"And you thought Games Workshop was bad?" Topic

Earlier today I got an itch t get back into the miniatures version of OGRE, so I stopped by the SJ games website….and seeing the prices they were asking made me put some salve on that itch right away.

I mean honestly! FIFTEEN FREAKIN' DOLLARS for a single 1/285 artillery piece? $6.00 USD for a SINGLE stand of 1/285 infantry! Seriously? WHAT is Uncle Stevie smoking?

Well, GW would charge you that for plastic. Metal is very expensive nowadays.

Wow !!!! CrazY !!!! As I have said on other threads, there is a lot of other 6mm Sci-if available now. So you may want to check out some of those other minis … Like Microworld, DRM, CinC/PFC, Brigade, GZG, Darkest Star, TMG, off the top of my head …

Three words – "Official Ogre Miniatures" – says it all.

Well, that and maybe an inflated sense of ego/Quality also.

link

But then again how many miniatures do you need to take down an Ogre ?

And what does the Ogre cost?

That Is one of the advantages of playing periods and games that do not have exclusive trademark dedicated miniatures.
If anybody thinks he can charge $25 USD for an exclusive Minuteman figure, I'll go to someone who charges $1. USD

The 25 dollar minuteman gets a +1 to hit though :-)

Not in my rules….

Lots of proxies available in that scale, which are probably far nicer designs, for far less, I suspect.

Probably pretty easy to custom design an Ogre, or three as well, if they are similarly, exorbitantly priced.

I bought the Ogre rules/game back in the 1980s, I think, and was very unimpressed with it, especially given the price I paid, so took it back to the retailer and got my money back.

Only gaming purchase I have ever returned, out of literally hundreds of rules/boardgame purchases.

I had Ogre and GEV in the plastic bag microgames edition. Loved it, but was never attracted to the official miniatures. Lots of other nicer SF minis out there and a modular cybertank ought to be easy enough to scratch build.

I thought he was with GW at one time.

I had Ogre and GEV in the plastic bag microgames edition.

Yes, those were so cool but sold them off to someone who wanted them more than I did.

Well if you could buy an Ogre, which you can't, because they are out of production, it would set you back $50 USD-75. They are going for collectible prices ($150) on eBay pretty regularly. I still can't figure out how they can be losing money on these…

"I thought he was with GW at one time."

There are two Steve Jacksons in gaming. One is Texan and the other British.

The OGRE minis are a boutique cast at this point, on top of metal pricing gone silly.

It costs exactly fifty cents for my caster to spin up a metal miniature and that's with a profit to himself.

Fifty American pennies for one 28mm miniature.

The metal is not so expensive.

Metal isn't expensive as there is very little in a figure the major cost is labour to spin the mould, demould, sort, etc.

Mike

Given the plunge in precious metals prices, I suspect the prices for lead and tin are also down significantly as well, from their high points, so I'm not sure the "metal pricing gone silly" rule still applies.

"Perhaps some don't check commodities pricing regularly.
I still can't figure out how they can be losing money on these…".

Poor management, or an obsolete distribution plan are usually the culprits.

My understanding is that they're not a miniatures savvy firm. Cards and trinkets are their thing. Minis do their heads in, so to speak.

As such they were unable to capitalize their product or make as much money for the effort required to produce said product, hence the silly prices – as much a message of 'it's not our fault' we can't cope with this, and or there's not enough profit in that there tin for us (with it's the market's fault we are making a loss, rather than we got carried away and over excited and didn't do our sums right).

Shame really. I believe it has lost hem a lot of goodwill.

Yea, it basically boils down to SJ Games isn't a minis company and doesn't really know how to run the miniatures line. I really wish they'd just farm the operation out, but I'm not holding my breath.

-Will

One word: Reviresco.

One Link To rule them all… oh, sorry… link

"Back in the day" miniatures granted but even then we had options.

Another option for ORGE type models, or any sci-fi really. Is the 2mm Sci-fi line from GZG link … A lot of nice pieces there …

I have come to the realization that generic gaming is the best way to go.
I have awakened.

Hey IronMike,

There is a new game called Age of Tyrants that looks rather interesting. The vehicles will be resin.

link

My recommendation is to use (or even write) rules where there is a design flavour based on a solid background but still gives the freedom to use all sorts of AFVs and figures within it to give lots of choice.

I can't think of any I can recommend, but…

John Treadaway….