There havent been many topics started lately... so I started thinking about what might be a good kit for fantasy.
What would I like... how about a giant. GW has some 200mm plastic giants. So a wargames Atlantic Multipart plastic giant would probably do well.
I would think one per box. But with a ton of options. like 4 or 5 different heads. maybe 3 different chests. that way you could mix the theme a bit. Like have one that matches the landsknect ogres. One that matched dark age style, etc...
What else would you like to see on a big giant.
The $34 WA would charge for a giant would be a lot better than the $195 each GW charges for a mega Gargant.
Agreed. I was kind of interested when they first teased this army. And Army where you only need like 3 - 5 big giants and then a couple of smaller giants... But then when prices were revealed... I was like.... yeah ok, this wasnt meant for you Bill... :(
Mantic has a plastic giant around the same size that is pretty nice. But a hips sprue giant would be very nice indeed.
I wouldnt mind a shoulder platform/howdah... I remember seeing a metal giant as a kid that had one... it was way out of my price range at the time... (I was like 10, so anything over $20 would have qualified for that), But a shoulder howdah... and then I could mount some conquistadors with muskets on it... bam... Fantasy tank
Reference the Orc strapped to the shield as decoration. The head should be seperate so you can use the included WGA Orc head or another manufacturer's head of your choice.
That said I don't really see giants as a good "dual use as SciFi" set idea (at least not for mecha), golems on the other hand would work great for that and it could be done with less gilding lily.
honestly, i think you'd get better sales if you did the giants closer to the recent Reaper Bones size of giants.. so you can fit two or three into a kit. sure they're smaller than the GW and mantic ones by a fair bit.. but they're still 6 inches tall. (measuring my Reaper Bones 5 storm giant.. and while i haven't assembled it yet, the female storm giant from the bones 5 greek odessey expansion is similar size)
using say, a 120mm size or even a 100mm height would work just fine gameplay wise and still offer a lot of fun customization options. and while you'd probably need to spread one giant over two sprues, you could include a lot of customization options, especially in terms of decorative bits you can hang off it.
while having giants that are almost a foot tall might be visually imposing, being able to field multiple ones for a cheaper price is going to be attractive. and a lot of non-GW fantasy gamers are going to prefer the smaller more managable size, since most fantasy games outside of GW tend not to make their giants in "mobile mountain" in terms of unit size. (even mantic, wiel they produce a massive giant of their own, actually has trouble fitting their foot tall monstrosities onto the 75x75mm bases used by the game, not to mention major problems with them tipping over during play. especially the northern alliance and nightstalkers variants of the kit, which add a bunch of heavy resin replacement bits for the arms and head..)
@Mithril2098 I know my personal prefernce... would be the 180mm size ones... The reaper sized ones are good for RPGs... and are super affordable. I would guess that for RPGS most people dont need multipart for monsters/ bad guys. Those that do look for the multipart (generally) would be wargamers and those people would need them to be GW sized or Mantic sized.
I am sure some would buy for RPGs too, but i think those would be the minority. I do have the original cloud giantess from reaper, as well as the Storm Giant, all the Hill giants, most of the fire giants and stone giants. They all look tiny next to the Mantic giant which is a bit smaller than the GW ones... So i cant see giants reaper size appealing to anyone for that purpose.
Why would RPG players not want kits? If anything, variety in minis is more important there because they don't throw all "handweapons" into a single pile. Unless you want to just proxy everything, but then you might as well play with paper cutouts - and you will end up doing that to some degree because there are so many different monsters etc., but at the very least I'd want each mini to look a little different so I can reference them across the table. Hell, we used the ranking marks on my Warhammer corsairs intensively when we proxied a 2+ year campaign with them, and those are on the bottom of the base.
@Blutze Because most people dont need 5 or 6 different giants for RPGs. Those that do can already find 5 or 6 different giants in Bones or other cheap formats already. People who plan on using 4 or more at teh same time are the ones who want them to not be the same... Generally you arent using than many giants in an RPG at the same time... But you are in a wargame... or potentially are.
Exceptions occur of course on both ends... but speaking generally If I wanted 4 different reaper sized giants at an affordable price, they arealy exist (as reaper giants). If i want 4 different GW sized giants at an affordable price, they do not.
@William Redford@Mithril2098 @JTam Actually I think desireable size depends on the race of giants you have fluff wise and weather you have things like half giants in setting, not mention what figures your using for base humans,etc. (old Reaper bones giants next to perry HYW historical scale figs look big enough, and if you use 1/72 instead of 28mm well they most defentily live up to label giant then), and Minature wargaming.
That said I tend to agree with you guys on bigger better, though I think if done they should make them as one per sprue subject.
@Brian Van De Walker it's funny you mention half giants. I just bought the old dnd darksun box set printed as a hard back book from drive thru rpg. Which of course has got me looking for half giants. I found this cool guy on Etsy.
I think there is a market for giants of all sizes but guessing how many of each will sell is difficult. It really depends on how well the aesthetics of the sculpts appeal to the broadest group of customers.
@William Redford you did notice that i said that their newer stuff is bigger? and provided an example of their new cloud giantess vs the old one? from your picture, your collection is mostly their earlier smaller releases. the new ones are much taller, to about 2/3rds the height of the mantic giant.
Yeah the pictures I showed were kind of blurry... but I actually own all the reaper bones giants except the new cloud giantess. Her height is listed at 4.2 inches or 106.68 mm. Which does make her the tallest reaper giant. The mantic giant by comparison is 190 mm... which puts her right at his waist.
The other giants. Here is the new female fire giant vs the old. The new male (one of) fire giant vs teh old... this one teh height it not really that different. The new stone giant vs the old. The new Hill giant (one of, unpainted) vs the old (one of painted)... the newer Hill giants are actually smaller than the old. And here is the Storm giant (painted). Now I do like all of the giants, but they are tiny next to the Mantic giant... And would not work as proxies or in a game for something of that size... and the Mantic giant is 30mm shorter than the new GW giants. The new cloud giant would likewise be undersized in comparison...
So, looking, I dont have the new Storm Giant either. If he is 5 inches that 127mm so he would only look small next to the mantic one... He iwould be a little smaller than the giant elephant guy below... but that is still the only reaper giant of that size and its still small in comparison... Though I cant find any official measurements for him as he is not available retail yet.
here are the female frost giants, the giant cobra, the Elephant giant guy and... Atlas from a board game kickstarter, A warmachine Colossal and a GW knight..., yeah... slow day. :)
I would love to see a multi part large giant rivaling the gw and mantic offerings. These lend themselves to conversions of all sorts, including shoulder howdahs, hip platforms, and massive carts being hauled behind. I could find a use for at least three or four such monstrosities in my fantasy armies.
@Brendan Flynn Same. And I think it would make a certain GW army more popular, at least amongst those who dont soley use GW models or play at organized events that restrict outside/non GW models.
@William Redford Could you tell me what the Machine Creature? on the right of the Giant Snake, and Giant, is please? The one with the very big gun, and crab claws.
@Geoff Maybury Its a Warmchine Cryx Kraken. A couple years back Privateer press was having a blind box sale where you got a starter set, a collosal and another unit or 2 for a steeply discounted price... but it was completely random which faction you got. But It was a super great deal. I think the boxes were $50... and a collosal alone is (or was) $100+ by itself. I ended up with the Kryx box which is like biopmechanical undead I think. I never actually ended up playing. But the army looks cool on my shelf.
@William Redford Thank you, it really looks a gand piece of kit. You seem to do well on your side of the pond for sales, I joked a few posts back, that sales of that nature don`t make it here, 10% seems our lot in life and not for what we would like. Still you can`t win em all and thats the ops and dowms of our great hobby. Take care "Bill" if thats Ok-ay, Geoff.
@Geoff Maybury Yeah, I go by Bill. Though if my wife is angry, I do hear "William" and people at work (before I worked from home) called me Bob, and Keith... I never corrected anyone... :) I even got emails intended for both Bob and Keith (2 other guys are work).
Sales like that arent too often here, but when they are the boards like Dakka and Reaper are quick to share them. Miniature market used to have great Black Friday sales as did CMON's shop... CMON had 85% off in one of those sales... But nothing like that in the last 3 years unfortunately.
@Grumpy Gnome@William Redford , We still have the "Black Friday" sales, however, they seldom have any wargame items for me. If Rubicon as a 20% sale, I bet you my recquirments are none stock, can`t remember my last wargame sales item. It would be years ago, minor and at a show so that 4years?.
