DDM SKirmish has ended

[Eridanis]

To continue the Magic comparison: Yes, they do now print Mythic Rares as a level above "rare," but the quality of those cards - both artwork and playability - is very, very good. Similarly, if the new DDM approach of fewer-but-better really does give us better-looking minis, I'll be very inclined to start buying them again. (I stopped about a year and a half ago, due to quality dip and lack of spare money.)

 

[justanobody]

It will be a visible mini, since the visibles are all apparently Large minis. And if that mini looks poor to you (in terms of painting), I'm afraid your standards are probably too high for pre-painted minis.

With Peter Lee working with the minis, then yes I expect the standards to be high considering his work. You cannot take only 1% of his painting skill and apply it to a pre-painted mini. That would end up with just a base coated mini.

You need at least 15% of his skill applied to each mini to make it presentable as a professional product to sell and call it "painted", otherwise it might as well be molded color plastic rather than painted.

Quite frankly that is what that troll looks like. We need a green monster so mold the body from green plastic, the weapon from brown plastic, etc and assemble.

That isn't pre-painted, but colored plastic.

 

[Remathilis]

To continue the Magic comparison: Yes, they do now print Mythic Rares as a level above "rare," but the quality of those cards - both artwork and playability - is very, very good. Similarly, if the new DDM approach of fewer-but-better really does give us better-looking minis, I'll be very inclined to start buying them again. (I stopped about a year and a half ago, due to quality dip and lack of spare money.)

This doesn't seem too far from Star Wars Mini's system; commons (stormtrooper), Uncommon (Imperial Guard), Rare (C-3P0) or Very Rare (Luke Skywalker).

You got a couple commons, a 2-3 uncommons, and a rare or very rare in a pack.

 

[Logan_Bonner]

The people deciding the miniatures to include still need to get off the crack.

P1 is already out. So a figure for that set is coming out in how many months? Won't there be adventurers freshly coming out at about the same time?

WoTC's ability to cordinate the miniature releases with the adventurers released at a similiar time continues to be less than impressive.

Keep in mind the only reason Skalmad is in the set is that I was working on it and had an idea for the mini a month or two before we even started planning the adventure. Then, when the Feywild set was changed to fit the new scheme, the release date was pushed back. So the lead time on minis makes it extremely difficult to get the schedules to work out.

So we're trying, but making the schedules link up is very difficult.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Keep in mind the only reason Skalmad is in the set is that I was working on it and had an idea for the mini a month or two before we even started planning the adventure. Then, when the Feywild set was changed to fit the new scheme, the release date was pushed back. So the lead time on minis makes it extremely difficult to get the schedules to work out.

So we're trying, but making the schedules link up is very difficult.

Left Hand, I would like you to meet Right Hand.

Or as the old Billy Joel Shaver song goes, "Try, Try Again."

 

[MerricB]

Left Hand, I would like you to meet Right Hand.

Or as the old Billy Joel Shaver song goes, "Try, Try Again."

It'd be a lot easier for Wizards if the mini sets were designed after the adventures, but minis take a lot, lot longer to design, develop, etc.

 

[justanobody]

It'd be a lot easier for Wizards if the mini sets were designed after the adventures, but minis take a lot, lot longer to design, develop, etc.

Or design the adventures with the available miniatures. They should be able to coordinate with each other.

Start now with designing the adventurers to make sure you have the minis available for them when the adventure comes out rather than having the minis 1 year down the road when people will less likely be playing that adventure to be interested in buying those minis with it....

 

[The Little Raven]

Or design the adventures with the available miniatures.

This severely limits what they can do in adventures, especially since they can put out anywhere from 3-6 adventures in the time it takes to produce a single miniatures set.

It's easy to be an armchair producer with no practical experience in the matter and say how easy it is to coordinate the release schedules on products that have vastly different lead-in and development times.

When it comes down to "random forumite" and "professional designer who deals with this stuff every day in his job," I think the guy with actual experience might be slightly more informed on the subject.

 

[Peter Lee]

The people deciding the miniatures to include still need to get off the crack.

P1 is already out. So a figure for that set is coming out in how many months? Won't there be adventurers freshly coming out at about the same time?

WoTC's ability to cordinate the miniature releases with the adventurers released at a similiar time continues to be less than impressive.

Yup, you're right. I'm working on it. Here's the problem:

The miniature path is close to 18 months to go from concept to your FLGS's shelf. The path for getting a module from concept to your FLGS's shelf is a lot shorter. Skalmad was put into the pipeline before the module was written -- all that existed was a name for the module.

This is the biggest issue that the miniatures have as an RPG supplement. Take Dragonborn, for example -- to have miniatures coincide with the release of 4th edition, they needed to start down the miniature pipeline months before the concept art was even finished! We had three proto-draconborn slated for Dungeons of Dread that ended getting cut because it didn't match the concept art for the race.

We're trying to reduce the time to go from concept to market with these miniatures, but for now it's a very difficult problem.

 

[Peter Lee]

With Peter Lee working with the minis, then yes I expect the standards to be high considering his work. You cannot take only 1% of his painting skill and apply it to a pre-painted mini. That would end up with just a base coated mini.

You need at least 15% of his skill applied to each mini to make it presentable as a professional product to sell and call it "painted", otherwise it might as well be molded color plastic rather than painted.

Quite frankly that is what that troll looks like. We need a green monster so mold the body from green plastic, the weapon from brown plastic, etc and assemble.

That isn't pre-painted, but colored plastic.

While using colored plastic would potentially save a lot of potential deco, the problem is there are multiple figures in a single mold. This is the ultimate reason why I can't do transparent commons -- all the commons need to fit in one mold, so if I were to have transparent commons, all of them would result in being transparent. If I filled a mold with green plastic, I wouldn't have just one green monster in the set, I would end up having closer to 8 parts that would be that color.

The end result is a much more monochromatic set.