A Brief Look at Pathfinder Minis

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Last week saw the release of the 5th set of Pathfinder pre-painted minis, made by WizKids (of mageknight and heroclix fame), and sold by Paizo. I’m lucky to have been able to amass a fairly large collection of minis over the last 4 years or so, hunting down rare mini’s and importing some from america. Given my eyesight makes painting a difficult experience (though one I can do given my success in hand painting all my ravenloft/ashardalon/ravenloft minis), I love pre-painted minis, and have bought into all the WotC releases since 4e came out, and also all of the Paizo ones.

Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes Miniatures Set
Paizo’s first set was a fairly expensive and limited use set of 4 player minis, representing the 4 iconic pc’s from their books gorgeous artwork. These 4 are the classes covered in the excellent pathfinder beginners box set, so fighter, rogue, cleric and wizard, and while they are costly they quality of the sculpts and paint jobs mean that I would recommend them as being a set that is well worth getting.

Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters
Paizos first proper release was a 40 mini set, covering, as its name suggests, heroes and monsters. It was a real mixture, with the introduction of Pathfinders iconic wide mouthed goblin in pre-painted form, and some excellent humanoid minis. But it also had some really terrible cartoony sculpts, or creatures with extremely thin dimensions – heads on many humanoids and especially the zombie were the major culprits. It also suffered from a terrible packaging, with each mini individually placed in a plastic frame and then individually boxed. I ended up buying a two bricks of this set, and got almost all of the minis I wanted from it.

There were some real stand out minis, like the vampire, and the 2 watch guard minis are brilliant. Others, like the troll are really specific to Pathfinder’s art style, but have found a place in my colleciton to represent scrags, water trolls…
As an incentive to order a case of 4 bricks, Paizo made a huge black dragon as an limited availability piece, but I felt it was too spiky to fit with the large amount of WotC black dragons I already own.

Pathfinder Battles: Champions of Evil Encounter Pack
Designed to work with the adventure Paizo put out for Free RPG Day 2012, this was a blister pack containing exactly the right minis to run the module. These minis were repaints from the Heroes and Monsters set – a red zombie, a succubus, an evil cleric, and 3 zombies. However, the fact it came with a succubus mini, that was a nightmare to track down in the H&M set and 3 zombies, made this a fairly good pack to pick up to supplement other minis. It also helps that the adventure was pretty fun.

Pathfinder Battles: Rise of the Runelords
While WotC had tried to theme it’s mini releases in the past with limited success, Paizo however got it right on their first try, theming the whole set around the first adventure path series it ever released, Rise of the Runelords, and timing it to release around the same time as the adventure path had been updated and re-released in a single hard back volume.

The quality of the 65 sculpts and paint jobs improved over the H&M set, saw paizo experiment with huge sculpts, and it gave us a load more iconic pathfinder goblins, which is definitely a good thing. On the whole, this was an excellent set, with the majority of the minis being good really good, and they improved the packaging, changing it into a brick of smaller boosters, each containing 3 small or medium minis and 1 large mini in a plastic frame.
This time, the incentive piece was a rune giant from the adventure path, a 4×4 based massive mini that is stunning to behold.

It wasn’t perfect though… I ordered 3 bricks and the incentive piece from my good friend at Tritex-Games.co.uk, and the distribution of commons and rare was a nightmare. I ended up with 3 copies of one of the rares, and no copies of several of the commons… The plastic they had used in this set was extremely brittle and I’ve currently got 3 minis from the set that either were broken when they arrived or broke in my storage drawers without being used and are now waiting to be reglued. There were also a couple of stinkers, like the lamia, that would have overflowed a medium base, but were lost in the large bases. It was a very npc heavy set, not bad if you’re running the adventure path, but of less use in general. On the flipside, there were some stunning minis: the redcap, lamia kuchrima, and a set of matching ogres.

Pathfinder Battles: The Shattered Star
2012′s big preview, and 2013′s first release is the Shattered Star 55 mini set, designed to launch this week, just before the last part of the adventure path is published. The Shattered Star adventure path was being released as the minis were being previewed by paizo, which was interesting. These have literally just arrived and been unpacked…

With a lot more clear plastic used in this set, its clear (no pun intended) that Paizo and Wizkids have hit their stride. The sculpts are brilliant, the paint jobs brilliant, and theres no real stinkers in the set. Its got a lot more monsters than npc’s, addressing the issue I had with RotR, and the distribution on the rares was sorted, so a case pretty much guarantees you one of each rare, 3 of each common and 2 to 3 of each uncommon.

Its a pity they didn’t add a few more goblins in the set, but instead we get 4 new medium elementals and 4 new large elementals. We get a stunning fire giant, which personally, I’m going to use as a massive azer. We finally get a hellhound, the first in prepainted since WotC’s Harbinger set back in 2003 (and that mini was shockingly bad, and almost impossible to find). The hellhound should be a ghreat mini based on the previews, but the 3 I got all had average paintjobs. I’m not totally sold on the incentive piece, a 4×4 based female blue draogn covered in runes and scrolls. I understand her part in the adventure path, and it is a beautiful sculpt and paintjob, but of limited use to me…

So whats the negatives? Common to uncommon distribution across the case of 4 bricks I got was better but still not perfect – I had a couple of commons where I only got 2 of them while I got 5 of most of the medium elementals. There was a missed opportunity to release some of the more uniquely Pathfinder species like the various Qlippoths that feature heavily in the adventure path, there should have been more of pathfinders ugly dirty primitive hill giants, the troll champion is way oversized compared the the H&M trolls, and some of the more unique monster npc’s like King Zuuga were skipped in favour of humanoid npc’s that I felt were already closely represented (with a bit of handwaving) in the WotC range.

Ideally, if this had been a 65 minis set like RotR, they could have added a few more monster npcs…

So, whats next for Pathfinder minis? The next adventure path is a fey based Reign of Winter centered around the disappearance and rescue of baba Yaga, but after 2 sets linked to the paths, I think Paizo will try something different. Erik Mona has admitted that there is another encounter pack being done, and the next full set is for 55 minis, with another troll in it.

I’d personally like to see a few more iconic goblins, a town guard archer to join the 2 from H&M, and pretty much any creature from the recent Inner Sea Bestiary (though my preference would be for: Apostasy Wraith, Korir-Kokembe, Nightripper, Syrinx, Water Wraith).

Going through the Pathfinder bestiaries…

Bestiary 1: their ankheg and bugbears are uniquely designed and should be done in mini, a cave fisher is certainly needed, a new set of cloakers would be welcome, a lemure mini hasn’t been done for a long while, i’m sure gamma world fans and pathfinder fans would love a froghemoth, and we need something to represent vegeypygmies.

Bestiary 2: given how often akata are used in Pathfinder adventures they should be made, a charybdis could be the incentive piece, i’d love a crawling hand mini, a crysmal would be great in clear plastic, fungal crawler could be used for a variety of nasty bug critters, pugwampi gremlins occur pretty often in low level adventures, a peryton mini is desperately needed and should fit into the winter reigns adventure path (even though I hate the pathfinder artwork), scylla would be nice as mini for an encounter pack, same with the tendriculos.

Bestiary 3: cecaelia would be cool to have though probably as part of an encounter pack, given we got the clockwork servant in the shattered star set i’d like to see some more clockwork creatures (though again, maybe an encounter pack), given paizo did a book about the silly critters from D&D AND repeated them in this bestiary a flail snail, flumph and kappa mini would be nice.

Tags: Pathfinder, Pre-Painted

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BlindGeekUK

January 29, 2013 at 2:52 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment

My in hand review, with minis given a rating out of 5.

#001 Caedimus – 4 – I don’t think Paizos’ previews really showed off just how small this guy is, but given his size and rarity, he’s brilliantly painted. I love how he could be the thin kid brother of the much much much bigger WotC derro.

#002 Portioque – 3 – Another thin tiny derro, but a nicely different pose. Main complaint here is that Portioque in the adventure path has a injection staff, and the paint job on the 5 I got is really hit and miss, compared to the consistently good Caedimus

#003 Mite – 4 – Dave Allsops weirdly wonderful artwork has been faithfully recreated in mini form, and theres not really anything to fault on this mini.

#004 Grub Swarm – 4 – I was expecting to hate this given how good the WotC rot grub swarm is. However… I don’t subscribe to the whole a swarm must be able to sit under the mini rule, its a small swarm which is different, and it looks like a slithing mass of worms, rather than an a layer of brown springs…

#005 Boggard – 5 – A brilliant sculpt and a brilliant paint job, and even though the paint job is a brighter than the WotC bullywug thugs, its only a little lighter than the mud lord they released, so the 2 I got will come in very nicely as special bullywug/boggard troops. If this is the standard that Paizo can produce i’m looking forward to the next set.

#006 Clockwork Soldier – 4 – The pictures we’d seen made me think the size was different and I was expecting this to be a large. The static and offset pose makes this guy feel smaller than he is, given he’s half a head taller than most adventurers. Brilliant detail on the cogs on his joints, and a good paint job. I only got 2 of him, and have a feeling i’ll be picking up some more.

#007 Tower Girl – 4 – The pose and detail look incredibly familiar, and while its obviously based on the artwork from the adventure path book, it bears a remarkable similarity to the female warlock mini from the D&D minis starter set. Its not a bad mini at all, and its nice to have an option for a lightly armoured female rogue.

#008 Shadow Hound – 3 – Having just watched Ghostbusters this reminds me of the Gozer beast dogs in that (minus horns). Its not bad, its just not great, and I think if it had been a smoky clear plastic this would have been a 4 or 5 star mini.

#009 Xulgath – 3 – Reviewed as a pre-paint on its own, this mini is excellent, great sculpt, great paint job especially for a common. But reviewed as a troglodyte and compared to WotC’s, its so dissimilar as to be a separate race. I’ll be using this as an albino lizardman instead.

#010 Medium Air Elemental – 4 – I’ve been using the WotC shardstorm vortex for air elementals, but i’ll swap to this instantly.

#011 Medium Earth Elemental – 4 – Given I didn’t have an medium earth elemental, this guy is great.

#012 Medium Fire Elemental – 4 – I was expecting the clear plastic to have more impact on him, but its a great pose and good colour scheme, and is much more dynamic than the medium WotC fire elemental.

#013 Hell Hound – 2 – I think this mini probably deserves a 4 or a 5, but the 3 I got suffer from what can only be described as diabolical paint jobs. The body is a dark brown bordering on black, and the yellow ‘flames’ are randomly splashed on, obscuring most of the clear plastic, rather than emphasising it.

#014 Pallid Path Cultist – 5 – A see through skulking doppleganger like blank clone. Perfect! I’ll certainly be picking up some more of these.

#015 Medium Water Elemental – 5 – As a water elemental I’d probably only give it a 3 or 4, it doesn’t feel particularly wave like, but the fact it can serve double duty as a ghost makes this a brilliant mini.

#016 Mummy Cleric – 5 – A near perfect colour and size match to the WotC mummy, its only downsides are that its cloak is a little too pristine but I reckon I can fix that, and the fact I got 2 of them, this could have been a rare.

#017 Caulborn – 5 – this thing reminds me of the mutated critters in Pirates of the Caribbean films, it’s vaguely crab/shell like and borders on the stomach churning. The thing that makes it a 5 star for me is the awesome paint job applied to all 3 I got.

#018 Catfolk Rogue – 4 – Its a good pose and good paintjob, nothing much more to say about it, other than it could have been a rare.

#019 Cleric of Zon Kuthon – 2 – Its a fairly boring pose, and a fairly rubbish paintjob, the face and hair are just blobs of paint, and the chain weapon isn’t highlighted. After applying a silver drybrush to the chain, i’d upgrade it to a 3 star.

#020 Caryatid Column – 2 – I’m not sure why, but I was expecting more from this mini. The sculpt is good, but the paint job is so plain. Theres no highlighting/shadows, and I think I was expecting some kind of marble like colour to it. I was also hoping to get more in a crate than the 2 I got.

#021 Gray Maiden – 5 – An armoured female fighter, with a shield, in a dynamic pose, and several of them in a crate. Yeah! It’s a great pose and a really good paintjob.

#022 Ravenous Ooze – 2 – Unlike some of the others, I think the previews were spot on with this mini, its a plain gray ooze rearing up. The paintjob is as good as you’ll get on an otherwise smooth mini, and I think thats what is disappointing, it could have had drips or bubble to make it stand out.

#023 Hound of Tindalos – 4 – A weird otherworldy purple beast with claws, weird legs and tongue… Whats not to like about it? I can’t fault the pose or paintjob, the only downside is I’d have liked more in a crate than the 2 I got.

#024 Mite on Spider – 5 – The previews certainly didn’t do this guy the justice he deserves, and he’s one of the best minis in the set. What looked like a simple mite on the spider from the H&M set is actually a leader like mite with spear and shield on a rearing up spider mini. Throw the 2 of these I got in with say 5 or 6 mites and King Zuuga (oh wait, Paizo didn’t make him…) and you’d have a great battle.

#025 Nightgaunt – 4 – I got 3 of these faceless blue gargoyle like critters and I am really happy about it. Again, its a good dynamic pose and theres multiple hues of blue and black shadows on them.

#026 Shriezyx – 4 – I love spider minis, and use them often to terrify my players with arachnophobia. The Shriezyx gives us an almost otherworldly style spider, with grasping front arms and a vaguely humanoid face. Pose is good, and paintjob is good other than on the face. It’d have been a 5 from me if the face was better painted.

#027 Skeletal Champion – 5 – I’ve got tons of different skeleton minis, but finding something unique to represent a leader or champion is always difficult, as the dragonborn deathknight I normally use isn’t always appropriate. Now I have a better mini – I love the pose, I love the sculpt, I love the paintjob – it’s so detailed, from the gems on the blades handle, to the gems in the crown to the belt buckle to the dark eye sockets.

#028 Night Hag – 2 – More gypsy fortune-teller than hag for me, and whats going on with the bunny ears and paw like hands?

#029 Guiltspur Naga – 4 – I’ve never managed to get a naga in WotC boosters, nor have I been tempted to pick one up on the singles market, so scoring 2 in the crate was a bonus for me. Mini wise, you know what your getting with a naga.

#030 Gug – 3 – I really wanted this to be a stand out piece, and the pose is good and the mouth’s paint job is great. Its let down in my opinion by a lacklustre body paintjob, and unsightly seams at the shoulders and neck.

#031 Hill Giant – 4 – I’m not sure if they modelled it after a fat football hooligan or a pregnant woman, but the detail in this guys rotund form is impressive, from the stretch marks, belly button, moobs and nipples. The fur shoulder wrap is a little too chunky, but that, and the fact you’d have to buy 2 crates to get enough for the adventure path encounters, are the only downside to a great mini.

#032 Fire Giant – 5 – I think the only thing that I can say to fault this perfect mini is that it shows up how poor the WotC fire giants are…

#033 Glass Golem – 4 – A part of me wants a glass golem to be stained glass and flat, kind of like the dreamblade angel was, but the use of clear plastic and paint make this a great mini that could serve double duty as an ice golem. I’m not sure I needed 3 of them in a crate though.

#034 Iron Golem – 4 – A totally different style iron golem to the WotC, these feel more like statues that would come alive than a constructed golem, I wouldn’t want too many, but they are nice.

#035 Wyvern – 5 – I’d have been happy with a single wyvern mini, its that good, but I got 3 of the beasts. Bigger than most WotC dragons, and in probably the most dynamic pre-painted mini pose ever, these guys rock.

#036 Troll Champion – 5 – Given I’m not a massive fan of the H&M troll even though it makes a great scrag, I wasn’t looking forward to this troll. The paint job however is fantastic, the sculpt is brilliant, and I got 3 of them. They are close enough in colour to WotC trolls to fit in, and the uniquely Pathfinder mouth is ironically less obvious in such a large size.

#037 Wrath Demon – 3 – I like the blue WotC vrock, and I use the RotR Lamia Kuchrima as baby vrock, so I wasn’t sure I needed another style. It feels different from the WotC one, not necessary better, and while I got several, I can only really see me using one as a vrock champion to the WotC ones I own. I’d have given it 4 stars if the feathers in the wings had been drybrushed slightly to stand out.

#038 Lem, Halfling Bard – 3 – It’s not the best paint job, and like many of the npc minis, flesh paint seems to have just been slopped on. However, I like it, the previews made the flute (?) look like a rifle, so I’m pleased how it came out.

#039 Amiri, Human Barbarian – 5 – Brilliant, from the sculpt to the paint job this mini is perfect. The only downside is that I wish there had been 2 in my crate because my wife wants this for her bag of strong female minis.

#040 Ardathanatus – 2 – Its an armoured knight with a tattered cloak and a bent polearm… The paint job is mediocre and the detail on the mini is basically just the ridges/edges/spikes of his armour. Like I suspected, he’s a good match colour wise and style wise for WotC’s Zhent Soldier.

#041 Koriah Azmeren – 4 – Its a really great mini, deserving of 5 stars, but if theres ever a case for too many paint steps, its this one. Theres at least 9 different colours that I can see and i’m half blind, and the amount of silver edging distracts from an otherwise perfect paint job.

#042 Natalya Vankaskerkin – 5 – Another great pose and great paintjob, the killer detail for me was the black lines showing the boning of her corset like top. This mini makes me feel sorry for greyhaze and the DCM minis line, because between WotC’s cloudreavers and tavern brawlers, and Paizos Aldern Foxglove, kaven windstrike and this mini, I have enough suitable minis for a pirate crew.

#043 Xin – 5 – I love that theres a clear thematic link between him and RotR’s Runelord Karzoug, but this mini exudes a feeling of repressed power. It helps that the mini stands half a head taller than most pc’s and a full head taller than Karzoug.

#044 Gray Maiden Commander – 5 – With almost as many paint steps as Koriah, she risked being overpainted, but I think because of the balance of red and silver she manages to come out ok, plus theres the thematic link to the other grey maiden minis. I love the scar on her face and the helmet in her hand.

#045 Runelord Sorshen – 2 – I find it interesting that I have no issue with the amount of flesh RotR’s Seoni is showing, but on this mini it feels wrong. It doesn’t help that the paint job on the 1 I got was very poor and the glaive had been broken in the box.

#046 Sheila Heidmarch – 4 – This is one of the NPC minis I didn’t feel was needed in the set as there were others that could be handwaved. However, its a really good mini with a great paintjob that in the end, i’m really pleased was included.

#047 Mesmalatu – 5 – Wow, the previews really didn’t do this mini justice, I love how the red transparent plastic bends around, I love the detail of the gems in the skull. It could work as a better flameskull than WotC’s effort, or as any infamous lich skull.

#048 Alchemical Golem – 5 – For me, this is probably the stand out mini in the set. Unlike many of the large minis it doesn’t have to fill the base and border on the huge category, and the paint job is absolutely stunning. As i’ve said before, the attention to detail with the brain and eyes, and the use of multiple clear plastics make this probably the best pre-painted mini I own.

#049 Clockwork Reliquary – 4 – To be honest, I was expecting better from this, and I’m disappointed by the mini in general and the fact mine came broken. Fitting the tube back into the base, my mini is oddly bent to the side, and the arms and scrolls seem to be really crammed in close to the body.

#050 Dullahan – 3 – As horses go, its dimensions feel small. As a headless horseman goes, I like the fact its holding the reins, and has heads strapped to his side. But I feel the paintjob lets the mini down, its a little too black and too plain.

#051 Large Air Elemental – 5 – All the large elementals are good, but this one is my favourite. The use of clear plastic is the most obvious here, I love the way its connected via a tornado to the ground, I love the fact there IS ground, I love the way its balanced over the base.

#052 Large Earth Elemental – 4 – A good mini with a really sense of the Thing’s “its clobbering time” to it. The main let down is the fact I was expecting the green jewels to be clear plastic rather than painted.

#053 Large Fire Elemental – 4 – This one feels like it has the least presence of the SS elementals, and its clear plastic isn’t as clear as say the WotC fire ones, but I think it feels like more of a threat, like living fire that is about to kill you, rather than ‘oh look, living fire’. I’d have given it 5 if the plastic was clearer.

#054 Large Water Elemental – 4 – I love the fact that this mini seems to be moving in two places, the waves at the front feel like they are rushing in to fill in the void of water, while the elemental itself looks to to be looming down in the heroes. I just think a few of the wave crests needed a touch of white to emphasise the foaming motion to make it a 5 star.

#055 Huge Blue Dragon – 4 – At first glance, the runes on her scales aren’t obvious, and I think that actually helps the mini since the jewels etc could just symbolise her use as a BBEG’s tamed pet outside of the adventure path. She certainly feels less feral than a WotC dragon and is a really nice addition to my collection.
Alphastream

February 5, 2013 at 6:36 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment

These are really getting better, but I’m still not sold. The number of minis I really like is still too low per set, though that is improving. And then there’s the issue of what I really can use… sure, I like some of those elementals, but I have tons of really cool elementals through my past DDM purchases. So far I’ve been happier to spend my money completing my DDM collection (I’m not close, but still) and picking up Dungeon Command (I love those repaints, and the new Blood of Gruumsh set has all-new sculpts that really rock). Part of it is also style – I’m not a fan of the cartoonish nature of many of the Paizo minis. I do hope the next set improves the quality and art style. They may make a customer out of me yet.
Adam (@adampageuk)

February 5, 2013 at 7:42 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment

Thanks for the comment Teos.

I’ll agree that a lot of the earlier sculpts, especially those from the Heroes and Monsters set were very cartoony, but I feel they’ve moved away from that with the Shattered Star set. It had a fairly consistent style to it, being based around the elementals and the otherworldy, lovecraftian beasts, and they addressed the npc to monster ratio.

Like you, I’m slowly filling out my DDM collection, and I suspect we’ve both got the benefit of setting our own RPG budgets . My collection is just shy of 2000 minis and I’ve probably got enough to run most published heroic and paragon tier adventures. However it’s a lot harder to track stuff down in the UK for a reasonable price, and minis from the earliest WotC sets are almost impossible to find. As such I don’t mind Paizo doing their own take on minis and giving them a pathfinder twist. I know Erik Mona has come out and said that if a mini already exists in pre-painted form, he will still consider putting it into the Paizo sets.

Another aspect in Paizo’s favour is the next set – a display box of bagged goblin singles, that should retail at about $2.49 a mini. It’ll have repaints of the 7 existing goblin sculpts, and add 5 new ones. WotC were asked to do this idea of single race collections for years, and it wasn’t until Dungeon Command that they really embraced the idea. The fact that Paizo is listening to the community to know what they want, and putting such a project out in the early part of their 3rd year of minis is great.

Dungeon Command has been a weird one for me, as a skirmish game, it didn’t click with me – it felt like the bastard child of D&D, Magic and Castle Ravenloft. As a source of pre-paints, the high cost (works out around $3.99 a mini over here) and the abundance of minis I had already (drow/goblins/troll) or had got from Ravenloft/Ashardalon and painted up myself, coupled with fairly ‘flat’ paint jobs meant I wasn’t a big fan. The undead box set however did improve the paint steps, and the new orc sculpts look great, my main issue with them is the blue tinge to the flesh in the previews, compared to WotC’s grey skinned orcs – is this a new direction for orc skin colour in D&D Next?
Alphastream

February 5, 2013 at 6:25 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment

Please tell my wife that I get to set my own RPG budget!

Seriously, the size of my collection is something that creates its own challenge and reward. It takes time for me to comb through auctions and sites and find cheap prices for minis – I basically never pay the ‘going rate’. I track my DDM minis carefully in a spreadsheet and a couple of times a year I go after some of the ones I’m missing. When I saw the first Paizo minis and how expensive they are I just turned my normal budget for minis (the amount I had set aside for DDM minis) back into DDMs (and instead of new sets, going after older minis I had missed). So far this is far more satisfying to me than going after the few PFS minis I like.

I think, like editions, minis also seem to have enough of a style difference to have sane people express completely different preferences. To me and most of my friends, the WizKids paint approach is too cartoonish, even when the minis are not. This is true of pretty much all WizKids minis. For others I know, the paint approach is superior to DDM. I looked over the Shattered Star set recently, spending probably 20 minutes holding various minis and turning them over. I liked a number of them, but not as much as half the set. And that’s just not enough… especially when the ones I most liked were either really expensive ones or elementals (of which I have many). The random distribution issue and breakage issue further pushes me away. The last thing I’m going to do is pay really good money and get only a few minis I really like… then have to spend more money to buy individually. So far I’ve picked up a total of 5 minis from the first two sets. I have a list of about 5 more I might pick up over time.

I really dig Dungeon Command, though i feel about it the way I do about all minis skirmish games: If the game is an hour or more, I would usually rather play an RPG. If the game can go 45 minutes (which is possible with Dungeon Command once all players know it well), then that’s good enough for me to consider it a quick game and play it more often (rather than take the time to do a one-shot RPG session). The abundance of minis of a certain type isn’t any different than if I purchased PF minis. I would rather have a repaint troll than the strangely-awkward-jaw PF version, because then my trolls have a more consistent look, as if they were similar tribes. The orcs in the latest set do seem to reflect the new D&D next vision. They work well as a specific clan or type of orcs, which is for me better than if they were exactly like previous DDM orcs. I find this to be the right level of sameness/difference for me to feel like I have a cohesive collection useful for an RPG campaign. The themes work well. For example, the Cormyr set is now my default set for any group of knights/order/city watch/king or queen’s guard/etc. the party might face. The color scheme works so well to establish that.
Alphastream

February 5, 2013 at 6:34 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment

A really big question will be the longevity of the two lines. Paizo has made various tweaks, such as the price increase for the second set. The price to own everything in a set is incredibly high. It isn’t clear to me whether this is working out for them. On the Wizards end, I know from speaking to them that they really want to make minis, but they really didn’t see the proper business model that could make that viable. So, is Paizo doing something that really changes that? Or will the investment not pan out in the long run? You can never tell with just a few releases. Similarly, it isn’t clear how much Dungeon Command is catching on as either minis or a game. I know many that do enjoy playing it, but it doesn’t seem to compete with other minis games. It seems like specifically for the D&D player that doesn’t play other minis games. The price is pretty decent for what you get, but it isn’t clear if that’s true for enough people to sustain the line. If you just want a game, $40 can feel high for what is offered. $40 for 12 minis has generally felt good for my friends that want minis. I do hope the line lasts. I love the look and feel of the new Dungeon Command minis!
Hunterian7

May 17, 2013 at 10:01 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment

@Alphastream- you mean they haven’t figured out to make DDM viable under Hasbro’s insane profit margins. DDM was enough to make a company rich- Paizo isn’t constrained by stock hold sharers. It is run by private D&D fans. However, DDM rocked! I miss the 3 sets of 60 miniatures a year. Spending $500 on each set was worth it!
alphastream

May 17, 2013 at 3:28 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment

I don’t think it is about insane profit margins. I think it is just profit. I think the later DDM sets stopped being profitable – they lost money. No one wants to continue a product line that loses money. We haven’t seen more Dungeon Command, and that was clearly an experiment to try and find a new way to sell minis profitably. I don’t think it worked.