My Big, Fat, Colossal Red Dragon is...

[Henrix]

I wish they'd make larger creatures with interesting poses that still fit on their bases, instead of having them HUGE but scrunched.

Quoted for truth!

The "large" red dragon that hardly fit it's base was bad enough.
The base is the area it needs to fight without squeezing, not the area it can squeeze into.


Scale creep is an evil thing that must be fought!

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've actually had uses for a colossal dragon (like killing it with an ECL 12 party)... but I have plenty of old action figures of suitable size. If I were to paint them, or even spray-base and drybrush in a few hours without the need for much skill, they'd look as good, and they cost me something along the lines of 14.99...

The only possible reason I can see for buying the 'official' colossal red is for D&D Minis play, and I suspect that, like the AT-AT for Star Wars, it's ultimately not playable in 99% of the games, and overcosted in the remaining 1%. :\

 

[Mercule]

I'm waiting for the Blue.

Ditto, kinda. For some reason blue dragons have always been my favorites.

I got the Red cheap from Amazon, though. Personally, I like the size comparisson. I've always liked my dragons big and was somewhat annoyed with the facings in 3E (until Draconomicon clarified that the head and neck pretty much count as appendages, not facing).

Personally, I'd like to see a "mini" of one of the Colossal+ sized dragons.

 

[Stalker0]

So far my group has used it not for a dragon, but for terrain When I have a big building or something to put up, I just plop it down. Its hard to argue with me that you can see so and so aroudn the building when I just look down at the big dragon and asked them to show me

However, my party does know there's a powerful dragon out there for them later in the game, so one day perhaps I'll unveil its true power!!

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think that it is too expensive for the use that I would get out of it. Plus I think that if I ever did use it I would almost have to buy another Battlemat just to fit the Dragon and all the PC's on it! I'm sure it would look great as a collector's piece but I can think of things that I would rather spend my roleplaying budget on. All a matter of preference really.

I wouldn't pay retail, but did get through Buy.com, I'll never use it except in my webcomic, since I play online and we don't do much high level stuff. It may be the price of 2 books, but I've got more than 2 books that are totally useless also.

To put this in context I don't own any D&D minis. If I had enough money in my budget to get all the books that I wanted and still have money to spare then I definitely would buy minis. However I think with the amount of DDM sets out of print I may have missed the boat on this one by a couple of years.

Olaf the Stout

You might miss some of the basic things, but even those (orcs, etc) get redone occasionally. I wouldn't worry about losing out if you got involved now, but it'd still come down to "what use will you get". A booster isn't a whole lot of money, but it's random minis, so using them in roleplaying isn't really an issue.
If you need (or want) minis for roleplaying, hit ebay and rack up the commons, a lot of them are worth like 50 cents each. So if you need 20 orcs, $10 + $3-4 for shipping and you've got an army.

There's no wrong time to get "into" DDM, the minis will always come with the same "baggage", random assortment and figures scattered over different sets.

As for collectability, the Huge Red Dragon from Giants of Legend (and the gold also) routinely sell for more than the Collosal costs, so it depends on collector interest.

I didn't get the GargBlack, I hate black dragons and blue dragons, I'll get a Green if they do one, but that's it.

(To other poster) Also, the dragon is not brown in any fashion, at least not mine nor any I've seen. Deep red with translucent red wings.

SOme folks don't like how far out the wings are from the body, but I personally loved how the wing muscles were nice and thick. Most dragons wing muscles tend to be scrawny little things.

As for fighting pose, the dragon isn't squezed into his square, he's totally comfortable in his 8X8, even if it should be 6X6. It does seem obvious to me that his reach is another 4 squares in any direction, his bite another 6 squares. (Though Colossal is technically 6+ squares, so maybe the Great Wyrm is bigger than he should be...)

Also, IIRC, the Blue is standing on all fours. I think WotC heard the complaints, but it was already past being able to alter Black & Red.


What they need to come out with is a perch for him.

(While I tossed the box, I kept the inner part, it's a neat lair for him.)

 

[Sammael]

(To other poster) Also, the dragon is not brown in any fashion, at least not mine nor any I've seen. Deep red with translucent red wings.

I looked at my CRD in different lighting conditions and there are several parts of him that are brown, such as the non-translucent wing parts hanging from the wing muscles. Those are most definitely brown, not deep red. The dragon itself is considerably darker than the paint master that was showcased in the promotional materials. In anything other than perfect lighting conditions, it looks brown for all intents and purposes when seen from a couple of feet away. Perhaps I got one that had too much blackwash, but, from the images I've seen on the net, they all pretty much look the same.

 

[Klaus]

Quoted for truth!

The "large" red dragon that hardly fit it's base was bad enough.
The base is the area it needs to fight without squeezing, not the area it can squeeze into.


Scale creep is an evil thing that must be fought!

I did a quick sketch of the size of a Colossal dragon capable of clawing at 20´ away and biting at 30´ away, while remaining within a 30x30 ft. square. As you can see the CRD mini is FAR larger than he´d need to be...

 

[blargney the second]

Nice sketch, Klaus! That actually helps a lot to put it in perspective!

 

[boerngrim]

Is it just me, or does the CRD not have as many paint steps and details on it as they were tooting their horns about? It's cool and all, i'm just glad I ordered mine online for less than msrp.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Is it just me, or does the CRD not have as many paint steps and details on it as they were tooting their horns about? It's cool and all, i'm just glad I ordered mine online for less than msrp.

I don't recall the original statement, so just going by third hand info, but it became clear that they meant more like "brush strokes" than "painting steps". Since I don't know the original statement, I can't say how deceptive that is or whatever. I figured they just wanted a higher dollar item to look nice on the shelves, so I knew I would get it without any of their later hype.