by mid-week.
I'm going to need a little more time on this one. Since Attack Wing has a relatively small number of figures released in smaller "waves", this is a good time to implement some subset functionality that I've been wanting to add to the site. That would allow me to put smaller lines like Attack Wing and Dungeon Command all on one page, but still organize them according to waves or faction boxes. This will also help with the multipart case incentive figures, having separate listings for each figure, but all grouped together.
So, all good stuff, but I need a little more time to get it right. Hopefully no later than next week.
Okay, I have the new subset functionality in place. You can see it in action here: http://www.miniscollector.com/icons-realms/tyranny-dragons
If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see that I've broken out the Starter Set and the big dragons, since they were sold as separate products, but still labeled Tyranny of Dragons (btw, this has been a major source of annoyance since long before I made this site public, so I'm really glad to have it fixed.)
I'm just about out of time for tonight and have a pretty busy weekend, so we're still looking at next week for the Attack Wing figures. Also, I'm going to break out the multipart case incentive sets into individual figures using this system, so if you're collecting those sets, you'll need to add your counts for the new figures. I'll post a news item about that too, just to make sure everyone sees the changes.
Cool news about the subset functionality. And I'll personally enjoy the case incentives being broken into individual minis.
Yeah, WizKids has really been throwing a wrench in my nice, tidy database. :-)
I think having the incentive figs broken out will be a good thing in the long run.
Attack Wing figures are up!
http://www.miniscollector.com/attack-wing/dd-attack-wing
Are they still making the attack wing miniatures?
https://wizkids.com/2017/07/13/wizkids-announces-thistleguard-new-pre-pa...
Wizkids has announced Thistleguard, a new, family-friendly line of prepainted minis.
(I think this is the first Lynx mini I've seen.)
https://thegaminggang.com/game-news/celebrate-first-edition-dd-with-icon...
Also from Wizkids, an Icons of the Ream boxed set, "Classic Creatures".
(yet another frickin' Owlbear to add to the collection...*grumble*grumble*...)
Nice finds! I'll try to get them added tonight (after I finish out the Star Trek Attack Wing adds.)
[quote=BrundleflyTNT]Are they still making the attack wing miniatures?[/quote]
They're not doing the D&D Attack Wing any more, but Star Trek Attack Wing is alive and well. They just released Wave 31, and I've just finished adding the entire line to the site!
The new figures are listed here: http://www.miniscollector.com/attack-wing/star-trek-attack-wing
Looks like WizKids is pulling the ThistleGuard name because of similarities to the ThornWatch card game. Details here: https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/37960/wizkids-pulls-name-new-miniatu...
I'll probably list the miniatures anyway, because it doesn't look like the line is going away. Only the name will change. I'm pretty excited about this new line, since I'm just starting to get into playing D&D with my kids. The figures look really nice too. :-)
Glad it's just a name change; the line is too interesting to lose.
(Another Badger!)
I very much want to see where they take this line, going forward.
( I worry that kid-oriented-gamer-plus-mini-collector might turn out an insufficiently lucrative niche market; hopefully those of us who fall in only one of those categories will shore up the numbers. )
Wizkids seems to be focused on the impulse buy/pocket money market for a lot of their product lines. I'd imagine they're going after kids with a few bucks in their pocket who either haven't played or are just getting into gaming, or just want a cool figure to put on the shelf. Seems like there's a lot of potential there.
I would love to see the WoW miniatures on here, also there's another site where you can get all the info on them from: http://www.miniaturetrading.com
They also have info on a few other lines which you could also grab from them: HorrorClix, Halo ActionClix, Dreamblade, AttacktiX Battle Figure Game, HeroClix, Pokemon Trading Figure Game. If you use json or sql for the data on this site, i could write you a tool to grab all the data from those sites, and convert it to your format.
With my love of "ordinary people" figures, I was going to again advocate for my personal favorite, the tiny 5-figure set of Agricola miniatures, when I realized, we don't have the assorted pre-painted figures from Dwarven Forge.
They have sculpted bases rather than uniform glued bases, but they otherwise seem to be in our bailiwick. And they have Townsfolk...and Ratfolk!
(Plus, they supposedly anticipate a large restocking of Townsfolk & others soon.)
Another manufacturer i'd like to see here is EM4, while they mostly do unpainted minis, they have a few sets of prepainted minis. I'm considering buying them, cause they're quite cheap, and would love to see them on this site.
How about "Dungeons & Dragons: Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures"?
Sincerely,
Eric F. Malave