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Dear Hasbro: about those minis

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delericho said:
Yeah, that was initially part of the DDM plan. However, as you said, it was pulled. The reason given (IIRC) was that the randomised packs were so popular!

It wasn't ordered in sufficient quantity by distributors, as I recall.

Cheers!
 

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So why don't we get some mini modelers, and contact that plastic factory in China and start churning out minis?

We won't need to make stat cards or none of that, just a bunch of cheap plastic (pre-painted) minis. We could even maybe make a deal with metal mini mfg's and use existing minis to make the molds...even cheaper!

Who's with me!?!
 

Someone mentioned something about the Dwarf Sniper not being released, yet I'm looking at one right here in my hand. It's got to be one of the ugliest mini's I've ever seen, as well as something what probably won't see use in my games.

I have the Bluespawn Godslayer, as well. The name is stupid, but as a beastie for D&D I think it's one of the coolest mini's I have. It has a really slick look to it.
 

BroccoliRage said:
I have the Bluespawn Godslayer, as well. The name is stupid, but as a beastie for D&D I think it's one of the coolest mini's I have. It has a really slick look to it.
i've got two of them thanks to the random nature of distribution. as an EPic it won't see use in my current campaign for at least 10 years real time


edit: in other words, i never would have bought it. EVAR.
 

werk said:
So why don't we get some mini modelers, and contact that plastic factory in China and start churning out minis?

We won't need to make stat cards or none of that, just a bunch of cheap plastic (pre-painted) minis. We could even maybe make a deal with metal mini mfg's and use existing minis to make the molds...even cheaper!

Who's with me!?!

Assuming you're not just being silly...

Cheap is relative. The start-up costs for an operation like this are pretty substantial. Unless someone's got tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars burning a hole in their pocket, this is a pipe dream.
 

kenobi65 said:
Assuming you're not just being silly...

Cheap is relative. The start-up costs for an operation like this are pretty substantial. Unless someone's got tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars burning a hole in their pocket, this is a pipe dream.

You got something against pipes? ...I mean dreams?

I'm just saying, it seems like there is a market. Online marketing/distribution. Doesn't seem too bad to me, but maybe that's because I work at GE and push big numbers around all day.

Anyone know someone I should call to get started with this?

EDIT: I do know people with that much money burning a hole in their pocket looking for investments :)
 

For the record, WotC has released a pre-painted plastic mini, nonrandom, "scenario-focused" pack.

It's called Attack on Endor.

It includes one of the single most-desired minis, and AT-ST (a Huge Rare that was seemingly rarer than most). You'll note that, contrary to just about every other non-current set, it has not yet sold out at the distributor level.

As a market experiment, it does not seem to have succeeded quite like WotC would have hoped.
 

So most people on this thread seem to agree that in a nonrandom model, WotC probably wouldn't make very many obscure minis. And I'm not seeing many calls for WotC to individually package the valuable rares.

Many people do, however, seem to think WotC can and should create theme packs based around common minis, like orcs or skeletons. Although it's counter-intuitive, this is just as problematic as releasing rare minis individually.

A common such as an orc or skeleton, on its own, isn't particuarly valuable, as compared to a rare (say, a beholder). (And by "valuable," I mean both "worth more money" and "perceived as being a cool, desirable, boss-monster type at the gaming table.")

But a group of commons, together, really are comparable--as is evidenced by how many people here claim to want such groups. Take away the desire to collect a bunch of orcs, and you undermine the value of a randomized booster just as much as if you take away the desire to collect a single beholder.

And again, the problems that I outlined in my earlier post remain just as valid. How many of these common packs should WotC introduce? A pack of orcs? Skeletons? Adventurers? How about goblins? Kobolds?

Follow this path and WotC either has to: A) produce just one or two products, which would make a couple people on this thread happy but simply further piss off those guys who want nonrandom commons but didn't get the ones they want, or B) produce a handful--or a bunch--of products, and run into all the distribution problems I talked about before.

If WotC produced, say, ten different common assortments over the next year, how many would your local store carry? If they ordered the wrong amount (or their distributor did, or WotC did), how much dead product would be introduced into the channel, to increase prices or run the risk of a glut? How much demand would there be here on the ENworld boards for WotC to make it 15 sets next year?

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your non-random products are. Even collections of commons have the capacity to screw up a system that currently delivers minis to us gamers very, very efficiently.
 

My apologies. No, trying to make a buck isn't evil, but that whole randomizing idea was darnit! This is D&D not Magic: The Gathering, I quit M:tG because I wanted to avoid the nuances of random packs and the drain they make on my wallet :p If you take this comment to seriously you need to slap yourself with a silly stick.
 

diaglo said:
see the minis are so bad i can't tell.

It's not the minis, it's your eyes. That gnome has boobs and long hair, for Garl's sake!

kenobi65 said:
Several years ago, early on in the DDM saga, WotC announced they were going to do exactly what many of you are asking for: it was going to be a non-random pack of 10 or so orcs (multiples of several different sculpts, IIRC). For whatever reason, it was pulled from the release schedule after being announced.

I think you can even see that one on Amazon.

diaglo said:
as an EPic it won't see use in my current campaign for at least 10 years real time

They're epic in the DDM sense of the word, not like D&D defines it. Their CR is 11. They should be possible to defeat starting at level 8 or something like that.

You really should try higher levels, they aren't that bad :p

But tell me something: If you have no use for high-level critters, why did you buy not one but apparently several WotDQ boosters? Each of them has a huge mini, and most of them have a higher CR than the Bluespawn (unless I missed one, only two of them have a lower CR, that's two CR7 critters)
 

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