Man, Lords of Madness are looking awesome!!

[Peter Lee]

Honestly, all the PC races other than Human, Elf, and Dwarf are underrepresented. (And I challenge you to find a female dwarf spellcaster before this set.)

Let's just take Dragonborn, Deva, Shardmind, Wilden, Genasi, Mul, and Thri-kreen as the most unrepresented. For me to do a caster/warrior version of each sex for these races, it's a minimum of 26 minis - almost half the set. For a product that primarily aimed at DMs, that's just too many. These days I can justify around 5, especially those that can do double duty as monsters/villains.

For this set, we have the Dragonborn spellcaster. I'd love to do more -- heck, I'd love to do a thousand minis a year -- but it's just not possible.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Honestly, all the PC races other than Human, Elf, and Dwarf are underrepresented. (And I challenge you to find a female dwarf spellcaster before this set.)

Let's just take Dragonborn, Deva, Shardmind, Wilden, Genasi, Mul, and Thri-kreen as the most unrepresented. For me to do a caster/warrior version of each sex for these races, it's a minimum of 26 minis - almost half the set. For a product that primarily aimed at DMs, that's just too many. These days I can justify around 5, especially those that can do double duty as monsters/villains.

For this set, we have the Dragonborn spellcaster. I'd love to do more -- heck, I'd love to do a thousand minis a year -- but it's just not possible.

that's an interesting list, and I'm not saying your math is wrong.

but... ah, the dreaded but, the dragonborn is a core PHB character. There are more halflings and probably more PC sized minotaurs (since you know, WoTC has 'snuck' many PHB style races int othe mosnter sets.)

 

[Zaukrie]

Lords of Madness looks cool. Not sure it is the exact mix of minis I'd pick, but we are getting more minis, and they look good, and are mostly minis we don't have a lot of....that's the part I'm focusing on.

 

[Peter Lee]

Lords of Madness looks cool. Not sure it is the exact mix of minis I'd pick, but we are getting more minis, and they look good, and are mostly minis we don't have a lot of....that's the part I'm focusing on.

As always, I'm interested in hearing what people want. (What's wrong with the mix?)

 

[Dausuul]

that's an interesting list, and I'm not saying your math is wrong.

but... ah, the dreaded but, the dragonborn is a core PHB character. There are more halflings and probably more PC sized minotaurs (since you know, WoTC has 'snuck' many PHB style races int othe mosnter sets.)

*shrug* By the WotC definition, everything on that list except genasi is a core race. On the other hand, if your definition of "core" is "what's in the introductory book," then once D&D Essentials is released, "core races" will shrink to "humans, halflings, elves, and dwarves."

In the end, it doesn't matter what's core, it matters what people want to buy. Like I said--niche within a niche. This set has one dragonborn in it and I really doubt the demand warrants more than that.

 

[JoeGKushner]

You may be right but I've yet to play a game where someone wasn't playing a draognborn.

Game I was running featured a dragonborn warlord.

game a friend was running had dragonborn warlorck

Game I'm in now its a dragonborn wizard.

and among the younger crowd they seem pretty standard.

 

[Peter Lee]

That's my experience as well. 2 Dragonborn warlords, 1 dragonborn barbarian, and one dragonborn paladin. (Only one is played by someone under 25, and that's the 10 year old son of the DM.) The only game I'm in that doesn't have a Dragonborn is Mike's lunchtime Elemental Evil game.

 

[humble minion]

It's also worth remembering that miniature sets are one of the few products that WotC can still market to the 3.xe/PF adherents, and that market segment is going to be actively discouraged from buying a set if it contains a large percentage of shardminds, dragonborn etc. I'm not sure it's a major consideration, but it's there, and I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that there's been plenty of tieflings (which can easily be used as tieflings or half-fiends in a 3.x/pf game) in recent sets, but few dragonborn, which are a little less directly convertable.

But that's all boring, and I'm much more interested in the new minis! Very nice set, especially the huges. I'm running Savage Tide, and almost the only thing they could have done to improve the set is to replace Yeenoghu with Demogorgon (maybe next time? *puppy dog eyes*) I'll be wanting to snag a couple of bebeliths, a couple of nalfeshnees, a brain in a jar, hydra, blue dragon, blood fiends, rot grubs, an efreet or three, the dwarf beguiler (it's been AGES since the last dwarf wizard-type!), a roc, a cloaker, Yeenoghu, some scorpions and thri-kreen, and maybe a fomorian or two just because they look good, even though I don't know what to do with them. Wouldn't throw out Dispater or Mephistopheles if I happened across them either.

This is a good set. Practical, from a gamer's perspective, and not as stuffed full of 'dwarf with axe' and 'elf with bow' types that we've seen dozens of in older sets (though that was probably partly due to the necessity of having a reasonable selection of Good-aligned minis in a set back when the skirmish game was a consideration). Mix of 4e monsters (some of which I can adapt, but most I can take or leave to be honest, but they were always going to be there) and stuff which has been core D&D since forever. And while I'm not a particular fan of shadar-kai or neogi, it's good to have multiple minis of relatively obscure monster races in a set like this - it makes it easier for a DM to accumulate the minis for a varied encounter. Wouldn't want to overdo it (the dozen or so spawn of Tiamat back in War of the Dragon Queen were particularly annoying) but I think the principle is good.

The minis line went through a really grim phase for a while there, but with the last set or two it looks like things are starting to get back on track. Kudos.

 

[AngryMojo]

You may be right but I've yet to play a game where someone wasn't playing a draognborn.

See, that's the exact opposite of what I've seen. I've seen total two, a paladin in the first 4e game I ran because it was the KotS pregen, and one barbarian later on for three sessions. I see mostly humans, with a few elves, dwarves, eladrin and tieflings thrown in for spice.

 

[JoeGKushner]

See, that's the exact opposite of what I've seen. I've seen total two, a paladin in the first 4e game I ran because it was the KotS pregen, and one barbarian later on for three sessions. I see mostly humans, with a few elves, dwarves, eladrin and tieflings thrown in for spice.

ah yes, you are correct, the first 4e game I ran with the prebuild dragonborn. Missed that one.