In the past two years I only went to the Reaper page for the LE, I liked some of the chronoscope but not enough to buy it. I used to own a number of Reaper Mins, but I also owned a number of metal mins from a bunch of companies, i was never "exclusive" to Reaper, but admit that for metal yeah they made good minis, I just really no longer use metal minis.

Honsetly since Painted Plastics came out (with WizKids mage knight) I have never looked back at unpainted metal.

I don't like to paint, I don't quit loath to do it, but hand cutting cardstock I would find more enjoyable now (and since I got Robby the Robo-cutter I really don't like to hand cut anymore). So Anything unpainted gets looked at last for a source as it will very likely stay unpainted.

I also don't like Metal be it the white metal or real lead. Not for safety issues for the simple reason some other people like it, the "heft" I do not live where I game, so I have to bring my minis with me when I go out to game. Light weight plastic means I can transport more, it also means I don't have to invest in many cases or trays and other things to carry them around in. I can get a bunch of cardboard boxs and toss them in till it is almost overflowing and have Loads of minis i can easily transport and game with.

Since I have tended to DM over the years I need lots of Minis and not just a handfull for my various characters, or I play skirmish/wargames which need a bunch so this way I can carry more easier.

I also like it that many of the plastic are rezliant, one of the things I think is funny is that many metal minis gamers complain about the bendy weapons. I could take my digi camera to my FLGS and grab some Reaper, GW, and Privatter minis in blisters that have swords, etc bent in the package to point that one reaper mini i have seen has a sword that looks like a wilted flower.

Yeah metal minis never bend so i wish the metal-plastic haters would get off that complaing. Aat least with the plastic ones it just takes some hot and cold water to reposition them and the sword isn't likely to break while doing it. I had that happen to 2-3 of my metal reapers that I bought pre-plastic, i had really liked my 02503: Norrin Silverbeard who was a Character of mine, but well when his sword snapped at the hilt after being bent I stopped using the mini, it was also one of my last reaper purchases, If i spend $ on something I don't want it to break during regulare use.

Also toss in the ease of customization of plastic minis over metal and I have not looked back at metal since plastic mins started being made Pre-painted. I many times bought the Plastic GW minis for the other reasons stated (lack of heft, ease of customizing) but when we got painted. stopped buying those, now there is one companys unpainted i am looking at becusae they are producing minis I just can't get anywhere else, and I have to say of the few lines they have made, most of them are unpainted so for me Painted is still the prefrence.

Which means only a few options, Reaper was looking good, but uhm wow they totally failed to do anything with that potential.

Reaper had a real chance here to get another market, but they are managing the line so poorly that people have either never heard of it, or are waiting so long they are writting the line off.

I wanted this line to work, but two years later when they haven't done really anything with it...

Heh - I am a bit of a Reaper fanboy, and even I am finally getting discouraged by the vast amounts of nothing that they have been churning out in the LE line.

Don't get me wrong - I am a whole lot more likely to buy (and repaint) Reaper plastics than those made by WotC - but they just don't have very many figures. Certainly not for the number of years that they have been 'working' on the line. I also think that the decision not to make 'big' figures was incredibly misguided - every single LE miniature that I have purchased has been at least the size of an ogre or troll.

The large miniatures are where they have the best chance of capturing market share - I am a heck of a lot more likely to pay $7 for a plastic purple worm than $13 for the official D&D plastic worm, or $25 for pretty much the same mini in metal.

Plus, their man sized minis are, well, frankly underwhelming - not even good miniatures in pewter, let along plastic. The orcs and skeletons are very static and boring to look upon - I can get a box of GWs and give them much more dynamic poses, an\d the figs will look better into the bargain.

I have been pretty happy with the P-65 line, but the prices on pewter - out of Reaper's hands, I know - has been prohibitive - I have a very firm limit on just how much I am willing to pay and for what. (Privateer, as an example, has dropped below GW as to likely plastic purchases because of their pricing. And GW is expensive.) The leads, while still a trifle pricey, are a much better purchase for me (plus, the primer sticks better to lead than to tin).

The Auld Grump, P-65 has been where my minis money has been going.

I think one of the reasons people are disappointed is that they have very high expectations. Reaper is a very small company, wizards (Hasborg) is HUGE. There is no way reaper is capable of presenting the consumer with an alternative to the D&D line. WotC will continue to outproduce the LE line.

I'm disappointed like everyone else, but at the same time I don't think anything would have met the expectations of most people. Currently it seems the line is profitable to reaper, with sales exceeding expectations and I'm not really sure what they should be doing differently. What exactly is a small company supposed to do when there's a delay from the factory in china? what exactly are they supposed to do when the shipment gets stuck in customs?

As a consumer I'd like more minis, faster and cheaper. So the consumer part of me is disappointed, but honestly it would take production volumes many many times beyond reaper's capabilities to completely satisfy my inner consumer. Stepping back from my consumer mindset I can see the difficulties facing reaper and I don't really see what they should be doing differently. I don't expect them to risk their core business (pewter minis) by investing heavily in a line they have no guarantee of succeeding with. I'd rather see reaper building up the selection of LE minis slowly, than seeing the company go bankrupt from a silly investment that failed.

EDIT: As long as they're having trouble keeping the minis in stock due to sales exceeding expectations, I don't see them dropping the line.

My only expectation was that they produce some minis in a timely fashion.

Yeah they are a small company and they do small releases, I wasn't expecting 60 minis every 3 months. But 2-3 every other could have been done.

It is kind of what they were doing, but instead of ordering new they kept reordering older. So there were a constant stream of minis coming out, but nothing new. I really think they should have kept momentum moving on getting a presence and maybe skipping a reorder of something to generate new product, every once and a while to show the line is moving forward. Sure it would have been more outlay of cash to make the new molds for the new mimis, but I'm not saying they had to always make new, just put out 1 new one every 2-3 months instead of 4 new ones once a year, the stock of totalt minis would grow, slowly but atleast the consumer would get the feeling that the line is doing something as new product is comming out everynow and then instead of behind the scenes restocks of stuff.
So we see movement instead of a year going buy and then 4 new things, and another year for 4 more. At 1 every 3 months we would end up with about the same number, but atleast there wouold be visalbe movement and not this lurching effect we have had that basically makes people forget, or worse think the line is not doing anything becuase there is no new product. Consumers don't know if 1000 minis were ordered at a time and they keep comming in for movemebt or 10,000,000 so if we see skeletons in stock we don't know if it was from order 1 or order 20, we do know brand new product means something is happening which is the thing we never saw, and most people will never go to the reaper page to find out, and if they do they reaper folks only come in rarely when people basically reah a critical mass of the lines dead and they say no we reordered...

My current complaint and reason I have given up on the line is they just aren't doing minis i am interested in, they never really started with ones i wanted, or the ones i wanted never got produced, so I will check back in 2012 before the end of the world and see what 12 new minis they have.