Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year? You can buy Reaper ones for that and not play the random game...most peeps I know buy them for the RP game not the minis game.
that is a over a 20% price increase at the same time that consumer incomes are seeing a meltdown. So yes, as a objective subjective statement -it is a ripoff.
If anything, all prices should be going down by 10% to reflect on the altered consumer purchasing power.
Now, I buy mine for $9-10 per booster at places like www.miniaturemarket.com.
Dungeons of Dread boosters equal $9.16. If you buy a case then it is free shipping.
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Dungeon of Dread Booster Case
Reg. Price: $179.88
Sale Price: $110.00
Save: $69.88
Ta-da!
You can ignore "retail" price if you shop places like that and Amazon.
Hmm. Prices haven't changed at all here in Europe. Must be some local problem.
Bwahahahaha, that's great, seriously... I hope you meant that in that way. Absolutely fantastic. I'm gonna be laughing about that for weeks.
Bwahahahaha, that's great, seriously... I hope you meant that in that way. Absolutely fantastic. I'm gonna be laughing about that for weeks.
I'm not sure what's so funny. Prices for boosters from the old sets actually went down. The new ones cost exactly as much as the old ones previously did. Prices for books (from the US) also went down.
I'm not sure what's so funny. Prices for boosters from the old sets actually went down. The new ones cost exactly as much as the old ones previously did. Prices for books (from the US) also went down.
the continuing downward spiral of the American dollar.....
2. TSR was failing at the end of the 1990's because it didn't make enough money. WotC bought TSR because it *was* making lots of money. Off of what? Magic: The Gathering trading cards. Collectible card games. This is WotC's market strategy -- make you continuously buy stupid, small things -- cards, figurines, whatever. They are a business run by suits, and the suits want to make tons of money for the main shareholders. This is how the real world works. If you don't like it, then play a different RPG or create your own.
3. Miniatures are miniatures. You don't have to buy them from WotC. You don't even need them to play D&D. Make your own out of common household items. Use your imagination. Buy old blanks and paint them. There are plenty of ways to show WotC that miniatures is a bad way for them to make money.
Or just buy an older edition of D&D that doesn't emphasize their use. That's my solution. Long live THAC0 !
And yet, I have a couple fellow gamers who get a great deal of enjoyment out of the official D&D minis. So, clearly my definition of value is not the same as theirs....
I'm sure this has nothing whats so ever to do with the fact oil by-products are used in mix of alot of plastics. Yep I'm completely sure the two are 100% unrelated.
lol.. even if a miniature used a whole liter of oil, thats still just 50c in rawmaterial. Manufacturing is cheap, unless you do it in china.. where they are horribly inefficcient (****** tech).
Labor, not worth mentioning. All can be done by unmanned machines.
Shipping, now thats a bit bigger. Aswell as reaction speed to new demands, series size and distance are all factors in this.
So if wizards wanted to be smart, they would do their own manufacturing in say texas (harbor for shipments going abroad, sizable population of its own, good shipment options to bother east and west coasts, rawmaterials close by, good reaction ability to changing customer demands)
First off... PRICES INCREASE. Look at gas. Look at your grocery bill. It happens. It is a fact that you (not YOU per se, but everyone in generally) needs to accept and deal with.
Now, I buy mine for $9-10 per booster at places like www.miniaturemarket.com.
Dungeons of Dread boosters equal $9.16. If you buy a case then it is free shipping.
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Dungeon of Dread Booster Case
Reg. Price: $179.88
Sale Price: $110.00
Save: $69.88
Ta-da!
You can ignore "retail" price if you shop places like that and Amazon.
Good tip Ryngard. I do like to buy from my local retailer. Helps him pay the bills but this is still a good tip.
lol.. even if a miniature used a whole liter of oil, thats still just 50c in rawmaterial. Manufacturing is cheap, unless you do it in china.. where they are horribly inefficcient (****** tech).
Labor, not worth mentioning. All can be done by unmanned machines.
Shipping, now thats a bit bigger. Aswell as reaction speed to new demands, series size and distance are all factors in this.
So if wizards wanted to be smart, they would do their own manufacturing in say texas (harbor for shipments going abroad, sizable population of its own, good shipment options to bother east and west coasts, rawmaterials close by, good reaction ability to changing customer demands)
that is probably the cheapes way of buying miniatures.
As mentioned, there are secondary market sellers that are pretty cheap for commons & uncommons, as well as many rares. Really, the only practical way to collect them by the booster is to buy cases, as was said earlier. We used to buy three cases a set, then down to 2, then to one, now, I don't know if I'll buy any cases of Against the Giants.
My complaint is the fugly nature of the CGI sculpts, and the needless complication of the skirmish game to make it match D&D4E. It was a nice, very simple game, easy to learn and a good match to 3.5. Now, it seems much more complicated (probably some due to just my reluctance to learn a new system when I thought the old was good), especially since D&D4E isn't even out yet. I never skirmished competively, but it was a fun game. I don't think I'll ever get into the new one the same way.
And, yes, I really think many of the new sculpts are fugly. The orc from DoD2 looks like something a child could make out of play dough, espcially compared to many of the older orcs, which were quite good. The angels are abominations, with wierd looking wings and strange colors, even the giants so far look poor, IMO. Some still look good, like the gnoll from DoD2, but too many look to fugly. Also having only the D&D4E stats on the RPG side make them uselss to anyone for another month, and to those hwo don't switch forever.
Oh, well, things don't last. I'll likely take by 4000+ DDM 1.o's and be very content, maybe adding the occasional Reaper LE or even DDM 2 mini I like.
if you needed to get really cheap, just print out some pictures, cut them in circles or squares and tape them to a pieces of cardboard and use them as tokens. it might not look great but it will get you buy.
I will say that $15 suggested retail for 8 random figs is a little high but if you don't care what you get then it's not that bad.
I guess, one has to start the discussion by what one is comparing them to.
If you look at any other product sold in the same way (sealed and random packaging) - i.e. sports cards, Magic the Gathering cards, etc. - then it likely isn't expensive at all. You can pay say $0.30-$0.50 each for random Magic cards in a package. You get some colored peices of papers. Is it not worth five or ten times the price to get a plastic figure?
If you look at the product for its actually usefulness -- i.e. using the figs to play D&D -- then they were never not a rip-off. They were never suitable for that purpose unless you wanted to put $10,000 on random minis until you bought enough to have a 12 orc battle - or went online via Ebay. Even then, colored dice seem to work better as you can number them.
I know of no one who seriously buys them to play D&D. They buy them to collect. The number of random boxes you'd have to buy (and the massive waste of unneeded figures) makes actually having the figs needed for a specific combat virtually impossible. Even friends who have massive collections, might be able to run maybe 1 in 20 combats soley using their figs. Nor would anyone actually spend $50 on E-Bay to buy figs just for one sixty minute combat. The only "modules" I've seen with complete fig sets are those which WotC puts out for World D&D Game Day. I'd dare anyone to run me through say Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Red Hand of Doom, or a Pathfinder module with actual figs for every combat. I'd rather spend the money flying my gaming group to Mexico.
What do you mean now?
I guess, one has to start the discussion by what one is comparing them to.
If you look at any other product sold in the same way (sealed and random packaging) - i.e. sports cards, Magic the Gathering cards, etc. - then it likely isn't expensive at all. You can pay say $0.30-$0.50 each for random Magic cards in a package. You get some colored peices of papers. Is it not worth five or ten times the price to get a plastic figure?
If you look at the product for its actually usefulness -- i.e. using the figs to play D&D -- then they were never not a rip-off. They were never suitable for that purpose unless you wanted to put $10,000 on random minis until you bought enough to have a 12 orc battle - or went online via Ebay. Even then, colored dice seem to work better as you can number them.
I know of no one who seriously buys them to play D&D. They buy them to collect. The number of random boxes you'd have to buy (and the massive waste of unneeded figures) makes actually having the figs needed for a specific combat virtually impossible. Even friends who have massive collections, might be able to run maybe 1 in 20 combats soley using their figs. Nor would anyone actually spend $50 on E-Bay to buy figs just for one sixty minute combat. The only "modules" I've seen with complete fig sets are those which WotC puts out for World D&D Game Day. I'd dare anyone to run me through say Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Red Hand of Doom, or a Pathfinder module with actual figs for every combat. I'd rather spend the money flying my gaming group to Mexico.
I'd have to say I disagree. Our group uses them almost exclusively for D&D, we vry rarely play the skirmish game anymore. Most of polls and speculation I've seen on these boards, Maxminis, Hordelings and elsewhere all lean towards RPGers being the largest segment of DDM purchasers. Yes, it can be expensive, but still far, far less expensive than metal minis (in terms of time and money).
It can be a challenge to keep track of a group of sya 12 orcs, but the variety of sculpts helps. There are also several methods we've used:
On a wipeable surface, you can write the number of mini next to it (Orc1, Orc2, etc). We then draw lines from th enumber, following the min around the battle. Messy, but really helps you track wha thappened in the battle afterwards!
We printed off a bunch of little stickers, and attached them to the minis base. We used numbers, letters, even symbols. Everyone remembers the battle where they encountered "Zombie P" (say it, don't just read it). Unintentional, bonus fun!
Now, we use a technique we got off a website for "piled" hit points. That is, if there are 10 orcs, and each has 10 hit points, the DM just marks hits of the "100" total. Every time the pile gets reduced by 10, one dies. Actually works very well, and simulates the "varied" hit points quite well. One memorable battle, my son put a huge number of hit points on monster, becaus ejust before he went, the PC before him would kill one of the monsters with some little hit. (He was playing a fighter-mage, the other was a cleric without much in the way of melee skills). It was quite fun, and actually seem to "make sense", in that he would battled the biggest and toughest looking bad guy, while the cleric would have picked on the wimpy looking ones. Or at least we rationalized that way.
So, perhaps in your area, no one uses the for D&D, but that isn't true everywhere, and there are plenty of ways around some of the issues you raised. But, you're also right, the game is still fun using chips, tokens, dice or even just narrative.
Too bad they got so fugly wiht the 4e ones, though....
I'd have to say I disagree. Our group uses them almost exclusively for D&D, we vry rarely play the skirmish game anymore.
And we don't (even though some of our group may collect them). Neither is proof.
Most of polls and speculation I've seen on these boards, Maxminis, Hordelings and elsewhere all lean towards RPGers being the largest segment of DDM purchasers.
That is like saying baseball fans are the biggest collector of baseball cards. It is still doesn't say why they buy them. D&D players can buy minis in order to collect them vs. actually playing the D&D game with them.
I'm sorry, I don't buy that most players actually use plastic minis at the game. Go to a major convention. Hundreds of RPGA tables running and I've yet to see any actually running with a full set of minis. Yes, folks have a few. Yes, DMs might has one to represent a big monster. However, it would cost literally a million dollars (excluding E-Bay) to actually equip a convention to run thirty tables of RPGA events using full mini sets. Even using E-Bay the time and cost to get a set to run one module would be more than the convention could likely bring in. People don't even bother trying.
Again, the only modules I have even seen run with full mini-sets are World D&D Game Day, when WotC sent of figs specifically for the modules.
So, perhaps in your area, no one uses the for D&D, but that isn't true everywhere, and there are plenty of ways around some of the issues you raised. But, you're also right, the game is still fun using chips, tokens, dice or even just narrative.
Well, maybe conventions in my area are different. So are those in Dragonflight, GenCon Indy, Origins, etc., etc. If you search for pictures of these all day, you'll see hundreds of tables running and only a few (personal) figs laying around -- except for those in the fig painting competitions.
Seriously, it would likely cost what... $5,000-10,000 to collect a basic set of figs able to run even a reasonable set of encounters. Would you agree? If so... you can't tell me that even a tiny percentage of folks actually have collections large enough to run most combats with?
The packaging themselves show who the market is. Name on other product which ships in sealed random packs in which collecting is not the primary market? Sports cards... no? Magic cards... no? Cars in cerial boxes... no?
I'm sorry, I don't buy that most players actually use plastic minis at the game. Go to a major convention. Hundreds of RPGA tables running and I've yet to see any actually running with a full set of minis. Yes, folks have a few. Yes, DMs might has one to represent a big monster. However, it would cost literally a million dollars (excluding E-Bay) to actually equip a convention to run thirty tables of RPGA events using full mini sets. Even using E-Bay the time and cost to get a set to run one module would be more than the convention could likely bring in. People don't even bother trying.
Again, the only modules I have even seen run with full mini-sets are World D&D Game Day, when WotC sent of figs specifically for the modules.
Well, maybe conventions in my area are different. So are those in Dragonflight, GenCon Indy, Origins, etc., etc. If you search for pictures of these all day, you'll see hundreds of tables running and only a few (personal) figs laying around -- except for those in the fig painting competitions.
Seriously, it would likely cost what... $5,000-10,000 to collect a basic set of figs able to run even a reasonable set of encounters. Would you agree? If so... you can't tell me that even a tiny percentage of folks actually have collections large enough to run most combats with?
The packaging themselves show who the market is. Name on other product which ships in sealed random packs in which collecting is not the primary market? Sports cards... no? Magic cards... no? Cars in cerial boxes... no?
The D&D games I've participated in at Origins and Gen Con, whether run by WotC or other groups, have included DDM. Maybe not 100% (I think I remember one DM who had pewter figures for a few of the PCs), but there were DDM present. I have a reasonably wide assortment of miniatures from the line, and I certainly haven't put out anything near $5,000. While I may not have every single miniature for every single situation (Because that's impossible, since they haven't released miniatures of several of the monsters I've used), I do have a wide variety of orcs, goblins, and monsters. Some of them are used to substitute when necessary ("This kobold is a Soul Spark"), but there are times when I have run adventures using the correct miniatures. It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be, nor as expensive unless you really want to run adventures full of Rares (and, even then, sometimes you can pull it off alright).
Part of the trick is knowing how to buy them from sellers on eBay, and part of it is luck, but it's certainly not a difficult prospect. The GM for my Star Wars game went from 0 to over 40 minis from one vendor since he started running his game, and we've had a great deal of variety. I've had other DMs use minis, too. Some have borrowed mine, and some do prefer to use the exact mini, but it's impossible to have a miniature for every situation ever, since there are so many millions of possibilities (The number of potential weapons a figure could be wielding by itself is pretty high).
For the record, I often purchase pewter minis from Reaper for my own PCs, and also just to paint for fun. But I've also had games where everyone used a plastic mini from DDM. They're really great, because they don't really break. I can throw a bunch into a zip-lock bag and tote them wherever I want to go, no problem.
Perhaps I wasn't clear, but the instances I mentioned were of people saying they used the minis primarily for RPG, not skirmish or collecting. Of course, these were mostly on boards dedicated to DDM or minis, so the sample was certainly folks who like minis, not those who view them negatively.
As for conventions, yes, I could see folks not bringing a lot of minis to play at a convention. I've only been to a handful of conventions (mostly Origins, which is located in my home town) and haven't played in a D&D event at a convention in a long time. You sounds as if you have a much greater experience at conventions, so I would assume you have seen a larger sample.
I was referring to non-convention games, such as those at homes or FLGS. there certainly are folks who use DDM, as well as many other minis, for such RPG all the time. We've used minis in our group since the late 70's, almost exclusively metal until the DDM came out several years back. Since then, we've switched almost exclusively to DDMs, and I've seen this happen with some other groups in our area, as well as folks talking about them on the baove mentioned boards. Of course, one area & a collection of folks across the globe (but all on boards related to RPG or minis) can hardly be a valid study. It is evidence that there are folks, in a range of locations, that use minis and appreciate the use of DDMs in RPG. That was my comment, that there are those of us who use the minis regularly for RPG & with great variety I've got over 4000 DDM, plus another 100 PPM, and 500+ metal minis; the other DM in our group has collections about half that size, I've talked with other local folks who have collections in similar range, and on boards with folks who have collections into the 10,000s of these things. It does take some disposable income to be able to purchase minis in large numbers (although DDM are much cheaper than metal counterparts), but doesn't imply any superiority to one style over another or one gamer over another.
Perhaps I'm misreading your reply, but it seemed kind of hostile or one-upping. I didn't mean to make feel defensive or deny the validity of playing D&D with out DDM or other minis. Its a great game, people can play it in many different ways, with or without minis being only one of the areas for different styles (high magic, low magic, grim and gritty, Monty Haul, western, oriental, good, evil, etc).
Someone must be buying these things, since WotC is 15 sets into the series, with at least two more announced. Of course, as I've siad before, I personally am not too pleased with many of the recent sculpts and the DDM 2.0 game, so I doubt I'll continue to collect them nearly as much. However, I'll certainly use the minis I have for years to come in RPG.
For the record, reaper prepainted minis are $2-$5 each, and their sculpts aren't as nice as their metal line. It's certainly nice to see mini you like at the store and just buy it though.
Rhydur,
Seriously, it would likely cost what... $5,000-10,000 to collect a basic set of figs able to run even a reasonable set of encounters. Would you agree? If so... you can't tell me that even a tiny percentage of folks actually have collections large enough to run most combats with?
That's way too high an estimate. Figure someone mentioned a need for 12 orcs for an encounter, if you have 3-4 cases from any sets you probably have that in various common orcs. So depending if you pay full price or case discounts that's about 300-720 and you also have a selection of other minis including PC races, monsters including dragons and main monster races (various ogres, trolls, giants, drow etc).
I've gotten about 1-2 cases per set and have no trouble populating dungeons. H1 was the most challenging (more zombies please!) but even then there were plenty of zombie looking undead to choose from.
Back in the late 80's I started using minis in my games. I remember dropping 1,000 bucks back then for a nice selection of orcs, elves, PC's and a few monsters. To buy what I did back then these days I'm sure it would cost more... and I only had a couple small dragons, no medusa, no beholders etc. I also had to paint all of them (which is a Cost in itself both in time and materials) and while I like painting PC's I'm not so fond of spending a whole day cloning elves in assembly line style. Also, if they fell, got messed around or stepped on it's a pretty sure bet the weapons would break off or something.
I think most of the new D&D minis are pretty nice looking, are very durable and fill in niches and gaps in my monster collection. The cost has gone up over the years, sure, but that's part of the price we in gaming are paying for the oil war in Iraq which is raising plastic material costs. Lets not forget the regular inflation rate either.
Considering where they're made, yeah they're a rip
And let's see, if you were a mini, you'd be a
troll?
:D
Also, even buying singles you'd have to spend a fortune to run a typical module. And if you're reduced to the point of saying "All of these Bonekrusher Troglodytes? They're really Dire Stoats. And these Rockmuncher Xorns? They're really Treants. And this WarDwarf Warlord Warlock with WarAxe? That's the evil wizard."... you'd be just as well off using dice or counters.
Considering where they're made, yeah they're a rip
Actually the cost of manufacturing in China is on the rise. Plastic and cardboard packaging prices are way up over this time last year.
China may no longer equal cheap.
Strangely, they don't seem to be geared for use with D&D. Like, why don't they have commons suitable for use as basic party members? Browsing through singles catalogs online, I can scarcely see any useable wizards.
Also, even buying singles you'd have to spend a fortune to run a typical module. And if you're reduced to the point of saying "All of these Bonekrusher Troglodytes? They're really Dire Stoats. And these Rockmuncher Xorns? They're really Treants. And this WarDwarf Warlord Warlock with WarAxe? That's the evil wizard."... you'd be just as well off using dice or counters.
This reminds me of this Order of the Stick:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0413.html
As far as minis go, we use, among other things, a bag of about 30 "Cowboy and Indian" plastic toys I bought at a dollar store. Some have spears and shields and don't look half bad. Then again some have revolvers and cowboy hats. It was either that, firemen, or army men.
Strangely, they don't seem to be geared for use with D&D. Like, why don't they have commons suitable for use as basic party members? Browsing through singles catalogs online, I can scarcely see any useable wizards.
Also, even buying singles you'd have to spend a fortune to run a typical module. And if you're reduced to the point of saying "All of these Bonekrusher Troglodytes? They're really Dire Stoats. And these Rockmuncher Xorns? They're really Treants. And this WarDwarf Warlord Warlock with WarAxe? That's the evil wizard."... you'd be just as well off using dice or counters.
That's likely because the DDM minis are primarily for the DDM game. Yes, they can be used in the D&D P&P game, but the random packs/sets/etc were made for a collectable minis game, not for roleplayers in particular.
As a side note, I usually use whatever D&D mini looks similar to what I am representing if I don't have the exact type of piece. I mean, that trog kind of looks like a dragonborn. :p
(50 different sculpts mentioned, actually 49 + Splug; anywhere from one to 13 figures) This is taking the largest number encountered on any page. If someone runs from one encounter to alert another (which happens several times) it could skew the number slightly higher.
Max Name
1 Balgron The Fat
1 Blue Slime
1 Clay Scout
2 Corruption Corpses
1 Dark Creeper
1 Deathjump Spider
1 Deathlock Wight
12 Decrepit Skeletons
2 Dragon Statues
1 Gelatinous Cube
1 Ghoul
13 Giant Rats
1 Gnome Skulk
8 Goblin Cutters
3 Goblin Sharpshooters
5 Goblin Warriors
2 Gravehound Zombies
2 Guard Drake
1 Halfling Slinger
1 Hobgoblin Archer
5 Hobgoblin Grunts
4 Hobgoblin Soldiers
1 Hobgoblin Torturer
1 Hobgoblin Warcaster
1 Hobgoblin Warchief
2 Human Berserkers
4 Human Rabble
1 Irontooth
1 Kalarel, Scion Of Orcus
3 Kobold Dragonshield
10 Kobold Minions
3 Kobold Skirmisher
1 Kobold Slinger
1 Kobold Wyrmpriest
1 Kruthik Adult
6 Kruthik Hatchlings
3 Kruthik Young
1 Ninaran, Elf Archer
1 Ochre Jelly
1 Orcus Underpriest
1 Rat Swarm
1 Sir Keegan
2 Skeleton Warriors
1 Splug
1 The Thing In The Portal
1 Titan Statue
5 Vampire Spawn
1 Whirlpool Trap
12 Zombie Rotters
4 Zombies
I haven't decided what I'm going to use for some of the named characters yet.
Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year?
Huh? There were never 12 minis in a box.
Thanks to our strong dollar, prices here in Toronto have gone down (finally) for them. They're like $11 and change now.
Huh? There were never 12 minis in a box.
Thanks to our strong dollar, prices here in Toronto have gone down (finally) for them. They're like $11 and change now.
If you don't mind me asking, where abouts in Toronto are you getting them? My places in Hamilton aren't selling them for that low. I wish though.
Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year? You can buy Reaper ones for that and not play the random game...most peeps I know buy them for the RP game not the minis game.
I haven't read all the posts BUT...if you order a box of mini's from Amazon the cost is $10.49 per booster pack. The starter set is $10.19.
I have a friend who has about 40 or so minis and only 4 of them are orcs, which we use much more often then say, the half-ilithid lizard folk.
That said, I look down on the D&D minis game and can only say that using them for RPing isn't rewarding unless you have the wallet to buy a bunch to remotely get the kinds of minis you want.
But these are all things people really need to buy. If people are spending more money on gas and essentials, this leaves less money for entertainment.
Maybe WOTC is upping their price because of increased shipping costs, maybe they are upping the price because they feel they can. (hey, charge what the market can bear) I suspect that a the price they are expecting now, and the economic realities, sales of the figures will drop like a rock.
At that point WOTC will have to analize. It will be interesting what they come up with. Many companies with a high markup item are loath to slash prices even if it would increase sales more than enough to make up for it. WOTC may delude themselves that it isn't an issue of price point, but simply a product whose time has past, and that is a pity
If you don't mind me asking, where abouts in Toronto are you getting them? My places in Hamilton aren't selling them for that low. I wish though.
Both 401 Games (401 Yonge St.) and Hairy Tarantuala (354 Yonge St., upstairs) sell them for about the same price. 401 gives a 10% discount on cases, don't know about Hairy T's case prices.
Silver Snail (367 Queen St. W.) is probably in the same ballpark, but I've not been there in ages so I can't say for certain.
Also, you might want to drop James the True a PM. He lives in the hammer and I think he has a FLGS he's quite pleased with.
Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year?
Nope. Prices rise.
Rhydur,
And we don't (even though some of our group may collect them). Neither is proof.
That is like saying baseball fans are the biggest collector of baseball cards. It is still doesn't say why they buy them. D&D players can buy minis in order to collect them vs. actually playing the D&D game with them.
I'm sorry, I don't buy that most players actually use plastic minis at the game. Go to a major convention. Hundreds of RPGA tables running and I've yet to see any actually running with a full set of minis. Yes, folks have a few. Yes, DMs might has one to represent a big monster. However, it would cost literally a million dollars (excluding E-Bay) to actually equip a convention to run thirty tables of RPGA events using full mini sets. Even using E-Bay the time and cost to get a set to run one module would be more than the convention could likely bring in. People don't even bother trying.
Again, the only modules I have even seen run with full mini-sets are World D&D Game Day, when WotC sent of figs specifically for the modules.
Well, maybe conventions in my area are different. So are those in Dragonflight, GenCon Indy, Origins, etc., etc. If you search for pictures of these all day, you'll see hundreds of tables running and only a few (personal) figs laying around -- except for those in the fig painting competitions.
Seriously, it would likely cost what... $5,000-10,000 to collect a basic set of figs able to run even a reasonable set of encounters. Would you agree? If so... you can't tell me that even a tiny percentage of folks actually have collections large enough to run most combats with?
The packaging themselves show who the market is. Name on other product which ships in sealed random packs in which collecting is not the primary market? Sports cards... no? Magic cards... no? Cars in cerial boxes... no?
I am going to be running a D&D game on June 7th at my place of work, I read the brochure of what we receive, but it is at work right now, so I can't tell you word for word, but:
Every participant leaves the store with their character sheet and a mini representing their character
If it really costed a million dollars to equip a whole convention, they wouldn't be sending Borders enough free miniatures for 20 participants (along with every other site that hosts D&D game-day around the world)
In addition, I have been using D&D minis to represent characters in the roleplaying game for years now. No, I don't have every piece. Yes, I have spent a miniscule amount of money on D&D Minis (~100 dollars) in comparison to my other gaming materials. Yes, sometimes I resort to using dice or other markers for the monsters. This doesn't mean it isn't cool for the players to have a character sculpt right in front of them to aid in imagination and connect with.
If you look at the product for its actually usefulness -- i.e. using the figs to play D&D -- then they were never not a rip-off. They were never suitable for that purpose unless you wanted to put $10,000 on random minis until you bought enough to have a 12 orc battle - or went online via Ebay.
You are setting your standards of "usefulness" way too high.
If you demand that every single mini have the exact same name printed on the base as the module uses in its stat block, then yes, it would require thousands of dollars.
If you are happy with a collection that will have a figure of the correct size and shape for 95% of the encounters you run, that is easily possible for 300-500, which is what my group has amassed over the last few years. Buy 2 packs a month for a year or two, and you'll have plenty of variety to use in the RPG, without putting too much of a crimp in your budget.
So no, its not a ripoff if you're using them for D&D, at least if you consider that most places that sell boosters also sell singles.
Because tournament players (and the singles dealers that provide them minis) collectively open a zillion packs with minis they have no use for in tournaments, they're dumping a huge amount of cheap minis on the market. You should embrace the blind distribution model, make it work for you by buying singles of what you need, and let the DDM players continue subsidizing your gaming.
If you really need a red dragon mini (one of the expensive ones), go with a cheaper alternative. Hopefully, Reaper will start making minis from the range of popular rares, because those would be the only ones that Reaper or WotC could conceivably make cheaper. WotC won't do it because it would devalue their collectible product, but Reaper could do it. Since the DDM players couldn't use these minis, this would barely affect the DDM market. Win-win for RPG players: buy cheap minis by letting DDM subsidize you on the D&D minis, and get the few really expensive ones from competitors.
Also, if you buy a case, you're 99% assured of getting 4x of each common, 1.5x of each uncommon, and half the rares in the set. Depending on the set and the proportion of that set that you find useful for PnP gaming, that might be a good value, or a bad value.
I ONLY use my mini collection for RPG's - I have no interest in the mini game. Up until about War of the Dragon Queen I bought around a half-case or more of minis. Now I've got enough commons and such built up that just buying a single monster here or there is all I really want to do.
However, the price line for these minis has gotten so high I wouldn't buy them anymore. They've gone up from their original pricing too much, and while they're better than the blobs o' plastic that were Harbinger, they're still fairly unattractive.
If I was interested in buying minis as part of some trading game like I did with stickers and cards as a kid, WotC marketing strategy would be fine. As I am interested in them for use as a game aid in D&D, I don't touch them.
If I want to send fifteen skeletons at the party, I would statistically have to buy a ridiculous number of packs to get them. I resent being forced to purchase things I do not want. That is a very simple, and justifiable, reaction.
And I can get single miniatures from places like ebay, but I have zero intention of spending my time searching for them, buying from different sellers and waiting different shipping dates. Time spent doing this is time I regard as wasted.
If they had a site where I could log in and click fifteen skeletons, twenty orcs, two trolls and a black dragon, make one payment and wait for a single parcel, that would be fine. Anything else is irritating as Hell.
If they had a site where I could log in and click fifteen skeletons, twenty orcs, two trolls and a black dragon, make one payment and wait for a single parcel, that would be fine. Anything else is irritating as Hell.
You do realize thats every online retailer that sells singles, right?
You do realize thats every online retailer that sells singles, right?
No. I looked but I just found a lot of sites that seemed to have a couple of type X and a few of type Y. What site would you recommend, please? It doesn't change that I think WotC marketing strategy is useless to me, but it very much changes whether I care.
Edit: I found Legend Games here in the UK. It does what I asked, though it's a bit piecemeal. E.g. They have one Dire Wolf in stock. If I want four then I'm out of luck. Not their fault of course, but I'd love a store like Games Workshop provide where I can get exactly what I want every time.
And I did not spend 5k to 10k on my minis - I topped $1,000 because I wanted to get the full Aberrations set, which was not in production when I bought it - so I had to pay a premium for it. But I have dozens of almost any type of basic creature - yes it might be two different skeletons you are looking at, but that helps with telling them apart.
And a solution to telling ten minis of the same fig apart on the battlefield - I use White Out on the open area of the base, then write the number on there. Easy, costs little, and shows up really well just looking at them - AND does not damage the mini at all.
Matthew77,
You are setting your standards of "usefulness" way too high.
No, I'm not. All they have to do, is sell the minis at the stores individually. I walk into the store, I want 5 orcs, some leader type for encounter 1, an ogre for encounter 2, etc. and I put down $30 ($1-$2 per fig) and I have that module covered. After a few trips and a few hundred dollars, I likely have suitable figs for most of the encounters.
But they don't. They sell them in sealed random boxes, so that I could buy $500 worth of figs and still not get the basic figs to play through one encounter - baring going on E-bay.
Buy 2 packs a month for a year or two, and you'll have plenty of variety to use in the RPG, without putting too much of a crimp in your budget.
At 8 per pack, and you say I need 300-500 figs, that would take 6 years by your math. Why can't I just buy the figs I need now? Name one other items (other than collectables) where you have to buy 6 years worth of stuff every month, just to use them for the original purpose you bought them for?
This is like selling sealed random screw-driver sets. Yes, after six years of buying two sets per month, you might end up with a Philips, Robertson, flat-head, etc. of each of the sizes, but a) that doesn't help you if you want the set today, b) no one is paying for your time, c) you end up with hundreds of screw-drivers you don't need, etc.
Traxlenak,
I've run the last three D&D World Game Days. WotC does a great job. They include figs for every combat for the DMs and extra PC figs so that players can come home with one figs. That's great. If you are the lucky store/DM which gets to keep the figs for the module, you can certainly run the drow combat (2006). However, if you wanted to arrange to do the exact same thing at a game day using say an LG module... you'd have to source all the figures individually -- either buying hundreds of packs hoping to get 6 drow, or going on E-bay.
Tiberien,
>$5,000-$10,000
That's way too high an estimate.Ok. Challenge for you.
I'd like enough figs to run say 75% of the encounters for say the first Pathfinder series. (You can pick another campaign if you don't have the Pathfinder series, say Living Greyhawk, Eberon, or Living Arcanis would do). That is the five? initial Pathfinder modules, or say three years of the (smaller) core LG or LA modules.
a) Give me a cost using only sealed random fig boxes? How many hundreds of boxes would you need to buy. You can sell on E-bay any extras to keep the cost reasonable.
b) Give me a cost using E-bay.
Include your time (say at minimum wage), shipping, handling, transport, and storages, etc.
If you really think you can do this for be within a few hundred dollars, please contact me off-line.
c) Ask what the real cost of this would be if you could just go into the store and pick unsealed non-random figs off a shelf?
I suspect no one will actually do this, because even seeing if it is possible and getting a price on it would take hundreds of dollars in billable time.
It is perfectly obvious that sealed random boxes are not purchased by folks planning on running modules. I don't think I'm off by much guessing that it would take $5,000-$10,000 to get close to even running 75% of any of these.
Why not just buy singles at the store?
Cos that would undermine their arguments.
Why not just buy singles at the store?
Too easy.
Material costs are on the rise. Paper, Plastics, & Paint.
Fuel Costs are on the rise affecting cost of shipping & materials. This is getting materials to the factory, getting products out of China, and getting products to consumers from distribution centers.
Why not just buy singles at the store?
A few small stores already do. Most likely just unloading their own personal stock.
Cos that would undermine their arguments.
Well it would if I knew of a store where I could just go in and buy my fifteen skeletons, four dire wolves or whatever. But as I don't have such a store available, I suggest you go back and read what my actual arguments were.
The difficulties in getting the exact minis that I might want are a direct result of WotC way of selling them. Therefore I criticize WotC. It seems straightforward enough, does it not, Jayne?
Cost of labor and manufacturing in China is significantly on the rise. China no longer = cheap
Material costs are on the rise. Paper, Plastics, & Paint.
Fuel Costs are on the rise affecting cost of shipping & materials. This is getting materials to the factory, getting products out of China, and getting products to consumers from distribution centers.
All joking aside. Inflation usually runs about 3% on a year to year cumulative basis and that's not counting the runaway increase on a barrel of oil which is currently at $135 and rising. Not to mention the fact that the entertainment sector of the business world has generally increased at a much higher pace.
This whole thread really boils down to a worsening economy and the "have-nots" are quickly becoming the "having-even-less" or "having-nothing".
we all like to have fun toys. I know that I can't afford the minis. I'll be lucky to buy one or 2 packs given the current price structure.
If you're rich then the price will matter "little or nothing".
if you're poor then you make do with what you can scrape together.
maybe WOTC can come up with a coupon day or maybe they will accept
food stamps... :lightbulb
Current system: Cheap cost, wide range of minis.
Moving to non-random packaging, you either ramp up prices considerably, or end up with a rather thin range.
Look at Reaper, for instance. The prices are competitive with DDM (slightly higher), but they don't have a lot of selection. That's because each mini they create is a separate product, whereas with WotC's blind packaging method, each *set* of 60 minis is one product. Reaper has to do market research and crap for every single mini they do. WotC can just lump an entire set as one product, and if some of the minis in the set are lackluster, the rest of the set carries the product so it's not a loss.
WotC would never be able to release as many minis as they do now without taking huge risks if they were packaging them separatly instead of as blind boosters. That's a fact.
Moving to non-random packaging, you either ramp up prices considerably, or end up with a rather thin range....WotC would never be able to release as many minis as they do now without taking huge risks if they were packaging them separatly instead of as blind boosters. That's a fact.
It's not a fact and I dispute that non-random packaging would require increased prices. Please explain why that would be the case.
It's obvious from this thread that some people avoid buying the minis because they don't like the random element.
WotC would never be able to release as many minis as they do now without taking huge risks if they were packaging them separatly instead of as blind boosters. That's a fact.
Save your breath, it will make no difference. Even if Wizards sold miniatures at ten-a-penny people would just complain that they aren't being delivered directly to their home by naked supermodels.
Save your breath, it will make no difference. Even if Wizards sold miniatures at ten-a-penny people would just complain that they aren't being delivered directly to their home by naked supermodels.
Your posts seem to consist of dismissing what people are saying without actually addressing them. I have made no reference to super-models. I've explained why the randomness discourages me from buying them. Are you going to try and tell me that it doesn't? If not, then what are you disagreeing with?
Your posts seem to consist of dismissing what people are saying without actually addressing them. I have made no reference to super-models. I've explained why the randomness discourages me from buying them. Are you going to try and tell me that it doesn't? If not, then what are you disagreeing with?
What makes you think my post had anything to do with you?
What makes you think my post had anything to do with you?
Because your post immediately followed mine, quoted in support of the same thing I had just quoted and criticized and wasn't obviously addressed to anyone else.
If you're replying to a specific poster, and not everyone who is against the random sales model of minis, you should probably make that clear by quoting what you're replying to. Otherwise we end up with confusion like this.
Who were you addressing, btw?
It's not a fact and I dispute that non-random packaging would require increased prices. Please explain why that would be the case.
It's obvious from this thread that some people avoid buying the minis because they don't like the random element.
Oh,boy...there a probably a dozen different threads about this over the past few years. In essence:
By packaging minis in random boosters, WotC lets retailers buy and stock one SKU (package) rather than 60 different ones. Okay, maybe three, since it wouldn't be unusual for a store to have boosters from the last couple of sets, and maybe a starter set, but then there are 120-180 plus different minis possible. This means the store doesn't have to worry about how many orcs they should order vs. how many PC-types; or how many dragons vs. how many giants. They don't have to arrange them in separate racks on a display, they can just throw them on the shelf. This means stores can order large amounts with little concern about what will sell, what they'll be stuck with, how much labor it will take to display them, or how easy they can be stolen (yes, DDM can still be stolen, but not as easily as blister pack).
Because of this, WotC can make a really wide range of minis, knowing people will buy the boosters to get the minis they want. While this may sound bad, for RPG players, it can be a good thing. Look through the gallerys of the sets, and see how many minis would never have been produced if they had to be sold on their own merits. I'd never buy twig blights separately, say, but if they come in a set where I can also get a blue dragon, a lich, a new gnoll sculpt, an orc riding a boar, etc. I'm okay with getting some twig blights. Heck, I'll probably even put them in an adventure sometime, since I've got them now.
WotC doesn't have to spend the time making marketing decisions or promotions a maker of single minis has to. They know they are going to make "X" number of these orc minis & the other 59 in the set, sell them, and then be done with them. So the molds don't have to be made to last as long, either (another potential cost-savings). If people want another orc mini, there will be another one in the next set, or at least, the one after that. If they make an ettin that folks really like, and clamor for more, you can make another ettin in couple of sets. If you make a wrackspawn that is horribly unpopular, you just never make another one. Neither of those are a production problem, which they would be if you were making solo minis. You'd have to keep trying to crank out ettins, and try to guess when you'd saturated the market. And you'd be stuck with wrackspawns, because no one would ever buy wrackspawn on their own. No one would order them, and stores that did would either be trying to return them, or not ordering more of your products until they sell the ones they have (which, in the case of wrackspawns, they never would).
So, you have product that you create for a limited time and in a limited amount, that takes up little space on shelves and needs little effort from retailers to order or display. You can make a really wide range of minis without worrying much about what will sell, since all your products (boosters)
pretty much sell out. Your research and marketing costs are lower than competitors selling single minis, your molds are cheaper to produce and many of your customers are happy because they can get minis they would probably never have gotten otherwise (twig blights, for example, don't mean much to me, but were a favorite of many), and if they want that beholder but can't it, they'll be another produced in a couple of sets they can try to get then.
Clearly, this is a business model that works for WotC. They've said this themselves, and also said they won't sell them in a non-random way, because that would undercut their successful model. remember, they sold single, metal, unpainted minis (as well as non-random boxes) in two different lines, and shut them both down, indicating both were either unprofitable or less profitable than this model. Are there people who would buy non-random minis who won't buy these? Certainly, but in at least WotC opinion, this is a small enough market they don't want to go after them and damage their current model. They know many of these folks will buy them from the many secondary market sellers, who of course, have to buy them from WotC at the regular wholesale price. They make the same money, either way.
So, Merric's law (low prices, wide range, non-random selection; choose any two), came into being. You can make cheap, non-random minis, but aren't going to have a wide selection (due to research, molding, shelf space issues, etc) [See Reaper's plastic line for an example). Or you can make a wide range of non-random minis, but they won't be cheap (higher research & production costs) and no store is likely to carry your whole line at any given time. Or you can make cheap, wide ranged minis, and sell them in the random packs. Each of these business models is in play in today's market, so you have choice; you just can't get a choice of all three at once. Maybe someday someone will figure this out, but so far, no luck.
And yes, the best way to buy DDM is to spend a lot of money, if you want to have a wide range of minis. That's just how it is. WotC likes that, because it makes them a lot of money. It also has seemingly made a lot of people happy (go over to the DDM boards, or Hordelings, or Greyhaze site, or Maxminis, etc. to see how many people claim addiction to this "plasti-crack"). Or, you can spend less money, buy fewer and use a lot of proxies (orcs subbing for giants, wizard for a bard, etc., just like many of us did with metal minis before these came out). Or print out markers like the one poster mentioned, or use bottle caps, rocks, plastic army men, scraps of paper, etc. Or, play without minis at all, like many people do. There are many different ways to play D&D and to collect minis. Unfortunately, the way you'd like doesn't seem to be possible.
The good news is things are moving towards digital video images, so maybe someday we won't have to store, or paint, or collect, etc. tangible minis. Instead, we'll have graphic images that will move in accordance with what is happening in the game. Of course, we'll still have to buy the digital images from WotC or someone else!
Hope this helped explain why these are sold as they are. Sorry it was so long, but, then, you did ask why...
;)
Save your breath, it will make no difference. Even if Wizards sold miniatures at ten-a-penny people would just complain that they aren't being delivered directly to their home by naked supermodels.
Or, as Sulaco once famously said, if WotC gave away boxes of money, people would complain about how it was folded. :D
I run a D&D campaign. I'm sick of using HeroClix, LEGOs, and other improvisations for minis, and wanted to do something special for 4e, so I've been investigating D&D Minis. I've never owned any.
I was bidding on Ebay auctions for a while, mostly common lots, but I was constantly outbid on my lowball bids. So I poked around some more, and found a number of different online sellers with good prices on commons (mostly <50 cents, some as low as 15 cents). I eventually settled on one, and bought ~$60 of commons and cheap uncommons from all sets.
I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure this will be enough to run just about anything. I selected a range of player-race minis of all class types (also useful for village NPCs), and multiples of common enemy races (orcs) and a few animals I expect to show up (apes, wolves). I'll have to fake it in some cases (I only bought a few big monsters, and no dragons or demons), but I expect this will easily cover ~90% of what I have planned for the first year of adventures in 4e. I even managed to sneak in some large creatures, so I can include an occasional ogre or giant animal without too much trouble.
As others have stated, use the rarity spread to your advantage. Collectors generally have a lot of extra commons. Buy them for cheap. Ignore the rest.
--Tom
Sorry it was so long, but, then, you did ask why...
;)
I did ask... And I have been answered! :D
Thanks for that. It was interesting. There's a lot in there that would depend on the fine details - how much is the cost of shipping, what quantities of mini's would not be wanted, how long do molds last before they break, how much would this be balanced by additional sales from people like myself - but they are details we will likely know. I see now how it can be the case that selling what I want is not cost effective in some ways. It's both an explanation of why I'm wrong and an explicit acknowledgment that WotC is foisting unwanted minis on us. An interesting combination.
There are some counter-arguments to what you say, however. Chief amongst these is that in this day and age it is easy and even preferable to purchase online. Likewise, shops can order things in as needed. But the crux of the issue seems to be that the two markets - collectible minis and DDM, and D&D players such as myself, are actually competing markets and only one can be targeted by one marketing model.
Hmmm, well I can stick with counters. Thank you very much for taking the time to post an explanation.
Because your post immediately followed mine, quoted in support of the same thing I had just quoted and criticized and wasn't obviously addressed to anyone else.
Your post didn't exist when I started typing mine.
If you're replying to a specific poster, and not everyone who is against the random sales model of minis, you should probably make that clear by quoting what you're replying to. Otherwise we end up with confusion like this.
I quoted who and what I wished to quote.
Or, as Sulaco once famously said, if WotC gave away boxes of money, people would complain about how it was folded. :D
Smart man, that Sulaco, smart man indeed…
Your post didn't exist when I started typing mine.
Nonetheless, your post followed mine and looked like it was addressing me, so there's no need to make sarcastic comments about my thinking you were replying to me. As to:
I quoted who and what I wished to quote.
I didn't say you didn't. I did say that if you did quote, it would prevent such confusion. But you still didn't answer my question as to who you were addressing? I'm genuinely curious, because it seemed like a comment meant toward everyone who objected to WotC random mini marketing strategy.
What do you mean now?
I'd dare anyone to run me through say Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Red Hand of Doom, or a Pathfinder module with actual figs for every combat. I'd rather spend the money flying my gaming group to Mexico.
I DMed Red Hand of Doom, and figured I'd shell out for enough figs to handle it on eBay.
Given that a lot of the commons are $.15 to $.25 on eBay, if you're willing to make small substitutions you can get where you want easily.
5-6 PC's - $6 (With a wide selection to choose from)
12 hobgoblins - $3
Couple of metallic dragons (metallics are much cheaper, you can paint over them with acrylic paint if you like) - $10
Couple hobgoblin characters, lizardmen, ogres, dragonspawn, etc - $30
..and you're set. No, this doesn't include an aspect of tiamat, and you're gonna have to sub in some stuff. Militia archers for tiri kitor, the poor greenspawn razorfiend has been killed as a behir, a hydra, and a greenspawn razorfiend, and so on. That's okay - the PC's just need a little something to remind them what they're fighting.
Having a completely accurate set would be totally expensive. If you're not into shelling out $10 a session for the minis (and students, for instance, can't possibly) then the best route is to use icehouse pieces (http://www.looneylabs.com/whybuy/treehouse.html) which, while not very inspiring, are infinitely useful and reusable. We even use them for wound counters, effect markers, and terrain.
Amoudry
I did ask... And I have been answered! :D
Thanks for that. It was interesting. There's a lot in there that would depend on the fine details - how much is the cost of shipping, what quantities of mini's would not be wanted, how long do molds last before they break, how much would this be balanced by additional sales from people like myself - but they are details we will likely know. I see now how it can be the case that selling what I want is not cost effective in some ways. It's both an explanation of why I'm wrong and an explicit acknowledgment that WotC is foisting unwanted minis on us. An interesting combination.
There are some counter-arguments to what you say, however. Chief amongst these is that in this day and age it is easy and even preferable to purchase online. Likewise, shops can order things in as needed. But the crux of the issue seems to be that the two markets - collectible minis and DDM, and D&D players such as myself, are actually competing markets and only one can be targeted by one marketing model.
Hmmm, well I can stick with counters. Thank you very much for taking the time to post an explanation.
You're very welcome. And you're certainly right, there are a lot of variables that we don't know, although Shoe and some of the other DDM staff have been very good through out the years in sharing with us insights into their marketing and business ideas, as well as listening to the community input. That, as much as anything, has kept me a strong supporter of DDM through the years. I think they even feel bad about not being able to sell non-randomly to the folks who want them.
So, good luck and enjoy your games!
I'm genuinely curious, because it seemed like a comment meant toward everyone who objected to WotC random mini marketing strategy.
It is directed not towards everyone who dislikes the random marketing strategy, it is a generalized humourous statement (aka. "joke") about the portion of the WotC customer base who are never satisfied and complain about everything Wizards does.
Once again I erroneously assumed that people could realize it was a joke without needing a smiley thrown at them. My bad.
Back when DDM was $9.99 a booster, they were amazing. I'd throw them on to a purchase at my FLGS rather frequently, just because. The price point was very nice in that regard.
Yup, pretty much the same for me. Now I just buy the odd single mini as needed or wanted.
Once again I erroneously assumed that people could realize it was a joke without needing a smiley thrown at them. My bad.
It's your avatar. You look so serious!
EDIT: ;)
It's your avatar. You look so serious!
EDIT: ;)
If only you could see what he's doing with his hands. ;)
. All they have to do, is sell the minis at the stores individually. I walk into the store, I want 5 orcs, some leader type for encounter 1, an ogre for encounter 2, etc. and I put down $30 ($1-$2 per fig) and I have that module covered. After a few trips and a few hundred dollars, I likely have suitable figs for most of the encounters.
I can do this at my FLGS.
At 8 per pack, and you say I need 300-500 figs, that would take 6 years by your math.
Sorry, there should be a dollar sign in there. I meant $300-$500 worth of figs, not total number of figures. This was in response to your claim that it required $10,000 worth for them to be "useful".
Honestly, I buy a couple random packs per month because I get a minor amount of enjoyment from opening them up and seeing what I got, and because I like having a display shelf of interesting figs on my bookcase, and sometimes getting a neat fig inspires me to create an encounter I would not otherwise have planned for my game.
If all you want to do is buy only the minis you need at that exact moment for next week's pre-planned game, then buy singles. I'm really not seeing the hardship created by random packs.
I'd like enough figs to run say 75% of the encounters for say the first Pathfinder series.
Okay. I have about $500 worth of figures aquired over the last two years. Some was random packs, some were singles from online retailers or my FLGS.
I ran all of Rise of the Runelords using only the figures I had on my bookshelf, with an accurate enough match to size, shape and weaponry that my players could easily tell which mini represented which monster.
If you were going to do it from scratch without a starting collection, $100 will get you all the minis you need, and at least 75% of that will be reusable for Curse of the Crimson Throne.
If only you could see what he's doing with his hands. ;)
Total spent : around 400$, over many months (but then, I started getting minis around the announcement of 4E at GenCon). I do intend to spend a bit more, especially on the Against the Giant set. I need me some Dragonborns.
Save your breath, it will make no difference. Even if Wizards sold miniatures at ten-a-penny people would just complain that they aren't being delivered directly to their home by naked supermodels.
Actually.. I'd like to complain about the latter part of this, more specifically that they aren't doing this. I think it would go a long way for PR.
First off... PRICES INCREASE. Look at gas. Look at your grocery bill. It happens. It is a fact that you (not YOU per se, but everyone in generally) needs to accept and deal with.
Yeah. Stop buying the overpriced crap and let the companies see red in their bottom line where they either go out of business or start asking reasonable prices for things again.
But as long as some sucker out their is willing to pay $6 for a gallon of gas there will be the PT Barnums out there willing to take it, because there is a sucker born every minute.
So deal with it by making business lower their prices or go out of business.
Prices increase for a single reason, corporate greed. Consumers have the power to stop this, but won't exercise that power.
I'm personally a little confused. I've been buying minis since at least the Giants set and they have always been $14.95 for 8 random normal, and $19.95 for the same in the huge sets. I guess it's an area thing, but I live in Florida not europe. If I could of got them for cheap, the amount of money I would have saved makes my head spin.
You have to loot at it also by locale as to how much the dollar is worth. Flordia has a booming industry in some areas, and the minimum wage may be higher in others.
If you have somewhere the minimum wage is say $8 and another where it is $5 there will be a bit of difference in what things cost to their value.
The same $15 booster could easily be bought where the wages are higher, than where they are lower. Also accepted prices of things.
New York say a slice of pizza may cost $3, but the cost of living being higher their means more income for many people so they may see the south having a slice of pizza for 75 cents as one heck of a bargain, but comparatively it is the same price because what 75 cetns gets you in the south is the same as what $3 gets you in New York.
So New York would be 5 slices of pizza, or a DDM booster, and the South may be 20 slices of pizza or that same booster. Pizza may be a bad example, but one I am familiar with at a specific time for the economy, and even those may have changed. But use any other item to se that the same price everywhere means something costs more in some areas than others because of the cost-of-living and average wage earnings in an area.
$15 for a booster in New York is also les than going to a movie for $22 for example, but in the south you could see the same movie for $5.
That is where the online sales try to balance these things out, and local stores are hurt. But most local stores try to seel at full retail without thinking of the economy in lesser earning areas. Of course WotC doesn't take this into consideration nor probably do the distributors. This is why the economy falters so much is people not realizing these things.
You may know, but I was jsut wanting to express how "cheaper" isn't always cheaper for everyone.
Prices increase for a single reason, corporate greed. Consumers have the power to stop this, but won't exercise that power.
This is incorrect. Inflation is built into the system and it's deliberate.
Where does money come from? Well in the US it's printed by the Federal Reserve. In the UK it's the Bank of England. Every country has it's equivalent. This entity then loans the money to other banks, some which you've heard of such as HSBC and Bank of America and also to some that you haven't. These banks then introduce the money into the economy through loans, mortgages, etc. But it's important to note that they got the money as a loan. They have to pay it back. And they have to pay it back with interest. That's the crazy part. Your sole source of money is the central bank, and you have to pay them back more than what they gave you. How does that work? Well it's simple - you borrow more. :D And so the situation ends up like someone borrowing more money on their credit card to pay off their current monthly debts. If you or I did that, we'd be in trouble, but the banks can (supposedly) get away with it because unlike you or I, there's no limit on how much they can borrow. It just keeps going up and up. And that means there's more money washing around the economy. And that means that it becomes less valuable (normally).
Let's say there's a hundred dollars for every person in the US. Therefore people price their goods and services accordingly. But let's say two years later there's 150 dollars for every person. The wealth hasn't changed - the houses, the cars, the labour pool, so the ratio of dollars to wealth must have changed. I.e the dollar is worth less.
And if the dollar is worth less, then the cost of a mini in dollars is higher.
That's inflation. It's deliberate. It theoretically keeps money moving and busy because if you hoard it, it devalues.
Now that's not to say that there aren't other reasons for costs to rise and the US is certainly starting to see the ill-effects of corporate greed. But it's not the sole reason for costs to rise as Hellmute stated. Even if you ran a non-inflationary currency (and none of you are old enough to remember the Gold Standard, I think), the rest of the world is still moving. The occupation of Iraq has cost and is still costing an enormous fortune. And the US government is funding that through debt. It's partly lent to them through yourselves (they've raided your social security funds) and partly through other countries such as China. The long and short of that is that other countries are starting to think your dollar is not as good as it once was because the country that backs it is in the red (actually almost everyone is, but the US is redder than Soviet Russia ever was, right now). That means materials bought from aboard cost more dollars. Shipping costs more dollars. It's good in a sense, for some of us abroad. I'm buying the 4e gift pack for a mere £40 which I think is less than I paid for the 3.5 books altogether shortly after they came out. But all in all, it's a bad thing and it's not unreasonable for the cost of minis to go up, I'm guessing.
Now the marketing strategy of WotC is still useless for me as I want to buy specific minis in bulk for a game. But retail costs may not be solely down to corporate greed, I'm afraid.
First off... PRICES INCREASE. Look at gas. Look at your grocery bill. It happens. It is a fact that you (not YOU per se, but everyone in generally) needs to accept and deal with.
Now, I buy mine for $9-10 per booster at places like www.miniaturemarket.com.
Dungeons of Dread boosters equal $9.16. If you buy a case then it is free shipping.
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Dungeon of Dread Booster Case
Reg. Price: $179.88
Sale Price: $110.00
Save: $69.88
Ta-da!
You can ignore "retail" price if you shop places like that and Amazon.
Actually, a lot of local retailers out there offer discounts on cases of boosters. There is a store where I live that sells cases of newer set @ $108 dollars (+ tax, of course). Sometimes all you gotta do is ask the owners
I have maybe 300 minis, and I still can't find what I need because there are just too many to sift through.
Now and then I have the right monster for the fight, but usually not. For most battles I switched to using dice to represent my monsters, and it works just fine. I no longer plan on buying DDMs. I liked the miniature game, but my friends got tired of it too quickly so I quit too.
Sure its cool to have a large sized bullette or whatever on ocassion, but for a group of goblins a bunch of colored dice is probably better anyway.
years ago? they had some rudimentary etchings in the dice. just a random thought.
take some old magic cards.. and stick `em on a plastic pedestal or somethin.
I have eight or so.. and if that doesn't do it.. they fight... oh i forget the mini... but it was another freebie from gencon.
Its not like its anything new. Poor people can't buy nice things.
Its not like its anything new. Poor people can't buy nice things.
Not true.... Italeri offers a 1:72 scale line that covers most humans. Call it 7-10 bucks for 45 figures. You can shop around for the full range of 1/72 scale figures that span from LOTRO goblins to dino figures and get the specific ones you need for a campaign setting. All in all, you do not have to spend more than 100 bucks to get the paint, hundreds of figures, and variety to cover your own campaign.
Yes, I went back to 1/72 scale for my needs...
Now come free RPG day if I don't get an Eladrin Rogue I plan to use that dwarf mini or hobgoblin mini as my Eladrin. No need to go spending money after all.
But yeah, mostly I buy singles at gaming stores or on ebay. Random packs are a PITA
If these were available I would get them and invest in collectibles. Without them, I wouldn't buy any.
Unless WotC indicate they're going to do anything like this, I'll look for alternatives, which will probably have to be a mix of metal Characters and mosters where available, padded out with counters.
When the minis first came out I was excited because it was going to be a relatively low cost way of getting minis that represented the actual monsters in an encounter for an RPG game (I don't play the mini game) without paying gobs of money for metal miniatures.
Our gaming group would each chip in some amount of cash (I don't know, maybe $20 a month or something like that) and then buy boxes or cases of figures.
The problem was that due to the randomness of the packs, we would get all these weird never before used (and in some case never heard of) monsters that would just sort of sit in the zip lock baggies we would sort them into.
Yet if I had an encounter of 8 skeletons I wanted to run, I'd look in the box and see that we only had 4 so I'd have to use something else to represent the monsters I wanted in the encounter (this sort of defeats the purpose of having the minis to represent the actual monsters in the encounter).
Then I decided that I would just buy the specific monsters I wanted for an adventure from a dealer or website that allowed you to pick and choose what you wanted (granted most of the time at a premium but it worked out OK since you were not wasting money on things you didn't want or need). I figured if I bought 8 skeletons for $.50 or $1 each, it wasn't that bad and then we'd have 8 skeletons for the next time we needed them. Just buy them as you need them sort of thing.
But due to the "collectability" factor, figures that I might need would no longer be available so when I'd go online to buy a couple of skeletons or some other creature that came out in the first series, I'd find the price per figure was $4, $5 or even more! So back to using kobolds or githyanki or whatever to represent skeletons.
I don't know how much we put into our group's mini collection, but now we just sort of reside ourselves to using monster X for whatever the players come up against. We have dozens if not hundreds of figures that we will never use because the monsters are not what we need and it feels sort of like a waste of money.
I understand that in order to have a large variety of monsters, it is only cost effective if people buy them. They might spend a bunch of money to make one particular figure, but if nobody needs or wants a blue slaad (or what have you), they won't sell and they won't recover their development costs. The alternative is to just make a limited number of monsters (kobolds, goblins, skeletons, orcs, hobgoblins and all the common type monsters you have) but then people would complain that there was not much variety.
The only way to make a large variety of minis and justify the cost of production is to assure that people will "buy" them by putting them in a random pack. Makes sense from a business standpoint, but it is not so great for gamers that want the minis for accurate representations of the monsters in their adventures. Now if I could buy what I need from a website or online, I would not mind paying a reasonable premium for this, but when they stop producing a particular monster, supply and demand comes into play and the price becomes too high ("$7 for a kobold archer? Let's use this d6 to represent that guy").
I see minis as functional tools as opposed to collector's items. While I understand why random packs and such are necessary from a business standpoint and I don't think WotC is trying to rip us off, it does make it difficult for those of us that want to have reasonably accurate representations of the monsters we face on the gaming table. I'd gladly pay $1 a piece or maybe a little more for figures if I could order what I want when I wanted without having to worry about the hobgoblin skirmisher jacking up to $14 a piece since it's not made anymore.
Anyway that's just my two cents... 700 more comments like this and I can buy a hobgoblin skirmisher!
But as long as some sucker out their is willing to pay $6 for a gallon of gas there will be the PT Barnums out there willing to take it, because there is a sucker born every minute.
It's not a matter of willingness with gasoline. The demand for gas is pretty inelastic - Americans who have to commute to work are gonig to have to commute to work no matter how much it costs, until that cost exceeds the cost of moving closer to work.
Its not like its anything new. Poor people can't buy nice things.
I wouldn't exactly consider mass produced, randomly assorted, prepainted plastic miniatrues to be "nice things." Hell, I'd rather have a box of wooden cubes with the characters' names and portraits taped on, regardless of my ability to afford figures or not. In any case, they're more identifiable as each character, can be turned to display character status (bloodied, prone, dying, ready-to-eat, etc.) and store easily and cheaply. Besides, it's hard enough to find figures with the same race, sex, armor and weapon types as your PCs when you're buying them in transparent blisters and can paint and convert them yourself.
If you've got more time than money, make your own. I've done everything from sifting through shelves of figures looking for good matches, to converting Blood Bowl miniatures to building my own from scratch out of green stuff, and so far the little wooden cubes have been the most elegant solution to my gamepiece problem.
I'd be tickled pink if they would do something like release sets for the various adventure modules they have coming out. Something like a "Keep on the Shadowfell Miniatures Set." This would provide you all the monsters you need to run every battle and miniatures to represent the PCs. They could then release ones for the other modules and as they work their way along they could have different combinations of PC races and classes. So that eventually you would have covered all the ones from PH I. Then when the PH II comes out they could release sets for them. Now that would be something I would buy.
I think the wooden cubes idea would work well too, alhtough I would still paint/vanish them different colors (I used to be a school teacher, hence color codes are very important to me.)
Market them as "for use on 1" square grid gaming surfaces" and you bypass the need for the GSL or any kind of D&D reference.
I'm not buying any more of this set. Paying more is one thing - a lot of things are more expensive these day, what with the dollar and the price of oil and all. But paying more for less quality isn't something I'm prepared to do, not when I already have a sufficient collection of minis to use. Maybe the next set will be better.
The randomness has its charm, it has a little air of excitement thats kind of like opening a gift.
That you paid 15 bucks for? Merry effin christmas. Just the continuing trend of Wizards giving less and charging more..and inexplicably people enjoying it. Perverse in a way lol.
Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year? You can buy Reaper ones for that and not play the random game...most peeps I know buy them for the RP game not the minis game.
Weren't they always? Everything "collectable" is a rip-off inherently.
My issue is when the CMG crosses over to a RPG and, in turn, the RPG starts to cater to the CMG. There was a Dork Tower that made a great point to me ... in it, the PCs were poised against a random smattering of characters ... from a Paladin to a goblin and so on. The PCs deduced that their DM lazily made an encounter with the random minis in the box he snagged before the game (and included the dreaded Box Monster). It really doesn't make a ton of sense to sell D&D or SW Minis in random sets anymore ... let the players of the Minis and RPG games form their own factions and collect them in open cases, like blister packs. It's not like the minis game would suffer because of it ... look at Warhammer ... how many figures do people snag to make their factions/armies? On top of that, who's making the money on the resale? Who makes the $50 on the beholder mini? WotC? I don't think so. I used to love the Chainmail minis that came out a few years back ... use a similar packaging to that and release them as PPMs like Reaper does with their Legendary Encounter figs. I know I'd buy a ton more and I'm sure that others would as well. Until then, guess I'll stick to blister packed PPMs and metal minis ...
There's no need to pay $15 a booster for random selections, though. I routinely buy booster cases on eBay for 1/2 or 1/3 of the retail value of the case's contents, and it's very easy to get stocked up on singles as well; there are many very reliable and reputable sellers out there who have what you want. Yes, some stuff is gonna be expensive... the Deathknell beholder being a painful example. But when you can get 10 orcs or hobgoblins for 30 cents each, it all shakes out.
Now where's that Against the Giants set list?
Everything "collectable" is a rip-off inherently.
Exactly! That is why the collectibles in EverQuest (Epic Quest class items) are untradeable.
Collectible games boils down to he who has the most money to spend on buying them in the retail packaging wins more often than not.
What is orse, D&D is NOT a collectible game. Collectibles for D&D should be like the old novelty items, and not something you need for the game.
Can you buy that collectible d20 for $15? Yes.
Do you need that collectible d20 for $15 to play D&D with? No, any d20 will do.
But they will not do any kind of non collectible because it would hurt the mini game market when D&D players switch to it.
Could you imagine some 2d tokens for D&D that people could buy of the correct size in packs much bigger than 8 and cost a lot less?
It would be perfect for gamers to represent things on these map grids, but would kill an entire WotC product except for those who want to collect the minis.
Long live THAC0 !
Dear God WHY?
I my re-reading of the entire Order of the Stick saga Mr. Burlew seems to be uncanny in picking out alot of the things that we are debating on these boards. Case in point this jab at the randomness of DnD minis from probably a year or more ago.
Y'know, when you used your imagination to play D&D.
You can still do that. Although the rules are built around standardizing combat it doesn't mean that your group can't do it the old fashioned way. The miniatures and maps part is just to help everyone keep everything visualized and keep the DM from having to remember where everyone is standing all the time. If you want to go old school go old school.
Oh I know, I do play 'old school' as you call it. I've never used a D&D miniature in my games and I never intend to. There is some usefulness to it (for organization and such, as you said) but I still cling onto the old ways from my AD&D days...
Oh well. Times change, I suppose.
Perhaps it's time to get back to the old days...
Y'know, when you used your imagination to play D&D.
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0572.html
There is also something in the newest one about the new death and dying rules changing.
While OotS isn't going full 4th it is touching on it. I even remember recently one of the guys was reading the new PHB in a box with the other books.
The whole point to my statement earlier was such. People are complaining about the rising prices in miniatures. Then don't buy them. D&D can be played with or without them. Seeing my point? I'm not here to say we should drop the mini's outright, but if people are complaining about costs, then just don't buy them.
The randomness has its charm, it has a little air of excitement thats kind of like opening a gift.
More like the excitement of a lottery scratch-off ticket where the "prize" (in this case, a wanted/needed mini) is nearly always not worth the price of the ticket.
D&D Minis aren't just now a rip-off, with the random packaging they've been a rip-off from day one. And with the release of 4E I finally broke down and decided to use minis. Because I needed specific minis I went to various local game stores which had had many Minis on sale singly the last time I had been, but I guess several other gamers decided they'd need them for 4E as well because all of the stores were wiped out on singles.
So, all in all, I've been happy with the D&D minis, and I've also been happy that the quality of the minis in individual sets has been steadily increasing....
until now. Again, I don't mind the price hike, I mind that the quality of the models I got from the last set are closer to that of Harbinger then Night Below - a decided and painful step back. Things are getting more expensive. I can accept that. I've already got a lot of minis, I'd just buy less of each new set then I used to. What I cannot accept is this painful decline in quality. Paying more for less: I'll live. Paying more for worse: I'll pass, thank you.
Because the minis are part of CMG, they must be random, and the rare pieces must be rare. If you want that rare solo monster mini for your game, you are gonna have to buy a bunch of packs or shell out the collector's price. I wish they would just metaphorically grow a pair and put out a set of non-collectable minis. They could sell im large sets of like creatures, or creatures of similiar levels, to make them worth the production cost. I know I would gladly pay $0.75 to $1 per mini for an encounter set. Each encounter group listed in the Mounster manual could be a set.
I recognize the pieces would need some kind of special mark to prevent them from being passed off as collectible miniatures (assuming they use the same molds and forms), but that is also not that difficult. If they include stat cards with the pieces, it could include a watermark that states the mini is non-collectible, or they could use a color sceme difference on the piece itself to denote collectible vs non.
And that is why cmgs really irk me. They screw with the natural order of things when it comes to us loyal rpg fans who want an accurate portrayal of the action that doesn't involve using coins, spare dice, or cheese balls as monsters.
Anyone here think 8 minis for $15 bucks a rip-off, down from 12 for the same last year? You can buy Reaper ones for that and not play the random game...most peeps I know buy them for the RP game not the minis game.
Reaper miniatures?
Use Citadel (Warhammer/Lord of the Rings) miniatures instead; much more diversity and customisation possibly. They're about the same size as the D&D miniatures, and don't cost much more than the D&D ones. (except for the metals, but meh)
Buying a pack of miniatures hoping to get a specific one is simply a waste of money. They should also sell individual miniatures so that people can get the miniatures they're after without having to horde armies of miniatures that they'll never use.
My DM even goes as far as to use my dice to represent various monsters. (3 different coloured D6s, about 50 total)
Reaper miniatures?
Use Citadel (Warhammer/Lord of the Rings) miniatures instead; much more diversity and customisation possibly. They're about the same size as the D&D miniatures, and don't cost much more than the D&D ones. (except for the metals, but meh)
Buying a pack of miniatures hoping to get a specific one is simply a waste of money. They should also sell individual miniatures so that people can get the miniatures they're after without having to horde armies of miniatures that they'll never use.
My DM even goes as far as to use my dice to represent various monsters. (3 different coloured D6s, about 50 total)
Man, I dunno about you ... but Reaper's got some nice diversity and I don't have to take out a bank loan to buy a small horde of Orcs. To get the diversity from WH, you really need to dip into the metals and wow have they gone up since the last time I played WH.
If that's what solves your minis woes, more power to ya. I'll stick to Reaper and their metals and PPMs
I'd much rather pay $30-35 for 16-20 models.
To get the diversity from WH, you really need to dip into the metals
Their plastic kits have really improved over the last couple of years.
You get way too much junk with the plastic kits these days to have more than enough diversity.
until now. Again, I don't mind the price hike, I mind that the quality of the models I got from the last set are closer to that of Harbinger then Night Below - a decided and painful step back. Things are getting more expensive. I can accept that. I've already got a lot of minis, I'd just buy less of each new set then I used to. What I cannot accept is this painful decline in quality. Paying more for less: I'll live. Paying more for worse: I'll pass, thank you.
Are you talking about Against the Giants or Dungeons of Dread?
If AtG, I agree...I just wrote about how the Elder Red dragon is way too cartoony. The Young Red from DoD was light years better, and even the one from Giants of Legend was better than this...well, as my buddy Phaedros put it, "a toy apatosaurus with wings"
Also, if you compare the ice devils from Giants of Legend and Blood War, you will see that the Blood War version is way more detailed. Not only is it too early to release another ice devil (especially when balors are Huge size now and could use a new mini, or a war devil, which hasn't been in any set yet), but the quality took a nose dive. What's really going on here?
Are you talking about Against the Giants or Dungeons of Dread?
Take your pick. They both have a few nice models, but the majority of both sets don't seem to come close to any other recent D&D minis sets. And by recent, I mean anything in the last two years or more.
i have every mini from every set, so i have been collecting for a long time....
for me the price is not that big of a deal, but quality of sculpts and paint is very important.
I can honestly say that ATG killed it for me.....
the minis they chose for the huges....VERY DISSAPOINTED! i think only 4 of them are acceptable.... so many other more iconic monsters should have been chosen......and huge minis only come by once every few sets.
of the 60 minis in ATG there are only 14 or 15 im remotely interested in....
and a few of those still have ugly paint.
for this set i will buy the few i want on ebay and save myself from wasting cash on 2nd rate minis.
if there is not some serious improvement on the next set then i will not buy any and WOTC will have lost a long time customer.
may not seem like a big deal, but i spend about 500 dollars on every set to get multiples.
keep sticking it to old customers like me and it will eventually hurt your wallets.
Prices increase for a single reason, corporate greed.
Prices also increase because of limited supply.
We've seen increases in gaming in general regardless of plastic or metal: 40K/Warhammer and Warmachines&Hordes have gone up dramatically in the last year.
For DDM, you have to beat the «booster sytem». If you buy a case prices go down to around 13$ per booster. When you buy a case you get all commons 4 times, all uncommons 2 twice and 12 rares. That leaves you with 12 rares missing. We buy them off the self at gaming stores for an average price of 15$. All in all it comes out to about 300$ for a complete set. The second way is to get all the players around the table to chip in. With an average of DM+4 players it comes out at 60$ each. If you buy from the net (something I never do - save brick& mortar stores!) it will be even cheaper.
Better to go with warhammer and know you'll get the models you want, and enough of them at it.
Prices also increase because of limited supply.
Which is another underlying problem with a CMG used as an RPG accessory.
Of course they make less of the "rares" for the CMG, so you have to buy more boosters to get the "chase rares". The ones everyone will want. The problem is those same rares are the ones most needed for the RPG.
Look at the DM costs to run a game using minis. They have to pay these outrageous prices for the minis that people expect thanks to the PHB suggesting they be used. It isn't like everyone will just chip in for a few cases of each DDM set in order to have the right minis for the game.
The strived to make the DM job easier, but went out of their way to try to make the DM pay more on top of the work they already do to run games of D&D.
How many times can you get kobolds and need them all, yet may need a single beholder and they all sell for about $30 or more each. Pewter beholders never costed more than $20 and many had better sculpts.
So diminishing supplies is part of the CMG, and only hurts both games.
RPG players need to get the minis for their games, DDM players need them for their games, but not all people play both games.
The minis needed most for RPG should be those that are more common. This would mean RPG players can get cheaper minis, and DDM players can get rid of spares quicker.
The better minis for DDM could be those that would find lesser use in RPG and be more worthy for DDM. This would mean less in-fighting over the minis, and make everyone a bit happier.
Then all the minis would have value and there would not be so many "crap" minis.
Take dragons. They are rare most of the time. Who needs them? RPg players do because, well the name of the game says it all....
They don't have to function the exact same way for the DDM game. You can make them uncommons, and not prize pieces that every army will want.
Being uncommon will not make them any less wanted, again...because they are dragons.
Do you think the icons sold at all was a hint to that and putting a dragon in the Starter wasn't because dragons would attract people.
The rares aren't even the best pieces in the game of DDM most times. There are just some that are.
The design of the sets and your limited supply only hurts both markets.
Kenku was a mini that could have ben a rare as not everyone needed one. Granted they were smaller figures and the rares are often BIG figures to reduce the cost, but there are some other monsters that are bigger and not that sought after that could excel in the DDM game and are not needed for most RPG games.
Bullete, there is/was a big figure, and one not often used in D&D. Good candidate for a rare.
Mind-flayer needs to be an uncommon so people can get them. You can have special ones for rares, but there needs to be more common variants to supply RPG players without the limited supply factor of the collectible game.
I think when DDM was first created the rares were chosen based on the old method of encounters.
The d12+d8 encounter table where a monster was listed as rare and such. They just took the same classification and applied it to the CMG.
That was the wrong approach, because even though a monster may be rare in a single world as depicted in the "rules" it does not indicate how DMs will scatter them about or use them across EVERY game group.
So for the most part the CMG only needs the limited supply of these thing likes rares to increase sales.
So why didn't they use this method that I mention of making rares for the CMG mostly sought after for the CMG but instead ones that would be sought out by both markets? Because they wanted more money. They wanted to force RPG players to buy DDM and get stuck with all those other figures and you end up with so many bad figures in the sets that DDM-wise people don't want, and RPG-wise people don't want.
Reorganization would probably allow them to make more minis that someone on at least one side wants, rather than wasting resources designing and even making these minis that people don't want.
Like the wasp from AtG.
$300?
Better to go with warhammer and know you'll get the models you want, and enough of them at it.
hum... you can't play warhammer with 300$. I play both warhammer & 40K. Any decent army cost between 500 and 750$. And its WYSIWYG*. So if you want to customize your army you have to put down even more money...
*What you see is what you get.
You're definitly playing the wrong army then, or buying from the wrong place.
If you'd buy at thewarstore (assuming you're from the US), then you should get a 20% discount on all warhammer stuff. As well as being able to order individual bits for further customising models.
Deathwing from example would cost only £200 tops to get a 1500 point army.
And that's including the codex.
I play lizardmen; which means plenty of skinks(kobolds) and sauri(lizard folk).
As well as a few bigger ones for dinosaurs and other similiar stuff.
The empire(humans) has militia in which you can dump every customised human warrior that you made.
And in WHFB you don't need that much WYSIWYG, as long as 50% or more of the unit is correctly armed.
Just use some nondescript wooden tokens for your monsters and use your imagination for the masses of NPCs and some selected tin miniatures (I know those havent become cheaper either, but metal beats plastics any day) you painted yourself. D&D minis are really ugly and badly painted.
I haven't heard anything about Games Workshop raising their prices soon, and that's while most of their stuff is plastic as well. (and their new kits are really sweet)
In fact; they're making more and more stuff in plastic rather than pewter.
That's funny.
I haven't heard anything about Games Workshop raising their prices soon, and that's while most of their stuff is plastic as well. (and their new kits are really sweet)
In fact; they're making more and more stuff in plastic rather than pewter.
Thats because GW's prices are already so jacked up beyond reasonable levels that they have a little leeway.
Show
Characters:
1 x Dwarf Maulfighter or Dwarf Warlord
1 x Dwarf Shieldmaiden or Dwarf Sergeant
1 x Halfling Rogue or Halfling Sneak
1 x Halfling Enchanter or Lidda, Adventurer
1 x Snaketongue Cultist or Bonded Fire Summoner
1 x Wild Mage or Storm Silverhand
1 x Human Cleric of Bahamut or Cleric of Lathander
1 x Cleric of Sune or Mina, Dark Cleric
1 x Greenspawn Zealot or Gold Champion or Dragonborn Fighter
1 x Tiefling Cleric or Tiefling Blademaster
1 x Tiefling Warlock or Tiefling Captain
11
Kobold Ambush/Lair:
10 x Kobold Zombie
1 x Kobold Archer
3 x Kobold Skirmisher
3 x Kobold Champion or Meepo, Dragon Lord
1 x Kobold Sorcerer
1 x Snig the Axe
19
Burial Site:
1 x Halfling Tombseeker or Gnome Trickster
2 x Bluespawn Ambusher or Crested Felldrake
1 x Halfling Rogue/Paladin/Enchanter/Slinger
4 x Farmer or Human Bandit or Human Commoner or Caravan Guard
8
Goblin Controlled areas:
3 x Goblin Sneak or Graypeak Goblin Archer
5 x Goblin Skirmisher/Adept/Picador
1 x Goblin Warrior or Dark Creeper
8 x Goblin Blackblade
1 x Goblin Underboss or Blue
1 x Demonweb or Rot Scarab Swarm or Ratswarm
1 x Hobgoblin Marshall or Bugbear Headreaver or Torturer
20
Crypt Areas:
12 x Horde Zombie
4 x Spellstitched Hobgoblin Zombie, Dread Warrior
2 x Direguard, Skeleton, Warrior Skeleton
18 x Skeletal Archer, Orc Skeleton, Boneshard Skeleton
1 x Death Knight or Lord Soth
37
Caves:
13 x Dire Rat or Diseased Dire Rat
1 x Ochre Jelly
1 x Monitor Lizard
6 x Ice Mephit or Krenshar
3 x Kruthik Hatchling
1 x Large Fire Elemental
25
Dead Walk:
2 x Gravehound, Wolf Skeleton
1 x Elf Archer
3
Hobgoblin Borough:
1 x Hobgoblin Sergeant
1 x Red Hand War Sorcerer
4 x Hobgoblin Impaler
2 x Hobgoblin Archer
5 x Hobgoblin Marshall or Hobgoblin Warrior
1 x Deathjump Spider
14
Dungeon Chambers:
1 x Gelatinous Cube
2 x Lamia, Chillborn
1 x Gargantuan Dragon
2 x Any large Dragon
4 x Animated Statue or Earth Element Gargoyle
1 x Ravenous Ghoul
1 x Earth Mephit
12
Final Two:
1 x Grim Necromancer, Cultist of the Dragon, Blood of Vol Cultist
1 x Halfling Tombseeker or Dark Creeper
2 x Everfrost Ranger or Carrion Tribe Barbarian
5 x Vampire Spawn
1 x Human Cleric of Bane, Lareth the Beautiful, Warpriest of Hextor
1 x Gravetouched Ghoul or Warrior Wight
11
160
Characters:
1 x Dwarf Maulfighter or Dwarf Warlord
1 x Dwarf Shieldmaiden or Dwarf Sergeant
1 x Halfling Rogue or Halfling Sneak
1 x Halfling Enchanter or Lidda, Adventurer
1 x Snaketongue Cultist or Bonded Fire Summoner
1 x Wild Mage or Storm Silverhand
1 x Human Cleric of Bahamut or Cleric of Lathander
1 x Cleric of Sune or Mina, Dark Cleric
1 x Greenspawn Zealot or Gold Champion or Dragonborn Fighter
1 x Tiefling Cleric or Tiefling Blademaster
1 x Tiefling Warlock or Tiefling Captain
11
Kobold Ambush/Lair:
10 x Kobold Zombie
1 x Kobold Archer
3 x Kobold Skirmisher
3 x Kobold Champion or Meepo, Dragon Lord
1 x Kobold Sorcerer
1 x Snig the Axe
19
Burial Site:
1 x Halfling Tombseeker or Gnome Trickster
2 x Bluespawn Ambusher or Crested Felldrake
1 x Halfling Rogue/Paladin/Enchanter/Slinger
4 x Farmer or Human Bandit or Human Commoner or Caravan Guard
8
Goblin Controlled areas:
3 x Goblin Sneak or Graypeak Goblin Archer
5 x Goblin Skirmisher/Adept/Picador
1 x Goblin Warrior or Dark Creeper
8 x Goblin Blackblade
1 x Goblin Underboss or Blue
1 x Demonweb or Rot Scarab Swarm or Ratswarm
1 x Hobgoblin Marshall or Bugbear Headreaver or Torturer
20
Crypt Areas:
12 x Horde Zombie
4 x Spellstitched Hobgoblin Zombie, Dread Warrior
2 x Direguard, Skeleton, Warrior Skeleton
18 x Skeletal Archer, Orc Skeleton, Boneshard Skeleton
1 x Death Knight or Lord Soth
37
Caves:
13 x Dire Rat or Diseased Dire Rat
1 x Ochre Jelly
1 x Monitor Lizard
6 x Ice Mephit or Krenshar
3 x Kruthik Hatchling
1 x Large Fire Elemental
25
Dead Walk:
2 x Gravehound, Wolf Skeleton
1 x Elf Archer
3
Hobgoblin Borough:
1 x Hobgoblin Sergeant
1 x Red Hand War Sorcerer
4 x Hobgoblin Impaler
2 x Hobgoblin Archer
5 x Hobgoblin Marshall or Hobgoblin Warrior
1 x Deathjump Spider
14
Dungeon Chambers:
1 x Gelatinous Cube
2 x Lamia, Chillborn
1 x Gargantuan Dragon
2 x Any large Dragon
4 x Animated Statue or Earth Element Gargoyle
1 x Ravenous Ghoul
1 x Earth Mephit
12
Final Two:
1 x Grim Necromancer, Cultist of the Dragon, Blood of Vol Cultist
1 x Halfling Tombseeker or Dark Creeper
2 x Everfrost Ranger or Carrion Tribe Barbarian
5 x Vampire Spawn
1 x Human Cleric of Bane, Lareth the Beautiful, Warpriest of Hextor
1 x Gravetouched Ghoul or Warrior Wight
11
160
Thats because GW's prices are already so jacked up beyond reasonable levels that they have a little leeway.
True enough.
Still, £12 for 10 models on very cluttered sprues...
I went on a mini singles site, and was able to put all 160 in my shopping cart for just over $300.
Thanks for this. Even at 0.50$ a mini, that means a KotS pack would cost 80$. Just how much of a market is there for that product? Not to mention that thinking WotC could release those minis for only 0.50$ a pop without the cost-reducing benefits of blind packaging is VERY optimistic.
I'd be tickled pink if they would do something like release sets for the various adventure modules they have coming out. Something like a "Keep on the Shadowfell Miniatures Set." This would provide you all the monsters you need to run every battle and miniatures to represent the PCs. They could then release ones for the other modules and as they work their way along they could have different combinations of PC races and classes. So that eventually you would have covered all the ones from PH I. Then when the PH II comes out they could release sets for them. Now that would be something I would buy.
i dont know if someone has said this already but my game group and i were talk about it and we all like useing the minis its fun and great for tactics. but we all think wotc shouldd make encounter packs. do like a pack of goblins and all things gobliny. or do a hero pack something to rep your char. magic:the gathering has premaded theme deck why cant they do theme mini packs
Both of these are good ideas, and it would be awesome to see it available; or something equivalent to the game day packets that come with an adventure and the minis to run it.
Both of these are good ideas, and it would be awesome to see it available; or something equivalent to the game day packets that come with an adventure and the minis to run it.
After reading through the H1 Module and seeing the emphasis being placed on 'D&D' miniatures for use in all 4E games (The DMs guide lists them as an item you 'need' in order to play), I think it would be much fairer to players if the miniatures were made available in an alternate format to the blind packaged boosters currently being offered.
I purchased the 3.5 basic game that came with an assortment of 12 miniatures. These were clearly marked on the base as part of the basic game assortment even though all of them had been released previously in boosters.
Both the ideas quoted above are excellent. Adventure based assortments and encounter style packs sound like excellent alternatives. If the bases are modified with text identifying them as non-collectable, the same as the basic game miniatures have been altered, then the 'value' of the blind packaged miniatures is not affected. No retooling for the actual figures would be required, although bases would have to be modified with new text.
I would happily purchase a miniature set as I have described, but I do not condone, or support blind packaged product. I don't dispute others interest in it, but I personally like to know what I am buying.
Please WotC can you give this some consideration? You've got a great product with the miniatures but I think the current marketing model is locking out a large percentage of potential purchasers.
I have to tell you this though... There is nothing quite like leading a new group of players into a dungeon where they encounter a real 'old school' D&D monster, and having THE miniature to plonk down in front of them...
Colour me nostalgic, but it just beats anything else hands down.
Color me nostalgic, but it just beats anything else hands down.
I think leading the party into a dungeon and having them fight pennies is much funnier, but to each his own.
I use Warhammer pieces (not 40k but the normal one) it allows me to have a wide range of mini's and also fuels my Warhammer addiction ^.^
*chuckle* I do the same... I do use the D&D Monsters but for characters, I have a gianormus amount of money invested in various WH armies.
I brought this up with my dad and he told be about a type of T-shirt that was $7 more than any other shirt (this was 30 years ago) , just because it had a famous logo on the sleeve. The shirt was 99.9% identical to any other shirt, both in looks and structure. The only diffirence was the logo.
That is what we are paying for. We are paying $13+ because it was made under the D&D title.
Your not paying souly for the resources needed to make the figure and/or the time it took. You are also paying for the fact that it was made under the D&D title.
I brought this up with my dad and he told be about a type of T-shirt that was $7 more than any other shirt (this was 30 years ago) , just because it had a famous logo on the sleeve. The shirt was 99.9% identical to any other shirt, both in looks and structure. The only diffirence was the logo.
That is what we are paying for. We are paying $13+ because it was made under the D&D title.
I don't pay for someone to maintain their trademark license.
Green beans from the road side vendor can be just as good and even better than the ones in the Del Monte Can for $1.39, and you can probably get more from the road side vendor.
A brand does not install any added quality control. Just look at how in the past the minis were wrought with problems such as missing limbs and such.
So no, not everyone pays for some label. This isn't Dulce and things are in limited supply. This is a mass produced product and should be priced accordingly. The reason to make mass-produced products is to be able to sell to a larger audience for a lower price to get wuicker returns on the investment of creating the product.
Want to sell brands in the form of a label, then just sell label or stickers of something. I am sure plenty of people would put D&D stickers all over stuff! There is how you make the money off of the brand, as well as jsut having a quality affordable product. Not by watching price hikes from GW to try to meet their pricing model for a completely different type of product.
DDM requires no painting, and is randomly packaged.
Now painting should raise the value a bit since you don't have to get the excess equipment to build the mini, but the company loses that profit for not having such equipment. No reason to add too much to the value for that. But the random market model reduces the value because you don't know if what you get in the random packages will be anything you can use. Sure you can just use anything for a mini if you have one, but if doing that, why even use minis when pocket change can work just as well and you need not buy anything. So NO you are NOt paying for the label, but that is what the company is trying to sell people rather than a quality product when it boils down to that.
Your not paying souly for the resources needed to make the figure and/or the time it took. You are also paying for the fact that it was made under the D&D title.
I brought this up with my dad and he told be about a type of T-shirt that was $7 more than any other shirt (this was 30 years ago) , just because it had a famous logo on the sleeve. The shirt was 99.9% identical to any other shirt, both in looks and structure. The only diffirence was the logo.
That is what we are paying for. We are paying $13+ because it was made under the D&D title.
Do you know any competitor who sells miniatures 8 for $14? Star Wars minis come 7 for $14, reportedly because of the license fee to Lucasflims, and have "Very Rare' minis that basically serve to drive up the secondary market prices. Even competitors in the pre-painted minis market can't come close to the price per mini of DDM.
That said, I'm very glad I collected a large (4000 or so) collection of DDM 1.0. From what I've seen of DDM 2.0, the quality is much more uneven (that's saying something if you know much about DDM1.0). I doubt I'll collect them much anymore, but I've got plenty of minis to use my campaign now, thanks to the four years of DDM. I had what was a large collection of metal RPG minis from my 20 years before DDM, and it was about 400.
And, as others have, said you can use tokens, blocks, army men, anything fo rminis if you choose; or no minis at all.
i dont know about you guys but in canada the prices went down from 18$ to 13$
Congrats! Maybe your books price will soon follow, even though it is too late for these first ones.