WOTC Star Wars Miniatures

[BigDumbWookiee]

Well, I ordered a starter and a few boosters just now, that will help me decide whether or not to get into these. I doubt I'll get promo pieces if I do, but I guess if I'm blown away, I can go back and get them, since theres only 4...

[SilverZ]

I'm heading to check to local extremely nerdy gaming store and see if they turned up. I'm really baffled about where I should be looking for these.  Count me in if I can find the friggin' things, though!

[JediMAC]

Holy ****.  Just checked the individual figure prices for these things on eBay...  Way more expensive than I anticipated!  We're talking $25+ for each of the Very rares, $15+ for the rares (which are all the main characters), etc.  Looks like cases might be the best way to go here.  This is gonna be painful...   

Just posted a main page blurb on the line as well (thanks Adam).  WOTC has put up a great checklist of all 60 of the Rebel Storm figures, in both text and visual formats.  Here's a copy of the text version, so you can see the complete checklist, and how tough each respective figure will be to get:

Faction/Number/Name/Rarity

Rebel   
  1.  Bothan Spy - Uncommon
  2.  C-3P0 - Rare
  3.  Chewbacca - Rare
  4.  Commando on Speeder Bike - Very Rare
  5.  Elite Hoth Trooper - Uncommon
  6.  Elite Rebel Trooper - Common
  7.  Han Solo - Rare
  8.  Hoth Trooper - Common
  9.  Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight - Very Rare
10.  Luke Skywalker, Rebel - Rare (in Starter set)
11.  Obi-Wan Kenobi - Very Rare
12.  Princess Leia, Captive - Very Rare
13.  Princess Leia, Senator - Rare
14.  R2-D2 - Rare
15.  Rebel Commando - Uncommon
16.  Rebel Officer - Uncommon
17.  Rebel Pilot - Common
18.  Rebel Trooper - Common
19.  Rebel Trooper - Common
20.  Wookiee Soldier - Common
   
Imperial   
21.  Darth Vader, Dark Jedi - Rare (in Starter set)
22.  Darth Vader, Sith Lord - Very Rare
23.  Elite Snowtrooper - Uncommon
24.  Elite Stormtrooper - Uncommon
25.  Emperor Palpatine - Very Rare
26.  General Veers - Rare
27.  Grand Moff Tarkin - Rare
28.  Heavy Stormtrooper - Uncommon
29.  Imperial Officer - Uncommon
30.  Mara Jade, Emperor’s Hand - Rare
31.  Probe Droid - Very Rare
32.  Royal Guard - Uncommon
33.  Scout Trooper - Uncommon
34.  Scout Trooper on Speeder Bike - Very Rare
35.  Snowtrooper - Common
36.  Stormtrooper - Common
37.  Stormtrooper - Common
38.  Stormtrooper - Common
39.  Stormtrooper Officer - Uncommon
40.  Sandtrooper on Dewback - Very Rare
   
Fringe   
41.  Bespin Guard - Common
42.  Boba Fett - Very Rare
43.  Dengar - Rare
44.  Duros Mercenary - Uncommon
45.  Ewok - Common
46.  4-LOM - Rare
47.  Gamorrean Guard - Uncommon
48.  IG-88 - Rare
49.  Ithorian Scout - Uncommon
50.  Jabba the Hutt - Very Rare
51.  Jawa - Common
52.  Lando Calrissian - Rare
53.  Mon Calamari Mercenary - Common
54.  Quarren Assassin - Uncommon
55.  Greedo - Rare
56.  Bossk - Rare
57.  Tusken Raider - Common
58.  Twi'lek Bodyguard - Uncommon
59.  Twi'lek Scoundrel - Common
60.  Wampa - Very Rare

Wanted to add this site in here for reference as well.  Seems pretty helpful.  After a little bit of searching around the net, it looks like the average prices for these figures will break down roughly as follows (with the # of figures per "rarity level"):

16 Common: $.65
16 Uncommon: $1-2
16 Rare: $8-10
12 Very Rare: $20-30

Can't say I'm real thrilled to see some EU figures already filtering into the mix here.  If they want to do EU, I think they should just do it all together, in a separate EU collection.  Looks like we've got at least 5 or 6 of them already: Mara Jade (x2?), Wookiee Soldier, Twilek female, Twilek male, Bothan Spy.  I guess I don't really mind Mara, the Wookiee, and the Bothan that much, but the two Twileks are pretty lame choices...

Boy, I think this is gonna make Kubrick collecting look easy!   

[BigDumbWookiee]

Where ya seein two Mara Jades? I think there's only one...

[chuckles]

The rares and very rares might be going for quite a bit now on ebay but that's because they just hit and impatient people are driving up the prices. Give it a few more weeks and you should start seeing them drop in price, hopefully.

It's hard to believe that they are even fetching that much. Rares for nearly the cost of a booster pack? Very rares for almost 2-3 times the cost of a booster pack? Aren't you quaranteed 1 rare or very rare in each booster? That shouldn't make any particular figure extremely HTF.

I'd give it a month and wouldn't be surprised to see that most, if not all, prices on ebay have dropped to half or more of what they're going for now.

[jokabofe]

Aren't you quaranteed 1 rare or very rare in each booster?

i don't think so. the breakdown looks like this:

Starter Sets give you everything you need to play fast, challenging skirmish battles. You get 8 random and 2 exclusive miniatures, a stat card for each miniature, a fold-out battle grid, 8 terrain tiles, a 20-sided die (d20), and the skirmish rulebook.

Each Star Wars Miniature Booster Pack includes 7 random miniatures and their stat cards. Use them to build bigger and better squads, or add them to you Star Wars roleplaying sessions.

so it looks like in the starter sets (which retail around $20 or so, i think) you will be getting 2 "exclusives" - which means something besides commons - could be uncommons, rares, or very rares. and in the booster packs, you will pretty much be getting mostly commons.

the breakdown will most likely be something like this.... going with the 7 minis per pack, these will most likely be your odds (these are not stated by wotc or anywhere that i could find them online... i'm just making a semi-educated guess here):

common 6:1 (i.e. 6 commons:1 box)
rare 1:3
uncommon 1:10
very rare 1:25

think of the rare/uncommon/very rare like insert cards from your sports card days. you're not guaranteed to get any set amount in a pack, but your odds will be so-so for finding them. and certain insert sets were harder to find than others, making them worth more on the secondary market.

as for prices dropping? i'm not sure how much they will be going down, once these hit big. some of the marvel and dc heroclix still command some decent money on ebay, even though those things are everywhere. with the popularity star wars has, and the insanity of some of the fans, i would guess that the prices on some of the harder to find pieces - most of which are the characters that eveyybody wants - won't be going down too much any time soon.

[JediMAC]

Where ya seein two Mara Jades? I think there's only one...

I'm pretty sure I saw two of her at Comic Con, and in the Comic Con pix, as well as on a couple early checklists.  But now it appears that there's only the one "fighting" one.  I'll see if I can figure out what's happened.

SRLPs are $20 for the Starter Set, and $13 for the Boosters.  But buying by the case (12 boosters in a case) seems to be much cheaper - low $90's.  A little searching around the net, and you can find Starters for around $15 most places, and Boosters for about $9-10.  I'll shoot you guys some links for some good e-tailers on these...

The stats I've seen on the breakdowns for the sets so far is this:

Starter set - 2 exclusives (Vader & Luke) plus 8 randoms, made up of 6 commons and 2 uncommons.

Booster set - 7 figures, made up of 4 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare or very rare.

That's what I've seen listed at a couple places anyway.  Not sure just how accurate that is.  My question, if those are true, is - is there any reason to buy more than just the 1 Starter set?  Get your exclusive Vader and Luke (which I think is assured in each set), and then move back over to the Boosters...?  Doesn't seem to be the potential of any rare or super rares in the Starter sets from what I can tell...

[bobafett14]

I have a starter set and 2 boosters ordered just to see whats up.

I grabbed them from Essential comics in PA, they post at www.pswcs.com a lot, so I figured I'd give them some business.

I know some guys have pulled the Fett, Wampa, a Vader, Probe droid, speeders, etc. from the cases they got in so far-curious to see what I get as far as the extra rares go.  we'll find out this week.

I have a Sept. 25th meeting planned bunch of the guys coming over that day.  In the gameroom I'll have Battlefront on the widescreen and the minis game probably going on in the background.

Should be a fun day!

[bobafett14]

Where ya seein two Mara Jades? I think there's only one...

I'm pretty sure I saw two of her at Comic Con, and in the Comic Con pix, as well as on a couple early checklists.  But now it appears that there's only the one "fighting" one.  I'll see if I can figure out what's happened.

SRLPs are $20 for the Starter Set, and $13 for the Boosters.  But buying by the case (12 boosters in a case) seems to be much cheaper - low $90's.

The stats I've seen on the breakdowns for the sets so far is this:

Starter set - 2 exclusives (Vader & Luke) plus 8 randoms, made up of 6 commons and 2 uncommons.

Booster set - 7 figures, made up of 4 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare or very rare.

That's what I've seen listed at a couple places anyway.  Not sure just how accurate that is.  My question, if those are true, is - is there any reason to buy more than just the 1 Starter set?  Get your exclusive Vader and Luke (which I think is assured in each set), and then move back over to the Boosters...?  Doesn't seem to be the potential of any rare or super rares in the Starter sets from what I can tell...

Yeah, I'm only buying one starter set.  After I get the 2 boosters and see what I get in them, it will determine how many more boosters I get.  If I have nearly every sommon, then it wouldn;t make sense for tme to keep getting boosters, but if I still need a bunch of commons, then I'll probably grab abother booster set or two.

I kinda view it like the CCG cards, I kept buying the packs until I had all the common/uncommons, then just went and bought the HTF ones individually.

[JediMAC]

I was scoping out the completed eBay auctions last night, and there were completed Fett auctions for $75, $50, $40, and $31.  Yikes.  Seemed like the Probe Droid was going for the second most, in the $30's.

Good luck with yours Bob, and you know where to find us if you've got any to trade!  

[chuckles]

The stats I've seen on the breakdowns for the sets so far is this:

Starter set - 2 exclusives (Vader & Luke) plus 8 randoms, made up of 6 commons and 2 uncommons.

Booster set - 7 figures, made up of 4 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare or very rare.

That is exactly what I've been reading too at other message boards from people who have busted several cases of these already.

My question, if those are true, is - is there any reason to buy more than just the 1 Starter set?  Get your exclusive Vader and Luke (which I think is assured in each set), and then move back over to the Boosters...?  Doesn't seem to be the potential of any rare or super rares in the Starter sets from what I can tell...

I don't think there is any reason at all to buy more than one starter set, unless you want an extra set of playing tiles or something. Sounds like the best way to go is 1 starter set and then lots of booster packs and a good trading network, which I hope we can get one going here. If I can find them in stores around here, I plan on buying some later this week.

Regarding the prices on ebay, like everything else when it's first released, such as sports cards, they always go for insane prices right away because you have all those impatient people who can't wait and bid these things up. Give it a month and let's see if Fett is still going for $40 or $50+. While I agree the very rare figs will probably still fetch a fair amount (like double digits), with certain figs like a Fett getting more, I don't see them going for anywhere what they do now.

In the coming weeks, I could see ebay being flooded with these. Now that people are seeing the prices, you're going to have people buying up cases for the sole reason of listing all the rare and very rare figs on ebay, hoping to turn a profit on them. Next thing you know, there will be 100s of each fig there. Soon supply will catch up with demand like with every other new product when it first hits.

[JediMAC]

Where ya seein two Mara Jades? I think there's only one...

Maybe it was partly due to this shot, where the Twilek Mercenary's head gets chopped off.  The body/cape, etc. looks like her.  But I could've sworn I saw her name listed twice on one of the earlier lists somewhere.  But I think it's a moot point, as it looks like there's definitely only the one of her coming now.

And I'm sure you're right on those insane eBay prices Jim, but I think those original four prices I listed will wind up being pretty close, since that's what several of the gaming websites are selling them for individually, and I'd think they've got enough experience to know what they're doing, and at what price points these various categories of figures usually wind up selling at.

But yeah, I agree with the strategy here:  Starter set, ****load of Boosters (probably a case, at least), and a lot of trading!   

Ready, set, go!

[JediMAC]

Another question I have, that I haven't found any answers for anywhere, is are the 3 separate Booster set packaging designs at all indicative of what figures are inside of each of them?  There's the Han Solo (Rebels?), Stormtrooper (Empire?), and Boba Fett (Fringe?).  Do you only get the particular "figure faction" with each respective box, or are they all just mixed in together, in all 3?  If they're actually segregated, then is there any way of knowing how many of each you'd get in a case?  Like 4 of each?  I think that's the last thing I really need to figure out at this point, before I make my move...  Here's the 3 packages I'm talking about:

[jokabofe]

judging from the packouts on the marvel and dc clix - no, it doesn't matter which box graphic you choose. you're gonna get the same crap no matter what 

[chuckles]

Jokabofe is right. From what I've been reading, the graphics on the box mean nothing as far as what the contents are. All booster packs contain the same random mix from the pool of 58 figures, as opposed to each of the respected factions.