I just got word from my wholesaler who recieved an email from WotC. PH3 is offcially cancelled. He also informed me something very interesting in that WotC is going back to blind boosters. I saw a copy of the anouncment of cancelling PH3 series BUT the info about being blind I don't know where he got it or how "confirmed" it is.

I asked him his source on the blind thing in an email and he just answered "word of mouth" so take what you will from that. I will say though, he is not a player, does not visit any forums and just sells the product so I am betting his "word of mouth" is someone from WotC. Still no word on next release date either.


.....Andrew

Thanks for the info (spoiler) Andrew!

Now the question is: will the number of minis per booster go up? My guess is they will mix the PC minis back in and we'll get two more minis (one C & one UC) per booster.

Sounds about right.
How do you think the official announcement will be couched?

More minis per booster is presumptuous, BUT I'd love it!

Thanks for the info Auggie!

Thanks for the news Andrew.

To save money perhaps the characters will be mixed in with the monsters and stay at 40 per set. Wonder what this means for skirmish..... Probably nothing 

So we are back to getting a lot of crap we don't need (20 halfling barbarians) and still having to buy the singles we want at inflated secondary market prices. yay. excuse me if I don't do cartwheels.

I just had an odd thought.... they might go towards the way of SWM.

By that many of the Really good minis for PC's end up being Rare/Very rare (look at older and up comming sets, Dass Jennir, Ferus Olin, Jax Pavan Cad Bane,Nahdar Vebb, Hondo Ohnaka, the Dark Woman, Kol and Cade Skywalker work great for PC's becuase they aren't "luke, han etc" but they are nicely made painted figures in the R/VR slot) being Rare/VR you also don't have loads of them in your collection and so they are individuals, what a lot of people want for their PC minis.

So DM's don't get stuck with loads of "PC" minis that they can't use for monsters I can see WotC doing a very interesting change to the line.
I have always liked the fact that with the WotC product you knew you were getting a Rare, X uncommons, Y commns. What if they did something like

3 Common
2 Uncommon
1 Large (it's own catagory)
1 Rare
1 Hero

or

4 Common
2 Uncommon
1 Rare
1 Hero

And toss the Larges back into the general pool of being uncommon or common or Rare.

interesting thought it could go to 52 figures, 40 monsters and 12 Hero's random in the line but you get all 12 with a case.

Just no pleasing all the people all the time.

I really don't care to much about the heroes line, but going back to blind should be better. I hope they back to the 60pcs set.

I could live with the VR from SWM, just as long as the minis line continues.

That wouldn't be too bad, adding a "Hero" rarity to the set. I think people were just upset getting a medium rare (or worse, a small rare) instead of a large, which they couldn't trade or sell.

What they need to do is make the rarities equal across the board. But, one category is missing, the larges that people only want 1 of or are expensive to make due to parts (dragons/beholders).

If it's a hero it can be small or medium, no biggy. But, if it's a rare, and it's large, then all rares should be large. Although I'd prefer uncommon.

4 commons (8)
1 uncommons (6)
1 uncommon large (6)
1 small/medium hero/villain (12)
1 rare (8)

A set might look like this:

COMMONS (small - medium)
Kobold/Goblin
Bugbear/Orc
Orog/Drow
Monstrous Humanoid
Magical Beast
Undead
Outsider
Plant/Animal

UNCOMMONS (tiny - medium)
Tough Low Level
BBEG
Townfolk
Specialist (spell caster or human soldier)
Dungeon Dressing
Elemental/Outsider

LARGE UNCOMMONS (large)
Mounted Humanoid
Monstrous Humanoid/Giant
Undead
Plant/Animal/Magical Beast
Outsider/Elemental
Construct

HEROES (small - medium)
Paladin
Anti-Paladin
Lord Soth
Mordankainen
Drizzt
Warduke
Dwarf Ranger
Gnome Bard
Elf Barbarian
Half-elf Warrior
Half-orc Cleric
Halfling

RARES (large)
Aspects
Dragons
Demon/Devils
Monstrous Humanoids
Magical Beasts
Undead
Constructs
Aberrations
Outsiders
Mounted Humanoid
Pile of bodies
Half Plant half warforged

Obviously the list above is very generalized.

Wouldn't it be bit of a problem if a big portion of a 40 miniature set was devoted to Heroes? Especially for DMs? Typically, one person needs only 1 character miniature per campaign.

If the PHH is getting integrated back in to the set, I'd imagine that you'd want as few PHH as possible when you open your boxes, which means making them rarer - and having a higher number of them.

Unless they use the VR system, but you'd still need them to be equal in physical size to the Rares.

Also, you'll notice the 12 rares are not purely heroes. Stuff like Vlaakith or Lord Soth would fit in to this category too.

That could work. One of the nice things about skirmish was that you didn't mind getting duplicate heroes as you could use them in battle.

Not always true, Ember, Tordek, Jozan, Devis, Krusk, Lidda, Lidda, Nebbin, Aramil, Eberk, Regdar, Regdar, Mordenkainen, Elminstar, Raistlin Majere, Wulfgar, Mercenary General, Bruenor Battlehammer and a number of minis that were designed to be "hero" character minis or worked very well for Heroes in RPG were unique so you couldn't use multiples of them. They got better with it but you still had Uniques on occasion that were great PC minis.

This news is not surprising. As to how they handle re-integrating the heroes. I'd prefer VR or their own category status. Keep the rares to monsters. I have exactly 1 of each PHH mini except for the Invoker and the Warforged Alchemist due to leftovers no one wanted at PHH. This is fine, I didn't pay for those extras.

In terms of when I bought from the randoms...
2 Raistlins
1 Wulfgar
1 Strahd
5 Van Richtens
2 Raasks
1 Vlaakith
2 Lady Vols
1 Bruenor
ALL untradeable and some others from the earlier uncommon named characters. My need for PC style figs is 1/type at MOST.

So yeah, keep em out of the uncommons, make em their own category called "Heroes" or VR and keep the numbers down.

My needs are more around those big blanks in the legion of MMs all the way back to 1st. PC types have very few blanks.

Good point about the uniques.

Good point on filling out the blanks on MM. With MM3 coming out in June, makes you wonder how they will ever be able to keep up with miniatures to match. 