New Miniatures... Info?

[Sammael]

Really? You really think it's that easy? Wow.

Safe to say I completely disagree with you. I hated the Nightwalker figure, but not because it was an uncommon mini, but rather because it was very silly looking. Had that mini rocked, it would have made a sweet pull in the uncommon slot. But, as Charles has pointed out, lots of factors go into this sort of thing. I really doubt the WotC's guys thought, "Hey, this mini is kinda lame and no one is going to want it, so lets slot it as an uncommon." But rather it started as what the WotC guys thought would make a fantastic bad ass mini, but unfortuneately it failed. But hey, it's not rocket science (how insulting).

So, what would you have done with your 5th awesome Nightwalker? You could only use one in your warband, and unless you were playing epic levels (which less than 5% of people did during 3.x), more than one or two would have been an overkill for a party to handle. Sure, you could line up 5 awesome Nightwalkers on the shelf, if you were just a collector. But how many people do you know who bought DDM just for the purpose of collecting?

For the record, I think the Nightwalker mini with a slightly better sculpt would have made a great rare. The moment Nightwalker was revealed as an uncommon huge with a 300+ point cost, it was apparent that it was a bad idea. A friend of mine quit buying DDM altogether after pulling his third Nightwalker from his third GoL booster.

No, it's not rocket science. It really isn't. And it's also not insulting. What's insulting is the implication that WotC can't do better. Of course they can - they've just been forced to take too many compromises recently, and the DDM line has suffered greatly for it.

Incidentally, Dire Bare, how many DDM do you own? Just curious.

 

[Sammael]

By the way, I think the only reason Nightwalker exists is because it was a last-minute replacement for some other uncommon mini that didn't work out in production. That explains its wrong rarity, poor sculpt, poor paint job, and skirmish stats.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I suspect the reason GoL might have had collectibility and distribution-of-miniatures issues (addressing the issue more broadly than just the Nightwalker) is because it was the first time WotC had made a Huge set. And like any of us, doing anything vaguely difficult, they didn't get it perfectly right the first time. It happens.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I suspect the reason GoL might have had collectibility and distribution-of-miniatures issues (addressing the issue more broadly than just the Nightwalker) is because it was the first time WotC had made a Huge set. And like any of us, doing anything vaguely difficult, they didn't get it perfectly right the first time.

Or the second. Are you forgetting the Blackguard on Nightmare fiasco in War of the Dragon Queen?

 

[Nebulous]

War of the Dragon Queen was the last time i bought randomized boosters, i was absolutely sick of it. Half a dozen purple worms and fiendish huge spiders, i was very ticked off. After that i've just scrounged the secondary market.

 

[Sammael]

I suspect the reason GoL might have had collectibility and distribution-of-miniatures issues (addressing the issue more broadly than just the Nightwalker) is because it was the first time WotC had made a Huge set. And like any of us, doing anything vaguely difficult, they didn't get it perfectly right the first time. It happens.

I thought you were still with WotC when GoL was released?

 

[Melba Toast]

I think I'm going to try my hand at sculpting my own minis. Just got some old dental tools from my dentist for free and I grabbed some Studio Sculpey from my local craft store. I'll let you know how it turns out(though I expect to be making and remaking the same thing quite a few times before i get something that is passable).

I've been thinking about this as well.

Maybe you should start by making a mold of an existing mini.

 

[Nebulous]

I've been thinking about this as well.

Maybe you should start by making a mold of an existing mini.

I've had a lot of success making amorphous monsters, like blobs and slimes and aboleths. For finer details on smaller humanoids, i probably lack the skill to pull that off.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I thought you were still with WotC when GoL was released?

Indeed I was, but I wasn't a primary decision-maker on minis. (In fact, GoL almost predates my time on the business side; given the long lead times on minis manufacturing, by the time I moved over from R&D most of the GoL decisions would already have been set in stone.) (And that's a point in itself: Minis take so long to make, that when you learn a lesson from a given release, you can't really implement it until two or three (or four) releases down the road.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Can you provide some details on the time factors involved that make it such a long process? I know I've seen 'em posted before but I be a senile bastich.