While I wasn't interested in pre-ordering it, once it went like, it was my intention to purchase the Shademother. I had a specific encounter in mind for her, and now that she's gone, I'm at a loss on how to portray my anthropomorphic-fey-catterpillar-gone-wrong. The Shademother would have been awesome to have on tabletop, with just the right amount of "Wow" and "Eww".
I can agree that having minitures that specific (EXU) would be troublesome, especially when they are prepainted. At least with unpainted you could have your players design their look. But I could see the shademother being useful for big fights
I'm a big fan of Critical Role. I also collect an absurd amount of D&D miniatures, but I never found the WizKids miniature line very appealing. The paint job is very mid and the molds are pretty rough and lack detailx. I find myself buying more minis from independent vendors with good 3D printers nowadays versus commercial factories.
The real story is wiz kids is treating actual merchandise like a kickstarter but isn’t telling anyone that and lied to people. Has nothing to do with cr’s popularity
I don’t think is a sign of anything like them loosing steam. Let’s just face it. Times are tough everywhere and this sort of purchase is very much an extra cost. So ya way to suspific.
Yeah, that's why we said it wasn't anything like that in the video, just more about those models having a high price tag and a hard time finding a spot on player's tables.
Could have easily used the Shademother, but the Calamity ones would basically be NPCs unless one of my players wanted to use one. I didn't pre-order any though. Prices are getting to be a bit..... extravagant.
There seems to be a problem with miniature stuff in general. Because Heroscape also have a terrain expansion canceled after announcing and their shipments got a week behind on preorders. I think the price has a lot to do with it. Especially since the people behind Heroscape, which is still technically Hasbro.... has to make big changes to the game for people to keep buying and the prices have gotten out of hand.
I don’t have a lot of space for collectables. I bought the Vox Machina set a couple years ago and I pre-ordered the Calamity crew to hang with them. Sad to hear about the cancellation - even sadder that I heard it from you and not Wizkids….
Looks more like a problem with the way wizkids makes/sells those packs rather than a critical roll issue. You don't get a massive amount for your money when buying a fixed pack (compared to wizkids random boxes or stuff produced by other companies), so unless someone seriously wants all the characters in the box there's no reason to buy. I've seen loads of stores end up with a surplus of the fixed boxes because know one wanted to pay that much when they could get more and better miniatures other ways. Oddly that changeling-in-a-suit miniature would have been useful for a villain in an urban-fantasy game I ran a while back. The problem with that is a) the game was online, b) the game was a while ago and c) the villain swapped shape so often I'd end up constantly switching the miniature. As a player who's also do a lot of wargaming, something like the shademother is too easy to kitbash to generate much hype.
Yeah while the Shademother is a cool mini, your right in that it is too specific, it is almost like it can only be used in one encounter and it would have to look very similar to the Critical Role Encounter ie underground in a cave. I believe I did think about pre-ordering it, but didn't. That said I have almost every other CR mini includeing some of the first wave unpainted one. The EXU Calamity set, I didn't even hear about. But probably would have pre-ordered. While I agree not all the minis could be used as player characters, I would use them as NPCs and they don't have to be used as the exact characters they are.
While I did not pre-purchase the minis, I do appreciate CR content. But when I was getting back into D&D years ago, I started looking at some of the mini-offerings out there. Wizkids is just way too expensive for the quality of paint and prints you get. And the "box sets" on the market tend to be very pricey, and random... so you may very well NOT get what you've paid for. Thus, I just said to heck with rolling the die on loot boxes and overpaying for a mini that may very well get broke in the first session (even when you're extremely careful... sometimes tiny bits fall off). I checked out some 3d printers myself and then looked for miniature stls available... and I found MANY great ones. So, now I just pay for 3d resin when I need some more (fairly cheap) and print literal sessions-worth of minis in only a few hours.
You'd mostly want their character models as NPCS if you were playing a game, and these days it's getting very hard to justify spending on anything other than survival.
I ordered the Calamity set through my FLGS, and they called last week to let me know the order had been canceled (specifically after, the week or so before, I checked on it since I ordered the set last February and it looked as though the WizKids site was showing them "In Stock," and at that point the store said they'd still be available). Due to the nature of my campaigns, these minis could absolutely be used as proxies for other NPCs, or as "interesting" individuals in crowds, etc. Yes, I like collecting the CR miniatures, but they would have had usage beyond just looking nice next to the others.
I don't understand why they couldn't just do a smaller run of the set. Obviously I don't know the numbers, but there was clearly SOME kind of market for it. I'm so tired of this pre-order business model that every company is doing these days. I was actually looking forward to buying those minis at some point when they were available. I didn't pre-order partly cuz I just didn't need them right now and I don't really have a lot of expendable money. But more so, as a rule, I almost never pre-order anything because I just hate that I have to spend money on something that I may or may not receive months (or even years) later.
I actually think it's because Critrole is likely moving on with their content and away from wizards of the coast products to support third party makers of all types.
I would always be interested in monsters - but I agree that some of the NPC/PC figures are too specific to be anything other than that character - some like Pumat is fine, cause he's goofy and could be someone else - but like a jester... can really only be jester
The shademother looked like it would break easily and maybe 🤔 f it was dragging on ground. Calamity was a partial miss for me as only some could be used as npc etc. I think pathfinder and critical role should be nervous. 😬 ve been shouting from the mountain that I’ve looked at gamestores and it’s 5e that dominates and stores aren’t carrying the rest
The point about the NPC's is exactly what we were talking about in the video too. The models are so hyper specific it seems hard to fit them into an actual home game!
I am questioning the life cycle of Critical Role media. It seems like the comics and novels are drying up too, there's been nothing new announced for a while.
I wouldn't be that worried, since amazon renewed the animated series for another season based on how well the latest one did. So there's still a considerable audience.
I mean what is there to write about right now? They've covered almost everything. They are simply probably waiting for Campaign 3 to end so they can go full into Daggerheart. I hate to say it to the people who don't want to hear it, but it is very clear that is the direction they are going.
They just came out with the Laudna book not that long ago didn't they? I'm sure there will be more, but the cast and crew are a lot busier now that Amazon has bought in so much. Not to mention their regular VOA jobs and the fact that Beacon exists now. It's probably just a time management issue.
They have Ripley graphic novel coming out early December, and Artagan one coming out in January, a short story collection in March, and another novel in July….not exactly dry.
I can see why the specific characters didn't sell but the shademother is an NPC that can be used in gameplay because seriously it's fuckimg cool! I guess it was also too specific?
This irritates me. I don’t preorder just because I can’t often commit money to something that’s gonna be released months or maybe years down the road. That has bitten me too much in the past. I saw the Calamity figs and I immediately lost my mind. My buddy was like, “If you hear nothing else from critical role, listen to Calamity.” So I did and that series made me a fan of CR. I was ready to drop money on the set when it came out. But now I find it’s like a what…a teaser? Preorder and we’ll make it? That’s BS. And it’s nothing about can you use these in your campaign? I could’ve used Loquacious Seelie in a blink. It’s money. Pure and simple. Wizkids are too scared to loose a bunch, so they cancel it which completely dicks over those of us who were really looking forward to getting them. Thanks, guys. 🙄 If you are going to use preordering as a Kickstarter just put the thing on Kickstarter for crap sake.
Wizkids needs more minis that fill the common characters people want to play. I feel like they'd hit a lot more people looking for something close if they had more variations on races and classes of minis or kits that allow you to kit bash your own version of a rogue, warlock etc
I would have gotten them if I were running a campaign that takes place in the CR setting. I think that there is only one published D&D adventure that the CR people have put out. Maybe if they put out more the demand for minis will grow?
I never got into collecting the WizKids minis; the quality is OK, but they are greatly overpriced. I can get a better value for my money using other sources and generally get a higher quality as well.
Well damn it I wanted that Shademother miniature. I'm not preordering from WIzkids for anything because their release schedule is wonky as hell. I can see it with some of those other minis, but I could have easily put the Shademother mini in my game.
Those miniatures I have seen in the store were heavily overpriced and the paintings were bad, so no preorder at all - shiny advertising but lack of quality in the end
I bought 20 Gnolls from the Frostgrave set, and those guys have been skeletons, goblins, ghosts to name a few. I find when things start to look too much like the thing they represent, it removes the make believe aspect of the game.
Wizkids minis have been rubbish in production for years, it might be fine in the states but trying to get hold of them in Europe is a lottery at best so I never expected to get hold of them any way.
I was waiting until after release to see what the quality was like - Wizkids are super inconsistent and some of their minis honestly look terrible. Oh well, would have loved to have the Calamity set
Wizkids while brings a lot of creative and fantastic IP's to market they are inferior models and ZERO fun to paint. mold lines, mushy details especially in high visual areas like faces, lack of dynamic poses, and lack of consistent production make it no surprise they weren't selling. The painted versions just show off all of these faults. I would have loved to have supported thier CR minis, CR just chose the wrong vendor to sell their NIL of their wonderful player characters and BBEGs Thanks for the coverage though!
Shademother Niche? It's a big-ass creepy monster. It can be all kinds of things. I bought the astral dreadnought and have zero plans for any game I run to go into the astral plane, but already have 5 different scenarios for that mini.
We do a ton of fantasy and TTRPG stuff, but weirdly the last 2 weeks have been heavy on Critical Role news for sure! And every friday and tuesday we do multiple TTRPG and fantasy news stories, so check back in tomorrow!
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Would you have bought the Shademother or Exu Calamity minis from WizKids? Let us know in the comments!
While I wasn't interested in pre-ordering it, once it went like, it was my intention to purchase the Shademother.
I had a specific encounter in mind for her, and now that she's gone, I'm at a loss on how to portray my anthropomorphic-fey-catterpillar-gone-wrong. The Shademother would have been awesome to have on tabletop, with just the right amount of "Wow" and "Eww".
meh.
I can agree that having minitures that specific (EXU) would be troublesome, especially when they are prepainted. At least with unpainted you could have your players design their look. But I could see the shademother being useful for big fights
I'm a big fan of Critical Role. I also collect an absurd amount of D&D miniatures, but I never found the WizKids miniature line very appealing. The paint job is very mid and the molds are pretty rough and lack detailx. I find myself buying more minis from independent vendors with good 3D printers nowadays versus commercial factories.
3d printing is also a major issue for the entire minis market, so you are definitely on to something there.
I agree on this. For the price you can buy this. You can buy more and better quality miniatures.
The real story is wiz kids is treating actual merchandise like a kickstarter but isn’t telling anyone that and lied to people. Has nothing to do with cr’s popularity
It's a shame because Exu Calamity may be the best content they've ever produced. Go watch it, it's legit so good.
I don’t think is a sign of anything like them loosing steam.
Let’s just face it. Times are tough everywhere and this sort of purchase is very much an extra cost. So ya way to suspific.
Yeah, that's why we said it wasn't anything like that in the video, just more about those models having a high price tag and a hard time finding a spot on player's tables.
Could have easily used the Shademother, but the Calamity ones would basically be NPCs unless one of my players wanted to use one. I didn't pre-order any though. Prices are getting to be a bit..... extravagant.
There seems to be a problem with miniature stuff in general. Because Heroscape also have a terrain expansion canceled after announcing and their shipments got a week behind on preorders. I think the price has a lot to do with it. Especially since the people behind Heroscape, which is still technically Hasbro.... has to make big changes to the game for people to keep buying and the prices have gotten out of hand.
Yeah, there does seem to be quite a few companies dealing with miniature manufacturing issues at the moment!
I don’t have a lot of space for collectables. I bought the Vox Machina set a couple years ago and I pre-ordered the Calamity crew to hang with them. Sad to hear about the cancellation - even sadder that I heard it from you and not Wizkids….
Looks more like a problem with the way wizkids makes/sells those packs rather than a critical roll issue. You don't get a massive amount for your money when buying a fixed pack (compared to wizkids random boxes or stuff produced by other companies), so unless someone seriously wants all the characters in the box there's no reason to buy. I've seen loads of stores end up with a surplus of the fixed boxes because know one wanted to pay that much when they could get more and better miniatures other ways.
Oddly that changeling-in-a-suit miniature would have been useful for a villain in an urban-fantasy game I ran a while back. The problem with that is a) the game was online, b) the game was a while ago and c) the villain swapped shape so often I'd end up constantly switching the miniature.
As a player who's also do a lot of wargaming, something like the shademother is too easy to kitbash to generate much hype.
Yeah while the Shademother is a cool mini, your right in that it is too specific, it is almost like it can only be used in one encounter and it would have to look very similar to the Critical Role Encounter ie underground in a cave. I believe I did think about pre-ordering it, but didn't. That said I have almost every other CR mini includeing some of the first wave unpainted one. The EXU Calamity set, I didn't even hear about. But probably would have pre-ordered. While I agree not all the minis could be used as player characters, I would use them as NPCs and they don't have to be used as the exact characters they are.
While I did not pre-purchase the minis, I do appreciate CR content. But when I was getting back into D&D years ago, I started looking at some of the mini-offerings out there. Wizkids is just way too expensive for the quality of paint and prints you get. And the "box sets" on the market tend to be very pricey, and random... so you may very well NOT get what you've paid for.
Thus, I just said to heck with rolling the die on loot boxes and overpaying for a mini that may very well get broke in the first session (even when you're extremely careful... sometimes tiny bits fall off). I checked out some 3d printers myself and then looked for miniature stls available... and I found MANY great ones.
So, now I just pay for 3d resin when I need some more (fairly cheap) and print literal sessions-worth of minis in only a few hours.
You'd mostly want their character models as NPCS if you were playing a game, and these days it's getting very hard to justify spending on anything other than survival.
I pre-ordered those Calamity Minis about a year ago -_-
You hate to hear it!
I ordered the Calamity set through my FLGS, and they called last week to let me know the order had been canceled (specifically after, the week or so before, I checked on it since I ordered the set last February and it looked as though the WizKids site was showing them "In Stock," and at that point the store said they'd still be available). Due to the nature of my campaigns, these minis could absolutely be used as proxies for other NPCs, or as "interesting" individuals in crowds, etc. Yes, I like collecting the CR miniatures, but they would have had usage beyond just looking nice next to the others.
I don't understand why they couldn't just do a smaller run of the set. Obviously I don't know the numbers, but there was clearly SOME kind of market for it. I'm so tired of this pre-order business model that every company is doing these days. I was actually looking forward to buying those minis at some point when they were available. I didn't pre-order partly cuz I just didn't need them right now and I don't really have a lot of expendable money. But more so, as a rule, I almost never pre-order anything because I just hate that I have to spend money on something that I may or may not receive months (or even years) later.
I was going to buy both from my local store, not pre-order from wizkids
I actually think it's because Critrole is likely moving on with their content and away from wizards of the coast products to support third party makers of all types.
I would always be interested in monsters - but I agree that some of the NPC/PC figures are too specific to be anything other than that character - some like Pumat is fine, cause he's goofy and could be someone else - but like a jester... can really only be jester
Thumb up for delivering news, but down thumb for the news
The shademother looked like it would break easily and maybe 🤔 f it was dragging on ground. Calamity was a partial miss for me as only some could be used as npc etc. I think pathfinder and critical role should be nervous. 😬 ve been shouting from the mountain that I’ve looked at gamestores and it’s 5e that dominates and stores aren’t carrying the rest
The point about the NPC's is exactly what we were talking about in the video too. The models are so hyper specific it seems hard to fit them into an actual home game!
I am questioning the life cycle of Critical Role media. It seems like the comics and novels are drying up too, there's been nothing new announced for a while.
I wouldn't be that worried, since amazon renewed the animated series for another season based on how well the latest one did. So there's still a considerable audience.
I mean what is there to write about right now? They've covered almost everything. They are simply probably waiting for Campaign 3 to end so they can go full into Daggerheart. I hate to say it to the people who don't want to hear it, but it is very clear that is the direction they are going.
@@iceman3317 All of the comics have been prequels and or side stories, and there's still plenty of room to cover there.
They just came out with the Laudna book not that long ago didn't they? I'm sure there will be more, but the cast and crew are a lot busier now that Amazon has bought in so much. Not to mention their regular VOA jobs and the fact that Beacon exists now. It's probably just a time management issue.
They have Ripley graphic novel coming out early December, and Artagan one coming out in January, a short story collection in March, and another novel in July….not exactly dry.
I can see why the specific characters didn't sell but the shademother is an NPC that can be used in gameplay because seriously it's fuckimg cool! I guess it was also too specific?
Shademother not really exu if I had. extra money still want an Ashton.
I liked the look of them, but I can’t afford to put money into expensive collectibles these days.
I had concepts coming for all of EXU except Loquatius. I would’ve bought it when it came out. Guess that won’t be happening
This irritates me. I don’t preorder just because I can’t often commit money to something that’s gonna be released months or maybe years down the road. That has bitten me too much in the past. I saw the Calamity figs and I immediately lost my mind. My buddy was like, “If you hear nothing else from critical role, listen to Calamity.” So I did and that series made me a fan of CR. I was ready to drop money on the set when it came out. But now I find it’s like a what…a teaser? Preorder and we’ll make it? That’s BS. And it’s nothing about can you use these in your campaign? I could’ve used Loquacious Seelie in a blink. It’s money. Pure and simple. Wizkids are too scared to loose a bunch, so they cancel it which completely dicks over those of us who were really looking forward to getting them. Thanks, guys. 🙄 If you are going to use preordering as a Kickstarter just put the thing on Kickstarter for crap sake.
Wizkids needs more minis that fill the common characters people want to play. I feel like they'd hit a lot more people looking for something close if they had more variations on races and classes of minis or kits that allow you to kit bash your own version of a rogue, warlock etc
Yes,I've been waiting for both I don't pre-order anything(money in my hands) I guess I'll check with Esty or wait for critical roles options
I pre-ordered the Shade Mother, so this is a bit of a downer. I figured I might be able to homegrown a monster using that mini.
I would have gotten them if I were running a campaign that takes place in the CR setting. I think that there is only one published D&D adventure that the CR people have put out. Maybe if they put out more the demand for minis will grow?
I never got into collecting the WizKids minis; the quality is OK, but they are greatly overpriced. I can get a better value for my money using other sources and generally get a higher quality as well.
Well damn it I wanted that Shademother miniature. I'm not preordering from WIzkids for anything because their release schedule is wonky as hell. I can see it with some of those other minis, but I could have easily put the Shademother mini in my game.
Agreed. I buy minis that are more generic mostly.
Those miniatures I have seen in the store were heavily overpriced and the paintings were bad, so no preorder at all - shiny advertising but lack of quality in the end
I bought 20 Gnolls from the Frostgrave set, and those guys have been skeletons, goblins, ghosts to name a few. I find when things start to look too much like the thing they represent, it removes the make believe aspect of the game.
I'd play as Pinch, but would be more likely to buy the set unpainted.
Wizkids minis have been rubbish in production for years, it might be fine in the states but trying to get hold of them in Europe is a lottery at best so I never expected to get hold of them any way.
I want the Shademother
I was waiting until after release to see what the quality was like - Wizkids are super inconsistent and some of their minis honestly look terrible. Oh well, would have loved to have the Calamity set
Love Critroles main story, but not a fan of EXU, also i might not be alone on this.
I know this is different but I've seen the mtg mini up close and man do they not look good mostly the faces being horrendous that and price
I wanted the Shademother but was waiting for a statblock for it.
They are expensive
Wizkids while brings a lot of creative and fantastic IP's to market they are inferior models and ZERO fun to paint. mold lines, mushy details especially in high visual areas like faces, lack of dynamic poses, and lack of consistent production make it no surprise they weren't selling. The painted versions just show off all of these faults. I would have loved to have supported thier CR minis, CR just chose the wrong vendor to sell their NIL of their wonderful player characters and BBEGs
Thanks for the coverage though!
CR got too full of themselves. First 2 seasons where awesome then it's like they don't even care.
I mean... Hero Forge... lol
I'm of the opinion they spread themselves too thin, that's it.
So pissed about Shademother
Shademother Niche? It's a big-ass creepy monster. It can be all kinds of things. I bought the astral dreadnought and have zero plans for any game I run to go into the astral plane, but already have 5 different scenarios for that mini.
This is channel just do critical role stuff?
We do a ton of fantasy and TTRPG stuff, but weirdly the last 2 weeks have been heavy on Critical Role news for sure! And every friday and tuesday we do multiple TTRPG and fantasy news stories, so check back in tomorrow!
what do we learn kids? go woke, go broke