Pathfinder Battles Preview: We Be Goblins!

I see a couple reasons.

1. If they release product information like target rarity ratios, then they can be targetted for false advertising when they release the set if their actual numbers do not match.

2. Unlike CCGs which are produced in sheets with the proper rarity ratios, minis are produced individually. This gives them greater freedom in individual mini ratios. Not all commons are necessarily the exact same rarity. They may produce a few more of model A than model B at any given rarity to try to reduce costs.

3. It gives them freedom to mess up. They cannot be held accountable for unitentional packaging errors that may occur that can alter the rarity on any given mini.

4. The more detail they release, the more people can figure out their buisness model and how they do their pricing. This would be very valuable information for competitors.

Now, I do think that it would increase pre-orders to know more details about rarities. I think that Wizkids prizes the risks mitigation and extra freedom more.

Cheers. I appreciate your comments, although I dont really agree with them all. The first and third can just be addressed via a "we aim to..." comment. In a similar vein, they've announced a target 93% proportion of cases to have complete sets - they'll almost certainly be near that amount, but they're not going to get sued if they arent (nor would they lose much goodwill, imo, if it came in at more like 85-90%, say).

As a general point, the fourth comment is generally over-valued by people outside any given industry, in my view. Anyone in a position to compete with Wizkids is already going to have a very good idea about costs and distribution issues. I'm sure they'd like to know how Wizkids run, but I doubt it's going to be that valuable. The best way to succeed in business is to master you own, not try and copy someone elses. (Again, just imo but I'm kind of qualified).

I can appreciate the second point (and I have no idea about making minis, so have no concept as to how pertinent it is). My main gripe was in them not announcing that there were 'super rare' larges in H&M (for example). I'm not expecting two decimal point accuracy for every mini, but there were clearly some minis far less common than others (1 per case versus 2 per case) and I, for one, am basing my decisions as to quantity of subscriptions around how many of each mini I want to shoot for.

I'm not sure if this counts as 'bagging a competitor' or not, so I've flagged my own post just in case. If the mods would delete it, if that's warranted.

2. Unlike CCGs which are produced in sheets with the proper rarity ratios, minis are produced individually. This gives them greater freedom in individual mini ratios. Not all commons are necessarily the exact same rarity. They may produce a few more of model A than model B at any given rarity to try to reduce costs.

I'm pretty sure thats not fully true... I think Erik has said that each of whizkids molds have multiple minis on them, while there might not be able to pick to do more on the fly unless they want to have more of all 4

Caineach wrote:

2. Unlike CCGs which are produced in sheets with the proper rarity ratios, minis are produced individually. This gives them greater freedom in individual mini ratios. Not all commons are necessarily the exact same rarity. They may produce a few more of model A than model B at any given rarity to try to reduce costs.

I'm pretty sure thats not fully true... I think Erik has said that each of whizkids molds have multiple minis on them, while there might not be able to pick to do more on the fly unless they want to have more of all 4

True, individual sprus may contain multiple minis, so those minis would be related in quantity. The sprus would be designed to optimize the flow of plastic into each mold. They are not going to cast the whole set in 1 go though like cards, and any single spru design could contain multiple of the same mini.

I was afraid this was going to happen. Will be cancelling my subscription. Call me when you do Brick subscriptions...

How can you classify anything as "Super Rare" when you were pretty much guaranteed to get one in every case?

I've been fairly pleased with the distribution in each case, although I don't know how much variance there was between cases.

Because there were three "rare figures" roughly twice as scarce as the other figures labelled rare. What would you rather I call them?

How can you classify anything as "Super Rare" when you were pretty much guaranteed to get one in every case?

I've been fairly pleased with the distribution in each case, although I don't know how much variance there was between cases.

"Super Rare" isn't indicated whether you get one in a case or not, but the frequency of the miniature compared to the other rares.

If you get 3 Ettins (which I did in one case) and one Giant Caveweaver spider, then I would consider there is a different rare frequency between the two.

But besides that fact, I am not complaining. I also was happy with the distribution of the minis with Heroes & Monsters. I did receive a complete set with each of the two cases I bought. Also, considering with DDM miniatures, you would usually need to buy 3-5 cases to get a complete set.

Yeah, I too was happy with the distribution. I just don't see why they'd keep the striation of the rare category secret given it became public knowledge after what? A week?

Apparently there's some shift here anyhow. As I understand things, two of the huges in RotRL will be twice as common as the other two. If I recall correctly, the relative rarities of those four will be revealed once all the huge figures have been announced.

How can you classify anything as "Super Rare" when you were pretty much guaranteed to get one in every case?

I've been fairly pleased with the distribution in each case, although I don't know how much variance there was between cases.

Heh be happy about that. I know when I bought the Lords of Madness DDM set it took me 4 cases to get a Blue Dragon :P

Apparently there's some shift here anyhow. As I understand things, two of the huges in RotRL will be twice as common as the other two. If I recall correctly, the relative rarities of those four will be revealed once all the huge figures have been announced.

That’s interesting, I had not heard that.

Is everything Large sized and bigger going to be rare in this set? Like it was in H&M? If that is the case, than even though all the huges would be considered rare, there would be some admittance there is a different rare frequency.

I don't know about the large minis. Hopefully that will become clearer once they've all been announced.

That’s interesting, I had not heard that.

Is everything Large sized and bigger going to be rare in this set? Like it was in H&M? If that is the case, than even though all the huges would be considered rare, there would be some admittance there is a different rare frequency.

Here is the post about the Huge Minis...

Dragnmoon wrote:

Also curious on how the distribution of the extra 2 minis will be.

There will be two common Huges—you'll get two of those per case—and two less common Huges—you'll get one each of those. (I don't know if WizKids will call the latter "uncommon" or "rare".) I'm sure once Erik has revealed all of the Huges, we can tell you which is which, but rest assured that the common ones are ones that most folks are more likely to want more than one of.

Ok, thanks.

So there will be larger sized minis that are actually common rarity. Not that I had a problem with it, but it was kind of puzzling that ‘all’ the larges (from H&M) had to be rares.

Really curious to see what the two common huges will be.

Is everything Large sized and bigger going to be rare in this set? Like it was in H&M? If that is the case, than even though all the huges would be considered rare, there would be some admittance there is a different rare frequency.

No.

According to the production bible for the set, several Large minis are in the Uncommon rarity. How this works exactly with the 4-figure Standard Booster (each of which contains 1 Large figure no matter what) is sort of unclear to me at the moment.

I'll try to get a little more insight into the rarity category to case pack-out ratio so I can provide a little more information, even if that information is laden in generalities because I can't release the full breakdown for whatever reason.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Apparently there's some shift here anyhow. As I understand things, two of the huges in RotRL will be twice as common as the other two. If I recall correctly, the relative rarities of those four will be revealed once all the huge figures have been announced.

That’s interesting, I had not heard that.

Is everything Large sized and bigger going to be rare in this set? Like it was in H&M? If that is the case, than even though all the huges would be considered rare, there would be some admittance there is a different rare frequency.

On the Question of Large rarity, there have been large minis announced as both Uncommon and Rare, but not common.

Edit - ninja'ed by Erik

How I'd guess the rarities work is more on the case level. Let's say that there are 24 Larges in the set. 8 might be uncommon, 16 rare. There are 32 in the case, so you would get one each of the Rares and two each of the uncommons. All numbers are of course guesses.

No.

According to the production bible for the set, several Large minis are in the Uncommon rarity. How this works exactly with the 4-figure Standard Booster (each of which contains 1 Large figure no matter what) is sort of unclear to me at the moment.

I'll try to get a little more insight into the rarity category to case pack-out ratio so I can provide a little more information, even if that information is laden in generalities because I can't release the full breakdown for whatever reason.

Ok Erik, thank you. Knowing the rarity is not as important to me as some, as I know what I am going to buy case-wise, but it would be interesting to hear.

On the Question of Large rarity, there have been large minis announced as both Uncommon and Rare, but not common.

Edit - ninja'ed by Erik

How I'd guess the rarities work is more on the case level. Let's say that there are 24 Larges in the set. 8 might be uncommon, 16 rare. There are 32 in the case, so you would get one each of the Rares and two each of the uncommons. All numbers are of course guesses.

That would seem like a good guess to me, but we will see how it turns out. Again, I am not as concerned about the ratio as long as I can get my complete set (or close to it) in a case.

Well, I guess my point is this. Wizkids didn't see fit to mark any sort of rarity on the minis, so maybe they're not overly concerned about having only three or four quanties available for each mini. Since these sets aren't really collectable games in their own right, instead really being supporting accessories for Pathfinder, I'm good with that. If I pretty much get the right numbers of what I need to run RotR, I'm even better with that. I stopped putting too much emphasis on the rarity labels for these minis when I couldn't make the math work for H&M. Now I'm just sitting back and enjoying the reveals as I wait for August. And I'm real excited about getting all four huges in a single case. I can't tell yet which I'm going to want doubles of, but I'm sure the folks here at Parhfinder are making the choice based on needs for RotR! I'm just dandy with that as well. No BS marketing schemes to make me chase true "very rares", just a good selection of quality minis to play Pathfinder with and wow my gaming group. Who could ask for more?

Well, I guess my point is this. Wizkids didn't see fit to mark any sort of rarity on the minis, so maybe they're not overly concerned about having only three or four quanties available for each mini. Since these sets aren't really collectable games in their own right, instead really being supporting accessories for Pathfinder, I'm good with that. If I pretty much get the right numbers of what I need to run RotR, I'm even better with that. I stopped putting too much emphasis on the rarity labels for these minis when I couldn't make the math work for H&M. Now I'm just sitting back and enjoying the reveals as I wait for August. And I'm real excited about getting all four huges in a single case. I can't tell yet which I'm going to want doubles of, but I'm sure the folks here at Parhfinder are making the choice based on needs for RotR! I'm just dandy with that as well. No BS marketing schemes to make me chase true "very rares", just a good selection of quality minis to play Pathfinder with and wow my gaming group. Who could ask for more?

I'm in the same boat, by and large. However, I'm one of those ordering multiple cases. With H&M I wanted to be sure to get three frost giants (for example) and got three cases. Suppose I really wanted three treachery demons - I might decide that two cases would do, since I'll be getting 12 huge minis chosen from a set of 4 sculpts so my "expected return" would be three. However, it may be the case (and probably is, in my view) that the treachery demon is one of the 'more rare' huge minis - so I've actually got zero chance of getting three if I restrict myself to two subscriptions. Now with RoTRL, it appears that the huge rarities will be fully explained up front, however I'm not clear whether that policy is going to hold true with the large/medium/small figures.

The brick contains 6 and judginf from what has been stated it looks like you will always get 2 individual "rarer" huges and 2 each of the other 2 hyge minis. My guess would be a carton has 1 Treachery Demon, 1 White dragon, 2 Lamia and 2 ????. I'm now leaning toward the final huge being a giant, probably a cloud giant - unless they added some new huge monster to the path.

Yeah, that would be my guess too. The kind of information they've released with the huge minis (with regard to relative rarities) is exactly what I'm looking for more generally.

I wanted two Frost Giants, but decided to pick the second up as a single instead of getting a whole extra case of H&M. I really didn't want twice as many NPC classes in the deal. And with RotR there are many pieces I only need one of, so I'll go down that road again. But breaking out the huges in to their own case has offered a little more flexibility. You are right, if I know which I am getting duplicates of, I just might spring for a second huge case. First I need to see what the white dragon looks like and what the mystery huge is. There's a lot of speculation about that last huge, and many excellent possibilities for what it might be.

One thing I want to mention is that we have some people saying that if we start saving now it's $125 a month (or whatever the figure is). I have to respectfully disagree. On preorders, I'm not entirely sure if Paizo charges on the day it ships or the day it's preordered, but I'm pretty sure when I went with one of the discount online miniatures stores I was charged the day I ordered. It wasn't a matter of "well, it's 125 a month start saving" but more "Well here's the amount for the figures, see them in 3 months time". Just something to chew over. Although I suppose I preordered in a hurry on the last set perhaps unnecessarily. I'm still seeing cases and the dragon figures available for about what I paid ;p

I believe Paizo charges the day the preorder ships.

Of course, Paizo charges the day the preorder ships. The saving plan mentioned by some people here was only meant as suggestion or private strategy to accumulate the needed money for the time Paizo actually charges your card.

You can also buy yourself gift vouchers. That way the charges occur in regular, more manageable amounts.

Ah good to know they charge day of shipment, I know some other companies don't (which sorta irks me to be honest ;p)

Berk the Black wrote:

How can you classify anything as "Super Rare" when you were pretty much guaranteed to get one in every case?

I've been fairly pleased with the distribution in each case, although I don't know how much variance there was between cases.

Heh be happy about that. I know when I bought the Lords of Madness DDM set it took me 4 cases to get a Blue Dragon :P

And yet I got 2 in 8 boosters. Rarity is no guarantee of scarcity, same is true in CCGs it all depends on the collation on that given day when your packs were made.