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Joe, if you want firm numbers, 6 dragonborn miniatures have been killed because of concept art, sketch, and sculpting issues. Most of these figures were killed before I arrived at the company so I don't have the full story, but I do know around half of those figures were killed because they were based off concept art that didn't work out.
For Legendary Evils, the production time for miniatures was around 18 months. (It's much sorter now.) It's probably 16-15 months after the sketch phase was complete. Art is one of the first things done for miniatures, and one of the last things done for an RPG product.
Wrong huge set, it was WotDQ. Also, there's the Greenspawn Zealot, Redspawn Arcanis for other Dragonborn roles that work well and are fairly recent uncommons. Later sets include Defender, Paladin and Myrmidon. There is no "dearth" of Dragonborn.
I'm a huge fan of this set (no pun intended). All the visible minis are huge and they are all great minis to get. A Huge Blue Dragon instead of a Huge Iron Dragon would have been nice but I can deal. The people at WotC definitely hit a home run with this set.
I'm not really impressed about having to pay the same amount for 8 less minis (40 minis per case compared to 48 minis per case in the last huge set), but at least I know that (excluding a packaging stuff-up) I can be sure of getting one of each Huge mini. And if the minis look better than previous huge sets then it should be worth it.
I'll definitely be buying a case of these.
Olaf the Stout
__________________
Currently running my group through the Shackled City Adventure Path
Joe, if you want firm numbers, 6 dragonborn miniatures have been killed because of concept art, sketch, and sculpting issues. Most of these figures were killed before I arrived at the company so I don't have the full story, but I do know around half of those figures were killed because they were based off concept art that didn't work out.
For Legendary Evils, the production time for miniatures was around 18 months. (It's much sorter now.) It's probably 16-15 months after the sketch phase was complete. Art is one of the first things done for miniatures, and one of the last things done for an RPG product.
Thanks for the information.
From a fan standpoint, it just seems very weird that there are so many pose style illustrations win the RPG, some of them 1+ year old on the shelves now, and still issues with that part of the process. As someone just reading what's typed about the process, you'd think there would be far more synergry between the two (RPG/Miniature.)
I'm not really impressed about having to pay the same amount for 8 less minis (40 minis per case compared to 48 minis per case in the last huge set), but at least I know that (excluding a packaging stuff-up) I can be sure of getting one of each Huge mini.
There are two other things you can be sure of:
All of the minis will be monsters.
All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
[Three things! The three things you can be sure of . . . I'll come in again.] The number of paint steps (and hence, presumably, the quality of the paint jobs) is higher.
The first two alone are worth the price of admission, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay for 40 minis I'm really likely to want instead of 48 minis I might want.
The minotaur minis are meant for player use. Ghaelee of Winter? Yeah, that's a PC. Drow? And with previews of PHBIII, the giths of different races will probably be PC types as well.
In the current set, the number of paint steps doesn't seem to be vastly superior to older models on every figure. Bloodseeker Drake, Kruthik, Blood Scarab, Clay Golem and several others look to be primarily one color.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlesRyan
There are two other things you can be sure of:
All of the minis will be monsters.
All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
[Three things! The three things you can be sure of . . . I'll come in again.] The number of paint steps (and hence, presumably, the quality of the paint jobs) is higher.
The first two alone are worth the price of admission, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay for 40 minis I'm really likely to want instead of 48 minis I might want.
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
Secret Member of <Think we would just hide our secret with a spoiler tag, eh?>
It is a monster manual creature. And so are the Minotaurs.
Most humanoid monsters can also be used for players, of course.
True to both.
But all the minis are not monsters.
Monsters are things that won't wind up being used as players.
Narrow definition but that's what I'm rolling with.
Edit: And the reason I say that is because Humans are also a Monster Manual creature. As are Elves, Eladrin, etc... If the only defintion of monster is that it's in the Monster Manual, you're left with EVERYTHING being a monster.
The differenence between monster and PC miniatures is this:
PC miniatures are miniatures of playable races that are denoted with a class. Like "Warforged Artificer" vs "Bugbear Strangler". You might some day be able to play a Bugbear, but Strangler is not a class. No, you don't need to take this too seriously. Your definition might work, too. But it would mean that if I need humanoid monsters, I'd need to spend money for the Hero miniatures because they are not contained in the "Monster" Minis.
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
Secret Member of <Think we would just hide our secret with a spoiler tag, eh?>
All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
I take particular offense to this statement. Skirmish was about figure stats that were playable, not the actual mini itself. What, we skirmishers played some sort of different D&D with alternate races just to screw you over? Posts like this are why there was so much hatred towards misguided rpg-only types.
Joe, if you want firm numbers, 6 dragonborn miniatures have been killed because of concept art, sketch, and sculpting issues. Most of these figures were killed before I arrived at the company so I don't have the full story, but I do know around half of those figures were killed because they were based off concept art that didn't work out.
For Legendary Evils, the production time for miniatures was around 18 months. (It's much sorter now.) It's probably 16-15 months after the sketch phase was complete. Art is one of the first things done for miniatures, and one of the last things done for an RPG product.
Can I help?
I actually got info that the CAD sculpting make the sketches obsolete. If that's not the case, I'd love to contribute.
At what point in the development of the D&D 4e core rules did they know what Dragonborn were going to be a core race?
Ah, I get it now. You were asking me a question that was tangential to the point I was making (i.e. why there are repaints) and the answer to which I couldn't possibly know
All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
[Three things! The three things you can be sure of . . . I'll come in again.] The number of paint steps (and hence, presumably, the quality of the paint jobs) is higher.
The first two alone are worth the price of admission, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay for 40 minis I'm really likely to want instead of 48 minis I might want.
While I still don't like the fact that I am getting less minis for my money, I do like the way sets are done now a whole lot more. It really used to suck when half the rares you got in a case were humans, elves, halflings, etc. When that spot could have just as easily been a large dragon, beholder, or some other awesome monster you couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed. Now you know it will be nothing but monsters (or close to it - I don't want to buy into the monster/PC argument), which is definitely great.
The paint steps, I don't know about. I do know that this set looks better than the last one and definitely better than Demonweb. However that may be because the sculpts are better as the designers get used to creating the minis via CAD (I hope that was the reason for the downturn in mini quality because a couple of the sets after Unhallowed were pretty woeful).
I am also not sure if the minis in the spoilers are production minis or not (the pics are from an eBay auction so who knows if they are production minis or not). I'll reserve my final judgement until the minis are in hand. Things definitely look like they are on the way back up now though.
Olaf the Stout
__________________
Currently running my group through the Shackled City Adventure Path
Some nice stuff. Obviously, as a 3.5 dude, I can think of about squat to do with a bunch of Archons ("dress up day for elementals," is what I say), but I'm super happy about a beholder with ten stalks. I know they did that just for me. Nice green dragon... I'm glad they toned down the tree snake pointy nose thing.
As far as the PCs go, I'm not excited, but it does look like a better lot. I have no idea what I would do with a male halfling barbarian or the hillbilly ranger, but it's nice to see a little more variety. The human female warlord is welcome, but I can't shake the impression I've seen her before. Repaint? Reused pose? Does anyone know?
I don't understand the hate-on for that pointy nose on the Green Dragon. People don't complain about the Blue Dragon's huge nose horn (which looks a bit weird if you're not used to it), so why are they all up on Green Dragons?
I take particular offense to this statement. Skirmish was about figure stats that were playable, not the actual mini itself. What, we skirmishers played some sort of different D&D with alternate races just to screw you over? Posts like this are why there was so much hatred towards misguided rpg-only types.
Sorry to have caused offense.
I think any time a product line has to serve multiple masters, it ends up losing some focus and not serving any of them to perfection.
The DDM line now serves only one master. Hence, I believe it will now do a better job at serving that particular master, which was my point. Obviously, it will also do a worse job at serving the skirmish game master, and if you're into the skirmish game I can understand your frustration.
But for RPG players, this increased value offsets the increased price, at least in part.
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