D&D Miniatures and Randomization

[MerricB]

G'day!

I've just bought two packs of Dragoneye, and I thought it might be interesting to do a little experiment. I'll list the contents of each, and you post which miniatures you'd be happy to get if you'd bought them.

This should be from the point of view of using them in a RPG.

The idea is to get a feel as to how much of a pack people normally find interesting.

Pack One:
Common: Hobgoblin Warrior
Common: Baaz Draconian
Common: Human Crossbowman
Common: Stonechild
Uncommon: Chitine
Uncommon: Dwarven Werebear
Uncommon: Urthok the Vicious (hobgoblin)
Rare: Eye of Gruumsh (orc)

My reaction:
Hobgoblin, Baaz, Crossbowman, Werebear, Urthok and Eye:
Stonechild and Chitine - don't want them.

Pack Two
Common A: Goblin Warrior
Common B: Abyssal Maw
Common C: Gnome Fighter
Common D: Dwarf Barbarian
Uncommon A: Kerwyn, Human Rogue
Uncommon B: Dwarven Werebear
Uncommon C: Druid of Obad-Hai
Rare: Black Dragon

My reaction:
Goblin, Kerwyn, Werebear, Druid, Black Dragon
Abyssal Maw, Gnome Fighter, Dwarf Barbarian

Cheers!

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Common: Baaz Draconian
Huh?

At any rate, I'm glad I don't do miniatures... If I ended up with the two packs you've listed, I'd have more unusable minis than usable.

 

[talinthas]

see, as a DL fanboy, i'd be thrilled at getting a draconian, and probably have to find some way to make the orc into a short ogre or something.
I'm not looking forwards to FR heavy archfiends, since while most things can be fit in to dragonlance pretty well, psions and drow really don't work no matter how you look at them.

 

[Etan Moonstar]

Pack One:
Common: Hobgoblin Warrior
Common: Baaz Draconian
Common: Human Crossbowman
Common: Stonechild
Uncommon: Chitine
Uncommon: Dwarven Werebear
Uncommon: Urthok the Vicious (hobgoblin)
Rare: Eye of Gruumsh (orc)

Pack Two
Common A: Goblin Warrior
Common B: Abyssal Maw
Common C: Gnome Fighter
Common D: Dwarf Barbarian
Uncommon A: Kerwyn, Human Rogue
Uncommon B: Dwarven Werebear
Uncommon C: Druid of Obad-Hai
Rare: Black Dragon

My reactions are:

Pack One: Definitely great to get hobgoblin warrior, human crossbowman, Urthok the vicious (makes a great hobgoblin leader), and Eye of Gruumsh (that is one intimidating orc)--these figures I can use regardless of the campaign I'm running. Baaz draconian and chitine are potentially great figures to have depending on the campaign I'm running--Dragonlance I'll want several baaz, Underdark I'll want a band of chitines. I don't mind having a stonechild (makes a decent young giant) or a dwarven werebear to cover the odd situation in which I'll use them, but I certainly don't want more than one of either.

Pack Two: Definitely great to get the goblin warrior and the black dragon. I don't mind having one of Kerwyn, the female gnome fighter, or the druid to use as PC minis or NPCs as the occasion may require, but again, I don't want a whole lot of them. It sucks that the dwarven werebear came in both packs; as mentioned, I don't need two of these. The abyssal maw is one of the weirdest figures I've ever seen; I don't really mind having one in case I want the players to run into something completely unexpected (especially in a campaign with Cthulhuesque overtones), and I wouldn't mind having a small band of them if I was running a campaign with frequent trips to the Abyss. The dwarf barbarian is a terrible sculpt compared to any of the other dwarf figures, and I could very happily do without it.

 

[Li Shenron]

This should be from the point of view of using them in a RPG.

The idea is to get a feel as to how much of a pack people normally find interesting.

Ok, I haven't bought any miniatures package and I probably won't unless I can buy them one by one and NOT randomly Therefore I may not be the right person to post here, but I think I am interested to know what miniatures-lovers think and feel about the randomization.

In particular, how do you feel about some of the being "common" or not? I have taken a look at the different series (Harbringer, Dragoneye, the coming Archfiend...) and sometimes I got the feeling that in WotC's opinion common=low-level. But it is really what DMs need? For example, why all those human or dwarf warriors, crossbowmen, archers which seems to be almost in every package? After your campaign is mid- or high- level, do you still face this kind of NPCs? Since also the most common campaign uses good-aligned PCs, it doesn't happen often to fight against other humans or demihumans but rather against evil monsters. Of course it helps that you can simply say the human crossbowman is a 10th level ranger if you want, but at least my players don't like killing humans or dwarves or elves.

In other words, why having so many indistinct humanoid which also don't make for good PCs? What do you think?

 

[diaglo]

okay my reaction:

i bought 60 packs of the Harbinger ---- 480 minis... 80 possible unique minis....which also means i have 60 rares... i'm still missing the medusa and the Cleric of Corellon Larethian

i bought 40 packs of the Dragoneye --- 320 minis... 60 possible unique minis...which also means i have 40 rares...i'm still missing the dwarven defender and the orc druid


my hat for the plastic random minis knows no limit


they are cheap plastic...you should be able to purchase the ones you want at a reasonable price. the paint jobs suXX0r.

 

[3catcircus]

okay my reaction:

i bought 60 packs of the Harbinger ---- 480 minis... 80 possible unique minis....which also means i have 60 rares... i'm still missing the medusa and the Cleric of Corellon Larethian

i bought 40 packs of the Dragoneye --- 320 minis... 60 possible unique minis...which also means i have 40 rares...i'm still missing the dwarven defender and the orc druid


my hat for the plastic random minis knows no limit


they are cheap plastic...you should be able to purchase the ones you want at a reasonable price. the paint jobs suXX0r.

In other words, you spent roughly $300-600 (assuming $5 min and $10 max per pack) on Harbinger and $200-$400 on Dragoneye and you still don't have every one of them...

 

[Wolffenjugend]

And you know what, you probably don't wanna know how the randomization is done. I'm no expert but I wouldn't be surprised if a certain batch of a specific mini was produced and put out in one shot and if you don't find that batch of product, you'll never get that one specific mini (unless you buy it from a secondary market).

Randomization sucks. I gave it up when I was kid. I'm an adult now - treat me like one.

 

[Creamsteak]

i bought 60 packs of the Harbinger ---- 480 minis... 80 possible unique minis....which also means i have 60 rares... i'm still missing the medusa and the Cleric of Corellon Larethian

i bought 40 packs of the Dragoneye --- 320 minis... 60 possible unique minis...which also means i have 40 rares...i'm still missing the dwarven defender and the orc druid

I've got two Cleric of Corellon and a Dwarven Defender... I might want to keep the DD, but having the extra Cleric is pretty pointless

 

[Darklone]

I have some friends in the area who all bought miniatures as well (20 packs Harbinger or so) and all still miss the same minis. Suxx.