I think the problem is you’re specifically talking about this Games Workshop minis game, and I am talking about minis in hobby coop boardgames. I get that GW is a minis company and wants to make minis games, and I have zero problem with that in the context of their core genre (i.e. miniatures-based wargaming), which I have no interest in. It’s a little frustrating when they start wanting to make games that look interesting in the genre I do want to play (in this case, cooperative dungeon crawling), especially when they took their license away from a company that was genuinely good at making those sorts of games and was doing it on an explicitly non-minis basis (because GW didn’t want them competing with their minis), but sure, if the point is the minis, then I’m still not really their audience.
The overlap I’m objecting to is between people who are in it for the minis and people, like me, who are there for coop boardgames. This has created a situation where a huge number of otherwise really appealing games are saddled with enormous piles of expensive miniatures. Having backed a number of projects that either had a base game with standees/tokens and a separate minis addon or two SKUs, one with minis, on average it cost at least 30% more to have minis. Pretty much every game I’ve bought with minis cost at least that much more over comparable games without, and Games Workshop’s games are asking for $30+ more than, say, Fantasy Flight’s dungeon crawlers, which are themselves quite expensive and have less content for that price than, say, my copy of Darkest Night Second Edition (without minis), or of course Gloomhaven (which does have minis for the PCs in current configurations but was originally available without). Since the minis don’t add a damn thing as far as I’m concerned, I can’t help but resent that premium. And it’s specifically a problem affecting my favorite genre. You don’t get this bullshit in, say, heavy euros, or worker placement games.