D&D 5E Elemental Evil Miniatures are Pretty Cool

[Jeff Carlsen]

I've been collecting the Elemental Evil random miniatures since they came out, and I've been reasonably impressed. It took a lot for me to accept the idea of plastic miniatures, let alone random ones, but I just don't have the time or patience to paint a lot.

The selection of monsters is pretty generally useful, with only a few adventure specific ones, mostly various cult warriors which I can easily use for any humanoid NPC, or even for PCs.

The quality is alright, and I think the price point of about $15 for one large and three medium or small miniatures is acceptable, if not great. $29.99 for the silver dragon also seems fair.

The only real downsides are that the swords tend to come out bent, and I haven't found a good way to straighten them, and that I've yet to get an actual elemental despite having most of the set now.

If this represents the miniatures line going forward, I think I'll continue to pick these up, though I don't know if underdark monsters from the next storyline will be as appealing. I really want a set that's focused on goblins, skeletons, kobolds, and other low level monsters that I want a lot of. Perhaps with numerous sculpts each. One can dream.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I've been collecting the Elemental Evil random miniatures since they came out, and I've been reasonably impressed. It took a lot for me to accept the idea of plastic miniatures, let alone random ones, but I just don't have the time or patience to paint a lot.

The selection of monsters is pretty generally useful, with only a few adventure specific ones, mostly various cult warriors which I can easily use for any humanoid NPC, or even for PCs.

The quality is alright, and I think the price point of about $15 for one large and three medium or small miniatures is acceptable, if not great. $29.99 for the silver dragon also seems fair.

The only real downsides are that the swords tend to come out bent, and I haven't found a good way to straighten them, and that I've yet to get an actual elemental despite having most of the set now.

If this represents the miniatures line going forward, I think I'll continue to pick these up, though I don't know if underdark monsters from the next storyline will be as appealing. I really want a set that's focused on goblins, skeletons, kobolds, and other low level monsters that I want a lot of. Perhaps with numerous sculpts each. One can dream.

You're talking about these minis, right? http://www.minisgallery.com/dnd/dnd3.htm

Also, in my experience, bent swords are normal for plastic minis. I try to pretend that they are more authentic that way, as one of the viking sagas mentions them pausing during the battle to straighten out their swords. The steel wasn't as good in the so-called Dark Ages as it was in later centuries.

 

[Jester David]

Try heating bent swords.
Fill a bowl full of ice water and put the kettle on. Pour some boiling water into a different bowl and dip the weapon in. Wait a few seconds and then remove, bend the weapon into position, and dip immediately into the cold water while holding the weapon straight.

 

[justinj3x3]

I really want a set that's focused on goblins, skeletons, kobolds, and other low level monsters that I want a lot of. Perhaps with numerous sculpts each. One can dream.

The D&D Attack Wing game is coming out with a 6-pack of goblins in August. They are the same miniatures from the Tyranny of Dragons set. A 6-pack of hobgoblins, aarakocra and sun elf guards are out now as well. There are also single miniatures sold in that line, but its probably cheaper to buy singles from the actual miniature lines from sites that sell those.

The hot water trick works for bent weapons, you do have to make sure you help position them while cooling though, unlike the old miniatures which 'remembered' their original positions and went back to them on their own with hot water.

 

[Uller]

Try heating bent swords.
Fill a bowl full of ice water and put the kettle on. Pour some boiling water into a different bowl and dip the weapon in. Wait a few seconds and then remove, bend the weapon into position, and dip immediately into the cold water while holding the weapon straight.

Yep. This also works well for models that require assembly but won't quite go together. Warm up, assemble into the position you want, cool down.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Try heating bent swords.
Fill a bowl full of ice water and put the kettle on. Pour some boiling water into a different bowl and dip the weapon in. Wait a few seconds and then remove, bend the weapon into position, and dip immediately into the cold water while holding the weapon straight.

This works like a charm on the Reaper Bones minis. It should work on the D&D minis too.

 

[Agamon]

If you want a good deal on EE minis, getting the board game gets you a lot of them. They're unpainted, but, for me it works out to about 1/3 the price. The actual board game is a bonus.

 

[Remathilis]

The D&D Attack Wing game is coming out with a 6-pack of goblins in August. They are the same miniatures from the Tyranny of Dragons set. A 6-pack of hobgoblins, aarakocra and sun elf guards are out now as well. There are also single miniatures sold in that line, but its probably cheaper to buy singles from the actual miniature lines from sites that sell those.

Gods yes.

I looked into Attack Wing for purposes of getting specific D&D minis, but even when you consider the markup for nonrandom, they're insanely priced.

For example, the Sun Elf Wizard (from the D&D Icons of the Realms starter pack) is 1/5th of $20 in the starter pack, but $11 for the attack wing version (which AFAICT, is the same mini but with the game stats.) $20 for six minis (even if they are the same mold) is ok, but 10-12 for 1 medium sized mini is crazy.

 

[justinj3x3]

Gods yes.

I looked into Attack Wing for purposes of getting specific D&D minis, but even when you consider the markup for nonrandom, they're insanely priced.

For example, the Sun Elf Wizard (from the D&D Icons of the Realms starter pack) is 1/5th of $20 in the starter pack, but $11 for the attack wing version (which AFAICT, is the same mini but with the game stats.) $20 for six minis (even if they are the same mold) is ok, but 10-12 for 1 medium sized mini is crazy.

Yeah it's pretty crazy. I've only purchased the 6-pack of hobgoblins (and that was at a very discounted price from an amazon seller). Other than that I pre-order a brick of the set and get one or two doubles of a mini, from there I buy singles from the actual miniature line (not Attack Wing). Coolstuff.com have the better prices for singles on average.

Edited for typo

 

[vandaexpress]

Gods yes.

I looked into Attack Wing for purposes of getting specific D&D minis, but even when you consider the markup for nonrandom, they're insanely priced.

For example, the Sun Elf Wizard (from the D&D Icons of the Realms starter pack) is 1/5th of $20 in the starter pack, but $11 for the attack wing version (which AFAICT, is the same mini but with the game stats.) $20 for six minis (even if they are the same mold) is ok, but 10-12 for 1 medium sized mini is crazy.

Yeah, Attack Wing is a no-go for minis, IMO. You can do way better on price at CSI, MM, or eBay.

I've spent way too much on minis. I have a combination of prepainted, reaper, star wars, and the D&D collector's stuff from GF9. If you're fortunate enough to have access to a skilled and experienced painter that you can hire, I absolutely recommend the stuff from GF9 for module-specific villains. Unfortunately, half the time I see someone post their painted mini figs, they look... underwhelming.

IME, the D&D prepainted minis are hit or miss. In each release, there's some that are good and some that are complete crap, even when you account for rarity level. In Tyranny there was the green hag, which was absolute garbage, in this one you have the Shield Dwarf fighter and a few others that are pretty bad. Not a huge fan of the invisible figures. Would rather have one or two generic invisible figures than one for half the PC commons.

On the flip side, you have some that are just awesome. All of the elementals are pretty amazing in this set, and I'm in love with the Ogre. I have Tiamat, Bahamut, and the Ancient Silver Dragon, they're all great.

Really, though, my biggest complaint is the size of the dragons. Based on what I've researched online, I'm not alone. Apparently, for example, the blue dragon in the Tyranny of Dragons set is supposed to be an adult blue dragon, and the one in the Elemental Evil set is supposed to be a young blue dragon. This works okay with the blue dragon wyrmling from the earlier set, but I have to say, I wish the bases would take up the correct amount of space for the size category. Especially when you consider the ancient silver dragon's base correctly represents it at 4x4", whereas the adult red dragon's base is literally half the size and the mini itself is even less than that.

It's really confusing and overall I was expecting the figures for, say, a young blue dragon, to be significantly larger than a medium-sized orc, but it's not. It doesn't even look like an adult dragon from these sets could swallow an Orog or an Orc. I don't know if there was a conscious canon decision by WotC to make dragons smaller in this version of D&D or what, but it's a little jarring when the PCs go up against an adult White Dragon and he's about the same physical size as an every day ogre or the horse ridden by the Zhentarim Cavalry.