boy. people sure have short, detail-obscuring memories.

I'm all the time seeing people making increasingly inaccurate statements about the changing of the guard at Wizkids. allow me to interject a few truths that will help Clarify things. everything I say below can be verified in the archives here on HCRealms, over on Facebook at the Save Heroclix Group, and on Jake's YWCSH site, if that's still up

#1) There was no "winding down" period. Everyone at the company was taken by surprise. They were working at their normal pace, exactly as planned, and then they were notified that they were shut down. Most of the employees were out of there within a week, and only a couple employees were left to get things organized and lock up. There was no impending closure, in which they scrambled to complete sets. It happened suddenly and without warning.

#2) This is not a "new direction". All during the early Days of the Hiatus when Jake Theis and his band of ex-Wizkids employees formed Pinata (remember Pinata?) Jake maintained that he had a five year plan for Heroclix, and that Hammer of Thor and Brave & the Bold were the first sets to conform to this five year plan. He said that if they were able to purchase the IPO, or partner with the company that did, he intended to proceed with this five year plan. He is now the Lead designer with the new company, and has been doing just that.
He got a lot of support from us on that plan site-unseen because the community had confidence in him, but now we're seeing it. Judge it objectively.

#3) They've finished adjusting to the new situation already. Hammer of Thor was ready to send to the production facilities. In fact, TOPPS did that while they still owned the rights. It was done. I mean DONE. Brave and the Bold was not. We were told in no uncertain terms, that it was not finished. Can you guess what that means? yes, they still had work to do, and it was done by the new NECA/Wizkids... but do you know what else? they were the same people. Same lead designer, his crew, picked from the old crew. These people were already familiar with the minute details of the system, the set they were working on, and the five year plan. The time they needed to adjust to those things was very short. It probably took longer to get adjusted to their new offices.

so to sum up... this is like your favorite restaurant getting bought by a new management company. the checks are getting cut by a new boss, but the same chef runs the kitchen, its got the same bartender and the menu hasn't changed. Let's try and take all these things into perspective when we discuss the New Wizkids and the products they are making.

25 figure collector sets are new. Digital Sculpting is new. Golden and Modern Age play formats are new. but the rest? We have to take Jake at his word, and assume its part of his five year plan.

1) Of course there was no winding down period, but there could have been a budget cut when they made The Brave and the Bold that was not explained to the designers or employees. Someone knew, maybe just Topps, but someone knew something.

2) He hasn't said what is, and what is not, part of his five year plan. We'll take him at his word once he voices it.

3) EXACTLY!!! It wasn't complete, and therefore, it could have been fixed. If you're right, and HoT was the first set of his five year plan, then BatB has less of an excuse for being this bad then it did when people thought it was a budget problem or a lack of experience problem.

#1) What you say is speculation. What I said is what we were told by Wizkids Employees who got canned. Jake Theis if I am not mistaken.

#2) yeah, that would be nice.


I'm trying to put these facts forward without attaching them to either side of any argument. Some people seem to have some foggy memory and misconceptions about how all that went down.

I like some of the points in your OP post. Things that should be considered. New owner but it is the same crew.

Is Jake officially the lead designer? I thought that they brought he and Seth back as sort of 'free-lance' positions. And the dial design was not done by Seth- or Kelly, who did Hammer of Thor.

they have told us that Jake was sequestered in Seattle with his team designing the upcoming releases. Sounds pretty official to me, considering it was released to the public on the Wizkids website.

Gotcha. I just checked, and they did announce it. I'm having a brain fart- what does 'R&D' stand for?

Research and Development, most likely.

Forgive my ignorance on copyright with regards to the big two, but is there any chance of additional red tape appearing since NECAWK is technically a new company (even though it's using original staff for the most part)? I remember hearing that DC in particular had a bit of an iron grip in regards to how it's characters were/weren't represented in the game.

As I understand it, the IPO that NECA bought from TOPPS includes the rights agreements made with the comics companies... but it is not into perpetuity, and at some point those agreements will have to be renewed. I have no solid data on when that will occur. When it does however, the rules laid out in those old agreements may or may not change. we'll have to keep our ears open for news of it and see what they'll share with us about that.

those rules have been said to include things like "there must be a certain number of mainstream recognizable characters per set" in some instances specific characters... "DC sets must be release half as often as Marvel sets / Marvel sets must be release twice as often as DC sets"... What these rules are in detail and in total is a guessing game for us on the outside, both past and future.

Well I asked the question in regards to BatB. I was thinking maybe NECAWK was only allowed to have certain characters represented in the set whereas original Wizkids would've been allowed more? Just spit-balling.

From my understanding Seth is doing dial designs.

No. I do not believe that to be the case.

I hope so- I think one of my biggest beefs with the dials we've seen from BatB is that they don't seem to be as dynamic as Seth's dials. Once the AV starts to go down...it just seems to go down (obviously there are exceptions, but most of them this is the case).

I think a E.E. was doing the dial designs for BatB.