Monster Manual: Legendary Evils Complete Set!!

[Peter Lee]

Joe, if you want firm numbers, 6 dragonborn miniatures have been killed because of concept art, sketch, and sculpting issues. Most of these figures were killed before I arrived at the company so I don't have the full story, but I do know around half of those figures were killed because they were based off concept art that didn't work out.

For Legendary Evils, the production time for miniatures was around 18 months. (It's much sorter now.) It's probably 16-15 months after the sketch phase was complete. Art is one of the first things done for miniatures, and one of the last things done for an RPG product.

 

[Herschel]

Wrong huge set, it was WotDQ. Also, there's the Greenspawn Zealot, Redspawn Arcanis for other Dragonborn roles that work well and are fairly recent uncommons. Later sets include Defender, Paladin and Myrmidon. There is no "dearth" of Dragonborn.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I'm a huge fan of this set (no pun intended). All the visible minis are huge and they are all great minis to get. A Huge Blue Dragon instead of a Huge Iron Dragon would have been nice but I can deal. The people at WotC definitely hit a home run with this set.

I'm not really impressed about having to pay the same amount for 8 less minis (40 minis per case compared to 48 minis per case in the last huge set), but at least I know that (excluding a packaging stuff-up) I can be sure of getting one of each Huge mini. And if the minis look better than previous huge sets then it should be worth it.

I'll definitely be buying a case of these.

Olaf the Stout

 

[JoeGKushner]

Joe, if you want firm numbers, 6 dragonborn miniatures have been killed because of concept art, sketch, and sculpting issues. Most of these figures were killed before I arrived at the company so I don't have the full story, but I do know around half of those figures were killed because they were based off concept art that didn't work out.

For Legendary Evils, the production time for miniatures was around 18 months. (It's much sorter now.) It's probably 16-15 months after the sketch phase was complete. Art is one of the first things done for miniatures, and one of the last things done for an RPG product.

Thanks for the information.

From a fan standpoint, it just seems very weird that there are so many pose style illustrations win the RPG, some of them 1+ year old on the shelves now, and still issues with that part of the process. As someone just reading what's typed about the process, you'd think there would be far more synergry between the two (RPG/Miniature.)

 

[CharlesRyan]

I'm not really impressed about having to pay the same amount for 8 less minis (40 minis per case compared to 48 minis per case in the last huge set), but at least I know that (excluding a packaging stuff-up) I can be sure of getting one of each Huge mini.

There are two other things you can be sure of:

1. All of the minis will be monsters.
2. All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
3. [Three things! The three things you can be sure of . . . I'll come in again.] The number of paint steps (and hence, presumably, the quality of the paint jobs) is higher.

The first two alone are worth the price of admission, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay for 40 minis I'm really likely to want instead of 48 minis I might want.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'll disagree with that first and third.

The minotaur minis are meant for player use. Ghaelee of Winter? Yeah, that's a PC. Drow? And with previews of PHBIII, the giths of different races will probably be PC types as well.

In the current set, the number of paint steps doesn't seem to be vastly superior to older models on every figure. Bloodseeker Drake, Kruthik, Blood Scarab, Clay Golem and several others look to be primarily one color.

There are two other things you can be sure of:

1. All of the minis will be monsters.
2. All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).
3. [Three things! The three things you can be sure of . . . I'll come in again.] The number of paint steps (and hence, presumably, the quality of the paint jobs) is higher.

The first two alone are worth the price of admission, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay for 40 minis I'm really likely to want instead of 48 minis I might want.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'll disagree with that first and third.

The minotaur minis are meant for player use. Ghaelee of Winter?

It is a monster manual creature. And so are the Minotaurs.

Most humanoid monsters can also be used for players, of course.

 

[JoeGKushner]

It is a monster manual creature. And so are the Minotaurs.

Most humanoid monsters can also be used for players, of course.

True to both.

But all the minis are not monsters.

Monsters are things that won't wind up being used as players.

Narrow definition but that's what I'm rolling with.

Edit: And the reason I say that is because Humans are also a Monster Manual creature. As are Elves, Eladrin, etc... If the only defintion of monster is that it's in the Monster Manual, you're left with EVERYTHING being a monster.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The differenence between monster and PC miniatures is this:
PC miniatures are miniatures of playable races that are denoted with a class. Like "Warforged Artificer" vs "Bugbear Strangler". You might some day be able to play a Bugbear, but Strangler is not a class.

Spoiler

No, you don't need to take this too seriously. Your definition might work, too. But it would mean that if I need humanoid monsters, I'd need to spend money for the Hero miniatures because they are not contained in the "Monster" Minis.

 

[Herschel]

There are two other things you can be sure of:

All of the minis will be RPG-oriented (not in the set due to the demands of a skirmish game).

I take particular offense to this statement. Skirmish was about figure stats that were playable, not the actual mini itself. What, we skirmishers played some sort of different D&D with alternate races just to screw you over? Posts like this are why there was so much hatred towards misguided rpg-only types.