Randomized Mini's or Not?

[Aaron L]

I hate minis. The fact that WotC is selling random "collectible" D&D minis now makes me burn with Hellish anger just remembering what happened to Battletech when Wizkids took it the same way.

There are less blatently exploitative ways to make money.

 

[Pbartender]

I buy alot of DDM's because they are cheap and fit for purpose.

I believe they are cheap because WOTC have made them collectable for the DDM game and mass produce them therefore, and the random nature of the distribution gives them discounts on the volume of the little buggers that they produce allowing them to keep the price per mini down.

Bull. Carp.

Mega Miniatures has miniature multi packs that include 24 assorted unpainted metal minis for $20 (granted this is the best deal they offer). You can know exactly which two-dozen minis you are getting. And you get them for about half the price per mini than what you're paying for the plastic D&D minis.

I bought into the initial craze. I actually like most of hte plastic minis D&D puts out. But I simply can no longer stomach paying that much for something and not know what I'm getting out of it.

 

[wayne62682]

Randomized minis? Hate them hate them hate them hate them.. you get the idea. I would buy a ton of these things for games if they didn't have this goshdarn collectable BS. Most of the figures that are actually USEFUL for a game are, of course, rares and cost much more than they're worth to buy, and even the commons are usually available only in limited quantities.. so I can never reasonably get say, 12 Orc Warriors (or whatever) for a raiding party, because stores only will have say 4 of them in stock. Very frustrating.

 

[Glyfair]

The profit that they make from the fact that buyers of the minis generally buy loads of them in order to get those coveted figures most likely outstrips the profit that they would make if they sold the rare minis individually.

A main reason, even if people didn't buy hugely in bulk, is they don't have to waste resources keeping unpopular figures stored that aren't selling as quickly. They also have less overhead by only having one product (say a booster of Deathknell) than having 30 or 40 products to keep track of, inventory, etc.

I don't mind the randomization, but I do mind the rarity scheme. I'd prefer all minis were equally available in a booster.

Yuck. You mean I'd have an equal chance of getting 10 kobolds (something I could use 10 of) as 10 bloodhulks. Keep that away from me. Some of the older commons had this problem, WotC fixed this problem.

Mega Miniatures has miniature multi packs that include 24 assorted unpainted metal minis for $20 (granted this is the best deal they offer). You can know exactly which two-dozen minis you are getting. And you get them for about half the price per mini than what you're paying for the plastic D&D minis.

How much are they painted? Typically even a half way decent painted figure (besides the collectible ones) tends to approach $10 each, in my experience.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Speaking as a rabid wolverine who has not eaten in weeks, I am offended by your characterization. Illness and hunger is hardly necessary for wolverine ferver. Grrr.

As for cheap, non-randomized minis...eBay has a sizable second-hand market for minis, and commons can frequently be had for dirt cheap. The secondary market is possible because of the way WotC sells their minis.

Oh, are you going to eat that...?

 

[jodyjohnson]

2nd edition Ral Partha line - best official line variety pre DDM, maybe 200-300 sculpts including Dark Sun and Planescape lines over a numbers of years. Still see some of these on the shelves.
25th Anniversary line - still on the shelves (the crap ones) or blown out at cost
3rd edition metal line - still on the shelves (the crap ones) or blown out at cost
Chainmail line - still on the shelves or blown out at below cost (i.e. Svgames)
No idea if they are some of these still in the warehouse but it wouldn't surprise me if whatever was left was melted down.

Harbinger - sold out
Dragoneye - sold out (2 production runs)
Archfiends - sold out
Giant of Legend - out of stock at WotC and distributers
Aberrations - out of stock at WotC (except boxes included with Player Kits)
Deathknell - out of stock at WotC
Underdark - out of stock at WotC
For LGS these actually go up in price instead of hitting the bargain bin (excepting the bookstores where they get cherry picked/vandalised and corporate policy won't let them sit on the shelves for the 6-18 months it takes to sell through the set).

Only Angelfire, Wardrums, and the yet unreleased War of the Dragon Queen still in the warehouse. That's no minatures more than a year old in inventory.

WotC is moving a ton of miniatures and they are not sitting Mage Knight (WizKids) style at the distributors/stores by the case rotting.

In comparison to the 2e Ral Partha line including the WoDQ set there's roughly 620 sculpts in less than 3 years. More than half of those available for under $2 on the secondary market when the sets first released.


The old metal figures had their own version of rarity.
Figures that sold out immediately and then were hard to find, figures that eventually sold, and then those that didn't sell even in the bargain bin.

The current sets of non-random painted figures are made for Heroscape. Non-random, cheap, but not a lot of variety.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Randomized minis? Hate them hate them hate them hate them.. you get the idea. I would buy a ton of these things for games if they didn't have this goshdarn collectable BS. Most of the figures that are actually USEFUL for a game are, of course, rares and cost much more than they're worth to buy, and even the commons are usually available only in limited quantities.. so I can never reasonably get say, 12 Orc Warriors (or whatever) for a raiding party, because stores only will have say 4 of them in stock. Very frustrating.

http://stores.ebay.com/Auggies-Games-n-Movies

has quite a lot of orcs, depending on how picky you are, all for less than fifty cents a pop.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I buy a lot of CMG minis from various companies. However, there are few CMGs that I actually play- in fact, Chainmail was the only one.

I much prefer to buy the minis I want, and economically speaking, it gives the company more discrete information. If, out of 26 different armies in a CMG, everyone is buying Army X and not Army Z, either Army X is 1) overpowered, or 2) way cool or 3) Army Z just sucks, or 4) Z minis suck.

If they're all bundled together...

well, then I only buy them to use in my RPGs, not the CMG.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Counting the number of miniatures I own would be a lengthy process - I have thousands of the critters.

Counting the WotC boosters and starters that I have bought is a much quicker task - none.

How much does this hurt WotC? At a guess, not at all. I am not their market.

The Auld Grump

 

[Astraldrake]

As others have noted, there should be a distinction between collectible and randomly packaged collectible. For me, this is a simple issue.

I only have so much money to spend on my hobby. About 95% of my budget goes into books and/or PDF's these days. I simply don't have the fundage for a randomly collectible game. I have a good pile of figures from the early D&D sets and an absolutely huge pile of counters.

Before I got into MageKnight, it was Warhammer and Warhammer 40K. I've also got scads of Legions of Steel, old Ral Partha figs, Silent Death, and tons of other unpainted pewter lying around here in a box somewhere that I just don't have time to paint. When D&D came out as a CMG, I got into it for figures for my RPG that I don't have to paint. Yay.

Then I found out that any of the truly desirable or useful figs are usually stupid-rare. In other words, there are rares that are more "rare" than others. I have yet to SEE a Dire Wolf in person, for example. If you got one you are lucky. I have more Destrechans than I know what to do with. Lucky they seem to be a re-sculpt of the Dire Wolf, making them useful as proxies.

Here's what it boils down to- I think WotC should start selling packages of minis that are clearly labeled as to their contents. Dump the stock market system, that in the end, WotC doesn't really profit from, anyway. Save the randomly collectible mombo jombo for Magic:the Gathering. I would pay pewter prices for plastic figs again if I knew what I was getting.

Heck, for what it's worth they could sell a Fantastic Locations map with say, a Behir, a Blue Dragon, some kobolds, a few other random animals and six basic adventurer figures for say $49.99, and they'd probably sell a plenty of them. I'd buy that. It's better than trying to buy a dozen Legends boosters at $19.95 each and a dozen other boosters at $12.95 each just to end up with a pile of crap I don't want and can't use. Or worse, go on individual web sites and shell out $50 for the Behir alone.

In terms of the minis gamers, do army packs. Sell 12 kobold skirmishers for $12.99 per pack. Sell the kobold shaman for $4.99 individually. Sell the uber-hulking kobold barbarian shadow dancer for $6.99. I can't believe WotC has learned nothing from GW over the years. They could streamline production and make more money if gamers knew what they were getting. Think how much time and money could be saved by NOT producing the dire toad and fungus man minis that were a dime a dozen and packing them in random boosters.

IMO, WotC has dropped the ball on this from day one. They kept dropping the ball with Axis & Allies and Star Wars Minis. I refuse to buy any more randomly packaged anything. I likewise refuse to go online for any more singles. I may pick up the dragons when they come out because I will know what I'm getting. The only way WotC will learn anything from the fans is when their marketing department finally informs them that their collectible miniatures plan sucks. Vote with your dollars, or lack thereof.