beepeearr's page

With few exceptions (mostly those with the word "Basic" in the name), we don't generally reprint Flip-Mats. However, once they've been out of print for a while, we sometimes resurrect the more popular ones in the Flip-Mat Classics line.

Speaking of non mint... I actually found a new unopened copy of this one but there was a lot of weird extra creases that don't come out just from pressing it under some weight. Can you use steam or even an iron or heat on these? Worried those methods might damage the Laminate.

Also for those complaining about revealing the whole map at first, Ive always just used sheets of paper covering the parts I don't want revealed yet

Is this no longer coming out in December, don't see it on the Classics page anymore?

Love the flip tiles line so far, and really like this set, but kind of felt it was different enough in theme it should be a completely different set from the Woodland tiles, or at least had more transition tiles from forest to dead forest. Also the broken bridge being the only river piece but having the dead woods instead of the same trees as the river pieces in the other sets was a little weird. Maybe we can get a creepy forest starter set later down the line.

Also an expansion for the city set with larger room interiors and roofs, like the whole tile so that we can use them to make things like taverns and inns would be pretty cool too.

Can't wait to eventually get my city slums expansion set in!

Grailswar1 wrote:

The description: "Why take the time to sketch out ugly scenery on a smudgy plastic mat when dynamic encounters and easy clean-up are just a Flip away?"

But on the back side of this map, what do they give us? Not another street or city scene but a blank grid so we can sketch out our own 'ugly scenery on smudgy plastic'.
Come on Paizo would have really hurt that much to give us another useable scene, this is the kind of stuff we expect from WOTC.

Please keep in mind that the Flip-Mat Classics line reprints out-of-print Flip-Mats that were originally published a long time ago. Back then, one side of the map would often have only a simple pattern, which made some people happy (see the above post!) and some people unhappy. Eventually, we felt that we'd done enough of those, so all of the mats have had full cartography on both sides for quite some time now, and—outside of the reprint line—will continue to do so.

Any Chance we will see the Map Pack: shops return either as basically a flip mat (easiet, since you could basically do one side as the city streets map, just with interiors, and then the others on the other side as a new map. Or harder since the dimensions are off, a Flip Tile urban expansion that will still work with the city streets mat?

I've generally used CC3 in the past, but it can be a pain, and have been looking at switching to hexographer.

"I have 2 hexes of highland moors and bogs along the coast, 2 hexes of pure forest, then 2 hexes of forested hills. I found this VERY limiting to my creativity."

The pro version is supposed to have an ability to take an existing hex and create a child map, a zoomed in view of that hex from my understanding. So just because your map shows a forest hex that's just the predominant terrain in a hex not the only terrain.

Got my case in, still waiting on my rune giant though :(

First my thoughts

Likes:
1) the minis looked great
2) really liked the new packaging
3) loved a large in every pack
4) no brokens, though I few were bent you can definitely tell they are using a softer plastic
5) really liked the rarity groupings (ie what minis where in each rarity)
6) rares were actually rare, only got 4 doubles on rares (3 were larges I actually wanted doubles on, so awesome, the 4th was the skinsaw man)
7) getting a complete set

Dislikes:
1) Non-large Commons and Uncommons might as well be one rarity grouping
2) More Commons
3) Would have liked the Lucretia and Aldern models as either Commons or Uncommons out of all the rares they could see the most use in non campaign games as regular commoners.
4)More Commons
5)I miss the the smalls being a 2 for 1, if for no other reason then it meant you got a lot of goblins (it was great for the goblins, but the gnome/dire rat pairing was weird, though a gnome/halfling or two dire rat combo would have been great)
6) More Commons
7) Price, really, really expensive, at least the huges were sold separately, hopefully there will still be some available when I get around to buying some.

Okay so I'm harping on the Commons. Rares were great this time around.

On my Uncommon Larges I got 2-3 of each, and on the rare larges I got 1-2 each with the 1 each being the Red Dragon and Mokmurian. I liked how the rarities worked out on the Larges. Wouldn't mind a Common, Uncommon, Rare of 3/2/1 for the larges though. With things like Ogres, Dire bears, giant bugs, giants in the common, things like wendigos and forge fiends in the uncommon and dragon and large named characters like mokmurian in the rare. Which is sort of what I got to be honest, but it was just luck.

For the commons I got
1x1
2x8
3x9
4x2

I think its the getting only 1 of a common that really bugs me, but only 2 of 8 of the commons seemed fairly low too. Ideally I would prefer getting 3 or 4 of each common (4 to be honest). Commons are the minis you are going to probably get the most mileage out of in a regular game.

For the medium uncommons I got
1x2
2x6
3x6

Medium Uncommon slots seem to be the place for PC minis and the boss's lieutenants. Other then the mounted Goblin commando which I was glad I got three, I would have been fine with just 2 of the remaining uncommons. Great minis, just not ones I will need a lot of. Which is fine, I don't want a lot of these minis.

So far two sets in I have spent more money on extra commons then I did completing my DDM sets back in the early days, usually $20-$50, I've spent a $100+ both times now.

I really like these minis, and love that you should usually get a complete set, but man are they expensive, the increased number of larges per brick really cool though.
The rares becoming more rare was a great step in the right direction, just hope to see the gap between the commons and uncommons widen, Even if its just 1-2 Rares, 2-3 Uncommons, and 3-4 commons. Mainly I just don't like getting so many commons only twice, and getting only 1 of a common is just bad.

Common
4x Alu-fiend
2x Bugbear hero :(
3x Denizen of Leng
4x Faceless Stalker
2x Ghoul :(
3x Goblin Commando :( Should be a rule that all goblin commons are in each brick
3x Goblin Dog
2x Goblin War Chanter :( :(
2x Harpy :(
3x Kobold Champion
1x Lamia Kuchrima :( Really
2x Ogrekin :(
3x Redcap
2x Shining Child
3x Sinspawn
2x Sinspawn Axeman
3x skinsaw Cultist
3x Warrior of Wrath
3x Wraith
2x Yeth Hound :(
52 Minis

Uncommon
2x Amieko
3x Mounted Goblin Commando
2x Harsk
2x Jakardros Sovark
1x Kaven Windstrike
3x Khalib
3x Lyrie Akenja
3x Orik Vandercaskin
1x Seoni
2x Shalelu
3x Tsuto Kaijitsu
3x Vale Temros
2x Viorian Dekanti
2x Vraxeris
32 Minis

Rare
1x Aldern Foxglove
1x Azaven
1x High Lady Athroxis
1x Karzoug
1x Lamatar Bayden
1x Lucrecia
1x Mithral Mage
1x Nualia
2x Skinsaw Man
1x The scribbler
1x Warchief Ripnugget
12 Minis

Large Uncommon
3x Dire Bear C
2x Lamia C
2x Lamia Matriarch U
3x Malfeshnekor C
2x Ogre C
2x Ogre Brute C
2x Stone Giant C
3x Stone Giant Champion U
3x Wendigo U Great mini though
2x Yeti C
24 Minis

Large Rare
2x Jaagrath Kreeg R
1x Mokmurian R
2x Forge Fiend U
2x Stone Golem U
1x Red Dragon R
8 Minis

Just because I'm weird I put what commonality I would put the larges in in my mythical world with common/uncommon/rare large break down.

Don't get me wrong I really like Pathfinder battles, but this set was way too expensive, and I haven't even gone after the Huge case yet. The value isn't way off, you are getting a lot of minis, particularly a lot of larges, but they are too expensive, especially when its such a large set.

Hopefully the next set will be a little cheaper and there will be more of each common. This set was better then Heroes and Monsters and that was a good set too.

You say yeth hound, I say goblin dog!

Isn't there rumored to be a goblin dog in this set as well?

DeciusBrutus wrote:

Any sculpts in the plans for tiny or diminutive minis? I could use a bunch of fairies and stirges, as wells as some familiar minis.

I like the idea of making minis for familiars. I don't really like the idea of incorporating familiars with character sculpts as was done in this set. Its still a nice looking mini, but I would rather have the ability to pair up my own familiar with my character's mini.

A removable familiar would be pretty neat though if possible. Like the character still comes with the familiar but it isn't glued to the base it just sits on top

Will smalls still be two for 1 medium or is that gone, I really liked that with the last set

Ahh, seemed a little high, with the Huge black dragon being only 15, here's hoping it comes down some.

Any word on the cost of the huge boosters, someone posted a price of $24.99 on another thread?

What was the completion rate for Heroes and Monsters. Any word on the possible common, uncommon, or rare spread yet?

I like The packs, just wish their was 1 more zombie in them, or 4 commons instead of 1, or at least non repainted commons. I use a lot of Minions in my game, and it would make it easier to round out a groups of four minions if they were the same as the ones found in the blisters, I do like the rares and uncommons getting repaints though.

According to the previews for RotRL several of the larges in that set are called Uncommons. So yes, it looks like they are on top of it for the next set

""Price per case" doesnt seem to mean anything (to me anyhow). It's meaningless without reference to how many minis are included in the arbitrary grouping of 'one case'."

That's kind of my point, If I can get a full set with a good ratio of rares to common (ie I want more goblins, skeletons, zombies and guardsmen)in one case, I don't mind if that one case is more expensive, but if I'm going to need multiple cases to achieve the same result that price would then become more prohibitive. The number of cases isn't really the issue it's the price to complete a set and get a good number of commons too.

"I'm hoping so. The number of commons didnt really bug me, but the existence of super-rares and just-plain-ordinary-rares is something I'm going to want to know about when it comes to ordering cases of the RoTRL set."

I thought of them more as Uncommon larges and Rare larges, which just by the previews is the new large ratios for the next set.

"Definitely agree with you about the common/rarity choices (although I wish the 'playable classes' were all rare, personally)"

Spellcasters for me, I can find a use for most Rogue or Fighters, but why do I do with my hoard of bards

"I'm curious though, how your opinion that they were a little overpriced gels with you being willing to pay $400? That's not an attack or anything, I just would have thought you don't think they're too expensive, since you were willing to pay the price being asked."

Fair, at close to three hundred per case, I felt they were a little over priced, I spent the money on an extra brick because I was hoping to round out my commons at 4, didn't work out as planned, so I wound up hitting the after market. I would have saved 70 dollars had I gone straight to the after market, that was my mistake, not a pricing issue. I could have gotten the whole set and 4 of all commons, and a about 6 extra larges including an extra frost giant and cave spider for about 50 extra over the case price. So about 26 extra minis for only 50 over case price.

Basically If the cases were 175 a piece or maybe even 200, I would be more okay with two cases for a set, but unless they start bundling there cases in sets of two, you will miss some rares. Because one of everything is in a single case usually, it has kept the singles market relatively cheap (except for Paizo's own singles). I want to see this product succeed. 300 for a case (and complete set) is my preferred, 350 I'm somewhat ok with, but over 400 is where I just walk away. And two case at the current case price tops that limit.

"Do you think there are 'casual buyers' who will buy a single case though?"

I did, I hadn't bought a new Mini in about 3 or 4 years, and for the first set of DDM I completed the set by purchasing a ton of individual blisters, before finding a better way to it by buying cases on forums like this. I guess I'm more concerned about the casual buyer who is about to become a collector.

"For those looking to collect at least a full set though - I can't see why you wouldnt expect to pay more for a full set containing 60 unique minis than you would for a full set made up of 40"

Ok, for a sixty mini set, Paizo can go a few routes, stay as is, and say buy two cases

Boo

Stay mostly as is and just increase the case size to six consecutive bricks instead of four, and probably with a price increase

Or fix the Common to rare ratio provide more minis in one case of four bricks for a slight increase justifying it with the extra minis.

To be honest they could go more bricks or more minis in a brick, but if they can keep it to one case per set I would be happiest.

The good news it does sound like Paizo wants to fix the rarity ratio, they do realize they are currently a little over priced as is, judging by comments in these forums.

"I actually am not as taken with the look as you are (a lot of the figures are a little too cartoony for my tastes)"

Which begs the question why are you ok with paying over 500 for two cases to complete the set :D

The Trolls and Orcs were the only ones that really bothered me, always preferred my Orcs more a yellowish gray over green. Mainly I'm comparing these straight up against DDM, and these so far are definitely superior to them, I also like the harder plastic used in these. The paint jobs are better, and commons make sense, and thats a huge bonus to me.

"I'm surprised game stores are only buying single cases."

They might have when they first came out. I bought my case last week online, got them thursday and went off in search of a sealed brick saturday. Most of the local stores only had one brick, already opened, with no large Blisters left, 1 had 1 large blister, and another had a few sealed bricks, but was charging 9 dollars for large blisters. That store was also the only one that had any PFB on display an ogre mixed in with a bunch of DDM and a medium taped to the open brick, forgot which one though. He also was selling the Medium blisters for 3 and offered to trade me 1 sealed medium blister for my extra ettin.

I was more surprised by the lack of any kind of displays to be honest.

"Sure - but there's a difference here in the number of different minis in a set."

I do get that the set number is going up, but I also felt the initial set was a little over priced to begin with.

"From the comments on the boards, I don't think multiple sets is that unlikely. I'm surprised game stores are only buying single cases."

I assume you meant multiple cases, not sets. Very few casual buyers ever post on the boards, so if your posting here your probably pretty dedicated. Now some casual buyers will read the boards, but not very many ever feel the need to post. I've been gaming since the late 80's when I was just a kid with graph paper and a few ral partha minis here and there. But while I read the boards here and other places I don't really post a whole lot (well except for the past few days obviously)

And to be honest with you its because I really like this product. They are the best plastic minis I've ever seen, I've like about 90% of the scults and about 99% of the paint jobs, I only had 1 quibble with the set selection and that was the Gnome Fighter/Dire rat pairing, love the small pairing concept though.

The only issues I had, was with the rarity distributions, Ie fewer commons then some rares, and the price. I overlooked the price because of the buy one case, get near a full set. Now granted, now that I've seen them, I realize the actual product looks a lot better then the pictures online, so if the price does go up with the next set, I at least know the quality is there.

As much as I like them, I can live with the price per case going up if the rarity issues are resolved and they can keep near a complete set per case, ie more minis per case but more expensive to compensate for the extra minis in the set.

If it becomes a buy multiple cases to maybe get a full set type of thing though, and the cases don't go down in price, then no I probably won't buy another set. There just is no way I can justify spending over 500 dollars on minis 2 to 4 times a year depending on what they decide the production cycle to be.

I wound up spending around 400 for this set, after getting an extra brick and hitting the after market, if the case price goes up to around 350 but you get closer to 4 commons, 2 Uncommons and 1 rare, and still get near a complete set, I'm ok, I would honestly prefer 300 or below, especially if they don't get the rarity issue resolved.

Ok Since I have had noting better to do then think about Pathfinder Battles today

So how about something along these lines. We know there will be uncommon larges in the next set, so why not something like

Large Blisters= 1 Rare large, 2 mixed Uncommon Large (Huge sets could have 1 Huge Rare, 2 Uncommon Tiny, or Two Uncommon Huge, 1 Tiny Rare)

Medium Blisters= 1 Rare, 2 mixed Uncommon, 2 sets of matching Commons, ie 2 skeletons, 2 zombies (Small Rares, Uncommons, or Commons still come paired in place of 1 medium)

So a Large blister might look like 1 Frost Giant, 1 Ogre, 1 Troll or 1 Chimera, 1 Minotaur, 1 Ettin

A Medium blister might have looked like 1 Lich, 1 Half-Elf Cleric, 1 Mummy, 2 Skeletons, 2 Zombies or 1 Werewolf, 1 Human Druid, 1 Gnome Fighter, 1 Dire Rat, 2 Wolves, 2 Blue Goblin Hero, 2 Blue Goblin Warrior

A Brick could have 2 Large Blisters, 3 Medium Blisters roughly the same size as the Large Blisters. I think this could help individual sales of the medium blisters quite a bit, still color coded to avoid confusion though.

Each Brick would have 3 extra larges and 5 extra mediums or small pairs. So 12 extra larges and 20 extra mediums or small pairs per case

A case could still be 4 Bricks, even with a 6o mini set with something like 16 Commons (8 being two sculpts of 4 small pairings), 14 Uncommons (4 being two sculpts of 2 small pairings), 14 Rares (4 being two sculpts of 2 small pairings), 8 Large Uncommons, 8 Large Rares.

As far as pricing goes if you wanted to keep the same brick price as now you could do 15 per blister Large or Medium since the Medium has four more Minis then the Large, or maybe the Larges a little more and the Mediums a little less. For three larges, 1 of which is always a Rare, 20 would be fine, for a brick price of 85 with 15 Dollar Medium boosters, and 8 additional miniatures, 3 of which are larges, Increased price is fine if it also increases in value.

I would be happy, still should be able to get a complete set with 1 case, would decrease on the amount of packaging trash, bigger blister boxes can also see more functionality after opening. I'm using the Large blister boxes to separate minis into individual encounters and storing them together in a brick box, but the medium blisters are just too small to really be useful.

Plus by packaging the commons in matching sets and 4 to a box with 2 uncommons and a rare it would be like getting a whole encounter in every blister. It may not seem like much but the two sets of matching commons can go a long way to making a bunch of random miniatures feel more cohesive. A Werewolf, Half-elf cleric, Druid, 2 wolves, and 4 goblins seems like an interesting story, while a Werewolf, Half-elf cleric, Druid, a wolf, 2 goblins, a lizard folk champion and a skeleton seems a little more all over the place.

I noticed that Saturday most of the stores only had one open brick, and told me they were only stocking one case at a time, unless preordered. Only one store had any large boosters and multiple bricks but he was charging 9 for his large boosters.

I'm thinking more from the perspective of a casual purchaser of minis now, the kind that don't normally buy a case and almost certainly don't spend over a thousand dollars on minis (5 cases). I didn't decide to purchase them myself because of the price, 280 a case is pretty steep for a little over 60 minus, until I heard the reviews of complete sets with just one case.

As far as DDM goes it was the increase in price combined with the decrease in quantity per blister and per case, ddm was never really known for quality, it was a source of cheap prepainted plastics, but in the end they were no longer cheap, I can't speak to the quality of the sets in the latter days of 3rd and the 4th sets, since I had already stopped purchasing them by that point when the price of two cases had reached well above 300.

Personally I've never gamed or even met in person someone who bought cases of minis other than myself, but I've never met anyone with master maze, a collosal red dragon, or terra clips either, but I have met plenty of people who would buy blisters here or there and even a few younger ones who were trying to get a complete set one blister at a time.

PFB look great, way beyond any of the ddm sets, and their commons are much more useful, so at close to three hundred I can justify the cost, if I can get a complete set in case, or at least close. Throw in a few more copies of each common and I'm okay with pricing the cost at 300, especially if there are 6 bricks per case. 50 dollar bricks can lead to more casual purchases at the store level. As a dad I'm way less likely to balk at at 50 dollars then 75 or 80 when my son asks.

These are just my opinions, and the full set things isn't an issue of collecting them, its more a way to satisfy those of us who no longer want to play the whole rarity game anymore. Pay a larger up front fee (case price), but you should get everything you need

Ahh, I missed the DFW opening party, Just got mine Friday, and by saturday I was scouring Fort Worth and Arlington for a sealed brick to round out the numbers.

I really want to see a little more certainty in the common/uncommon/rare distribution. The two things that sold me on PF battles is the buy a case, get a set or close to it and the common sense commons. Ie commons you actually want a few of.

The commons selection is great, but after a case I wound up with 3 of almost every common and uncommon, and some medium rares, and one of every large rare. One problem, only 1 watch officer common, and 2 watch guard commons, 1 Gnome, and 1 dire rat uncommon pairing. Personally with one case I would like to see a 4 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare break down.

Something I noticed a lot of today as I hit the local stores, the medium small blisters do not appear to be selling quite as well as the larges, one place even went to a $9 for a large, $3 for medium/small.

At there current price per case, I can't see too many people buying multiple cases, I know I won't be. One of the things that killed DDM is that the price per case went up so high that buying multiple cases became unfeasible, especially as the number of cases needed to get near a complete set increased too.

The whole appeal of PFB is the whole set in 1 case, which is roughly priced at where DDM was for 2 cases back at its height of popularity. You get less overall minis, but at least you don't have to hunt down any missing rares (usually 4 in the first sets, I quit collecting them after I spent over 300 for my cases and had like 9 missing minis, one an uncommon).

If Paizo and Wizkids can find a way to get a better rarity distribution per case, without going over three hundred, and still get a complete set per case, I would buy a case every set. They are already did two of those things, now they just need to fix the rarity issue.

I personally would love a case to give you 4 of each common, 2 of each uncommon, and 1 of each rare.

This would be awesome, and I think might really help sales of whole cases to the non collectors too. If you know you are running a campaign against ogres and orcs with a white dragon at the end, and a set has two orc commons (so four of each sculpt), two ogre uncommons (two of each sculpt), and a rare ogre chieftain and a large white dragon your more likely to get a whole case. Also with better numbers of commons and uncommons it might inspire more people to buy a case and then base their campaigns on the set.

For this set I bought a case. I did get a complete set, so yay to that, but I wound up with more rares then a few of my commons. Three Watch Guards or Watch captains would have been way more usable then the three Lichs and Ettins I got in my case.

So I bought another brick from FLGS, so now I have at least 2 or 3 of most rares 3 or 4 of all uncommons, and 4 to 5 of most common, but still I only have 1 watch officer.

So I hit the internet and spent another 60 on singles.

So all in all I spent over 400 on this set, which is about a hundred more then I would have liked, but I can live with it since its the first set and I want to see future sets. Great minis, love the complete sets, just find a way to fix the rarity issue, and maybe give more miniatures per case at roughly the same price per case and a great product becomes an awesome one.

Just got my first case of PF Battles, best prepainted Minis I've ever bought. Loved that I got at least 1 of every mini, and they all looked really good.

But there was a few cons, and since it looks like they are moving to larger sets in the future anyways, now would be a good time to fiddle with the rarity and packaging for future sets.

I can't stress this enough though, please find away to keep them so that 1 case can usually complete a set, especially if the price is staying the same. As they stand now they feel a little over priced (270 for 64 minis).

Ok, what I would personally love to see, and something I think would be great for future releases, is having a common and uncommon category for Medium/Small minis, and an uncommon and rare category for Larges.

Have 3 large blisters per brick still with 1 uncommon large and 1 rare large per blister. This does a few things.

1) It allows you to have a set with say 12 large rares and 6 common larges. Its great to get an extra ogre, minotaur, or giant spider, but usually you only need 1 dragon, chimera, manticore, or frost giant chieftain.

2) It cuts down on wasted space in the packaging

3) It leaves room for a huge/tiny set later on, each brick will still have one rare and uncommon but one would be huge and one tiny, say a uncommon tiny stirge with a Rare huge beetle, or an uncommon huge treant with a tiny rare fairie queen.

Then you have 9 Medium/small blisters per brick with 2 minis or a small pairing in each (great concept loved the goblin pairings, but felt the gnome should have been paired with a halfling thief, and the dire rat with either a variant dire rat, like one on all fours [my preference], or another small animal type monster), with one for a common mini or small pairing and 1 for an uncommon mini or pairing. The benefits of which is the following

1) It allows each set to have 18 uncommons, this means in a case you should get 2 of each uncommon (or small pairing), and 9 commons for 4 of each common (or pairing) per case (great for minions, but equally good for normal encounters too)

2) It cuts down on wasted packaging, man I can't stress this enough, each case results in a bunch of trash.

3) It adds more minis to a brick, and helps justify the high cost of a brick or case which, and still should still give a complete set. Say each large booster is 10 dollars now, and every Medium/Small booster is 5 dollars, it would make a case at be 300 dollars, but with enough more minis, you don't mind the higher cost (more larges help with this feeling a lot). The price per minis is way better too, 5 per larger, 2.50 per medium and 1.25 per small. Just over 3 dollars per mini for a full case

One major problem is that the above number only works for a set of 50 not 60, assuming 5 small pairings say 2 uncommon, 3 common. At 60 minis per case the price per case would become to high, at least to me anyways, or the avg price per mini would drop below 3 which is probably to low for Wizkids. Raising the case to 5 bricks instead of creates all new issues, and to be honest 4 bricks was better for a more even distribution.

Basically I really like the new minis, I love the selection for commons, I only wish the randomization was better, winding up with three of most of my uncommons and a few rares but getting just 1 or only 2 of quite a few commons was just weird. Plus I liked the ettin, but I would have rather doubled up on the ogre instead, or gotten two frost giants or cave spiders instead of 3 minotaurs.

With the above, a kid could walk into a store with 20 bucks and have enough minis for an encounter (just the bad guys mind you), with 25 he could get two large creatures for the encounter, too. With 35 he can do an encounter against 6 large creatures (I'm accounting for sales tax by the way) and that is just cool. For 80 bucks he can get a whole brick, basically the cost of two hardback rule books.