What? I thought they weren't doing this anymore? I thought the hero packs were going to be seperate products? Did I miss something?
Does anyone know if a gallery will be made available? I need the images of the models for my database.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
The preview mentions that there are "heroes" in this set....
What? I thought they weren't doing this anymore? I thought the hero packs were going to be seperate products? Did I miss something?
The rumor is that sales of Lords of Madness will also determine the future of the entire line. If sales aren't strong, it may be the last d&d miniatures set produced.
Wow, if that's true you'd think they would have a stronger set list. Really do we need another Efreet? Another Kobold? I was hoping for Enigma's of Vecna or any of the other creatures in the 4e Adventure Path modules that have never had a model in any DDM set. Having said that, there are some good choices. The Dukes of Hell and Demon Princes are fantastic, though probably rarely used. The dragons are always good, and I was very glad to see some of the creatures that made first appearances in this set such as the Swordwing, Spell Weaver, Rot Grub Swarm, Cloaker, and the aforementioned Deva and Shardmind. We really didn't need another Minotaur, or Skeleton though.
Wizards might want to put together a way to get feedback from the customers on the DDM line, and maybe take suggestions from us on what models we'd like to see. I bet sales would be much higher if they gave us what we want.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
The rumor is that sales of Lords of Madness will also determine the future of the entire line. If sales aren't strong, it may be the last d&d miniatures set produced.
Wow, if that's true you'd think they would have a stronger set list. Really do we need another Efreet? Another Kobold? I was hoping for Enigma's of Vecna or any of the other creatures in the 4e Adventure Path modules that have never had a model in any DDM set. Having said that, there are some good choices. The Dukes of Hell and Demon Princes are fantastic, though probably rarely used. The dragons are always good, and I was very glad to see some of the creatures that made first appearances in this set such as the Swordwing, Spell Weaver, Rot Grub Swarm, Cloaker, and the aforementioned Deva and Shardmind. We really didn't need another Minotaur, or Skeleton though.
Wizards might want to put together a way to get feedback from the customers on the DDM line, and maybe take suggestions from us on what models we'd like to see. I bet sales would be much higher if they gave us what we want.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
Apparently the lead time on designing miniatures for the sets is so long that its hard for them to plan the set around the publishing schedule of the books. Overall, I think these are the strong minis in the set that will help drive sales...
1. Bebilith - This has been a long time request and will be desired by both 3.5 and 4e players.
2. Deva Fanatic - Not that great of sculpt, but its the only deva mini available.
3. Dragonborn Elementalister - The dragonborn minis seem to always be in demand.
4. Elder Blue Dragon - Its a good sculpt and its the last classic chromatic that hasn't had a huge yet.
5. Fettered Dracolich - The last dracolitch we had was a long time ago in War of the Dragon Queen.
6. Heroslayer Hydra - Its a great sculpt and will probably be the most sought after mini in the set.
7. Kenku Warrior and Kenku Wing Mage - With these two plus the Kenku sneak, DMs will now have enough different kenku minis to run a whole kenku encounter. Also gives more option to kenku players.
8. Mind Flayer Noble - A large mind flayer provides a nice boss mini for a series of mind flayer encounters.
9. Minotaur Mangler - Its a nice scult, and minotaur player characters seem to be pretty popular.
10. Nalfeshnee Tyrant - Another long time request.
11. Orc Archer - We haven't had an orc archer since Harbinger. A lot of DMs are going to want a good sized handfull of these.
12. Rot Grub Swarm - Another versatile swarm mini.
13. Shardmind Dominator - The only shardmind mini available.
14. Thri-Kreen Mantis Warrior - The only other option for Thri-Kreen minis are two now expensive minis from the first two sets in the line, plus its timed well for the Dark Sun setting. Too bad its a rare, though.
15. Trapped Chest - People always seem to chase after these decorative minis.
16. Trebuchet - A lot of DMs are going to want to get 3 or 4 or these for when running larger siege style encounters.
17. The four Zhentarim minis - Nice sculpts and fills a lot of Zhentarim encounter needs all in one set.
Now, there's plenty of other good minis in the set as well, but those above are the ones that I think will drive sales the most.
Apparently the lead time on designing miniatures for the sets is so long that its hard for them to plan the set around the publishing schedule of the books.
The last module in that Adventure Path, Prince of Undeath, was published almost a year ago. Thunderspire Labyrinth, the module Enigma's of Vecna appear in, was published over two years ago. I just think they should give preference not only to monsters people like, but ones WotC actually use in published modules.
I also think the CCG business model for miniatures has been a dismal failure, and is probably why the line is in danger of cancellation. I don't want to have to wait three years to have enough Fomorians to run King of the Trollhaunt Warrens. I would at least try making Encounter Sets available. Sets of a dozen or more miniatures that have a theme (and for the record Beholder Collector Set is a boneheaded idea if that is what they are trying with that). An Encounter Set might be for instance Goblins.
- 8 Goblin Grunts (minions)
- 4 Goblin Warriors
- 2 Goblin Sneaks
- 2 Goblin Archers
- 1 Goblin Shaman
- 1 Goblin Chieftain
- 1 Hobgoblin Leader
With such a set a DM would know what they were getting, and purchase as many as they needed. Also the set lends itself to certain encounters. The set might even include a few encounter appropriate dungeon tiles, or a fold out battle map. I would gladly fork over ~$20 for a set like this of small and medium miniatures. Sets with larger models could have less miniatures, or sell at a higher price point.
I personally have a collection of D&D Miniatures that is approaching 2000 miniatures. Very little of that money went directly to WotC. Instead I just paid ~$30 to an online singles reseller for 12 Dire Rats. If WotC had an Encounter Set that included Dire Rats, I would have bought as many as I necessary to get the twelve I needed, all the money would have gone to WotC, and I would probably have spent less money over all, the remainder of which could have gone to other sets sold by WotC. As it is WotC has a product line on the verge of failure and have made a lot of other businesses viable with the CCG business model.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
The rumor is that sales of Lords of Madness will also determine the future of the entire line. If sales aren't strong, it may be the last d&d miniatures set produced.
Wow, if that's true you'd think they would have a stronger set list. Really do we need another Efreet? Another Kobold? I was hoping for Enigma's of Vecna or any of the other creatures in the 4e Adventure Path modules that have never had a model in any DDM set. Having said that, there are some good choices. The Dukes of Hell and Demon Princes are fantastic, though probably rarely used. The dragons are always good, and I was very glad to see some of the creatures that made first appearances in this set such as the Swordwing, Spell Weaver, Rot Grub Swarm, Cloaker, and the aforementioned Deva and Shardmind. We really didn't need another Minotaur, or Skeleton though.
Wizards might want to put together a way to get feedback from the customers on the DDM line, and maybe take suggestions from us on what models we'd like to see. I bet sales would be much higher if they gave us what we want.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
Thanks, Positronica, for the well stated explanation.
Not sure about your thoughts about the reasons though. The miniature line was suffering for years before the recent experiment, and now apparently the D&D game isn't selling as well as hoped. I think it has more to do with the overall stresses on the miniatures market and the paper roleplaying games than anything as specific as which minis are showing and uncommon stulpts (as annoying as those things are to fans).
I'm sad that the hero packs won't be made any more, they were my miniatures favorite products by far.
as soon as they cancelled the "D&D Miniatures Game" there is absolutely no reason to make any of these miniatures rare, ultra-rare, uncommon, or common... they should all be accessable to whatever DM or player wants them...
Metal or plastic miniature makers don't sell "random packs" of Reaper or GW figures, so why would WotC think that is the way to go?
I understand it is probably unreasonable to expect them to be making every plastic mini they ever made at all times... but let's condense the list a bit, put out at least some minis to fill out basic starters sets (I mean, really, is going to a token based game really the way to go?) and see how those sell...
Do there really need to be miniatures for ultra-rare demons that most players will never fight when it is next to impossible to get a miniature to represent all the basic players races in PHBs1 , 2, and 3?
I just think they need to start over and look at this as a way to supplement the D&D RPG and the adventures they have published and not as a collection game for anyone left who "really needs all the minis in the set"...
but, I've been saying this since the game was released in 4th edition and no one seems to be listening.
- Josh
Re: Rarity - Having lower quality "commons" keeps the overall cost of the set down. Their suppliers are charging more because there's inflation in China. It is regretable that the price/fig is going up, and ultra-rare figures is a new idea for D&D Miniatures so I have a little trepidation myself. But the pre-painted-plastic-miniatures-for-games-in-a-high-fantasy-setting market is rather thin, and the D&D Miniatures product line serves me well once you account for invested time required to paint your own.
Re: Set Selection - Although the minis takes about a full year to go from concept to plastic, I'm surprised we got a Shardmind so soon. The miniatures in the set have long been requested (I know I've been wondering where the Nalfeshnee and the Beblith have been hiding), but the set also has to appeal to first-time or relatively new buyers. One of Peter's preview articles talks about the need for a plain-jane Skeleton - we haven't had one since War Drums (which was at least 3 or 4 years ago). Do we need another Kobold? Hasn't been one since Dangerous Delves (1 year ago). Do we need more Minotaurs? With Minotaurs offically PC races, I think we could use a few more medium sized ones.
By cranking out so many mini sets over the years, WoTC has flooded the market and put themselves out of the mini business.
Re: Random Packaging vs Any Other Distribution Model - random packaging is saving their product line. Packs with either completely visible or partially visible miniatures were clearly a failure - some visibles sold, others didn't. And it would be true no matter what visible you put there. Any other distribution model will run into the same issue - some packs will sell, others will not. Retailers would need to stock either all of them (taking up valulable inventory and shelf space), or stock a few of them, in which case you randomize by going to different stores (since there's no way to know which store carries which pack). At least fully randomized packaging admits that fact up front. If you didn't like the idea of calling around to find out which store carries which pack, you can use an online retailer, but that hurts the brick & mortar FLGSes of the world, and WotC doesn't want that either.
Maybe it was when there was an actual reason for it, like the DDM game. Now it is nothing more than an annoyance for DMs who don't like being manipulated into buying more miniatures than they actually need. I know more DMs who will never buy D&D Miniatures for this very reason than those who buy them.
Of course some sets will sell more than others. A little marketing research (or just plain common sense) can tell WotC which ones to make a lot of, and which ones to restrict to a more limited run. You may not remember, but Grenadier made sets in the 70's and 80's exactly like what I am talking about and they sold quite well. No other miniatures manufacturer uses this same business model, and none of them to my knowledge have the same issues making miniatures lines successful. It is an utterly ridiculous statement to say that the CCG business model saved DDM when the line is on the verge of failure.
Also, as much as I hate to say it, WotC is causing themselves irreparable damage by insisting that FLGS shops be given preferential treatment. They are invaluable to the hobby when you consider Encounters, and other similar events, but they simply cannot be counted on when it comes to supplying players accessories to a game that releases 2 or 3 new products a month. It is ridiculous for WotC to think they can do that. I haven't bought anything from my FLGS in months. I buy books (and now boxes) from Amazon exclusively because I get deep discounts off the cover price. Even my FLGS owner who gives me a 20% pre-tax discount can't compete with that given that I routinely get 40% - 50% discounts at Amazon.
Also given that I buy most of my miniatures from an online singles reseller, WotC does get the initial sale of those miniatures, but because someone gave them up in order for me to buy them they only get the money once. If they didn't mess around with random packaging they would get two sales for every miniature I buy instead of just one.
Re: Rarity - Having lower quality "commons" keeps the overall cost of the set down. Their suppliers are charging more because there's inflation in China. It is regretable that the price/fig is going up, and ultra-rare figures is a new idea for D&D Miniatures so I have a little trepidation myself. But the pre-painted-plastic-miniatures-for-games-in-a-high-fantasy-setting market is rather thin, and the D&D Miniatures product line serves me well once you account for invested time required to paint your own.
I don't really have a problem with the paint jobs on any of the miniatures. They're painted which is more than I can say for the vast majority of metal miniatures that I have owned over the years. They don't have to be works of art in my opinion, just good enough to give the battle map a little color.
Re: Set Selection - Although the minis takes about a full year to go from concept to plastic, I'm surprised we got a Shardmind so soon. The miniatures in the set have long been requested (I know I've been wondering where the Nalfeshnee and the Beblith have been hiding), but the set also has to appeal to first-time or relatively new buyers. One of Peter's preview articles talks about the need for a plain-jane Skeleton - we haven't had one since War Drums (which was at least 3 or 4 years ago). Do we need another Kobold? Hasn't been one since Dangerous Delves (1 year ago). Do we need more Minotaurs? With Minotaurs offically PC races, I think we could use a few more medium sized ones.
The Skeletal Legionnaire from War Drums on Troll and Toad is $2.99. For the price of a single Lords of Madness booster you can have 7 Skeletal Legionnaires and they have 33 in stock. The Kobold Wympriest from Dangerous Delves goes for $2.49. You can have 8 of those for the price of a single Lords of Madness booster and they have 16 of those in stock.
The only reason the set has to appeal to both audiences is that for collectability's sake they have to discontinue older sets. Using my model this is never an issue. New players can stock up on kobolds and goblins, while veteran players can save up for that Gargantuan Tarrasque miniature they've been wanting. The CCG model only works when there is an existing collectable game to market and like actual CCGs, the players need to upgrade to newer sets as part of the business model.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
I have another theory why the minis havn't been selling well lately. Most people playing D&D right now have been doing so for the last 2 or more years. Many of us have been playing for a long time. I currently have all the minis I need to run my campaigns. If there's anything really specific that I'm missing, I'll use the Fiery Dragon brand tokens or generic tokens. The other DM friends I know are also similarly equipped. Why would I invest in new minis sets to get yet another dozen or so skeletons/orcs/kobolds? Yes, some of the new rares are interesting, but not enough that I'll spend hundreds of bucks on everything else that I already have so I can get 3 or 4 new rares. If I want the rares that much I'll order them individually from Troll and Toad. I suspect there's a lot of people out there in my situation.
By cranking out so many mini sets over the years, WoTC has flooded the market and put themselves out of the mini business.
Exactly Style75!! You made my point for me. :-)
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
The problem is that as of late the production costs have been going up, and the demand for minis has been going down. WOTC has now apparently reached a point where if they kept selling minis the way they were, they wouldn't be selling enough packs to keep the line proffitable. They've introduced Very Rares in a hope that it will essentially get some people to buy more packs than they normally would in order to chase after the Very Rares. Personally, I'm not sure how well that's going to work.
If you asked me though, I think WOTC should be trying to cut costs rather than increase revenue. With the DDM game now gone, I think they really need to rethink things. One thing they need to realize is that they've been producing the line for 7 years now. There's been a lot of sets, and the design work for all those older sets is still valuable. What WOTC should do is take advantage of those old designs, while at the same time cutting out the middlemen and packaging.
They should set up a simple online store. Each month they would select 20 or so miniatures from their past lines. They would make a point to select minis that are highly sought after. There are plenty of rares from only a few sets ago that still sell for $15+ even as used singles. They could also include 1 or 2 new sculpts each month. WOTC could price the minis at say $0.99 for mediums, $2.99 for larges, and $4.99 for huges. All miniatures would recieve the same number of paint steps, so as to remove the need for rare, uncommon, and common classifications. Now, where WOTC would remove some of the risk to themselves, is that instead of producing the minis up front, they would instead spend the month only taking orders, and then at the end of the month all the orders would be sent off for production. Furthermore, WOTC would make it very clear on the ordering page that each specific mini would only be produced if the number of orders for that mini reached a specific threshold. If a specific mini turned out to be a dud and didn't generate enough orders, WOTC would just send out an apology order to everyone who ordered it, and not bother with setting up the production and painting for that specific mini.
Once the minis were produced, they would be sent out by a simple pick shipping company. There would be no cards and no fancy packaging. You'd get the minis you ordered in a brown box and that's it. And since the minis are so light, shipping costs could be kept very low.
Each month they would then pick a new set of 20 miniatures to put up for sale. Now, it would probably take something like 6 to 8 weeks for customers to get their minis after production started, however if you kept prices low, I think you would have a lot of regulars who ordered minis every month. By the time you got to the third set of 20, your regular costomers would be receiving a box of minis every month, and so I think the delay time in getting a specific order wouldn't be that detrimental.
If you asked me though, I think WOTC should be trying to cut costs rather than increase revenue.
They did say that this is the first set that was designed using CAD. With luck that can cut costs considerably.
WOTC has now apparently reached a point where if they kept selling minis the way they were, they wouldn't be selling enough packs to keep the line proffitable. They've introduced Very Rares in a hope that it will essentially get some people to buy more packs than they normally would in order to chase after the Very Rares. Personally, I'm not sure how well that's going to work.
They could just follow the method used by other mini producers, and loose the CCG element entirely. However they insist that because MtG is a cash cow, that everything they do must follow that model.
I'll continue to buy reaper, & only get what I want. With the exception of a few dragonborn prior to finding the reaper models I now have I have rarely bought D&D minis.
For reference;both dragonborn D&D models have been repainted because they sucked so bad.
I don't think its fair to compare Reaper miniatures to DDM. Reaper makes a far smaller selection of pre-painted plastic. And their prices are nothing special. If all you want is some generic orcs or goblins, the DDM singles market is still a better deal than Reaper except for a few specific miniatures. Reaper also is able to offset some of the design costs for their prepainted plastics by sharing those costs with their metal miniatures line. Plus I think its fair to say that the average Reaper prepainted plastic mini isn't quite up to the same level of quality as the average DDM mini. (Not that DDM hasn't had some real stinkers as of late.)
I mean, if the DDM line is really finding itself in financial trouble, do you really think WOTC hasn't tried to run the numbers to see if completely non-random packs would work?
If you asked me though, I think WOTC should be trying to cut costs rather than increase revenue.
They did say that this is the first set that was designed using CAD. With luck that can cut costs considerably.
Yeah, though I think what they said is that this is the first set done entirely in CAD. Prior to this its been a mix of CAD and hand sculpting. In the end though, I think the largest cost is probably setting up the molds and the factory and training the hand-painters how to paint the set. The full color packaging probably isn't cheap either. Plus they likely have to estimate demand in advance and produce the whole run ahead of time and hope they don't over produce. It was either Savage Encounters or Legendary Evils that WOTC shipped out multiple free cases to hobby stores for them to give away or use as prize support. That right there tells me that they had surplus supply of those sets.
Of course some sets will sell more than others. A little marketing research (or just plain common sense) can tell WotC which ones to make a lot of, and which ones to restrict to a more limited run. You may not remember, but Grenadier made sets in the 70's and 80's exactly like what I am talking about and they sold quite well.
Metal minis are way cheaper to produce than vinyl. Metal just requires some silicon rubber mold and a spincaster, the most expensive element is the metal itself. Vinyl is cheap, but it requires die cut steel pressurized molds and heavy machinery to inject the vinyl, very costly in the initial stages. Reaper/Grenadier is practically an out of the basement production, whereas WotC requires a factory bigger than any America has. So a metal manufacturer and a Vinyl one have entirely different business strategies. Metal does better with small runs, the larger the runs the less return on investment, whereas vinyl does better with large runs, the smaller the run the less return.
Though one thing I think you "young uns" don't understand is that over the course of a few years, the plastic minis provided a greater variety of monsters and characters than Ral Partha or Grenadier provided over the entire history of their D&D lines.
And the Grenadier sets may have sold well for it's day, but nothing like DDM used to.
No other miniatures manufacturer uses this same business model, and none of them to my knowledge have the same issues making miniatures lines successful. It is an utterly ridiculous statement to say that the CCG business model saved DDM when the line is on the verge of failure.
Wizkids has that business model, as does the makers of Monsterpocalypse. There are more if I were to look.
And one of the reasons why the line is on the verge of failure is because they moved away from
the CCG model. The DDM line was supporting many paper publications with the money it was making in it's hayday. But then in order to comply with customer requests they moved away from all blind packaging, and it did not work for them. Lots of people said they were interested in visibles, but not enough put their money where their mouth were.
Halber
And one of the reasons why the line is on the verge of failure is because they moved away from
the CCG model. The DDM line was supporting many paper publications with the money it was making in it's hayday. But then in order to comply with customer requests they moved away from all blind packaging, and it did not work for them. Lots of people said they were interested in visibles, but not enough put their money where their mouth were.
Halber
I am one of those people. I want visual mini's, but when I had those lines I picked and choose witch ones I wanted, and stoped buying when I had the visuals I wanted...
Then have a separate line of exotic monsters from the newest books, stuff that hasn't been done yet and stuff that us DM's don't already have 20 copies of. The monster manuals and campaign guides have a load of cool monsters that are still lacking minis, yet WoTC is still churning out orcs, kobolds and skeletons. The thing that will keep me from buying the latest set is the knowledge that I will get another bucketload of minis I don't need. I only want stuff that's new and fills in the holes in monster manual. Make those and I'll buy them. Try and sell me more kobolds and I'm out. It's that simple.
Of course some sets will sell more than others. A little marketing research (or just plain common sense) can tell WotC which ones to make a lot of, and which ones to restrict to a more limited run. You may not remember, but Grenadier made sets in the 70's and 80's exactly like what I am talking about and they sold quite well.
Metal minis are way cheaper to produce than vinyl. Metal just requires some silicon rubber mold and a spincaster, the most expensive element is the metal itself. Vinyl is cheap, but it requires die cut steel pressurized molds and heavy machinery to inject the vinyl, very costly in the initial stages. Reaper/Grenadier is practically an out of the basement production, whereas WotC requires a factory bigger than any America has. So a metal manufacturer and a Vinyl one have entirely different business strategies. Metal does better with small runs, the larger the runs the less return on investment, whereas vinyl does better with large runs, the smaller the run the less return.
Though one thing I think you "young uns" don't understand is that over the course of a few years, the plastic minis provided a greater variety of monsters and characters than Ral Partha or Grenadier provided over the entire history of their D&D lines.
And the Grenadier sets may have sold well for it's day, but nothing like DDM used to.No other miniatures manufacturer uses this same business model, and none of them to my knowledge have the same issues making miniatures lines successful. It is an utterly ridiculous statement to say that the CCG business model saved DDM when the line is on the verge of failure.
Wizkids has that business model, as does the makers of Monsterpocalypse. There are more if I were to look.
And one of the reasons why the line is on the verge of failure is because they moved away from
the CCG model. The DDM line was supporting many paper publications with the money it was making in it's hayday. But then in order to comply with customer requests they moved away from all blind packaging, and it did not work for them. Lots of people said they were interested in visibles, but not enough put their money where their mouth were.
Halber
Sure if you think 43 is young.
They killed the entire DDM game long before non-randomized packaging started. I don't buy your argument.
I think they need to have a basic "Essentials" miniatures kit, similar to what they're doing with the dungeon tiles, that supplies your levels 1-5 monsters. This kit will be all the commons, no rares, no collecting. Just a straight up kit for new DM's to get into the game.
Then have a separate line of exotic monsters from the newest books, stuff that hasn't been done yet and stuff that us DM's don't already have 20 copies of. The monster manuals and campaign guides have a load of cool monsters that are still lacking minis, yet WoTC is still churning out orcs, kobolds and skeletons. The thing that will keep me from buying the latest set is the knowledge that I will get another bucketload of minis I don't need. I only want stuff that's new and fills in the holes in monster manual. Make those and I'll buy them. Try and sell me more kobolds and I'm out. It's that simple.
This pretty much is the point I am trying to make. Because the randomized sets are discontinued after a time, WotC feels they always have to make each new set cater to both new and established gamers. Which ends up only really pleasing the new gamers (and I'm not sure it really pleases them either). Make sets that allow customers to buy what they want. New gamers can buys sets of kobolds, goblins, orcs and skeletons. Established gamers can buy sets of swordwings, drow, and rakshasa.
As for non random packs, games workshop has done it for years, why can't WotC? You don't see warhammer army builders bitching that the one figure they needed for their army wasn't in the last box they bought. Do you? I've never seen it. They might bitch about the cost, but the sculpts are much better, and they take paint well.
Because only a dedicated store can carry all of the different products, or any given store may not have the SKU you want. Discourages impulse purchases and limits the range of stores that can offer the line.
They killed the entire DDM game long before non-randomized packaging started. I don't buy your argument.
Actually the DDM game stopped at exactly the time that they went to visibles.
Buy it or not, it has been discussed many times before. Just because you may not like the answer doesn't mean it isn't true.
Halber
Actually the DDM game stopped at exactly the time that they went to visibles.
I was around here at the time. If I remember correctly there were rumors that the DDM line was in financial trouble as early as Desert of Desolation or Dungeons of Dread, those rumors were confirmed around the time Demonweb was released. Then Feywild was cancelled. It was almost 9 months after Demonweb that Monster Manual: Dangerous Delves was released. The DDM game had been dead or dying for around 18 months by the time there was visible miniature, limited randomess packaging.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
The following doesn't solve the problem above but it's just a thought I had.
How about instead of rarity WotC designs the sets according to tier. In a 60 mini set designate 10 minis for epic tier, 20 for paragon and 30 for heroic. Sure this will not please everyone either, but most games take place in the heroic or paragon tiers. (at least at this time) While orcs and kobold and skeletons will appear in the 30, there is also plenty of room for other heroic tier monsters that have not been represented. Also, WotC could include at least 5 minis for each supported campaing setting with each set. I would love a designated Dark Sun set but that's just not gonna happen. Including a small set number with each set would at least start the process of supplying minis for the separate settings.
I love my minis. I want more of them! I'm just so frustrated with the whole rarity, random scheme. Please, somebody a whole lot smarter than me come up with a workable plan to satisfy WotC's fiscal needs and the needs of the players.
Playing with it...
Heroic = Common
Paragon = Uncommon
Epic = Rare
Minion = -1 (down one rarity)
Elite/Solo = +1 (up one rarity)
So, for each rarity, you'd have...
Common
Heroic minion and standard monsters; Paragon minion monsters.
Uncommon
Heroic elite and solo monsters; Paragon standard monsters; Epic minion monters.
Rare
Paragon elite and solo monsters; Epic standard monsters.
Very Rare
Epic elite and solo monsters.
You could easily change that up by making "solo" monsters +2 instead of 1. Maybe make campaign-specific monsters have a +1 modifier too.
*shrugs*
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I only ordered singles from this set, but I have to say I'm very very happy with it, as someone who mostly just wants figures for my PCs. Dwarven spellcaster, Dragonborn spellcaster, Deva, Shardmind, Minotaur, Thri-kreen - those are all PC figures I really wanted, and got (for, I believe, a lower total price than if I'd gotten them all out of the visible "Heroes" packs - though I liked those as well, and bought all of them). Several thumbs waaaay up for that.
And one of the reasons why the line is on the verge of failure is because they moved away from the CCG model. The DDM line was supporting many paper publications with the money it was making in it's hayday. But then in order to comply with customer requests they moved away from all blind packaging, and it did not work for them. Lots of people said they were interested in visibles, but not enough put their money where their mouth were.
1. First of all, the hayday of DDM was long over when they tried switching over to the visibles approach (and that was one of the reasons they finally tried that approach)
2. They only tried a hybrid approach, which wasn't actually what these people said they would have been interested in, so WotC never gave them a chance to put their money where their mouth is
What I will talk about is in agreement with some. There needs to be Campaign Specific monsters. I'm going to pick on the New SuperAdventures specificly.
Piranoth is THE enemy in The Revenge of the Giants. For those unfamiliar, he is a Primordial of Stone, Fire and Cold. He is weakened at the time he is confronted, so he is a Huge.
THERE IS NO HUGE THAT EVEN SLIGHTY RESEMBLES HIM. the best I could see is a re-painted earth titan, but no ones offering any and I'm no artist.
As a visible mini in, for example, Legendary evils, He would have flopped. He is a paragon, campaign specific solo monster. I like greatfrito 's classification system. he would be a very rare, but he would exist.
Or, he could be part of an Adventure specific encounter box. Those, if realesead at the same time as adventures, would be dual purpose. Most (if not all) adventures have themes. The RotG would be an elemental box, Tomb of Horrors Undead, Demon Queen Drow. This would allow for those who may need Drow for a home campaign to pick up a box, and for those needing specific minis for the adventure to get those as well.
I totally agree with you Soklemon.
Regards,
Kalex the Omen
I agree with Soklemon too. He has a very good point. For a mini that would be unique, in the true meaning of the word in that there is only one needed of it ever, then it would be a great idea to put it in a boxed set with an adventure. It would save booster buyers from having to have multiple copies of a unique creature that no one else wants more than one of either.
Though regular minis like kobolds or whatever would just drive the price point of the adventure up, and they can be gotten elsewhere.
Halber
I am not sure that minis that feed off of that are a good idea. But, they might be part of an offering. For example, if you had an adventure-specific mini that could also have broader use (and you are including the stats, of course), plus other minis that have broad use, then everyone might win.
Similarly, if the Red Boxed set had unique tiles and some cool minis (maybe one new one and a selection of others from older sets), that would probably really encourage experienced players to still buy the Red Boxed Set. Would it be enough to offset the much higher production costs? It isn't clear. The groupthink is that boxed sets in general lose money (they are expensive to make), but are attractive to players.
As soon as you target certain gamers (D&D DMs that bought adventure x or play in world y, etc.), you are cutting out some profit... unless that target audience really responds or it isn't percieved as a loss for others. In the Revenge of the Giants example, do people that don't have the adventure really care to have that mini?
Overall, while I am all for we armchair designers making suggestions, we should keep in mind that our knowledge of what will sell well is pretty limited.
But piranoth also fills the slot of multi-elemental Primodial. it would be a better proxy than anything available at least.
And WotC does seem to support these. it packaged beholders, and people plan to buy it even with several old sculpts, and two being Undead Beholders.
Ive worked up a list of sets that, going in the vein of RotG could be used.
Hill Giant set-
Hill Giant Battlechief (well dressed, battleaxe)
2 grunts (generic hides, greatclub)
Slinger (um... sling)
High Shaman
shaman?
New hill Giant, much like the newly relaesed Fire Giant in MM3. Fills skirmisher slot, uses a weapon that relies more on finesse than "crush them!"
Earth Giants/Stone Giants
1 of each titan
2 stone, 2 earth Giants.
Frost Giants
Titan
Grunt
Shamanic (Windcaller)
Marauder
Hunter (with crossbow, maybe a snowball?:D)
Chieftan
Fire Giants
Titan
Grunt
Mauler
Chief
Forgecaller
The new graceful one (name escapes me)
Eldritch Giants/Astral Giants
Titans
2 each giant
Storm Giants/Death Giants
Titans
2 each giant
RotG set
Piranoth
Fire Giant Ice-Fist
8 Medium Elementals (4 Ice, 4 Fire)
These are fairly detailed, yes. They provide a framework in case wizards ever decidies to take some of our (yes, unexpierianced) advice. But we are their fan base, and Id be interested in every set Ive detailed.
What about tying rarity to the monster's status as a minion, solo, or elite? Minions should be common since you usually need a bunch of them, while solos are just that, solo. How often do you need more than one miniature for a solo monster?
my set ideas were no where near to replacing the randomizied ones. For those of you reading and saying "duh" my apologies. They were meant to be realesed for quick, although hopefully high production sets. They could be re-run as the need arisies.
Yes, the rarity system needs re-working. The Sharndmind Dominator is the Only shardmind, and its a Rare!
Aryus, your on track. Normal monsters as... Normal rarity? seems simpler, always a plus.
On a side note, there really needs to be a Wilden mini.