Hi folks,
I haven't been active on here for a few years but I came here alot in my college years and really enjoyed it, I always thought this was the most mature and intelligent forum I'd ever been on so I hope it's ok that I've come here for your help. Now this isn't strictly LoTR related, I hope this is ok, my apologies if it isn't. I've re-read the guidelines, sorry if i've misinterpretted anything.
Although I've been out of the loop for a while, I never lost my interest in wargames. I studied for a degree in modelmaking and special effects and after graduation I concentrated on my own modelmaking business. So far I've been making 1:1250 scale collectable ships (you can see my website here
http://www.gwylanmodels.co.uk/ just so you can see what I've been up to
.)
Now I am in the process of planning a wargames company. I have a few sculptors and artists who are already working with me and we're developing our first game, which will be a 40mm scale sci-fi skirmish game, though we're also planning fantasy and historical products. Part of our "unique selling point" is that we want to support our figure ranges with extensive ranges of high quality resin scenery. So if the story is set in a town or city, you can actually buy the neccesary kits to pupulate the board and make a fantastic playing field! I'd like to know if you guys would be hypothetically willing to spend the extra money for scenery when many of you might be used to going without or making your own. We're not talking massive expense either, most of my ships are resin based so I know the costs involved and what our margins will have to be, needless to say we know we can do it well for an affordable price tag. I just want to know whether you'd be interested if there were large scenery ranges on offer, or whether you'd prefer to go without or make your own.
The resins we use are very, very hard waring and tough. They aren't anything like as brittle as some other resin products I've seen/broken, and hold extremely fine detail (which you can see on my ships.) They are also lightweight, and will survive dropping unless they gave sticky outy parts etc. Even if they do break the break is very clean and easily repaired. We vacuum cast them so you don't get bubbles, and we take alot of care with our moulds so there are very few flash lines or faults. We also have very strict quality control, duds get recycled, not sold. Solid models like barricades etc are cast in a solid piece, while big models such as buildings are made up or cast sections and slab sides to save material and weight, which keeps the price down. All you would need to do is assemble the kits, paint it and add some flock or grass etc. It's like a figure, you can go as far as you want with it
!
So you can get an idea of the kinds of prices and variety I want to offer, lets imagine I'm developing a scenery range to go with GW's LoTR figs (just so we're clear, I'm not intending to do one initially.) But so you can get a flavour, here's a sample of 10 products I might offer in a range of say 60-100 pieces at their retail prices:
- Rohirrim cottage: £12
- Golden hall (large centrepiece): £40
- Gondor fountain: £3
- Minas tirith wall section (12" x 3"): £10
- Barricades (2 x 6"): £7
- Hobbit hole (12" dia): £12
- Moria columns (x4): £6
- Balin's Tomb and Well: £4
- Bucklebury ferry (raft, jetty and cottage set): £20
- Helms Deep set to fit 4' x 4' board inc walls and fortress: £150
Now, some of those such as the hobbit hole and helms deep I would do in GRP with resin parts where neccessary. I've done lots of stuff like that before and it's both practical and low cost which is great.
So, would you guys buy that kind of thing if it were on offer, or would it be too much of an added expense on top of your figure collections? It would be great to hear your comments and see your votes. This will really help me get an idea of whether we should go for it with the scenery ranges for our own games or not.
Will.
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I would definitely suggest that you make the scenery line that you wish to make, but I'd also recommend making some of the types of scenery that you've suggested. I would, however, suggest that you make them and give them generic titles so that people feel less like they can only be used for LotR and can be used for historical battles, Fantasy games, agri-worlds and other similar things. You'd be surprised because it should allow you to be higher in search engine results and you currently know that you have some potential customers. I'd also make a mention of you over on CDO, which has a couple of thousand avid players that are likely to pass it on to other websites.
