Complete Dungeons of Dread Photo Gallery

[Klaus]

I like the dragons, the griffon, the dire wolf and the transparent shades.

 

[ferratus]

I think the complaints for specific minis about some of the sculpts and paint jobs are accurate, but it seems to be like there are two different sets in terms of quality.

The wyvern, trogdolyte, magma brute, lamia, mindflayer, orb wizard, ettin, orc, shadowhunter, vampire spawn, vrock, hydra, and gnoll all look horrible. The "this turd won't polish" award has to go to the new grick. That is quite simply the ugliest miniature yet released.

However, there are some good paint sculpts in this set too. The Oni has been mentioned, and all the transparent minis. I would say the ascendant hellsword looks nice, as does the bulette and the chillborn zombie. The Red Dragon has an awesome sculpt, but is ruined by a horrible paint job. The rest of the minis not mentioned are merely average.

 

[Guacamole]

In my opinion, as a person who has been a big fan of the line, who has bought at least a case of each prior set Giants of Legend and on, this set is an incredible step backward. Some of the manufacturing has improved-- plastic protectors on "bendy" minature parts and what not, but some of the same production issues, specifically the paint quality, are still a problem. I've recently picked up some the recent horrorlix set for use with DnD and Modern horror games and the the figure quality all the way around is much much better than even the Dreamblade figs, which were the pinacle of WoTC figure production. The horror clix figs have to be transfered to a different set of bases, which is problematic, but I just find there is no contest.

That said, I don't think most players and DM's grasp how easily it would be to get a good set of minis for play from the DDM line really cheaply. I have been to numerous cons where the commons and uncommons are being sold by the bag load. Seriously, if you are going to use goofy proxies, see if you can get a bag of plastic DDM orcs for your game. Most people who have DDM would be willing to trade/sell you them at a good deal and there are enough sculpts. I have over a hundred orcs and I will never use them all. I wish I knew gamers that I could work out a deal with for a bag o' orcs, crate o' drow, or a box o' skeletons, because I think even the most miniature resistant people would be tickled by using the pieces in play. couple that with the "basic" boxed sets and you can have a couple of small dragons that are decently painted. The young black "basic" set is still available in Toys r us, and borders still carries the set with the blue dragon. The green dragon set should be available soon. DDM could really transform the way people play if there was a way to cheaply exchange figs with people who just want a horde of commons and uncommons. Otherwise you have to go through reaper which isn't looking so great at the moment.

fwiw
guaca.

 

[Benimoto]

The Grick
The Vrock
The Rakshasa
The Bulette

They are all inferior in paint job and sculpting to the previous versions.

See, aside from the Grick, I see see most of the resculpts as at least equal to the old versions. The Vrock I see as an improvement, since the old Vrock was a mixed-up pile of limbs that would, under no circumstances, ever stand up on its base. The Rakshasa looks as nice as the old one, and I slightly prefer the pose of the new one. The Bulette is perhaps not quite as nice (or big) as the old version, but isn't bad looking.

Overall, having been collecting since Harbinger, I would not say that this set is noticeably better or worse than most of the other recent sets. One thing I noticed is that many of the pictures in the gallery seem to have been heavily brightened in Photoshop, making them look a little more washed-out than the look like in person. Also, as mentioned, if you're just looking at the galleries on the Wizards web site, all of the galleries earlier than War of the Dragon Queen show paint masters, which look sometimes much better than the figures in the actual boosters.

 

[Mirtek]

Also keep in mind that, in terms of paint quality, the old galleries have photos of paint masters, and newer galleries are using the actual minis.

Hmm, that explains things.

No, it doesn't. I have minis from the old sets up to Giant of Legends. While the galleries are indeed exaggerating the actual minis still look far bettern than in Dungeons of Dread.

At lest Archfiends and Giants of Legends do, while Harbiger/Dragoneye are about the same quality. Like I said: Their learning curve was clearly visible in the improvements from Harbinger to Giants of Legends. I don't really understand how they could suddenly fall back so much

 

[Nahat Anoj]

In all honesty, most DDMs aren't all that great IMO, so I don't usually expect much from them. The only thing that makes me scratch my head is that there are no Dragonborn minis. I feel like there's going to be a pretty good-size crunch for anything resembling the Dragonborn, so it surprises me that there aren't any in this set (indeed, there are very few good alternatives for Dragonborn out there IMO).

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Does anyone have a catalogue of all the DDM minis stats anywhere? Monsters and More was never updated I believe with the complete stat blocks.

 

[PoeticJustice]

I have a spent few thousand dollars on DDM.

I bought 1 Shadow Demon on ebay. I like Shadow Demons.

I will likely buy another single or two, but no packs. Especially since I'm not switching to 4E or play DDM 2.0.

Despite those reasons, the core is that those minis are UGLY. Most of the are UGLY as hell and look like I could do a better paint job. It really is a shame that a set was finally released with a new Rakshasa, a new Vrock, and plenty other monsters I actually want, but now I won't buy packs because most of the commons and uncommons are UGLY.

 

[Henrix]

The gallery is far worse than the minis. The minis are, overall, quite good. (Well, not the trog, orc raider or grick).

And the vrock is actually quite awesome. The picture in the gallery is horrible.

 

[Guild Goodknife]

I bought two packs a few days ago. Most of the minis were ok, much like the previous sets. Some looked really nice (Bullette, Cleric of Pelor, Gargoyle, Warforged Infiltrator, Shade Knight) some were sub optimal (Griffon) and two were abyssmal (Orc Raider, Troglodyte). The Trog looked especially unfinished with his three colors and crude sculpt. Not since the first set have i seen such an ugly figure. But all things considered it think the new set is quite alright.