Heroscape returns via Haslab: HEROSCAPE AGE OF ANNIHILATION: Vanguard Edition

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**Platuan4th**

LunarSol wrote:

Without blind purchase, you still have to sell in sets if you want big box stores to carry it. Heroscape walked a very dangerous line in that regard, as it mixed unique hero packs with repeat purchase commons and relied on everyone wanting the heroes to keep them from clogging shelves. It often worked, but when it didn't, it was a huge threat to the line. FWIW, this is the same reason that stuff like the Marvel Legends figure have the "build a figure" parts. It keeps unpopular figures from the set from clogging shelves and tanking the line as a whole.

IIRC, the last thing the big box stores carried for Clix was the Movie and Big Event single model blind packs and that hasn't been done in ~5-10 years.

**warboss**

LunarSol wrote:
warboss wrote:
In that case, how is Wizkids able to still run profitably prepainted lines in various genres as a licensee with additional costs on top of that?

Funny enough, the Clix brand actually died around the same time. It probably would have vanished along with all the rest if not for the sudden surge in popularity for comic book characters at the time.

Clix is part of the blind purchase market and operates a little differently. Regardless of the game behind it, the product that is sold is designed around selling it as a singular entity. There is essentially one SKU per production run that before it even starts, its effectively already sold out to the distribution network. New sets essentially replace old in the product catalog so from a retail perspective, they stock "Clix" in boxes that get restocked with whatever is the current set. It means that they are able to hit places like Target and Wal-Mart and the like to reach numbers that make pre-paints viable. Blind purchase also means that as long as the set as a whole doesn't fail, even if sales go up and down they can adjust for future runs. Cheap commons are still an enormous development cost that in other systems could easily tank the line, but because they're not the real product, but part of a set that is sold as the whole thing, they can fill boosters while consumers chase what they want from the set.

Without blind purchase, you still have to sell in sets if you want big box stores to carry it. Heroscape walked a very dangerous line in that regard, as it mixed unique hero packs with repeat purchase commons and relied on everyone wanting the heroes to keep them from clogging shelves. It often worked, but when it didn't, it was a huge threat to the line. FWIW, this is the same reason that stuff like the Marvel Legends figure have the "build a figure" parts. It keeps unpopular figures from the set from clogging shelves and tanking the line as a whole.

Thanks for the detailed answer and I agree that the blind/randomized purchase model does fix some of the issues of having certain SKUs available at all times which usually plagues toy companies with a wave release structure but I'd hope that after decades of using that technique that Hasbro would have figured out a workable fix for it. Additionally, Heroclix and D&D/Pathfinder minis do have non-randomized packs that are a very good analog to the old Heroscape release boosters and they seem to have success with those as well. Admittedly they're in all likelihood a minority of total sales compared with the random packs but they do continue to exist and presumably make a profit. None of the above though works for a big terrain filled "starter" set though as I don't believe Wizkids has something even remotely equivalent to that so I didn't include it in the discussion.

**Platuan4th**

warboss wrote:
Hasbro would have figured out a workable fix for it.

Hasbro has nothing to do with WizKids, which is owned by Neca/Topps and has no affiliation with Wizards of the Coast.

**warboss**

Platuan4th wrote:
warboss wrote:
Hasbro would have figured out a workable fix for it.

Hasbro has nothing to do with WizKids, which is owned by Neca/Topps and has no affiliation with Wizards of the Coast.

Yeah, I know. I'm asking about comparisons between Hasbro's Heroscape and Wizkids products and why one is viable but the other isn't.

**Platuan4th**

warboss wrote:
Platuan4th wrote:
warboss wrote:
Hasbro would have figured out a workable fix for it.

Hasbro has nothing to do with WizKids, which is owned by Neca/Topps and has no affiliation with Wizards of the Coast.

Yeah, I know. I'm asking about comparisons between Hasbro's Heroscape and Wizkids products and why one is viable but the other isn't.

Honestly? Known licenses and FOMO Chase figures. Heroclix whales will legitimately drive all over an entire state to buy up stock for the Chase variants. It's why I got out of Heroclix.

**ced1106**

> Yeah, I know. I'm asking about comparisons between Hasbro's Heroscape and Wizkids products and why one is viable but the other isn't.

My own guess is that Hasbro has many more product lines than WizKids, so focuses on the product lines that are the "most profitable". Never mind that "least profitable" on the Hasbro books would still be profitable by hobby game standards. They were even ready to sell off D&D at one point, iirc, and bought WotC for Pokemon, not even Magic. Hasbro is also a publicly traded company, so is more beholden to stockholders than hobby gamers. With WizKids owned by NECA/Topps, what product lines WK chooses to support might be influenced by their owners, depending on how much meddling the owners would do.

AFAIK, For blind boxes, the commons cost less to produce (eg. cheaper paintjobs), so it's the buyers going after the rares who are supporting the model. "Force buying", as someone on this Reddit thread puts it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/52ydyg/how_are_prepainted_miniatures_made_why_does_it/

Random guess for fixed sets is that they're only releasing the most popular figures? Also, since WK and Pathfinder does prepaints anyway, it costs them less to put out a fixed set than were they to do it from the start, like HC would?

I think I mentioned it before, but if I hadn't, Krosmaster seems to have died, but it sold fixed prepaints. I think the sculpts, unlike many miniature sculpts, were designed to be stencil-painted possibly by factory (like many toys), rather than brush-painted by hand (like hobby game prepaints).

**LunarSol**

ced1106 wrote:

My own guess is that Hasbro has many more product lines than WizKids, so focuses on the product lines that are the "most profitable". Never mind that "least profitable" on the Hasbro books would still be profitable by hobby game standards.

Very much this. There's a reason the HasLab campaign was $4 million or bust. It's not that they needed that much to make it. It's that they needed at least that much to bother making it.