Companion minis would you buy?

By alexbobspoons, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

So,

As title, if ffg released a pack of minis for the companions, eh the necromancer minion, the animal friends of the heroes etc. Would you buy it to stop using the counters?

I would! And this would be a product with zero game design and zero play testing. Just mini design and production.

I'm thinking is a great idea.

Then, would you buy a generic pack of say 5 villagers to replace those tokens too? (I'd but this too even though I could proxy other models I have)

Let's make this thread hot like the Mansions of Madness thread about producing a dice pack so that FFG can see this would be a good idea.

Edited by alexbobspoons

I would buy :-)

Same here !

And many said elsewhere that they would too

17 hours ago, alexbobspoons said:

So,

As title, if ffg released a pack of minis for the companions, eh the necromancer minion, the animal friends of the heroes etc. Would you buy it to stop using the counters?

I would! And this would be a product with zero game design and zero play testing. Just mini design and production.

I'm thinking is a great idea.

I'm kind of curious why they don't make this product when the lieutenant packs certainly seem to work. I've already proxied some of this stuff, for instance it's not too hard to come up with a skeleton or a wolf. There's a flock of Ravens mini out there and some 3d printed options for the summoned stones. But there isn't a great mini for Brightblaze and nothing at all for the scourge.

I don't think they'd be able to replace all of the tokens, for instance how do you make a mini of the shadow soul? I mean it's whole thing is basically other mini's standing on top of it...

But there are a number of token that could be replaced and quite a few of us who want that.

18 hours ago, alexbobspoons said:

Then, would you buy a generic pack of say 5 villagers to replace those tokens too? (I'd but this too even though I could proxy other models I have)

I've tried to buy generic villagers, they certainly come up often enough in games. The only villagers I've found are ridiculously over themed, for instance I don't have a lot of use for a blacksmith and his anvil.

So if anybody knows of a well made generic mini out there or can design one for 3d printing I'd like to buy a few.

I'm in, insta-buy.

1 hour ago, Bucho said:

I've tried to buy generic villagers, they certainly come up often enough in games. The only villagers I've found are ridiculously over themed, for instance I don't have a lot of use for a blacksmith and his anvil.

So if anybody knows of a well made generic mini out there or can design one for 3d printing I'd like to buy a few.

There was a recent Kickstarter about angry villagers storming a monsters lair, like a tower defence game in reverse. When that ships next year I expect eBay to be full of plastic villager miniatures.

Instant buy as well.

4 hours ago, Bucho said:

I don't think they'd be able to replace all of the tokens, for instance how do you make a mini of the shadow soul? I mean it's whole thing is basically other mini's standing on top of it...

But there are a number of token that could be replaced and quite a few of us who want that.

Maybe that's why they don't do it. No sense in replace just some of the stuff. But anyway, I´'d buy in a blink.

4 hours ago, Bucho said:

how do you make a mini of the shadow soul? I mean it's whole thing is basically other mini's standing on top of it...

Good point.

The only thing I could think is to have a kind of flat 2D mini that stands upright similar to a standee and it would be the shape of a generic indistinct shadow, then for its base you have a simple flat circle but the mini would be attached to the very edge/circumference thus providing it leans slightly it should stand up fine and yet any other standard-size mini can effectively stand on its circular base and the "shadow" would be rearing up behind/side of them.

Actually think that would look great. Be good in transluscent grey plastic but also standard mini could be painted up for good effect :)

10 hours ago, Truckerpunk said:

I'm in, insta-buy.

Same here!

On 6/14/2017 at 4:45 PM, alexbobspoons said:

Good point.

The only thing I could think is to have a kind of flat 2D mini that stands upright similar to a standee and it would be the shape of a generic indistinct shadow, then for its base you have a simple flat circle but the mini would be attached to the very edge/circumference thus providing it leans slightly it should stand up fine and yet any other standard-size mini can effectively stand on its circular base and the "shadow" would be rearing up behind/side of them.

Actually think that would look great. Be good in transluscent grey plastic but also standard mini could be painted up for good effect :)

I was actually thinking of a translucent purple token but was skeptical that would provide enough utility to be worth it. Your ideas cooler, I was trying to come up with something like that but couldn't figure out how to get around the problem of the large size mini's.

Also, it wouldn't need to be generic, you could certainly monster it up.

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On 6/14/2017 at 4:36 PM, leewroy said:

Maybe that's why they don't do it. No sense in replace just some of the stuff. But anyway, I´'d buy in a blink.

I'd wonder if making a product that's meant to support seven different sources makes marketing have a stroke.

Count me in.

I'm getting nickel and dimed trying to track down proxies from craft stores an eBay. I'd rather have just put that money into an official pack, with the same production quality and proper size proportions and be done with it.

Either an ultimate bundle to cover all the expansions, or individually sold per expansion would work for me. They could even make it a FFG.com exclusive if they are unsure of moving it off retail shelves. This is one thing I'd actually consider putting money in on a kickstarter for as well, and I avoid those like the plague.

They managed to sell me on the lieutenant packs (all of them...), solely because it allowed for them to be used any campaign/quest (story permitting), and it gives the overlord some more creativity. No way on Earth would I have spent $5+ on a single plastic figure just to replace a cardboard circle. This may be a harder sell for some people because villagers and pets won't really "add" content to the game. That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy them if the price was right though.

Now they could use this as an opportunity to overhaul the pet/companion system. Say for instance, Vyrah the Falconer, instead of a falcon he gets a vulture. The vulture could have different stats such as +1 extra movement to a monster that has been damaged and has just 1 health point left, or maybe it could have a guaranteed attack under those same conditions as a finishing blow against weakened enemies bleeding out on the ground. For the skeleton, it could be different class archetypes.

They could add new hero cards/pet cards to go along with it, I don't see a card with some alternate artwork being too costly on their end. They could really flesh this out and sell it as more than just a few minis in a box, just like they added quest content with the hero and monster packs.

On 6/17/2017 at 9:10 AM, Zotiskarr said:

Now they could use this as an opportunity to overhaul the pet/companion system. Say for instance, Vyrah the Falconer, instead of a falcon he gets a vulture. The vulture could have different stats such as +1 extra movement to a monster that has been damaged and has just 1 health point left, or maybe it could have a guaranteed attack under those same conditions as a finishing blow against weakened enemies bleeding out on the ground. For the skeleton, it could be different class archetypes.

They could add new hero cards/pet cards to go along with it, I don't see a card with some alternate artwork being too costly on their end. They could really flesh this out and sell it as more than just a few minis in a box, just like they added quest content with the hero and monster packs.

You're right there are some really cool opportunities here. Perfect place to release a druid class for instance...

On 6/17/2017 at 3:36 AM, Bucho said:

I'd wonder if making a product that's meant to support seven different sources makes marketing have a stroke.

On the other hand, it could be seen as a marketing tool to make publicity for all those sources.

Example: I have the base set and want the Reanimate familiar mini and 8 villagers and 8 guards. I buy the familiar minis box, and find a wolf, a shadow, summoning stones, images ... I wonder what those are for. The wolf looks cool and I want to play with it. I look up what set it's from and buy that set.

Marketing is happy.

It all depends on how you sell your idea to marketing.

Anyways, I would buy a box, even if I don't own all expansions and might not have a use for all the minis.

One problem I can see with miniatures for villagers is that in some encounters, the villager tokens do not count as figures, do not block line of sight, and do not occupy the square they are in.

In other encounters they do all of those things.

You can get away with that using flat tokens, but players who have the miniatures will need to now be very careful to only use them in certain situations.

When it comes to familiars and summoned stones and mirror images and such though, I'd buy such a pack for sure!

11 hours ago, Quit2 said:

Example: I have the base set and want the Reanimate familiar mini and 8 villagers and 8 guards. I buy the familiar minis box, and find a wolf, a shadow, summoning stones, images ... I wonder what those are for. The wolf looks cool and I want to play with it. I look up what set it's from and buy that set.

The downside of putting 8 villager and 8 guards in the companions/familiars/whatever box is that you're already at 16 pieces of plastic so if we're talking a H&M size expansion you're typically about full.

5 hours ago, Bucho said:

The downside of putting 8 villager and 8 guards in the companions/familiars/whatever box is that you're already at 16 pieces of plastic so if we're talking a H&M size expansion you're typically about full.

The downside of me mentioning villagers and guards in my post is that people now got stuck on talking about those instead of talking about the idea of making the familiar set into a way to make publicity for other expansions.

:(

In a heartbeat, love pimping games but for one with such nice minis to have to use tokens is annoying