Blood War was a sham!!!

I've expressed this sentiment several times on Maxminis, but have never put all of my thoughts together in one slightly coherent place and this seems to be the perfect place for it. I have made no secret of my feelings on the Unhallowed set, I even changed my Avatar on both Maxminis and Hordelings to express my feelings towards the set.

I honestly believe that the Blood War set was a set up. I think WotC deliberately included many more desireable minis in the set to mitigate the complaining about the price increase. That way, the next sets can suck all they want to, because they've already hooked us at buying the price point and now we're used to the increase so we'll buy stinky sets just as well. This becomes very evident when you compare the set to Unhallowed, especially with the rares. Blood War had 3 rares I couldn't've cared less about, The Air Genasi, Lord of Blades and Elf Dragonkith. Unhallowed had 12. Coincidence...I think not.
Things get a little closer when dealing with the Unc/C, but still, UH had some real WTF's in there. Did we really need an Aspect of Hugh Jackman? A Warlock mini dual wielding weapons?!?! I could go on and on, but I'll leave it with 2 words.....Halfling Brawler?

I think Night below will prove this point beyond a shadow of a doubt. Though I sincerely hope I am wrong, I'm not holding my breath. I figure if we're lucky, a 50/50 split of decent figures is about all we can hope for. I fully expect something similar to UH....the first few minis we see will be very nice, ala Beholder Lich, Large Black Dragon. Then, as the previews continue, the head scratching will begin.

I stated when the price increase was announced that I (and I was assuming others) would be less tolerant of crappy set lists and I, for one, have stuck to my guns. I bought many cases of BW and typically around 2 cases from previous sets. I've bought 5 boosters of UH and likely won't be buying more.

But, Wizard of Turmish is soooooooo good!

Wraith, I totally agree!

I think you have some good points, Wraithborne. Still, I think its a bit much to say that the set is a sham. I mean, its a typical move for any company to try to generate interest in their products when they have to increase prices. If they didn't have a legitimate reason to increase prices, then yeah, it would be a sham. However, I can imagine a number of valid reasons why the price increase would be legitimate. Unless there is solid evidence to support the contrary, I will assume that the price increase is due to increased production cost, and you can't really blame WotC for that.

That said, any "bad" mini that would have been hypothetically moved out of Blood War to make room for "better" minis would have been in development anyway, and we would have gotten the crappy minis all the same, just at a different time. In the long run, we'd very likely still get the same group of minis, its just a question of when.

Sure, it makes a difference in terms of getting more for you money from a given set , but it balances out if you look at Blood War and Unhallowed together, for example.

Or maybe you're right. Who knows, aside from the folks at WotC and Hasbro?

Blood War was the worse set for commons and uncommons , which after that set I realised thats the most important part of a set. Quiting making all the rares amazing and the damn commons and uncommons crap!
love a rpg player...

yack wrote:

Blood War was the worse set for commons and uncommons , which after that set I realised thats the most important part of a set. Quiting making all the rares amazing and the damn commons and uncommons crap!
love a rpg player...

Hate to disagree with a fellow Drum Icon, but I liked a lot of the C/Unc in Blood War.
Blood of Vol Cultist, Hero of Valhalla, some overdue Gnome love, Tanis Half-Elven, Medium Copper, Acheron Goblin, Large Water Elemental, Mezzoloth , 2 Gnolls, Stag Beetle, A Gargoyle that looks like a Gargoyle, the Snake, Red Hand, Orc Wizard, a Soulknife that didn't look like a moron, Phoera and Even the oft maligned Slaad and Spawn.

I was glad to get lots of most of the C/Unc from BW.

Ok sorry..................... the commons sucked! :)

yack wrote:

Blood War was the worse set for commons and uncommons , which after that set I realised thats the most important part of a set. Quiting making all the rares amazing and the damn commons and uncommons crap!
love a rpg player...

I agree. I personally found UH far, far, superior to BW.

I have yet to get a single UH booster and admittedly only have had about 4 or 5 BW boosters but nevertheless, I found that what I got from BW pleased me very, very much. The only thing I could maybe, MAYBE, say I wish I could have gotten something else instead was when I got my second cultist. Perhaps I just have lower standards...meh.

yack wrote:

Ok sorry..................... the commons sucked! :)

Most commons always suck, just more stuff that I don't need, but Blood War had about a 50/50 split for me, which is better than most sets....compare it to Deathknell if you want some suckitude.


Unc/C can make a set, but they don't sell me boosters. If the rares stink, like in UH, then I'll just trade a few rares and get heaps of the good Unc/C for 'em from someone who went overboard on their cases.

The rare in unhallowed didn't stink!

Did you forget the dragons, the Beholder Lich, Stradh Von Zarovich, The Blood Golem of Hextor, the Devourer?

All those were great rares and there were even more!

I'm way down with blood war in every aspect, except the price hike. I do agree with you wraith but I'm one of those suckers that says "at least the pieces were worth it". As far as unhallowed goes, I love that freaking set. Strahd's ridiculously fun, B-Lich is one of my favorite pieces (after about 25-30 boosters I never pulled one, had to case-buy it, and may buy another one). Night Below I like a hell of a lot, because it made the other sets say "WTF?!" A lot of unusual-for-the-faction pieces came out, and a lot of fun new abilities (loot, anyone?) were used to amazing potential. I Love the last 3 sets, and I hope they follow suit with DoD1 & DoD2.

As far as BW c/uc goes, Dragonmark? Mezzoloth? Greenspwn sneak? (yes, the pwn was intentional, because he's always my MVP.) Shadowdancer? Gnome Trickser?! Haha, GREAT RPG and skirmish value, best I've seen from ANY set.

-Eric the Axe

The c/uc definitely make or break a set for the RPG player...and both BW and UH had good ones (IMO)...night below wasn't bad either...and then it all goes downhill from there...Desert of Desolation had some seriously craptastic ones (dryad, I'm looking at you) and DuD was even worse...

The last 2 sets were incredibly bad!