Positives:
These minis look great. Really great. I have over 2000 unique pre-painted minis appropriate for fantasy RPGS that could be used for my Pathfinder campaign. I don't need more. But these minis look better than 90% of my collection. I'm very happy I bought a case (plus a bunch of singles) and I look forward to the Rise of the Runelords set in the summer.
Getting a complete set in a case is wonderful. WizKids' Heroclix customers struggle with this (most cases of the LotR set released in November didn't even have a complete set of commons - forget the uncommons, rares and chase pieces). WotC's cases only had half the rares in a set. Pazio did a great job convincing WizKids to give us a full set in a case.
Negatives:
There is little difference between commons, uncommons, and rares. On average a case contains 2.55 of each common, 2.22 of each uncommon, 2 of each medium rare, and 2 of each large rare (the ultra-rares are 1.33 of each medium and 1 of each large). It would probably be better to eliminate the uncommon level, making all monsters commons and all PCs rares. But maybe WizKids has a business reason for the commonalities being so similar.
Distribution is uneven. Commons may average 2.55 each, but reality is most cases have a 1 quantity common and a 4 quantity common. There's a range of 1-4 for commons. Uncommons have a range of 1-3. The medium and large rares also have a 1-3 range despite the average which suggests there should be a flat 2 each in a case. This results in almost all cases having a rare with a higher quantity then some commons and uncommons in the case. For example, one person who purchased 3 cases ended up with 4 common Wolves and 9 rare Medusas. The randomness of the distribution means it's often better to buy singles on the secondary market than to gamble on buying another case.
First set issues like scaling problems, sculpts similar to Mage Knight pieces, repaints of the same goblin sculpt. These have been discussed at length. With more lead time on the Runelords set, I don't expect these to happen again.
Posts
