Scott Rouse, Brand Manager of D&D, has confirmed what many people had feared after recent announcements to a change in packaging for D&D Miniatures: the Skirmish game is being discontinued. After Demonweb, there will be no further Skirmish stats included in DDM sets.
Six Hero packs, each containing three non-random miniatures of player character types , will debut in Spring 2008. Further sets of miniatures will appear in 2009 and 2010.
Dungeon Masters will be able to purchase new 5-minature boosters containing one large miniature (which will be viewable before purchase) and four normal-sized miniatures which will be distributed randomly. All of these minis will be monsters. The first set of the new scheme, Monster Manual: Dangerous Delves is due out in Spring 2009. 40 miniatures, in four levels of rarity: rare, uncommon, common and visible.
As one could expect, there has been a lot of uproar over this decision at the major D&D Miniatures sites: www.hordelings.com and on the Wizards boards.
Scott Rouse, posting on the Wizards thread, has revealed that each pack of Dangerous Delves will have its own SKU #, “so you’ll know you are buying the troll vs the giant.”
Andy Collins notes that they’d been seeing a drop in skirmish levels since 2006, more than a year before D&D 4E and the new skirmish game were even announced. “Nobody here is happy about having to end skirmish support. We’d far prefer it if the skirmish game were a thriving, growing entity, allowing us to continue to support it with a profitable line of game accessories and events.”