WizKids Previews New Mini Sets

[Ath-kethin]

I have to have a war elephant, or 3.

That war elephant is the first mini they've made that I would actually buy if I saw it.

 

[Elf_flambe]

Why does the door appear to be floating?

 

[MNblockhead]

Does Mage Hand really need a mini? I'd think one for Flaming Sphere would have been much more useful.

YES! Just yesterday I was playing the game and one of the players had a 3d printed hand, but it was huge, used by him for Bigby's. I would have love to have a mini hand. I use it all the time. I have to track that it is within 30' of me while often while trying to move around during combat. i have some 2D minis, but a small floating hand will be very cool if you play a character that makes a lot of use of the mage hand spell.

 

[Jester David]

I still don't understand why people buy random minis packs instead of demanding they tell you exactly which ones are in the box so that you can get the ones you want.

Because it's cheaper.

A booster costs $15 and has 1 Large and 3 Medium minis. If the Large has twice the plastic, it's $3 a mini.
The big, rare minis have more paint steps and detail. So they might cost significantly more than $3. But because people will buy 2-4 boosters trying to get the elusive rares, the higher cost is offset with the common figures with less complex paint, that might cost less. It keeps the average price low. But if they had to sell them individually, there'd be waves of unsold commons and highly desirable rares.

There are non-randomized minis for sale. They're just unpainted.

 

[ad_hoc]

Because it's cheaper.

A booster costs $15 and has 1 Large and 3 Medium minis. If the Large has twice the plastic, it's $3 a mini.
The big, rare minis have more paint steps and detail. So they might cost significantly more than $3. But because people will buy 2-4 boosters trying to get the elusive rares, the higher cost is offset with the common figures with less complex paint, that might cost less. It keeps the average price low. But if they had to sell them individually, there'd be waves of unsold commons and highly desirable rares.

There are non-randomized minis for sale. They're just unpainted.

Plus it's fun!

I love random encounters and random treasure in D&D.

It's fun to have random minis that inspire me to create more random encounters and such.

 

[Nostalgia Ward]

The spells look useful, but I'm always a bit on the fence about these. On one hand, I prefer to know precisely which minis I'm buying and I prefer to paint them myself. Nolzur's line is great for that.

On the other, randomization offers encounter building opportunities and a way to grab more minis for a lower amount.

The sculpts look fantastic, though. That beholder looks like the Xanathar to me.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Because it's cheaper.

A booster costs $15 and has 1 Large and 3 Medium minis. If the Large has twice the plastic, it's $3 a mini.
The big, rare minis have more paint steps and detail. So they might cost significantly more than $3. But because people will buy 2-4 boosters trying to get the elusive rares, the higher cost is offset with the common figures with less complex paint, that might cost less. It keeps the average price low. But if they had to sell them individually, there'd be waves of unsold commons and highly desirable rares.

There are non-randomized minis for sale. They're just unpainted.

What is rare, uncommon, and common are decided on by the manufacture and not by demand per se. If they priced the miniatures based on production costs they would not have this issue.

 

[Jester David]

What is rare, uncommon, and common are decided on by the manufacture and not by demand per se. If they priced the miniatures based on production costs they would not have this issue.

Yes and no.

WotC/ WizKids have definitely gotten better at picking commons vs rares. They learned very quickly that mooks make good commons as you need lots, but elite named NPCs and solo monsters make better rares. So even if a mini could be cheap to make, if they’re not desirable in bulk they’re better as an uncommon.
It was always annoying to have a baggie of common figures that you only needed 1 or 2 of at a time.

Simmilarly, high complexity figures (beholders for one) need to be rare, as the many paint steps and details required necessitates a higher price. These have to be rare.

They do also bank on demand. Trusting desired figures will drive more sales. But generally they also at least try to keep those rares high quality as well.

But pricing individual figures doesn’t work as well. If you could buy singles at stores, people would buy fewer blind boxes and just buy the exact minis they want, and end up getting far fewer minis in total. Which means the price of all minis has to go up. A lot. And you have high demand minis regularly selling out.
If you want non-random minis you just have to go unpainted. (And even then, popular ones are always backordered.)
Look at the higher price-per-mini of the Pathfinder Iconic boxes. And even then, it’s banking on you buying 3-4 PCs you don’t want to get one you do.

 

[ad_hoc]

There was a line (maybe 2?) of the older random minis that had 1 visible mini and the rest random. It was a disaster. Tons of 1 or 2 kinds on the shelf (I think the plant and the unicorn).

 

[Koloth]

The walls would have been more attractive if they had included Stone and Force and cut the numbers of each to 3. It is a rare situation that would require 6 of one kind.

For those that don't like the blind buy method, wait for them to show up on the secondary markets and buy there. I have hordes of the older D&D Miniatures that I picked up for 10 cents each because they were unwanted commons.

Even got a few of the large red T-rex things for $3 each. They work just fine as giant lizards, smaller dragons or even red T-rex things.

 

[MNblockhead]

I used to refuse to buy these when I first got back into gaming, for the same reason I hat Lego blind packs, and collectible card games. I felt less animosity towards the practice, for miniatures at least, after listening to an interview with Justin Ziran, president of WizKids, on Dragon Talk (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/justin-ziran-and-kate-irwin-wizkids-miniatures).

Prior to that, I would only buy from E-Bay sellers that would sell the minis individually, based on point systems.

But I ended up buying a WizKids Miniature "brick" and was pretty happy. Maybe because I got both Strahd and Esmeralda. It bought another brick for Tomb of Annihilation and was also happy. Yes, you get doubles but they are usually for creatures where it can help to have multiples of them. Overall, it is a cheap way to get a lot prepainted minis. I still go to Ebay when there are specific items I want. I recommend shopping around. The price for Wizkids mini bricks varies quite a bit from one source to another. I usually find Amazon to be the best deal because they are lower than in-store and I don't have shipping costs.

 

[Jester David]

The walls would have been more attractive if they had included Stone and Force and cut the numbers of each to 3. It is a rare situation that would require 6 of one kind.

Keep in mind the walls are only 10 feet long. The sample pictures show a row of three.
As the spell makes a wall up to 60 feet long, you need all 6 to make that, but the set allows you to adjust the size (or kinda make that ring).

-edit-
if they sell well, I imagine they'll follow it with walls of stone and iron.

 

[Cergorach]

Those magic effect minis do seem a bit bland after seeing some of the Warhammer Age of Sigmar spell effects:
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/searchResults?N=647457687+1097126624

As for random minis... It depends on what's in the set. I bought quite a few cases when WotC was still doing their own prepainted minis. But these days it would probably be more efficient to buy a few of the ones I want through resellers. But that's because I have a big collection already.

 

[fjw70]

As for random minis... It depends on what's in the set. I bought quite a few cases when WotC was still doing their own prepainted minis. But these days it would probably be more efficient to buy a few of the ones I want through resellers. But that's because I have a big collection already.

Same here. The pack are great when you need/want everything. These days I mostly buy individual minis from Miniature Market.

 

[Rils]

Looks like they may have a Grick there too.

Its actually a pentadrone, the fifth level of modron:


(sorry, not sure how to make this picture smaller...)

 

[Parmandur]

Its actually a pentadrone, the fifth level of modron:


(sorry, not sure how to make this picture smaller...)

I wonder if Modrons will play into the adventures...?

 

[pukunui]

I wonder if Modrons will play into the adventures...?

Possibly in Undermountain, but they've been drip-feeding us modron minis for a few sets now.

 

[Kor]

For those that are looking for pictures of the Dragon Heist Miniatures, I do currently have some on loan from CoolStuffInc, for MinisGallery.com. I should have some pictures showing a bit more detail in about 2 weeks, once I have received my sets.

http://www.minisgallery.com/dnd/dnd14.htm

 

[aco175]

Wow, just looked at the close up pics linked above. Some look good, but many look cheap and goofy, especially the humanoids. There is also many that use the same mold, but have a sword rather than a spear, or painted different. I'm feeling a bit let down.

 

[ad_hoc]

Wow, just looked at the close up pics linked above. Some look good, but many look cheap and goofy, especially the humanoids. There is also many that use the same mold, but have a sword rather than a spear, or painted different. I'm feeling a bit let down.

To be fair the alternates provide more variety, not less.

The alternative is to just end up getting 2 of the identical mini.