Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game - History

History

The Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures Game, commonly referred to as "DDM" served as Wizards of the Coast's official line of miniature figures for the Dungeons & Dragons game since 2003, following the cancellation of the previous Dungeons and Dragons-based miniatures game, Chainmail, in August 2002. The first set, Harbinger, was released on September 26, 2003. This set was available in both Starter Sets, containing 16 random miniatures, a 20-sided die, a rulebook and maps and terrain to play the game on, as well as Booster Packs with 8 random miniatures. Each miniature also came with a card that detailed the statistics of the figure for the miniatures game on one side, and the statistics for use in the role-playing game on the opposite side.

Since that first release, 20 additional expansion sets have been released. Five of these sets (Giants of Legend, War of the Dragon Queen, Against the Giants, Legendary Evils, and Lords of Madness) contain figures standing on 3-inch-diameter (76 mm) bases, larger than the 2 inch bases of the largest figures in normal sets. This size is designated “Huge” in the nomenclature of Dungeons and Dragons, and the boosters containing these larger figures are known as “huge packs.”

All figures are one of three rarities, indicated by a marking on the bottom of the miniature: "common", "uncommon", or "rare". From Harbinger to the Demonweb expansion, all standard-sized booster packs contained 4 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare. The Starter Set miniatures for Harbinger, Aberrations and War Drums included 1 rare, 5 uncommon and 10 common miniatures. Dangerous Delves and Savage Encounters each contained 2 commons, 1 uncommon, 1 non-random visible uncommon, and 1 rare. The four Huge sets listed above had different distributions of figures. Giants of Legend boosters contained 4 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare, and 1 huge, either rare or uncommon, while War of the Dragon Queen and Against the Giants each contained 3 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare, and 1 rare or uncommon huge. Legendary Evils boosters had 2 commons, 1 medium-sized rare, 1 large-sized rare, and 1 visible huge figure. The summer 2010 set Lords of Madness was the first and only set to contain very rares, a rarity previously used in Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars Miniatures game.

The game has gone through a number of major revisions since its inception. In early 2008 the game was changed significantly to maintain continuity with the Dungeons and Dragons fourth edition rules. This set of rules is known unofficially as “D&D Miniatures 2.0.” The first set released under this revision was Dungeons of Dread in April 2008. Additionally, over the course of the next year, all existing miniatures received updated stats so they would be playable in the new game.

Less than a year later, in October 2008, Wizards of the Coast announced that the way miniatures would be packaged was changing. The miniatures would be sold in partially random monster packs, with one visible figure, under the Monster Manual name, and a new line of non-random minis called Player's Handbook Heroes featuring player character(PC) races. Shortly after that, another announcement was posted, clarifying these new changes. Following the release of the Demonweb expansion, the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures skirmish game would no longer be supported by Wizards of the Coast. Skirmish statistics would no longer be included with the figures, and no further tournaments would be officially sanctioned. Instead, the miniatures line would be marketed solely to RPG users.

Since November, 2008, a group called the DDM Guild, founded and run by members of the fan community, has been granted the exclusive and worldwide right to continue to support and develop the D&D Minis skirmish game. Wizards of the Coast continues to provide DCI support as well as proprietary information on future set lists to the DDM Guild.

Changes were announced at D&D Experience 2010, when it was revealed that the miniatures line would once again revert to entirely random packaging, with both PC and monster minis combined in one set.

On January 12th, 2011, Wizards of the Coast announced the immediate end of the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures line.

D&D Miniatures was consistently one of the top collectible games in hobby channel sales, with recent rankings from the industry magazine ICv2 placing the game as the 3rd best selling collectible game. In 2010, the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures line won the ENnies Award for Best Miniatures Product.