B is for ....Bones

As, no doubt, many are aware, Bones is the reaper line of miniatures that are cast in a polymer. I recently was told by a friend that they don't even need priming....although this is currently second hand info to us, rather than first hand use. It does however go with their 'ready to paint right out of the package' info point.

The biggest draw on the bones is the amazing value they offer. Check out the current availability here.
What is amazing to me is that they range from 1.99 to 5.49, even for the slightly larger than human sized monsters. A unicorn is 2.99. I've had a bones blister of kobolds (ordered with some lead to test it out) staring at me for months and months. The casts look pretty crisp, only small mold lines which I'd expect would be easy to remove with a sharp blade. It'd be extra informative if I could compare the lead to the bones......

.....and I will. Some of the lead I ordered happens to parallel what will be shipped to me in the next couple months with the Bones kickstart I signed on for. I really ought to have titled this post under 'W' for "WTF have I done?!?!?" There is a disgusting number of figures headed my way. I expect to cast off quite a few just as things I'm not interested in, but still......it's crazy.

One of our regular gamers in our space 1889 campaign used to manage a brick and mortar games store. He figures this reaper project is going to shake up the miniature industry. After all, how do you compete with this price point and huge range of sculpted minis? Reaper has managed to convert an obscene number of their figs to the new process, and more importantly is they have gained the infrastructure to do all their figs this way.

The latest tidbit that escaped was that there are even CAV (battletech esq) figures done up in the bones polymer now. A few comments on the page I saw suggested that these are better looking than a bunch of the battletech mechs, and much easier on the wallet. I love the look of Otherworld miniatures classic D&D figs, but the prices are brutal. Given an option between even vaguely similar miniatures and you'd be hard pressed to go with the lead. Certainly you can be in love with certain sculpts....but I'm sure volumes will suffer. The other conjecture was around whether Reapers kickstart had sucked the oxygen out of the room....did the mass vacuuming of gamers dollars affect purchases elsewhere? It's hard to say. I, myself, am more interested to see if the sudden appearance of termite mound sized piles of minis ends up reducing sales as gamers are forced to find new space and/or stop getting new stuff under duress from their partners (and/or physical limitations of space).

I leave you with a picture of the 'basic' vampire backer level....this doesn't even include options you can add (and I picked up a few). For more pics, go here.