SFR, Inc.

[Jaz1597]

Well, then I guess my next question has to be...does anyone on this forum actually play with one regularly? Or do you just buy and sell them at exorbitant prices?
And no...the uselessness of the Unseelie doesn't decrease my desire to own one at all...in fact, I think it piqued my interest even more. Just the fact that such a crappy die is the most sought after...
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[chuckpint]

It's simplely a matter of the fact that some of us (I'm not naming names ) just have to get it so we can have a "complete" collection. And once you get into that "gotta have them all" mindset, a little thing like price is not going to bother you much.

The two die that really burns people are the Magi and the Inferno. Clearly those two, unlike the Unseelie Faerie, are very much playable and very good dice to have. But they are nearly as rare. Out of 70 cavities on the rare mold, only 2 are Magi, or Inferno. Ouch.

[Jaz1597]

Don't worry, Chuck. I can totally understand the desire to have them all. But right now I'm not exactly in the position to dish out $500 (or more) on a single die. I don't even have one complete race yet! (Although I am tantalizingly close to four or five). If I had an extra $750 lying around, I'd absolutely buy that Unseelie promo from you.
_________________
“Dead as dead can be,” my doctor tells me
But I just can’t believe him,
Never the optimistic one
I’m sure of your ability to become
My perfect enemy

[riolis]

Well for all you new collector out there (not to brag) but it took me from 95-03 before i had complet set of the first 5 races -the 5 not yet made, and just last year completed the Feral, Firewalker, Treefolk (thanks to Chuck for that), Undead, and Promos (not Frostwing and Scalders though i wish), the point it takes time and luck to find them all.
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[ddicerc]

I have actually used my Unseeli, but only in my "if You've Got It, Flaunt It" army, which is designed more to irk other players than to actually win anything.

Chuck is right-not having an Unseeli, Frost Ogre, or Ormyrr isn't a loss playing-wise, but the extreme rarity of the Magi and Inferno is. These are not only useful dice, but having them so hard to get in a game where magic is important actually hurts the playability of their races, since the "Cantrip" magicians are hard to get for your army. The Inferno is actually one of my favorite magic dice, despite it's unpredictability, but with only two in my collection I can't use them the way I'd like in some larger armies.
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(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[deputyfife]

Possibly when the designers at the time were making up the icons for various monsters, they knew that they were out of good ideas for a race, so they made a "bad" monster and directed the mold makers to make very few of them?
This theory wouldn't work on the "rare rares" of course. But it does make sense that what everyone seems to agree are the two worst monsters (UF and Ormyrr) are the two rarest. I honestly wouldn't mind there being a mixed rarity among commons, or uncommons, or rares, in a future set, if any get made. But those rarities should go along the lines of usefulness to that set/race. For example, if there were a race in the future of silicone and fire elements, that were very weak in magic and melee, but strong in missile and in using artifacts/weapons somehow, it would make sense to limit their magic users and heavy troops to 1/10th of a mold.

[ddicerc]

Please, no! I much prefer the regular unit dice to have a flat rarity. It annoys me no end to chase down mages from the later races, especially the rare ones. That was a stupid, repulsive, abhorrent (you get my drift) marketing idea. Monsters? No problem, although I hope SFR never goes so far as TSR did with the Frost Ogre/Unseeli/Ormyrr. Treefolk seems pretty good (even if I am 0 for 36 on the Unicorn).
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Steve "DDice" Braun
The Diceman's Gaming Pages: http://ddicerc.weebly.com
2014-2015 U.S. National Champion
(Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...)

[Autpost]

Obviously there are two types of collectors among us - The treasure collectors and the complete collectors. If someone wants to get a treasure, then some dice can't be rare enough and if he just gets one of them he's happy. A complete set? - No interest. The other type wants to get as few doubles as possible. I personally tend to be more the first type. I want to have some hope and some thrill when I rip up a kicker. That would not be if all dice are of equal worth and just interesting to complete a set.

The rarity of Magi&Inferno was not acceptable but that doesn't mean that we must have the other extreme, a flat rarity. I agree to Deputyfife that it shouldn't be always the mage if some 6-sided units are rarer than others. Those units which fit last to the race should be the worst and eventually harder to get. 'Rarer' means just twice as rare, eventually three times, but not more. (1/10? - Ok for monsters but wayyy too rare for 6siders (not to mention 1/35 for the Magi&Inferno)).

Frost- or Unseely rarity should exist but only for variants of otherwise more common dice - So all collectors will be happy (If they get them.)

[deputyfife]

Steve, I didn't mean anything near what the Magi and Inferno are for rarity. Add in that they are very strategic dice to have (since if you want some hp of magic Frostwings, it is nice to have the cantrip), and they were done wrong.
Autopost is talking about more of what I'm thinking here. Maybe 1/10 is too rare, that is 10%. Think about that for a minute--16.6% is the normal chance of rarity for a "rare" die, and for c and uc also. 6.6% is not much of a difference, especially if we were talking about a die that wouldn't get used strategically for much. (In other words, I'm sure one of you expert players can tell me which 3 races have the best Heavy units, and which 3 have the worst Heavy units. Tweaking the rarity to get closer to what people would actually use wouldn't hurt collectability, since people theoretically wouldn't care as much for the 'rare' one.) If you have 60 spots on a mold, normally 10 of each rare would be there. Now we would be talking 6 of the rarest rare, maybe 8 for the next one, 10 for the next, and something like 12 and 14 for the last two. Nothing earth-shattering, just reflective of gameplay.
If I'm thinking right, for awhile Dwarven Mammoth Riders were IT, because having some of them in a charge in highlands meant decimation of our enemy. The Mammoth Rider was the same rarity as other dwarven rares, but more highly sought after, correct?

[chuckpint]

OK, your math is way off here. First of all, there is a 20% chance for all the commons, uncommons, and rares (except Frostwings and Scalders). The rare molds have 70 cavities, so for most races, it's 14 cavities for each type of rare. For Frostwings and Scalders the rarities was 26:22:14:6:2. So for Frostwings 37.1% chance of Vindicator, 31.4% chance of Devastator, 20% chance of Assailer, 8.6% chance of Bear Master, and 2.9% chance of Magi. No way we're ever going to make something like that again.

Also, there is little chance of remaking any molds right now. Costs too much. So we're stuck with the rarity we have.
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My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[deputyfife]