I for one have no intention of collecting miniatures like an 11 year old collects baseball cards. If they make the miniatures I need available, I'll buy 'em. And it would be cool to have the right ones to play the core adventures with (especially to represent the pregenerated PCs.)
Just a thought.
I agree with you though, it would be awesome to buy non-random miniatures for the rpg.
It does come with maps that I will use miniatures with. :D
Anyone know if there are any plans to release miniature packs to go with these adventures?
I for one have no intention of collecting miniatures like an 11 year old collects baseball cards. If they make the miniatures I need available, I'll buy 'em. And it would be cool to have the right ones to play the core adventures with (especially to represent the pregenerated PCs.)
Just a thought.
No they wont.
They will NOT even be putting any in the Basic Beginners Boxed Edition.
Cardboard tokens.
There is simply no way I will ever purchase WotC miniatures as a result.
I use tokens, nothing more. I would gladly pay for miniatures if I knew what I was getting, but I'm not buying random packs - not now, not ever.
I wonder how much money WotC loses as a result of this, and if it makes up for the money they make from D&D miniatures players?
Even if it does compensate them financially, I know many D&D players who resent the fact that they market miniatures in this way. What price can be put on the good will of the consumer?
There are several websites which sell individual minis. My favorite is miniaturemarket.com. Common figs range anywhere from 25 cents to a buck apiece, while the rares can cost $20 or more. The prices for discontinued lines are higher.
Delivery times are less than a week.
Even if WoTC doesn't package and sell mini packs designed specifically for each adventure (business decision, not for me to question), you can still get just the figures you need without having to subject yourself to the randomness of the booster pack crapshoot.
There are several websites which sell individual minis. My favorite is miniaturemarket.com. Common figs range anywhere from 25 cents to a buck apiece, while the rares can cost $20 or more. The prices for discontinued lines are higher.
Delivery times are less than a week.
i know that gmsarli games (http://www.gmsarligames.com/catalog/) has d&d miniatures and he packages them in encounter packs... might not be much of a stretch to gather up a bunch of singles and put them in packs for the game... i thought that the star wars miniatures did the endor pack and that it sold pretty well so it might not be too far of a stretch to see the modules supported in a similar fashion. then again, i don't know much about miniatures beyond their use for my rpg games.
Of course WoTC stands to make a financial gain with D&D minis sold in random packs when it comes to their CMG.
And secondly there seems to be loads of PnP D&D players who clamor for the minis to be sold in adventure packs (or something like that).
With the move of 4e to obviously be made for minis use you figure that at least they would sell either adventure packs (say for H1, H2, H3, etc..) or at the very least encounter packs (Heroic-Tier Skeletal Assault with 12 skellies in it mixed between archers and swords) so that at least you could get something you might find useful in your campaigns.
It they certainly kept the packs to what is in a module or to groups of common monsters for each tier level, I don't think it would add much imbalance at all to the CMG.
It seems that sells of the mins would increase from all fronts. I tried the CMG approach in 3.5 to adding to my game....failed horribly since I could not get enough of one monster type or another...so it ended up being like the game in their short film announcing 4e where the players were asking about which monster the eraser was and the fuzzball.....except now they were going...so the extra 2 worgs are really 2 more gargoyles?
I think they could even price adventure packs a based on the adventure itself because I am certain that some would require more minis than others....but until then 4e for me will be played with tokens. I am sad to see them (WoTC) miss a great opportunity
Buying the booster packs for the D&D rpg as opposed to the CMG doesn't make much sense, granted. But honestly, I don't see the reason for the handwringing behind the decision not to release encounter packs. Not when you can easily visit one of the websites that sell individual minis and simply build your own encounter packs.
Maybe I'm missing something, but could someone please explain to me why this option is unpalatable?
Even being able to buy minis in singles, won't solve the problem of not having a mini to buy.
EDIT: As for the issue of making money and random creatures, start selling the miniature stat cards in card packs, like TCG packs, instead of in boxes with figures. Make those 8 cards random.
Next sell your miniatures without cards, lower cost packs, bags and bundles. Including adventure packs if you want. In this way, the CMG players are still dealing with randomness, if you don't have an official card for mini, the mini is not CMG playable. On the flip side, we (the RPG crowd) can buy our box of orcs, or whatever and not deal with the random issue.
The other issue with this isn't just the randomness of the boxes, but its the randomness of the creatures they even produce.
Even being able to buy minis in singles, won't solve the problem of not having a mini to buy.
EDIT: As for the issue of making money and random creatures, start selling the miniature stat cards in card packs, like TCG packs, instead of in boxes with figures. Make those 8 cards random.
Next sell your miniatures without cards, lower cost packs, bags and bundles. Including adventure packs if you want. In this way, the CMG players are still dealing with randomness, if you don't have an official card for mini, the mini is not CMG playable. On the flip side, we (the RPG crowd) can buy our box of orcs, or whatever and not deal with the random issue.
Like it or not, this isn't and won't be WotC model. They tried this with several lines, and discontinued them. They've stuck with the CMG route, and say they intend to continue this style. they've said:
It reduces production cost over time (you make a mold, produce it for a limited run, discontinue it and make new ones). Even if a model is popular, you don't need to worry about making more of them. you can male another version later for another set, though. While your design costs seem like they would be higher, the production costs of having only 60 miniatures at a time being made is a much greater cost savings.
For retailers, only having to stock a handful of SKUs makes ordering & stocking much easier. They only order boosters of the current set (and maybe the one past), plus the starter set. No worrying about how many orcs to order versus how many goblins, or giants, or warriors,etc.
These factors keep the line profitable & producing. There is a healthy secondary market, plus eBay.
For those who don't want this model, for pre-painted minis, hope the Reaper line takes off & doies better than it has so far!
Obviously I'm expecting undead but I'm wondering if anyone knows anything more specific than that.
Anyhelp would be appreciated. Cheers.
Mike Mearls put up a post in the thread Miniature Packs elsewhere in this forum, explaining WoTCs reasons for not releasing minis in encounter packs.
Buying the booster packs for the D&D rpg as opposed to the CMG doesn't make much sense, granted. But honestly, I don't see the reason for the handwringing behind the decision not to release encounter packs. Not when you can easily visit one of the websites that sell individual minis and simply build your own encounter packs.
Maybe I'm missing something, but could someone please explain to me why this option is unpalatable?
Yes, I can explain why from personal experience. Some of these website you can order singles from are very nice, but even so, its very hard to search for the exact mini that you need. Most of them are non-intuitive, and list the minis by set. I don't care what sets they are in, I just want to see all your Hobgoblins. Additionally, often these places will have (1-3) in stock, and thats it. What if I want just 12 generic skeletons? I've had a hard time finding exactly what I'm looking for.
To further complicate this problem, many of the "basic" miniatures (like just a skeleton with a sword) were in the first set, and they are drastically more expensive.
So, in conclusion, I can tell you that wanting to buy "singles" minis from a website is still not user friendly, and it would be really awesome if WotC chose to do some prepackaged sets aimed towards D&D players. I wouldn't even care if the base was a special color or something and they weren't tournament legal (so the D&DM collectors wouldn't get upset). I just don't wanna buy random minis. So I'll stick to Ral Partha, so that I can get the exact minis I want. I would prefer the plastic, prepainted, open and go D&D minis, but alas WotC has no plans to do this at this time (though Mike Mearles did say they have tossed the idea around a bit).
Yes, I can explain why from personal experience. Some of these website you can order singles from are very nice, but even so, its very hard to search for the exact mini that you need. Most of them are non-intuitive, and list the minis by set. I don't care what sets they are in, I just want to see all your Hobgoblins. Additionally, often these places will have (1-3) in stock, and thats it. What if I want just 12 generic skeletons? I've had a hard time finding exactly what I'm looking for.
To further complicate this problem, many of the "basic" miniatures (like just a skeleton with a sword) were in the first set, and they are drastically more expensive.
So, in conclusion, I can tell you that wanting to buy "singles" minis from a website is still not user friendly, and it would be really awesome if WotC chose to do some prepackaged sets aimed towards D&D players. I wouldn't even care if the base was a special color or something and they weren't tournament legal (so the D&DM collectors wouldn't get upset). I just don't wanna buy random minis. So I'll stick to Ral Partha, so that I can get the exact minis I want. I would prefer the plastic, prepainted, open and go D&D minis, but alas WotC has no plans to do this at this time (though Mike Mearles did say they have tossed the idea around a bit).
Seriously, try the Reaper Legendary encounter pre-paints, if that is what you want. They do have skeletons, orcs and some others, and will be adding another batch soon.
Yes, you are right about how the secondary market works. You can look through all the set gallerys (links from the D&D miniature page), and select what minis you're wanting. This would give you the name & set of the minis, making looking for them on the secondary market easier. But you're correct that they do get harder to find over time. There have been a lot of skeletons, orcs, etc. made, though, so if you start by looking at the most recently released sets and looking backwards, you have a better chance of finding minis you want that you could find the most of and at the best price. There are a couple of sites that have them in large numbers, PM me if you would want the names & links.
It is too bad that there doesn't seem to be a way WotC can find to sell their minis in a non-random way, but that is actually the typical industry standard for plastic pre-painted minis. Makes it very hard on folks who don't want to buy in bulk or on the secondary market.
I understand why WotC released them in random packs, since they were trying to reach two markets with one product, but I think the random aspect is really frustrating to a lot of D&D RPG players. Fortunately there are lots of other companies who can offer us what we're looking for, so we may have to settle for those.