D&D Miniatures news

[MerricB]

For those who haven't been paying attention to the Wizards boards or my website, here is the latest news from the land of D&D Miniatures:

Giants of Legend
* Huge packs will contain 1 Huge, 1 Rare, 3 Uncommons, 4 Commons.
* A Huge pack will cost $19.99
* The Huge will either be one of 6 "Rare" huge figures (25%) or one of 6 "Common" huge figures (75%).
* The Huge Red Dragon is one of the Rare Huge figures.
* There will be 23 normal Rare figures in the set, instead of 20.
* There will be 21 Uncommon figures in the set, instead of 24.
* There will be 16 common figures in the set, as normal. (The counts for Uncommons and Common figures are speculation, but I rate them as extremely likely).
* There is a "King" amongst the rare figures; most likely it will be King Bruenor from the Forgotten Realms books by R.A.Salvatore.

Aberrations
* This is a new starter set. It contains both Starter packs and Expansion packs. The price is going up in this set.
* Starter packs will contain 12 figures (down from 16), but the price will remain the same - $19.99. They will also contain 8 new terrain tiles, a revised rulebooks. The look of the stat cards are also being redesigned.
* Expansion packs will contain 8 figures (as before), but the price will increase to $12.99
* Mike Donais has said that the set is the best Limited set so far, and is designed to support both 100 point and 200 point constructed games.
* Mike Donais on the redesigned stat cards: "We increased the readability across the table of the important numbers. We also improved the graphical design and look and feel. We also managed to put the sketch on both sides to make it quicker to determine which card goes with which mini. The sketches are not in full color because that would increase the costs and we wanted to provide as much as we could without increasing the costs. The faction symbols are color coded now for faster recognition and sorting."

Death Knell
* This will be the sixth set. It is currently in design. (The name might change, but it does denote a certain number of Undead in it, doesn't it!)

Chainmail Compatibility
* Downloadable Stat Cards that allow you to use your Chainmail figures in official D&D Miniatures tournaments have been posted for the first set of the D&D Miniatures game: Harbinger.
* Dragoneye figures will be added in May
* Archfiends figures will be added in June

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Fan reaction to the tiered Huge figure rarity in Giants of Legend:

As one might expect, there has been a huge uproar on the Wizards boards upon learning that not all Huge figures have the same rarity - and furthermore, that the rarity variance happens in the Huge slot.

Before posting your disapproval of this matter, I urge you to read the following threads:

* 2 Huge rarity levels for GoL? - the main discussion thread
* On Huge Figures in Future Sets - my take on the issue
* In Praise of Wizards - to thank Wizards for everything they've done right so far.

Cheers!

 

[ph34r]

Rare AND Common huge figures? Some of these could be useful to have numerous copies of but some of the others are just gonna be taking up shelf space. This might not be so bad in regards to the actual minis game but having numerous copies of some of the huge minis isn't that great if you just use them for your D&D game. It really doesn't bother me all that much though. I couldn't afford many of these when they were $9.99 much less now that they've increased the price on them. :\

 

[MerricB]

It's a troublesome subject. Without actually knowing the actual figures in the list, it's hard to get a good handle on the situation.

Cheers!

 

[ph34r]

Are they doing normal packs also with the Giants of Legend set or just the huge packs?

 

[MerricB]

Are they doing normal packs also with the Giants of Legend set or just the huge packs?

Just the Huge packs. There are problems with doing normal packs as well - mainly due to questions of how many to stock and suchlike.

Cheers!

 

[Crothian]

So, has any place started selling the individuals?

 

[ph34r]

Just the Huge packs. There are problems with doing normal packs as well - mainly due to questions of how many to stock and suchlike.

Cheers!

*sighs*

Even if I could afford to buy some I doubt I would get the huge packs. Now knowing that there is no regular packs I'll most likely not ever get any of the Giants of Legend minis. Except of course if I see a particular mini that I like and have to break down and buy it on ebay or some other site. Maybe I can find someone to trade me MtG for D&D minis...but that's wishful thinking!

 

[Gizzard]

Well, well. I'm trying to figure what the secondary market is going to be like after this; it seems like it might not be that bad?

Basically, each unopened box costs twice as much as before, but contains either one (75%) or two (25%) "rare" figures. Assuming an even market, then prices would rise about 25% for an average "rare". That's probably $12.50 or so as a new baseline price. Of course there's no even market; some figures like the Huge Red will command a significant premium. I can't imagine even that going over $40 though, since rarity-wise it's only as hard to get as any other desirable rare ever has been. (Which means about $20 in the current store pricing heirarchy).

I suspect the Huge commons will have some premium for a while, but there are going to be a ton of them on the market, so I bet they won't be able to maintain high prices.

Just my guesses. ;-)

 

[MerricB]

So, has any place started selling the individuals?

From the three sets released so far? Absolutely. I know www.popularcollections.com comes up a lot, but there are plenty of other places online, and there's also e-bay and maxminis.com

Cheers!