They are the flat version of minis in that they look half assed and a bit too cheaply done.
We all know where they got the art, from the art department. They are ransacking art that they own, and all so they can make an easy cash grab.
I don't mind cash grabs 100% of the time if I occasionally at least really get something out of the purchase.
But let's be blunt, the tokens are often not overly obvious as to what they are.
Lets take the Dungeon Master kit from the Essentials line. Short of being a total TSR geek, what are the chances of you finding the Halfling tokens in a pile in 5 minutes? Sure it is a Halfling?
Portrait shots are understandable only so long as you don't give a damn what the race really is, and just want a token that is clearly not this other token.
But as a DM, I want to be able to place 5 randomly grabbed tokens and say it is a halfling thief, an elf and a half elf and 2 humans and not have everyone (me including) wondering, which is which?
Ok the elf is likely easy, the Vulcan ears give em away.
I suppose I am asking too much actually wanting Wizards to actually provide images of creatures that are full body images such that a person can look at the image and no what the whole creature looks like. Not everything is humanoid shaped and a head doesn't always tell the tale either.
I recently had the pleasure of browsing a swath of the Fiery Dragon product range of tokens and man, could they ever show Wizards how to suck eggs eh. Not that Fiery Dragon is perfect, but, in contrast to Wizards, they look close to it.
Their idea of tokens blows away the Wizards examples.
For one thing, the art is more visually distinct, as it's not buried in background (due to it being essentially lifted off of a painting), and appears to be more likely to be task oriented and more likely more if not all of the creature.
I try to think out my purchases such that regrets are minimal if at all. I have not regretted getting Monster Vault mainly. But, I'd have paid em twice the price willingly, if their tokens were as good as Fiery Dragon's product range.
I suspect Fiery Dragon would have trouble doing business, if Wizards was less cheap about the source of the art, and more capable of delivering must have tokens.
No I don't miss their dumb minis. Lousy poses, bad art work, random purchases enforced. But most importantly, not ultimately as portable. I can carry 5 times as many creatures as tokens as I can as minis. It's all about efficiency. I need to want the product.
I think Fiery Dragon is a bit pricey, but, I can see myself potentially weakening and buying some of their basic sets of the more commonly needed Heroic tier examples. Likely be more user friendly than the Monster Vault examples.
My game shop in the area carries alot of old D&D stock; hence, I am able to buy alot of the older D&D mini sets.
Anyhow how are you able to find one particular monster in a box filled with monster tokens? It must take awhile, doesn't it?
I have to disagree. I think Wizards tokens are of high quality; sturdy stock and glossy. I like that the art is pulled from the MM1- helps me recognize the tokens.
I will agree with about one thing concerning the D&D miniatures. The paint jobs are pretty horrid on most of them. I've recently bought a box of Unhallowed figures from the game shop yesterday and I've notice that my rare had the worst paint jobs that I have ever seen on any miniature.
My game shop in the area carries alot of old D&D stock; hence, I am able to buy alot of the older D&D mini sets.
Anyhow how are you able to find one particular monster in a box filled with monster tokens? It must take awhile, doesn't it?
I'm a wargamer, organizing things 1/2 inch to 1 inch size is something that comes natural to me
No the artwork is not great. Nice thick tokens, nice and shiny, but when a person is told to pick 1 of 3 Dragonborn tokens for their player, and they remark that they can't even identify what the image actually is, that is fail too my thinking.
Smaller images are easy. I've seen as I said Fiery Dragon pull it off rather nicely. But then THEIR artwork was task oriented, not stolen from art that was never meant to grace a small 1 inch circle.
Sloppy paint jobs is not a tragedy unless you are paying good money for them, which of course everyone is. But my main beef with them is the often totally unusual poses. I'd like to know who thinks up the poses, and are they sobre when doing it?
All we really needs is a dull boring just standing there pose saying 'this is me'. But oh no, they need to attempt an epic looking pose as executed by someone that seems to have never actually thought out that the figure likely is poorly balanced and probably won't sit in its space well.
And that's another hassle of minis, 1 inch is all they should be given, so making it so they have all manner of protrusions just makes them a hassle to position on the grid in some cases. Something that tokens don't suffer from.
The biggest problem is frequency of need. Yeah the three monster manuals have hundreds and hundreds of monsters. But how often do you need totally obscure, high level monster X?
How often do you wish they would just accept that DMs sure could use sets of 10 goblins/kobolds/orcs/gnolls you know, the creatures we usually actually need. Sets of dwarves/elves/humans etc that are not always meant to be PCs.
I'd buy minis if it was worth my while, but, nope, I am NOT buying your damned random minis all so I can eventually have 10 identical posed, poorly posed, poorly painted minis, and a massive stash of minis I likely will be lucky to ever need more than once in a blue moon.
I'll say it, most of the minis buyers, likely have more cash than brains. And it might actually be a good thing they are not selling, because it means the game simply lacks sufficient fools able to be parted from their money. That of course means the rest of us are merely smarter than Wizards marketing can deal with.
Do you think that Reaper's miniatures poses are better than what WOTC gave us with their D&D miniature product line?
I've seen ill advised plastic and pewter and lead minis in my time.
But, I also recall (when minis amused me more as collectible shelf ornaments), seeing a lot of minis in blister packs that were certainly a sheetload more worthwhile to purchase.
But again, getting one pose, and being expected to use 10 of the same pose for 10 individuals sucks. And needing to buy hundreds of minis, just to end up with 10 orcs or 10 dwarves is also unacceptable.
Especially when a person can get hundreds and hundreds of tokens, and have all of those hundreds and hundreds of tokens being precisely the tokens you wanted, all for just being able to print out any extras if they were even needed. Although I have seen that with tokens, you usually get sums of tokens when the image is of a creature you might want 10 of.
My take is this: minis weren't selling well, evidenced by WotC ending that line. But D&D players do enjoy using something to represent the heroes and monsters; just writing on graph paper is annoying and boring. So they introduced tokens. Rather than a separate product, they decided to bundle them with other products. I think this was a great move; they were essentially a free sample. In order to cut costs for this new product, they decided to use existing pictures rather than commission new art. Why spend more money on a product that you don't even know if people will like?
So a new DM buys the DM kit, which comes with an adventure, and discovers that it also includes all the tokens he needs to run that adventure. Later, when he buys the Monster Vault, he also gets more tokens (does it come with tokens for all the monsters?).
I think if they get positive feedback on the tokens, they might begin to introduce separate packs of them and start making new art specifically designed for the tokens.
snide remark
Hey, did you notice how I made a post in your thread without insulting something that you obviously like?
Yes took a while scanning my book, but every Monster Vault Manual monster has a token. Keep in mind, that 5 types of creature X use the same image, thus there is only one Basilisk image although more than one type of basilisk. But I am cool with that.
What annoyed me, is the tokens from the DM kit are not listed, thus, you are either an expert with TSR art sources, or the tokens are often whatever you think they are. Granted an elf and a dwarf are easy to separate.
Glad you liked the Fiery Dragon Counter Collections. I've done over 3000 counter images for them in the past decade, so I've had plenty of time and experience to know what works and what doesn't in a 1-inch counter.
i completely agree with your last sentiment WotC thinks we're all 4 year olds, when many of us are career mathemiticians...
Or artists.
TsukinoUsagi:
Glad you liked the Fiery Dragon Counter Collections. I've done over 3000 counter images for them in the past decade, so I've had plenty of time and experience to know what works and what doesn't in a 1-inch counter.
Cool then I can tell you directly, nice work. The art style looks very functional.
I wish Wizards could see, that stealing images off of paintings sucks as a means to an end with their tokens. Sure it's an easy out and cheap, but the images are also inefficient and no real competition for yours.
i completely agree with your last sentiment WotC thinks we're all 4 year olds, when many of us are career mathemiticians...
Actually, I have been noticing, that a lot of this hobby is saturated in old buggers like myself the same way my wargaming hobby is largely old buggers like myself.
Sure lot of kids may play the game, but, I think the core demographic may well be the original crowd from the 70s as we were never forced to choose between D&D and World of Warcraft. We seem to be less inclined to play it for a bit get bored and move on.
Most of us are middle aged and professionals if not just middle aged.