Via Jeff’s Gameblog, I just saw that Reaper Miniatures is slated to start producing prepainted plastic minis in a non-collectible format — no random boosters.

Wizards of the Coast’s D&D Miniatures line is the gold standard for fantasy minis, but for many GMs (myself included) it’s hobbled by being collectible. If you’re not interested in the actual minis game, buying boosters to build up an army of useful creatures is a pain — and finding specific minis, especially rares, can be expensive.

Given that Reaper’s Dark Heaven Legends line is, in my opinion, the go-to source for fantasy character minis, and that Reaper’s press release mentions drawing on their “catalog of 1000’s of metal models to design Legendary Encounters” (the name of the new line), I’m very excited about this development.

Stellar sculpts + a wide variety of figures + non-random distribution = awesome, provided the Legendary Encounters minis have good paint jobs — and fair pricing.

What do you think of this development? If you already use counters or other alternatives to minis (like Monster Tiles, reviewed on TT), would you make the switch to non-random, prepainted minis?

And what kind of pricing should Reaper set?