future MS releases (for members eyes only)
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Well, I see some mixed problems here:
1.Price: The miniatures are pricey because we must remember, they are maked on demand, and pitifully on low numbers.
People make much more profit than the company itself, I stumbled upon stores/people selling them on ebay at a double or triple the price of what they have paid. Witch I see as a very mean attitude*. But Mithril itself is promoting this in some way, making discounts if you buy more than one copy of the miniature (one for you and one for selling? of course thinking the malicious way) and cutting the quantities produced whenever they can, also that limited batch issue…
*Not refering to anyone here, just to some cases that I found on internet.2. Company politics: Is it good to just produce miniatures for a batch of (aprox.) 100/200 people??
Miniatures are pricey because they are producing reduced numbers of each reference, is the Golden Fellowship the only thing that works for them? There are four or five ranges of the M series that remain open, do they sell enough?
Everyone I ask for Mithril, thinks that the company died decades ago… “Fellowship miniatures only” contributes more to this cause, because the miniatures produced for it are NOT for the general public, because they are pricey and limited. LR ranges, wich at the begining where not open (you had to subscribe to the full range or at least for the next bunch to be able to buy) started this movement. (wich I think is completely wrong).
The problem I see is that even the company is working on producing miniatures they are not working on producing miniatures for the general public at all. (or I think it seems so) Evenmore when at the mid to late nineties GW staff (at least here in Barcelona) where told to say that this company did not exist anymore. And the marketing politics of PA or Mithril seems to be equal to zero, the result is that people around the world thinks that Mithril does not exist or even worse they have never heard a thing of the company. They are slowly killing themselves.
In a world of personalisation, where for a bunch of *** (put in *** whatever coin you have) you could buy a can of coke with your name on it or even print a bunch of poker cards with your family faces on them, they should improve their machinery/technology to adapt and evolve ASAP if they are not doing it already or die on the way.3. Design and spirit:
Have a look on these:
Am I the only one who think that these are cool? They have some of mithril’s good points and in some way I relate them to “mithril style”, as they seem proportionate and “stylysh”, they have just enough details and are not clutched with a thrillion stupid details (as workshop did years ago). But on the other hand, they add something else, they add movement and “pose” specially the last is what maybe is killing some mithril references (or a lots of them).
Most miniatures seem to have a knive in the hand, but they do not seem to be backstabbing anyone…. and this is one of the major problems I see on Mithril.4. Middle Earth
As Tolwen says, I see some miniatures that did not really need to have that title… But middle earth was vast and those nameless adventurers and chiken feeders who also used tolkien languages, where there too, dwelling along with all other personalities. So they need a place and a representation too, don’t they? And the price we must pay for them to have them on our hands is a different problem.Sorry for writing a book in here….:rolleyes::cool:
Gildor Inglorion wrote:to sum up Tolwen, you are upset with Mithril and Chris Tubb for depicting 2nd Age men and elves with plate armors while Tolkien said armors in Middle Earth were made of chain and not plate ?Yes. And some TA Mithril characters follow in that tradition also.
Gildor Inglorion wrote:Sorry if i may disapoint many people around here, but well…. I consider a pity that professor Tolkien said that armors should be made of chains but I – by far – prefer their plate representation by Chris Tubb and I would not really like seeing an Elendil or Isildur in chain armor….Then we disagree here, which is fine by me. MERP was a fun game and did have a lot of great ideas, but also a lot of crap. I do not consider MERP’s vision as sacrosant due to their often poor handling of the sources. It is though worth preserving in certain ways, i.e. taking up things that were good for further development while discarding those that weren’t. IMHO plate armour certainly is in this latter category.
And since MERP also did not take it that seriously with its sources, it is understandable that Mithril – which takes the MERP canon to heart if I understand you right – follows in these footsteps.
In a word, for me MERP’s vision (and as a sidenote – a game that is dead for 15 years now) stands at the lower end of canonicity, while Tolkien’s vision always ranges above that.
According to your words, the subtitle of Mithril could then safely be changed from “Middle-earth miniatures” to “MERP miniatures”
OK, this wasn’t too serious, even though it has a grain of truth in it 
Cheers
TolwenWell Tolwen I do not say it SHOULD be that way, I just say it “is”
after all, if I remember well, there were ‘sets’ for MERP characters some years ago … and in the early blister cards it clearly mentionned those figurines are made for playing MERP games. the blister has since changed.Mithril does not take MERP as canon, but used to. Since they claim they want to have a continuity in style, it is hard to erase the old “style” with a brand new one… in a way… the new ones would not be “mithril” anymore… but a new brand. I don’t know how to put it.
Each tolkien artist (illustrator, sculptor) has his own “style”…. Alan Lee, John Howe may be similar, Angus Mc Bride has another more RPG oriented. Ted Nasmith is more “realistic” in characters. the Hildebrandt brothers were more “fantasy” oriented with high colors… Some people prefer one artist or another.
Same for figurines, except that Mithril IS Chris Tubb art and Chris Tubb art only… other brands do not use the same and always sculpter for their creations… that’s a differenceConsiderint mithril safety to stay in business… there is a very low number of customers at the moment… but we don’t know (either myself or mithril I suppose) what motivates THOSE remaining customers to carry on buying. Is it style, is it Tolkien, is it … whatever?
if there is a risk for mithril to LOOSE their remaining customers/collectors by changing their “historical” style… they won’t do it and that is normal. There is strictly NO guarantee to attract new customers du to the lack of communication and presence and market parts of Mithril in the world of figurines nowadays, but loosing the “strong basis” of longtime customers would be criticial
As I understand, Tolwen, you would prefer a change in style… and you say it would only take the company to decide to do so…. How many people around here think like you do. Certainly there are some, but then again… if you take it the other way around, and like the current style, like I do, how many people think like me and would “stop buying” if it was changing ?
you say it yourself, you, mithril is not first choice for you for several of the above mentionned matters and you pickup figurines for other places. As for myself, I do not even take the leisure to search or look for anything else , elsewhere… Ok I am very special in my case…. and maybe a dinosaur, but at the beginnings of Gold Ferllowship we were many…. we simply buy whatever mithril produces whatever it is… we may be angry, upset or mad because of the company prices and choices but still we are collecting figurines which taken altogether and placed in a set of glasscase can make the “neophyte” watcher say : Hey , those 600 figurines are ALL of the same brand…. and not a patchwork of styles…
I just try to make my point here, I perfectly respect and understand your point of view too
Here
[imgz url=http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/547_ms610-female-orc-shaman.jpg]http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/thumbs/547_ms610-female-orc-shaman.jpg[/imgz]
Gorgerous!!!! Awesome!!!!, explendid!!!! Great miniature!!! d:D:D:D
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