It's not Tat, it's Big Bones!

In every Bones kickstarter Reaper makes a few impressively large miniatures as relatively inexpensive add-ons. Narglauth here was a USD 15 add-on in the Bones 4 kickstarter.

One would think that when they had gone to the expense to make moulds for such large minis that they would have the minis for sale after the kickstarter. But no, often they do not have them for sale.

Speculation: The realities of mass production in China is that there is a requirement of ordering minimum quantities of (assumably) several thousand copies of any given casting to even bother with setting up the machines for production. Maybe the big ones are several hundreds. I am not privy to this information.

As far as I understand, the time it takes to switch moulds between different castings is significant in itself, time that could rather be spent actually producing something the factory can get paid for. So the factory requires minimum quantities, or charge substantially extra for the time. This makes casting small runs unviable.

One negative side of massive, blow up kickstarters such as the Bones ones, is that the market might get saturated when is comes to a specific mini or type of minis (at least for a period). A large percentage of the core audience will have filled their need by purchasing inexpensively through the kickstarter campaign itself, and in addition all the flippers put their extras on sale at once, bloating the second hand market for a while.

Because of this market saturation (and being butthurt over being cut out of the initial sales loop) many retail stores refuse to carry kickstarted product at all.

In addition, maybe that particular add-on was not too popular, which in itself probably is a more effective indicator of saleability than any market research.

All in all, this means that many models never get a second printing after the initial production run for the kickstarter fulfilment (which would include some extra quantities to account for faulty items and such).

Also there is the issue of custom retail packaging for larger models needing to be designed and produced, another cost increasing factor.

So the models in question are not released for general retail sale, and are not available to get anywhere outside of second hand market. However, sometimes Reaper has a little remaining stock after the kickstarter period. This usually gets put on Reapers online store until sold out.

All in all, the lack of retail presence after the kickstarter is over and done with is especially noticable with some the larger models.

So also with Narglauth here.

Narglauth (SKU unknown)

from the Bones 4 kickstarter, 2019

Reaper Miniatures
Sculptor unkown (I would guess Chris Lewis based on the style)
Classic Bones PVC (actually a very good material for models of this size. I managed to drop this on the floor, with no ill effects!)

110x80mm 3D printed base