Yeah I had high hopes for such a complete line from OSM but hellborne seems to have seriously stalled. Similar to STM I've held off simply because I can get everything in one go and I refuse to use monopose GW for this

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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Haven't we been here before? I really think you need to be much more cutthroat and focused. There's always lots of ideas for models but IMO you need to be much more analytical in your decision making and think it through from buyers perspectives before committing a single pound to developing a model.

As has been pointed out several times, sales will always be low for a model unless ALL of these are satisfied:
1. A complete range of miniatures for a complete army is available. This doesn't have to necessarily mean you have developed the army, it could be that the aesthetic goes well with a complete range that is readily available elsewhere. It's for this reason that I frankly would not bother with Eloi tanks unless you're going to go all in AND you get overwhelming love for the designs. Yes the void spinner is an extremely popular unit, but how many will buy it in isolation if it looks totally different to all their other tanks?
2. People like the designs.
3. They are cheaper and/or better from what is available elsewhere. eBay has completely public sales volumes and prices, and other manufacturers have price lists.
4. The unit that the model represents is a popular choice in its army list. Research lists from tournaments etc but beware getting led astray by battle reports from people who are not your customers.
5. The list itself is popular WITH PEOPLE BUILDING ARMIES.

If you do all this you can ask yourself questions as a customer might, eg if you want to target UK EA players "Can I build a complete and consistently styled marine air assault list with terminators, chaplain, thunderhawks, landing craft, predator annihilators, scouts, rhinos, devastators, land speeders?" You'll note that this list does not contain loads of variant tanks, and there's a lesson in that - players don't field all the variants at the same time, so make sure you're not spending too much money on variant turrets diminishing returns.

You could literally write a spreadsheet and count the number of players who have used a unit and the number of times they've used it. Or go for new or upcoming armies and ask experts if they are of general appeal or niche. Find out the complete list of units needed for the most popular builds, and make sure every single one is covered. Think about whether you are targeting an army that used to be popular but now isn't, or an army that previously had no models available but now does, etc etc.

Also when considering your existing range and the scale issue, Google 'sunken cost fallacy'.

Hope i don't come off across too strong, I just feel you could benefit from being less reactive and more selective. Stop listening to what a self selecting group of people say they want, and watch what they do instead. Best of luck!

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there are some thing that will sell without an army behind them though.
for example, I expect eloi heavy telelport troops would sell without a full range of other infantry (as long as they were a good scale), likewise flame demons would probably sell without an entire demon range.
(note: i dont need either myself)

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I don't think anyone disagrees. The argument was that if you are sensible with scaling, army completeness can be achieved by combining brands and even eBay.

I put forward what I thought were two sought after but hard to get minis, ripe for proxying. These examples might be wrong, I am not an expert. The most important thing is to kill all but the most necessary darlings, those that you need to remember why you like doing this. You do need some of them too, I am sure.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Guys again many thanks for your continued posts i've nothing much i'm going to respond to at present but to say this is all most enlightening.

@ Kyrt, no problem at all wth you post or thoughts I may seem a little reactionary miniatures wise but I assure you i'm working to a planned if very elastic schedule which obviously now has been reconsidered on my part. Great post thanks for taking the time to help me out here.

@ Thinking Stone, again thanks for the post very useful.

The Eloi are now very much in focus for development as they have been mentioned here numerous times so it seems there is a niche that could be filled, as for spikey vehicle additions they to will be on my radar.

Cheers guys.

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Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
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Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

Interesting thought about true scale transport vehicles I had picking the kids up: Couldn't they still be true scale but smaller simply because they haul 5 power armored post humans instead of 10? I mean the only reason they're 10, and thus physically big (er) is inertia from some company in Nottingham. I mean, amirite?

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

Exactly, teleport infantry will sell so long as there is a source for a full eloi-like army somewhere. And infantry in general are arguably much easier to fit with other ranges which may well explain a lot.

I would never have bought all my OTC tanks if i could only get transports and no anti-aircraft or battle tanks, but I happily mix OTC gun drones with forge world tau suits and infantry. Yet I can categorically say i would not have bought any of them if i didn't have a source for barracudas, orcas, tetras and piranhas (onslaught did not have any scout hover units at the time and this was a big problem because you want lots of them).

I think it's possible to boil it down to: "can someone make an army using these units", and then "how many people would".

Intereated to know what other people think about Eloi tanks - if there were only a few types would you buy them and mix with other minis? What if the current style was expanded to include the 'competitive' ones? Transport, MBT, AA, artillery superheavy, teleporter superheavy. For me that army's vehicle aesthetic is very difficult to proxy but I'm sure some people would be fine with them.

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After all, there are some suspiciously pig-named IFVs from the old days (they were called 'Razorbacks', I believe ) that were about the same size as the APC version but with a pretty minimal weapon mount stuck on top.... And there'd be no reason against simply modelling two smaller transports on one base. Though the old Rhino models would struggle to fit the height of one Space Marine, from what I've seen, so the height issue is perhaps still there.

I imagine that 5 super-human warriors would be the standard load-up if 'realism' was considered, or if a game with giant super-humans was developed today. The original 10-trooper unit sizes I think were based on the idea of Space Marines being a lot more like GW's modern Stormtroopers than the giants they are today.

I wonder what happened to all those people who were screaming for true scale tanks back in the day...

Can't help but think of this:

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@ Jimmy, i've often thought this a rhino would work for me if it transported 5 troops instead of ten it would still be a tight fit in there but a viable one from my perspective. I suspect however most people would have issues with every marine list requiring two rhinos per squad to transport just imagine all those points tweaks and models needed jeez.

So a poll then to change the fluff and army list to a max of 6 marines in a rhino including a driver.

I'm going to get ben our resident expert on curves to design an eloi tank hull that can hopefully serve for several variant eloi vehicles we will post up some concepts in the eloi thread in the vanguard section for feedback this will be your chance to get what you want so please take advantage of the opportunity to influence the design it's up to you what the end result wil be.

I will say this as we have seen polls here do not reflect reality as the size of the trojan has shown the vote at the time was do it true scale but no one actually bought into that in any significant way. The true scale trojan has meant i've needed to create all the new models to fit alongside that one model a decision made years ago by this very community that i've been stuck with. Most people here are now saying I should make my models fit with existing old ranges so which way do I jump.

It's a bit of a dilemma to be sure at least with the 15mm stuff we won't have this issue.

Thanks guys keep it coming.

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Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

I think that there were voices against gigantification even back then. I cannot remember having any other view of the matter than firmly against. Polling in tight knit small groups is provenly not reliable. So what you need is crass analyses. I believe I (and others too apparently) that the viable option is to acknowledge the scale Bonanza as part of the game. We could argue if this is a problem or not, but it is there and for quite obvious reasons. No one designed a whole epic range at once ever. Not even GW. Cause it is risky business. This translates to our current lovely scattered cottage industry. We have multiple scale interpretations. From what I hear you say, gigantification is being punished. I think we have nailed why by now. The size issue is something I I hear about whenever current proxies I are being talked about. Gamers love the look of (most of) your new stuff. They could not care less about how big it is. As long as it fits the installed base aesthetically. Also why does this debate tend to focus only on marines and rhinos (and maybe to a lesser degree land raiders) and imperial WEs?

Apparently the embiggened minis were being pushed by designers and too small a segment of the customer base. I would get very worried indeed if as a consequence of people not buying huge new minis, we are going to have a debate on rules.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

I'd note that "truescale" for War Engines, aircraft, and the like has been exceedingly popular. There was reason to believe that it would also prove so for Elite vehicles.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

True, no arguing about that. I just cannot help wondering if slightly smaller, but just as good looking stuff would have sold just as well. I.e. it was never about just big scale . It was at least to a very high degree about a vacant proxy niche and well designed minis.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

I'm not so sure about that. I guess people would have then demanded the models to look exactly like the GW ones...

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Not sure I follow.Because they are big, people would be more open to new designs?

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)