|
I’m in many ways a collector at heart. I grew up in the 80’s collecting baseball cards, I had books lined with Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Ryne Sandberg, and George Brett cards. I collected sports memorabilia back then – anywhere from sports cards, to autograph pictures, to those Starter Line Up sports action figures. When I hit high school the rage of my collection turned to Magic: The Gathering. My gaming addictions were in full force at this point and Wizards of the Coast had found a way to combine gaming with collecting and the Collectible Card Games were born. Now I had books lined with full sets of the latest MTG blocks. I’m nearly 30 at this point, and my collecting addiction nor my gaming addictions have died down at all. Four years ago this upcoming Sunday Blizzard (one of my favorite developers) released their new MMO – and I was immediately hooked – and still am. My gaming addiction found a new friend – however, what happened next I was not expecting. |
 |
|
Blizzard figured out they could license their product to other companies that make collectibles. Needless to say, my wallet hasn’t looked thinner in years. First came the WoW TCG, then the action figures by DC comics, then the comic books, and released this week was the miniature game. I own all of these products (and then some – I’m not including the prints, shirts, calendars, etc. I own). I’ve never been a big fan of miniature games in general so with reading this review you should understand where I’m coming from as far as a reviewer. First the important things – I bought a case of the minis. There are 16 boosters in a case. 3 minis in a booster, so you’ll receive 48 minis overall, which is short of the 66 minis in a complete set. The insert rate for the epic minis (the most rare) are 1 in every 8 boosters – so you should be receiving 2 epic minis per case. There are 8 total epic figures. Each figure also comes with a character sheet card and 2 ability/spell cards. Also in each booster are 2 cards you receive from the trading card game, 1 UDE point card and either a Drums of War promo card (there’s 2 different ones you can get) or a chance at a Drums of War loot card (including the coveted Red Bearon mount card). In the case that I bought I received 2 epics – War chief Thrall and Ras Frostwhisper. I also received SIX loot cards, yes you read that right. The loot cards I received were 4 of the Shadowdance loot card and 2 of the Red Bearon Mount card (which sells for about $150-$250 on ebay). I quickly put up the mount loot cards on ebay and bought another case of minis (it paid for the case I had bought by itself and then some). |
|
In the 2nd case I got 2 more epics (unfortunately the same ones as the first case) and SEVEN more loot cards. The insert rate on the loot cards per booster pack seems insanely high and seems like a good investment for those who are wanting loot cards. I quickly put up my loot cards again on ebay and they successfully paid for a 3rd case of minis that I am awaiting for in the mail. If you’re looking to buy a lot of minis then I definitely suggest you check out buying them in bulk either from online retailers or your local gaming shop. Chances are they will sell them to you at a discount price (for example I was able to buy my cases for $130 which comes to about $8 per booster instead of the $15 per you buy them for individually). In the 2 cases I’ve bought so far I am still missing 16 total figures including 4 of the epic figures in order to complete the full set. Now as far as the game play aspect you have to remember I’m not a big fan of miniature games, I like to collect them but I don’t play the game itself much. I did have a chance to play the demo at PAX earlier this year and it plays a lot like a pvp match in WoW. Each character has certain points and certain spells and abilities – and each ability has a type of cool down really. You try to gain as many victory points as you can and you gain those by holding the victory points at certain turns and killing your opponent. Whoever gets to the predetermined amount of victory points first wins. The game to me isn’t all that exciting to be honest, but I can see where it might be for those who enjoy these kinds of games. I think having more than 2 available maps to play on will make the game more exciting. The figures themselves are beautiful though, and any collecting World of Warcraft fanatic would love them. The added bonus of the exceptionally high insert rate of loot cards could mean that unless you buy these soon, you might be out of luck. I’m already having a hard time finding them now as they’re almost sold out everywhere. |
This review was written by Eldorian. He was staff member of Stratics. You can find him at his blog: https://shamantastic.com
