Upcoming Changes to D&D Minis Line

[Jeff Wilder]

Too many of them seem like they're never going to see use, except as battlemat filler when there are a lot of minions to be fought.

I can definitely understand this, especially since most normal people have a budget. Speaking for myself, though, I tend to use the "WTF?!" minis as inspiration for encounters. In other words, although i usually want minis to use with encounters I build, I sometimes build encounters so I can use specific minis.

A grey and white spotted unicorn?

Ehn, there's no winning on this one. There was a perfectly serviceable white unicorn in an early set, and it went over like a lead balloon. Selling a unicorn is an uphill battle, I think. (I do like the black unicorn idea ... hmmm, Runelord, I know one of the minis that'll be in my next repaint batch!) I'm also told that the appaloosa unicorn looked much better in-hand than in photos, and given how much better the Aboleth Slime Mage looks in-hand (seriously, it's laughable in the pics), I'm willing to believe it. I still didn't buy one, though.

The big problem for me now is storage and then retrieval when I need them for games.

If you have shelf space, you just can't beat card-houses and 801 boxes. I have about 40 different categories for my Medium and Small minis, and my 2000+ piece (just Mediums and smaller) mini collection takes up about half of a moderate-sized bookshelf.

 

[darjr]

I inherited 54 copies of that figure when I took over as lead. They watch over my cube.

Uh... PICTURES!

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Hmmm, I do not but DnD minis mainly because of the price. Most games I play in just use some old Mage Knight minis, which of course, do not always represent the monster that the PCs are fighting, but eh, that is what imagination is for. Of course, if I could, I would not hesitate to acquire large amounts of minis that represent the types of monsters I want to throw at the PCs.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Since we're discussing possible changes to DDM:

How would people feel about Descent-style unpainted minis molded in colored plastic?

How would you feel if minis were dropped entirely, and instead we had creature tokens made out of the same material as Dungeon Tiles, possibly with little plastic bases to stand them up with?

I have no knowledge of WotC's plans, I'm just curious how either of these two options would go over with folks. The unpainted minis would likely be cheaper than prepaints (though I'm not sure by how much) and the creature tokens would likely be an order of magnitude cheaper.

 

[rgard]

Did you passed the fantastic Remorhaz??? Heretic!

We have two. One of my favorite D&D critters of all time.

 

[Mark]

How is that any different from what he said? Do I need to quote him all over again?

They have a new vision for the minis line (presumably based on how their customers use minis, since that's how businesses work), and they can't say anything more about it now but they'll let you know.

I mean, really, guys. It's like you've got nothing better to complain about, so instead of finding something reasonable to do, you decide to gripe about how excited the D&D guys are about an upcoming product line.

They might be worried about being scooped by one of the other D&D prepainted minis companies. Certainly since they foresaw and know exactly why the previous problems occurred there's no need to discuss any plans in advance to avoid another problem.

Here's a thought or two or more . . . 20 orcs (ten ranged and ten melee) for ten bucks, 20 hobgoblins for ten bucks, etc. Reuse some molds already in existence and churn out enough so there's plenty for everyone. Can I search around online and dig up some here and there? Sure. But they'd sell plenty more of them in this format.

 

[Dausuul]

Ehn, there's no winning on this one. There was a perfectly serviceable white unicorn in an early set, and it went over like a lead balloon. Selling a unicorn is an uphill battle, I think. (I do like the black unicorn idea ... hmmm, Runelord, I know one of the minis that'll be in my next repaint batch!)

Unicorns are all well and good, but come on - how often are you ever gonna put a unicorn on the battlemat? Unless you've got an evil party or an evil unicorn, it ain't too likely. And even if you do, you're only ever apt to need one.

For that matter, how often are you ever gonna put a unicorn in your game at all? D&D doesn't really do unicorns. They're in the manual because they're a big thing in fantasy and the designers feel obligated to include them, but the game has never made much effort to do anything with them.

Now, if 4E had rules for unicorns as ranger companions, or paladin mounts, you might see some action on a unicorn mini. Although 3E had rules for those things and it didn't help, so maybe not.

 

[S'mon]

Since we're discussing possible changes to DDM:

How would people feel about Descent-style unpainted minis molded in colored plastic?

How would you feel if minis were dropped entirely, and instead we had creature tokens made out of the same material as Dungeon Tiles, possibly with little plastic bases to stand them up with?

I have no knowledge of WotC's plans, I'm just curious how either of these two options would go over with folks. The unpainted minis would likely be cheaper than prepaints (though I'm not sure by how much) and the creature tokens would likely be an order of magnitude cheaper.

Unpainted plastics are good for cheap mooks I can quickly slap some paint on; eg I recently got 30 em-4 orc minis (Crystal Caste distribute in US) for my game. They're unpainted hard plastic and cost 20p each. At around 20p/30 cents each I will buy lots of mook type figures, but I'm not going to pay the 75p I'd pay for a nicely painted plastic mook, or the £1.25 I'd pay for a nice painted Medium 'character' figure I wanted (eg the Cormyrean War Wizard). I'm not sure if WoTC would want to produce at that kind of price point since I expect their Chinese painting services are pretty cheap.

Counters are nice and I would buy a set of good thick counters, reasonably priced (Dungeon Tiles sort of pricing level is ok), with nice art on them. Where for unpainted minis I'm looking for common critters like orcs and human soldiers, with counters the top priority is weird exotics, especially Large and Huge monsters. I may well get Claudio Pozas' Paragon Tier counter collection at some point for just this reason.

My experience of stand-up cardboard minis is *not* good. They don't look right when set beside 3d minis; the effect is jarring where for some reason 2d counters and 3d minis mix fine on a 2d battlemat. I think it might be an Uncanny Valley effect. 2d standups also have much poorer visibility than counters, from side angles they are nearly invisible.

 

[DaveMage]

Since we're discussing possible changes to DDM:

How would people feel about Descent-style unpainted minis molded in colored plastic?

How would you feel if minis were dropped entirely, and instead we had creature tokens made out of the same material as Dungeon Tiles, possibly with little plastic bases to stand them up with?

Not interested in either.

 

[avin]

Unicorns are all well and good, but come on - how often are you ever gonna put a unicorn on the battlemat? Unless you've got an evil party or an evil unicorn, it ain't too likely. And even if you do, you're only ever apt to need one.

Untrue.

We had unicorns in two situations, bot good or unaligned parties.

First, the usual cliché "good crit gone mad", the players had to take down a guardian unicorn, then find a replacement.

Second, another game, players (unaligned to good) were put in a dilemma: they need to get an unicorn horn to save the daughter of a friend of them. Choices made, they decided to hunt down and kill one to save her.