D&D Miniatures is kind of an interesting mix of a bunch of stuff: the rebirth of the failed Chainmail game, the desire to get in on WizKids' Mage Knight pre-painted craze, an attempt to appeal to non-RPG consumers, etc.

Those keywords you're seeing — Angelfire, Giants of Legend, etc. — are the names of the expansion sets. They are sold in individual booster packs for normal-type consumers and in bricks of 12 boxes for retailers, resellers, and other folks who have more money than I do (not that that proves much ... ). And, yes, booster packs contain a mix of commons, uncommons, rares, etc. So what you're also seeing is eBay listings for single minis — Beholder, Large Blue Dragon, etc. — that are considered rare or super-cool.

The D&D Miniatures game itself is a strange hybrid: it can be played with "skirmish" rules that are basically just an excuse to bash the other guy, or the minis can be used in a d20/3e campaign. However, the campaign option makes no sense, as the randomness of the packaging makes it impossible to predict what figures you'll get: thus, the odds of a player finding the perfect mini for his character or a DM finding six skeletons to make up an encounter are not in the consumers' favor.

Personally, I have two thoughts with this product line: first, I would never attempt to use them as my exclusive source of minis (for the reason listed above); however, some of the individual figures are sort of neat. I've found four that represent my favorite adventuring party from the days of wine and roses, and they give me that good, tingly nostalgic feeling.

+++++

Aside: Auction Sieve can filter these results out of eBay searches quite easily. Just enter the following terms into the Trash Words section:

Harbinger
Archfiends
Dragoneye
Aberrations
Giants of Legend
Angelfire
Deathknell

Winterwords wrote:Thanks for the tip on how to filter them out.

My pleasure. A further tip: filter out the misspellings, too — i.e., Abberations, Deathnell, Harbringer, etc. It's a pain, but it has to be done, and at least Auction Sieve makes it pretty much a two-click process.

deimos3428 wrote:YMMV

what does that mean?

killjoy32 wrote:

deimos3428 wrote:YMMV

what does that mean?

Your Mileage May Vary

A good chunk of the plastic miniatures are actually pretty nice, and have paint-jobs that are better than a lot of folks could do  The newer sets are better looking than most of the older sets.

Check the WotC galleries:
D&D Miniatures Gallery

The order of release is: Harbinger, Dragoneye, Archfiends, Giants of Legend, Aberrations, Deathknell, Angelfire.

I know some of the "old-timers" ( ) won't like them, but they're a heckuva lot less expensive, both in time and cash, to buy and use for D&D. And best of all for the D&D game itself, they're profitable - which means WotC isn't in fear of tanking anytime soon

Doug Williams wrote:What scale are these new plastic minis?


While on the subject, what scale were the older, metal minis?

Before or after you microwave them?

While I do buy the minis, I haver to admit I am also very upset with the ebaying of them.

It is virtually impossible to look up and non-miniature D&D accesroy withouit getting a page full of minis.

It puts you in keyword hell.

Doug Williams wrote:What scale are these new plastic minis?

30mm

Many people say that these mini's are cheaper than metals.  Looked at the price of the harbinger releases lately $600+ for a set!  These mini's are being sold as collectable and have there own game.  I would get nervous about plaing with a mini that cost me $40.00 or more and does anybody actually play the Game?

Maybe I am just old fashioned, if I need 4 kobolds for an encounter I would like just to go to the store, buy a pack and set them on the gaming table, not have to buy 8 or 9 booster packs and take my chances.

Doug Williams wrote:If we could buy them individually (like other minis are marketed), at a price that reflects that they are indeed just plastic after all (say $1-$2 for a human sized figure) I would most likely buy a bunch of them, just for the convenience factor.

That's why I do such brisk business on eBay - you can get humans and critters for under $1 each. Not all of them, of course, but you can't often get new metal miniatures for under a few dollars each. And these are prepainted (albeit sometimes not well), so they're "ready for play" right away.

Blackmoor wrote:Many people say that these mini's are cheaper than metals.  Looked at the price of the harbinger releases lately $600+ for a set!  These mini's are being sold as collectable and have there own game.  I would get nervous about plaing with a mini that cost me $40.00 or more and does anybody actually play the Game?

Maybe I am just old fashioned, if I need 4 kobolds for an encounter I would like just to go to the store, buy a pack and set them on the gaming table, not have to buy 8 or 9 booster packs and take my chances.

You're using the oldest set to set prices, which isn't a good idea  Do a search on 'Angelfire' - that's the newest set - and you'll find a crapload of cheap miniatures. The majority are quite a bit cheaper than metal, and they don't need to be painted.

If you grab 4 kobolds and plop 'em on the table, they're not painted. For around $0.75 each, you could grab 4 Kobold Soldiers (from Angelfire), and voila. Judging from my FLGS prices, it'd be about a buck cheaper than buying a blister of miniatures to boot.

The game itself is pretty popular, and that's why many of the figures are so much more expensive. And really, the miniatures are almost indestructible - they're plastic. No broken weapons, and if it gets bent, you just bend it back  Personally, I enjoy painting miniatures (haven't done it for years though), but I way prefer the new miniatures for actual gaming. Soooo much easier

Check my store link on the Classifieds board, and compare the prices to buying metal miniatures, and consider the time saved on painting stuff that doesn't need to look great.