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Wizards has posted a gallery of photos of miniatures from the Against the Giants expansion for the D&D Miniatures game as well as previewing the Death Titan and Cockatrice, with stat cards, in their July and beyond preview article.
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pduggie says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:12 am |
The Shocktroop Devil looks like it stepped right out of an MMORPG. Some nice pieces |
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myles says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 am |
Looks good, but still no aboleth!?!? Must be the most slept on mini to be included to date! |
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stormwolf says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:57 am |
Do people buy these? They look like bad Christmas tree ornaments, give me a metal or plastic mini and a good paintbrush any day. The worst was the flaming skeleton LOL! I almost spat my beer over the monitor. Now I know why I am old fashioned. Just does not appeal to me and I like some of the old 80`s citadel stuff. SW |
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Zac says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 am |
Less hyperbole please. |
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stormwolf says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:28 am |
Not hyperbole, just an honest opinion, informed or not up to you? SW |
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evernevermore (John) says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 am |
Ive seen some in person - the ones Ive seen are very very hit or miss, some are good some are horrible looking with bad paint, poor molds, and wierd proportions. Course I think I’ll be buying Reapers Legendary Adventures figs for the simple fact that I can pick what I want. |
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Gitteau says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 am |
Some of those really are laughably bad. There’s some appeal in that, though. They have their own sort of ironic charm. I’m tempted to get the Carrion Crawler and Furious Owlbear just for fun, but I can’t imagine what I would do with them. Oh, is it collectible? I didn’t notice the letters next to the figures until I checked them out for the second time. I wouldn’t want to risk ending up with a dozen Cloaktrick Rogues. |
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nanite (Seth) says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:10 pm |
It’s probably license meddling, but at least the D&D figures are colorful and interesting. The Star Wars figures have been stuck in a Brown/Gray cycle for the last several releases. How hard would a matte seal coat be though? I mean just tkaing the gloss off the minis would do a lot to make them look less sucky. |
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nathan says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
Having seen a bunch in person, I’d have to agree that some are great and some are terrible. I’ve bought some, but only in the secondary market. I’m not into the collectible side of things, but do like the idea of 12 commons for $4 off of ebay. |
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shwtd says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm |
The quality is actually not so great. |
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Zac says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:22 pm |
Yes it is. They don’t look anything like Xmas tree ornaments. Good or bad ones. Critique it all you want but lets leave this level of discourse elsewhere.
You know the drill here and if you aren’t then please read the Comment Code of Conduct page. |
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altfritz says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm |
First off: Are there really people who have never seen or heard of the D&D collectible miniatures game before? It’s been around for several years and there must be close to a dozen sets. Sure they’re pre-painted, bendy plastic. And sure they are “collectible”. But the answer to that is don’t buy them retail - shop for singles on ebay. For cool monsters - especially dungeon monsters (but not exclusively) they can’t be beat. Some of the sculpts - especially from the earliest releases are poor, but many are quite good. The painting is passable even if they don’t paint all the detail - and if you look at the figures up close there IS detail on them, it’s just much of it isn’t painted. One has the option of adding the extra detailing, doing a complete repaint or leaving as is. I only started buying them (on eBay) this summer having previously been an anti-collectible game, pre-painted mini snob. I still wouldn’t buy them in their pre-packaged format (that’s just crazy!) but picking up singles on ebay is just great. The best figures are as good as any metals out there, and the worst - well you can get some pretty horrible metal figures also. I use them for fantasy games, Pulp games (especially those with occult or Cthullhu influences) and for retro sci/fi. Some of the figures are just superb, especially the ones with the translucent plastic. The fire and water elementals are the best I’ve seen and come in multiple sizes. The Sahuagin figures are great! The Rot Scarab swarms are great for Mummy-style pulp games. There’s giant spiders, dire wolves, regular wolves, spider swarms, loads of demonic creatures. There are two types of ghouls that are as good as GW’s versions. The Blood of Vol cultist figures are useful. Even the human figures have some good ones - I have a unit of Militia Archers from the last set - they look fine with my 28mm metals. The one thing is that the figures are more accurately proportioned than many metal ranges, in the same way that Tom Meier’s figures are better proportioned - thinner limbs, that sort of thing. This latest release has some that look really nice - and others not so much. I agree that the flaming skellie doesn’t have much going for it. The previous version Owl Bear is nicer, but the Huge Carrion Crawler is great! The roper is nice - can’t decide whether I like the older model better or not. I’ll definitely be picking some up on ebay in the next few months. Howard |
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nathan says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm |
Are the sculpts any good? Check this step by step prepaint article out. http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/harbingmini/guide.htm Sculpt looks pretty good to me! |
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Zac says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:29 pm |
The sculpts aren’t bad. The paint jobs can often be quite poor. Wizards used to do previews with their paint masters until people started complaining about how much “worse” the production models were. Mind you, Rackham had the same problem when AT-43 came out. I’ve seen people repaint some of the HeroClix figs (I’ve even done one) and in general I think that the plastic prepaints are usually marred by their painting and not their sculpting |
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a_thousand_hats says:
July 4th, 2008 at 12:52 am |
Some are good, some are bad but as altfritz has said, you can get a load of cheap gribblies for use in pretty much any game system. As it is I’m actually enjoying playing D&D minis so much I’m considering getting back into the rpg. I’ve bought retail, and I don’t mind doing it again either. I also buy singles although when I mentioned to the trader that I was going to repaint one mini he looked at me as though I was crazy and uttered a strangled “why?!?” My perspective on the blind packaging collectible thing is that I buy a blind packed item for a different reason than buying singles. It could be for sealed or draft play but is sometimes simply because I’d like a surprise - and I’m not a collector so I’m not chasing particular rares/uncommons so not often dissappointed. (Maybe my brain is conditioned to not be too concerned by my CCG playing/collecting). When I want a particular model I’ll go to the singles market. @Zac it might make an interesting TGN Chat topic to discuss different perspectives on blind packaged product vs ‘what you see is what you get’. What people like/dislike about each one. Especially in view of FFGs recent U-turn on Mutant Chronicles. |
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stormwolf says:
July 4th, 2008 at 4:46 am |
Zac, Number 1: Number 2: Number 3: Number 4: I just do not like this particular line, but then again AT-43 does nothing for me either. The taste of these just does not go with my particular tastes, that is all. SW |
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Zac says:
July 4th, 2008 at 6:00 am |
Again, cut the hyperbole.
I have made myself clear. If you have any questions then use the Contact Page to email me. |
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PMMJ says:
July 5th, 2008 at 8:25 am |
I’ve collected both DDM and Star Wars since day one, and I can say with authority both the sculpts and the paintjobs have decreased in quality in the most recent releases, which makes me sad inside. |
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Zac says:
July 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am |
YMMV I can’t comment on the Star Wars figures but I had a sizeable D&D Minis collection and the newer figs were heads and shoulders above the earlier figs. Especially sculpts for things like Giants. |
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grimbergen says:
July 5th, 2008 at 9:42 am |
I’m surprised that they didn’t feature some of the cooler looking figures in the previews from the past few months. When they had those sneak peaks I was extremely disappointed with the set until I saw the full list now. Personally I would say these prepainted stuff look better than the unpainted or poorly painted stuff that 90% of the warhammer and warmachine players at my local store bring to the table (I don’t mean to denigrate them, and I appreciate the effort of all mini painters, but that’s just my personal view on it). They may have better sculpts and casting, but a bad paint just ruins it all for me. |
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eengaming says:
July 5th, 2008 at 11:02 pm |
Overall I am very pleased with what has been offered up in this set. Some very fun figures that I would use in my D&D 4E games, as well as other genres. I really think the general quality of D&D prepaints is high. The scuplting is decent and many of the paint jobs are passable. This set looks really fun, and thankfully for my sake there are only two pieces I consider must haves: Earth Titan, and the Huge Carrion Crawler. As primarily a painter in the miniature hobby, I was very much against these when they first came out, but I have seen the error of my ways. The fact is when I want to run an encounter where the party mows through an ork mob (especially with the awesome new minion rules) it is actually annoying to spend all the time carefully painting the models to see them get taken off in seconds. On the other hand bare metal and plastic look hideous on the table. I find them to be a good compromise. I often just through a mix of Vallejo Smoke and Matte Medium (watered down to ink consistency) and the I base and seal them. Comparing them to Reaper’s Legendary Encounters I am torn. Reaper has a clear advantage when it comes to getting what you want, and I have really enjoyed my Legendary Encounters models. However, I did end up completely repainting my Trolls and touching up my Minotaur. This was easy to do because the sculpts are excellent, but it was time consuming (and your really have to base them if you are using them for D&D). The D&D minis are about the same quality wise, though some of the D&D sculpts are really just amazing (a recent example would be the DoD Oni). However, D&D’s library of figures is much more vast. One set of D&D minis has more models than the current entire LE range. Plus they have an entry with their RPG stats. It is like every card adds to your Monster Manuel. I really like the D&D prepaints and I sense this set will be excellent. I have made extensive use of them in any RPG I needed mooks (Savage Worlds, D&D, and Dark Heresy). Here is a link to my Dark Heresy project log if you would like to see how I use them for Sci-Fi: http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128559 One thing about this set, that I would be concerned about is the blind aspect. It is particularly bad when you consider the increased price and how if you are lucky you could end up with two rares or if your unlucky merely 1. Kindof a crapshoot. Rico |
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