Felnar said:
(that all said, i really dont know much about DDM, what exactly is the difference between a starter and booster pack?)
A starter has more figures than a booster (4 more commons), A d20, some counters (hardly ever used them, to be honest), the rulebook, templates for the 4 areas of effect (radius 2, radius 4, and 2x cone - one straight and one 45°) and two doublesided maps.
humble minion said:
This is all true, as far as it goes. But in your example, when minis are packaged nonrandomly, the manufacturer can probably increase the number of minis sold to 6 or so out of 8, through market research and targeting the mini subjects to what customers actually want.
That would mean that you'd only get standard critters that will sell in numbers large enough to be viable.
Figures with less demand would be produced in smaller quantities, but the fixed costs would stay the same, so they'd have to sell them at a higher price, which would lower the demand further.
Seriously, a large percentage of minis are padding.
Don't think that I can sign that.
Some will become popular because they're powerful in the skirmish game, but in the final analysis, most skirmishers don't care what the mini looks like as long as the numbers on the card are big enough.
I still think that skirmishers are a minority. So ugly figure X is really good in skirmish, and every skirmisher wants 5, that still could mean that there would be less demand for it than for a figure that sucks in skirmish but is very pretty, and useful for skirmishers, and every roleplayer wants only one.
Also, skirmishers do want pretty minis. Go look at the Wizards DDM boards after the preview of an ugly figure (see several Wardrums figures, and Bloodwar's Marilith!)
If you look at the most expensive figures, you see a lot of stuff that is less than useful in skirmish: Drizzt pretty much sucks in skirmish, but people are selling their firstborn, various limbs and internal organs to get one. The Beholder is useful, but by far not the most useful LE critter, but one of the most expensive ones. And some of the oldest figures are quite expensive, too, but few of the oldest figures are of any use in Skirmish games.
do his damndest to only make minis that people actually want.
Insert "most" before "people" and you have a sentence there. So your newest character is a dwarven crossbow specialist? Tough luck, few people would buy such a figure, so the "Dwarf Sniper" wasn't made. Like 'loths? Sorry, but they're no core fiends, most people will rather use devils or demons, so no dice. Got a crazy idea: To escape cookie-cutterism by using an orc wizard? Well, that's just too crazy for most people, I guess your orc wizard will look decidedly human, or decidedly barbarianlike.
Blind Freddie would have known that everyone was going to hate the Bluespawn Godslayer
I like the Godslayer.
Kobold Monk when we already have piles of other kobolds.
The kobold thing is curious. We get an awful lot of them. I think it's because there's a disproportionate number of raving kobold fan-boys out there. Seriously, kobolds seem to be quite popular despite their laughable traits.
So chances are that we'd be drowned in kobolds even with non-random packaging.
We only need so many iterations of 'dwarf with axe'
Ah, the good old dwarf with axe situation. I agree with you. I totally agree. But that's not necessarily a random-distribution problem. It's more a problem of sculpt selection.
Non-random packaging, higher prices, a bit of bloody attention paid to what subjects people actually want, and a smaller range of minis that do not go permanently out of print at the end of their manufacturing runs (therefore not requiring displacer beast-esque reprints) would be my preference.
Well, how much are you willing to pay?
As much as you've got to pay on eBay, or more? Not that eBay is the only source for DDM figures where you can order just what you want.
What's so bad about ordering in an online shop, or at eBay? If it's an issue of trust, stick to big eBay shops with lots of positive feedback. Get advice about those here or over at Wizards, or at Maxminis, or at Hordelings.
You can get your orc pack there, probably for less than you'd have paid for an official Wizards orc pack. Some critters aren't cheap, but you already said that you accept higher prices.
That way, everyone gets what he wants: You get your minis-on-demand, and others get their random, but quite cheap minis with a huge selection and exotic models.
That wouldn't be possible the other way around: Noone would buy blister packs of minis, put them randomly in a bag, and sell those as "boosters" half off (at least not until they'd have gathered dust for months in the shelves, and that is less likely since they're only doing figures that are highly in demand), noone would do those exotic figures.
But of course that's all from my perspective, and I'm a roleplayer. I have a sneaking suspicion the DDM range is run by and for skirmish gamers these days.
I still think that Roleplayers are the majority here. Many picked up the skirmish game, too, but they're still Roleplayers first and foremost.
That doesn't mean that they'll only cater to roleplayers, though.
And I doubt that they do the current scheme with random figures because we have more skirmishers - they like to get specific pieces as much as us roleplayers.
In fact, skirmishers are much more likely to shop solely for singles: not all DDM figures are that good in skirmish. there's always several that just don't cut it, that are inferior to other pieces both recent and old. And even if a figure is useful, you don't need that many of them. More than a couple of each mini is seldomly used, as you need to build your warband with the proper synergies, you need commanders, maybe tech, screeners, fodder, beaters/titans.
In fact, it's often that warbands built around one type of figure being used in duplicate, triplicate, or even quadruplicate are built with rare figures x2 - x4. And you hardly ever succeed getting the rare you need 4 times by buying boosters/cases.
So those skirmishers buy the rares they need (simetimes more than one), get one or two of those uncommons that are good (sometimes more, maybe), and some commons.
Remember/know that a warband contains no more than 8 figures, unless you use figures that can summon other figures, or maybe have minions.
Plus, it's much more likely for a skirmisher to concentrate on one faction than a roleplayer to concentrate on one alignment.
So let's see:
From a set of 60, say only 20-30 will be useful for skirmishers (a lot less if we're talking about someone who limits himself to one faction) getting them in quantities of 1-4 based solely on skirmish values, totalling often 60 or less figures from a set.
The roleplayer doesn't care about skirmish stats, can often find use for most figures in the course of his campaign (or his friends'), will often have use of weak figures in large quantities, and needs all alignments - good ones for PCs, NPCs, allies, and the rest for enemies and villains. That means he can get a case (12 boosters) and find use for most of it in a campaign (what with using the occasional proxy). He'll see what he can get and add choice pieces from the secondary market.
