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.