................................

No, I'm having this conversation with you, mr. West.

Is it just me, or has there been a lot of bile being spewed on FFG lately? I'm just as disappointed about the Forbidden Alchemy screw up, but some people practically want to see FFG employees publicly executed.

Granted, FFG has been getting sloppy over a few things lately, but at the very least they're trying to make it right.

I happen to like the new figs, and I know they're not for everyone. I'm actually one of those people who will most likely use them for not only MoM and AH, but for tabletop RPGs, as well. Descent has been invaluable for that. At least they're more practically priced than anything Games Workshop and Citadel put out!

Good gaming, everyone!

>sigh< I rather wish they hadn't done this. Because I'm pretty much doomed to collect them--**** my completist nature--but never use them in an actual game.

Because they're completely impractical. Unlike Investigator tokens or miniatures, monsters have such a high rate of turnover in an AH game; I don't know if it's the same for MoM, but an AH monster could be out of the Cup and removed as a trophy in a turn. My cardboard chits get enough abuse tumbling around in the Cup without being jammed in and out of a plastic base every time they hit open air.

Plus, AH is a gigantic game. Often, a player wants to look at a monster's stats before deciding what to do about it, and if I used these, we would have to carefully pass lumps of plastic around the table instead of just tossing a chit. And the day WILL COME when an imperfect pass drops a shoggoth four feet to the ground. >SNAP<

And where am I supposed to store all these beasts? I was able to get all 48 Investigators in single multi-celled plastic sewing-knickknacks case. These are too tall and too wide to consider in anything less than a monstrous tackle box.

A few players bring up "Just the Spawns", except the only Spawn available is the Dunwich Horror, and I can't remember the last time we let that thing into play. Not to mention it never actually moves. I could consider it as a substitute for our "Martial Law Declared" reminder, but everyone reeeeeallly loves the Lego Atlantis Squid Warrior for that.

Guess I'll have to clear a shelf somewhere, darn it.

jgt7771 said:

you go with the Lego Atlantis Squid Warrior too! awesome!

but seriously - resist! You know you must! If you dont, the many angled bank balance will doom everyone, and we will end up with the baking apron! (wait, I want the baking apron!)

"No, I'm having this conversation with you, mr. West."

Another mistake. West is in reanimation, Im in LoDGaF. And Im not a Mr.

To sum up my opinion about these monster figures:

Gorgeous? Yes.

Practical for AH? No.

Expensive? VERY

As much as I would like to have them, I think I'll pass.

I'm more excited about these as a preview of what we can expect in the next Big Box expansion for MoM rather than for any use in AH. I do kind of like the idea of a giant Dunwich Horror looming over the board though...

I think at $4 a figure, the cultist are just plain impractical. If you want them represented on the board you can just go ahead & use the 8 or so grey ones included in Mansions. I can maybe see getting one or two of the more monstrous figures for people that're too lazy to paint them themselves (like me). They could make good decorative pieces, and the Dark Young & others could be used for some custom scenarios for MoM for a particularly enterprising individual.

dj2.0 said:

Actually, Beings of Ib minis could be practical- keep them standing by the edge of the board as a reminder of their awful penalties, and 'topple' each Ib when you remove it from play....

I think the Cthonian would be the most useful figure to have standing menacingly on the board so you don't forget to take damage when it moves...

I was more excited about the character figures than the monsters. They look nice, though.

In the end I've pretty much ruled out both as they'll take up too much room. Storing the minis along with the rest of the game would make an already massive game just too big and cumbersome.

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

this is what i was thinking. the i'll probably get monster figures for all the green monsters and spawns (and possibly the tentacle and beings of ib too) just because they're not regular monsters and need a constant reminder. perhaps not the werewolf, but having a giant figure displaying that we've accidentally let a hunting horror loose in arkham? yes please. my group forgets about these all the time, and someone gets ninja'd by the hound of tindalos or dies from the cthonian. a miniature would remind even these memory-impaired people..

but getting all the figures? no thanks. imagine the terrible experiment..

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

yeah, I think the utility of these pieces is a fairly individual thing, I dont forget about the Ib and have no need of a reminder, having said that I dont need one for the DH either. So I reckon FFG will sell these piecemeal according to individual whimsy and not just for their games and the rpg - I made a cthulhoid wedding cake for friends last year and these would have made excellent decorations.

Cant wait to see the Colour out of Space...

I agree with dj2.0 and jgt7771 .... the figures seem very impractical.

They can't be shuffled easily, and will clutter the board (and this is a game which already has a problem with that).

I would have preferred a simpler set of even-less-detailed figures, unpainted, maybe made of different colours of plastic to indicate the movement type. I also wouldn't have cared if the Shoggoth and the Proto-Shoggoth had the same miniature. In fact, if they made a whole bunch of each of the following minis:

• A bat-winged creature
• A sinister hooded figure
• An emaciated bug-eyed ghoul
• A big formless blob
• A writhing mass of tentacles

... then that would cover about 90% of all the AH monsters and you wouldn't need anything else.

And (I hate to say it) if I'm gonna cough up cash for what is essentially a cosmetic addition to the game, i've got to be able to buy ONE box, priced at maybe £40, and it's got to include a complete set of figures, i.e. something for everything. The current minis are, like, ten times the price I'd be willing to pay.

I thought they'd learned their lesson about this stuff with those daft Investigator figures being withdrawn or whatever it was.

I ordered the 7 that did not not come with MoM & Alchemy.Gamewise they would be rather cumberson but we use them for the visual effect when an encounter takes place.This means we only need 1 of each which keeps the cost down.

OD

I really can't see the problem with using monster figures on the board.

You don't have to keep the chits in the monster figures at all time. So when you put monsters in the outskirts, you put the chit there as the chits are easily stackable. When you have to put a monster on the board you put the chit inside the monster figure and place the figure on the board.

I have done this with the litko monster stands and it works, doesn't take time from the game either.

Multiple monsters on the same location might be a problem though...

The people there tend to seek for more problems to whine about rather than for solutions for them.

I guess that nice chunky figures do actually improve gameplay, because it makes it easier to tell at a glance what monsters are on the board... the monster markers have always been confusing to new players. Generally the big strange-looking monsters are the most dangerous, so it's nicely intuitive for a new player if the easy Maniac is a small human-sized figure, whereas the incredibly tough Cthonian is a huge green figure with tentacles sprouting out. (Rather than both just being the same size marker which you have to look at the back of).

But then, if all the monster markers are "to scale" with each other, some of the deadliest monsters will still be human-sized. Adding figures at this stage, and still requiring the monster markers to be on hand for reference, is not much of a refinement.

It's a shame that AH didn't have figures in the box to begin with, and that the monsters in the game weren't designed on the basis that they'd all need figures. Maybe it will in the next edition (if they ever do one).

My first thought on hearing this announcement was "Horse Armour"

Background:

When after PC game "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" was released, downloadable content was offered. If memory serves it was the very first instance of DLC costing $1.99 which provided a COSMETIC change to the character's horse. I.e. Horse Armour.

To PC gamers accustomed to modding these games and to the wider gaming community in general this was a highly controversial decision. Fast forward a few years and one would be hard pressed to purchase ANY game now for which there are not additional expansions or DLC (again some of it cosmetic).

Looking now at FFG, a lot of their game releases are inevitably followed up with expansions. And while I seem to recall others have in the past requested miniatures for the AH series, I can't honestly see how this is practical for reasons others have provided.

One that occurred to me that it's difficult to determine is how exactly the special text of the monster tokens be read if they are slid into the bases of these minis. It's a moot decision for me anyway as I've sleeved all my monster tokens so they likely won't fit into these bases.

I don't begrudge FFG for making these and I fully admit I'm under no obligation whatsoever to buy these. I'm just not seeing the point of it that's all.

But hey, if others think these are worth a buy and snap these up, more power to them!

One that occurred to me that it's difficult to determine is how exactly the special text of the monster tokens be read if they are slid into the bases of these minis. It's a moot decision for me anyway as I've sleeved all my monster tokens so they likely won't fit into these bases.

There is a hole on the back that reveals all of the text and stats.

As someone pointed out on a different thread, another problem with using these in the game is that the way the base is built, you can't see the colored border of the chit for movement.

Grudunza said:

All of the text? I knew the modifiers were on display but not the flavour/special ability text.

The color border is definitely a problem if you would have to pick up every relevant figure when their symbol comes up - as opposed to having the tokens on stands and reading off the back.

I am absolutely whining about this, because I am trying to talk myself out of buying them! The Id is screaming, "GIMME GIMME GIMME!" so I must reinforce the Superego with, "But look at the 'Cons' column..."

Long ago, I jumped in with the never-comes-to-this-forum-anymore ColtsFan when he was trying to find a place that sold plastic stands more like the original release of AH instead of the "figure 8" chit-mauling ones FFG uses now. Now I have about 50 extra pinch-open plastic stands for any monster that enters play. So "higher visibility" is not a factor for me anymore. (And as much as I dig the figures, I fell in love with AH artwork six years ago, and that love has never waned. I might actually miss the gorgeous artwork for the plastic interpretations.)

I've heard horror stories from a few unfortunate Litko customers who accidentally snapped a monster in half bowing them to fit into their stands. And I can see some extremely minor wear-and-tear (slight layer separation) on some of my oldest monster chits (Cultists, Zombies). All this just serves to remind me how fragile cardboard chits really are, especially when you use them week after week. It fills me with dread to think of the stress that might be added from constantly pushing into and pulling out of a plastic base (even as cool and innovative I think those bases are).

I have seven Dark Young and nine Cultist chits. Am I crazy enough to buy enough figures to match each one? Probably not. I think. Naw, I couldn't be. Could I? (And its easier to resist one when your nut-brain can rationalize not ever being able to have all seven/nine.)

I love how FFG has posted a pic of a Cultist in the Library: that Cultist fills the Location. Now how about they show me the time I surged a Dark Young and a Cthonian on top of a Warlock in the Woods? Would that not obscure the whole Uptown neighborhood?! My pseudo-OCD can barely handle three chits-in-stands crowding one Location. This is where the cool "visibility" factor veers sharply into the "annoying" category.

Sorry, FFG. I love them--I reeeeally do!--but I simply can neither justify nor afford to get involved with these. I have all 48 Investigators and I don't regret them one bit, but this animal is just too dangerous to risk not being able to guarantee the same.

The color border is not a problem.

Christian Petersen already commented on BGG that the bases were designed to see some of the border color, and that for the Shoggoth piece, a black-bordered insert was used; they'll update it to show a red-bordered insert.

Besides, if you're a true Arkham nerd, you already know every monster's color and symbol.

jgt7771 said:

I believe I used stands but from Rolco:

http://www.rolcogames.com/product.php?id=42&catid=9

I ended up having to file down the teeth using a miniature file.

Even so the edges STILL grasped the tokens tighter than I'd like so I ended up sleeving all the tokens anyway.

If I had to do it all over again I'd probably just file the teeth down of the original figure 8's, polish the sanding with some fine grain water-compatible sandpaper and use the sleeves to prevent wear & tear of the tiles when mixed in the bag as well as when mounting them on the stands.

Have a look at this old thread as a reference:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/629071/sleeves-for-monster-tokens-solution-found/page/1

I've ordered the first wave of monsters; these will be great to use in a Call of Cthulhu rpg!

Regards,

V

I was disappointed with the consistency of quality on the investigator minis and decided not to buy, liking the overall art style of the cardboard components. I'm getting the same feeling with these. Some are great, others are terrible. Also, like many have said, it's too expensive.

However, if the minis were unpainted and bundled in a Collector's AH, I'd be tempted.

I'm chiming in with AsylumSeeker. Unpainted would be wonderful, and like I mentioned on BGG, I'd even pay the same price.

I'll be buying these (or mod'ing my own) for all the AO's and Heralds who change the way a monster works (cultists, dark young come to mind).

Plus I'll buy them because I'm a huge miniatures nerd. That and the Dark Young is the best sculpt of its kind I've ever seen.