Something for gamers who use miniatures...

[Redrobes]

I have been running a little thread amongst the CLs here trying to figure out some ways I might be able to make a little money for the guild by providing something that the members of this forum can purchase which they would want and that I can make since I make a lot of things for a lot of big wigs as my day job. So I have run through some ideas and this one seems to be getting a little traction so here goes as my first endeavor in the Redrobes merchant store

This is for people who play table top games with miniatures (or similar). When I used to play RPGs we used real minis and I also play a little with a friend of Warhammer and for the times that we have characters that are aerial then we have stacked a dice or two under the mini and propped them up a bit but it was always a bit of an unsatisfactory way to represent them flying. Also, its been pointed out that you can now get real big minis (maxies ?) like dragons which can fly but lets face it is not easy to represent on the table top.

So I have been working out a little miniature figure riser - what I am calling the mini-mount and now that we determined that we need bigger ones too the largi-mount and the hugei-mount. These are made out of clear perspex and slot together to form a 2" high riser for your mini. With the hugei-mount there is a pic of a round one about compact disc sized with 3 legs or a 5"x5" one with the four legs about 8cm tall on inch grid boundaries so you can put more minis underneath whist battling the huge foe above..

The first pic below shows the mini-mount as A, the largi-mount as B and the two hugei-mounts as C & D.

I have cut some of the type A and been trialing them with some minis and in game. They are robust, stable and fit together snugly.

Its turned out that I can make and ship to anyone worldwide 5 of type A for £10, 10 of type A for £15 or 15 of type A for £20. At this point I haven't worked out B,C & D but I expect that I could do about 3 of type B for every 5 of A and 1 of either C or D instead too for the same money. Out of that I will be making a donation to the guild so the guild fee is included in that, as is tax and postage. I can do paypal and it will convert to US prices from GBP as required based on the current conversion factor but go with x1.5 in USD as a guess.

Now the question is, for those of you who play with minis, would any of you care to pledge to buy some if I ordered in a load of plastic and started cutting them. So far I have one CL who wants some and maybe one more with a variant of the larger type. If you have feedback on improvements, or you think that someone is already doing something like them cheaper / better then shout by all means, but I think we have exhausted our improvements to date and no one knows of anything quite like these at present.

[torstan]

I have to say I've been watching the development of this with interest. I think it's great. I don't game with miniatures any more (all vtt) but this would have been very useful indeed.

[Immolate]

Sign me up for a full set Redrobes. This is exactly what my crew has been looking for for years.

[Qwilion]

Just an FYI Litko Aerosystems already does this with flying stands and all kinds of other markers,

This is not to discourage you this is to let you know about the competition, that they are popular at the paizo stroe (they sold out of their first run), and what competitive pricing would be.

Also Any help Rite Publishing can offer, we are here.

[Gidde]

I'd love a set, Redrobes, and can afford it in a few weeks if that's not too far out for your purposes. My campaign seems to have a lot of flying baddies in it, and leaning towers of dice with minis on top are kind of cumbersome

[tilt]

They look really cool - and some day you might even make gargantuamount and leviamount *lol*.
I shan't be using any myself, but I will be happy to supply you with the adresses of 3 shops in Denmark who might wanna sell them for you

[Redrobes]

Cool, thanks guys esp Qwilion for the link. I knew somebody must have thought of these before. I was playing with minis years and years ago and it was a bit of a pain then. It looks like they are about the same base size and support the mini on one sheet of 2mm plastic 60mm tall whereas mine are an X shape of 3mm and 50mm tall. I'm sure mine would be a bit more robust than those and you don't need to glue the mini or largi mounts but I do like that cloud effect they have that was a nice touch - shows my leaning towards practicality over aesthetics once again.... Still, not to dwell on them, I think I am sticking with my shape and pricing. Interestingly 2/5ths of £10 in USD is also $6 so were about the same price at the low quantity end but I get cheaper as you buy more because the shipping is all together.

Thanks for the offers of help too - much appreciated. For now ill run it locally and see how we get on. My expectation is to do a couple of handfuls of sets and then it will tail off. If it goes a bit crazy then maybe ill have to get some production company involved and sell to shops and distributors but heck that's never happened in my life before and I don't think its about to change. My experience has given me, how shall I say it, a certain pessimism about selling stuff or at least tempered my initial dreamlike enthusiasm to much more realistic expectations

Ok, ill cut one of each of them, post up a photo of the set and order some more plastic and start taking orders. If people would like to note interest by posting below then ill PM them in turn as I am able to get them out.

So far I have:
Immolate
Gidde
Ravs

[ravells]

They'd make really cool display stands for people who collect small geegaws...like little wedgewood pots etc.

[Redrobes]

Hey I'm not fussy what people do with them I am sure that for the larger ones shop fitters would have access to something similar already but I have no idea what kind of catalog you need to get hold of find out.

[Iapetus]

Those are really awesome! I am interested in them, but I wouldn't be able to buy any in the near future. (Money issues suck.) I will keep this in mind, though.