RPG Print News – Free League, Legendary Games, and More

Visit three Realms of the Three Rings for The One Ring and learn all about Elves in the Third Age. There are plenty of rules, monsters, adventures, and more for Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition. Shadowrun and Savage Worlds both get supplements for combat and super heroes respectively. There are barbaric miniatures and battle tiles that they can fight on. Finally, there are dice with eagle miniatures inside and pumpkin dice that glow in the dark.

Note: RPG Print News covers recent RPG releases and some classics, reprints, and sales available from retailers. It does not cover products that are available directly to customers only through Kickstarter or as print on demand.

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Realms of the Three Rings by Free League Publishing

• SYSTEM: The One Ring Second Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover supplement
• RETAIL PRICE: $39.99
• DESCRIPTION: Middle-earth is back with in depth coverage of the elven realms of Lindon, Rivendell, and Lothlorien that still endure in the twilight of the Third Age. Each realm is highly magical and was built and maintained with one of the three rings given to the Elves. In addition to details on the realms, there are Adversaries to oppose the Elves and the PCs, details on Sauron’s schemes against the Immortal Folk, 12 landmark adventuring locations, rules to play High Elves of Rivendell and Elves of Lórien, and solo rules playing as an Elf-lord.

The Dragon's Hoard - Issue #51 | The Dragon's Hoard - Issue #52 by Legendary Games

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: softcover supplements
• RETAIL PRICE: $11.99 each
• DESCRIPTION: The Dragon’s Hoard is a monthly anthology of magic items, spells, monsters, and more. In Issue #51: magical items like the elderwood bow and caster's shield, spells such as predatory pounce and wildfire barrage, traps including the cinder chute and the reaping scythe trap, class special features like the Bonewalker ranger and Kiln Sorcery, and monsters ranging from the bloodthirsty sangoi to the awful phantasmagoria wagon. Issue #52: magical items including the bloomblade and staff of the seasons, spells like poisonous snare and electric vengeance, traps such as the face of despair and tornado gate, class special features including the Frost Hunter ranger and the Minimalist wizard, and creatures like the curious assembly ooze and the dead-devouring ammut.

Shrine of Serpents (D&D 5E) | Hoard Monsters (D&D 5E) | Hoard Monsters (Pathfinder 2E) by Legendary Games

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Edition/Pathfinder Second Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: softcover supplements
• RETAIL PRICE: $10.99/$16.99/$15.99
• DESCRIPTION: Shrine of Serpents is a ninth-level adventure with the PCs exploring the dusty ruins of an ancient empire of the sands. The sinister serpent cult of Apep the Devourer has returned and has redoubled their rapacious campaign of terror with an inhuman cunning and savagery. Hoard Monsters features over 40 deadly dungeon denizens. This time, the treasure fights back with monsters such the sinister dead ink swarm and bejeweled glisterfae. Guardians such as statuesque graven guardians and stained-glass knights standing watch alongside ioun golems and trompe l’oeil living portraits.

Deadly Arts by Catalyst Game Labs

• SYSTEM: Shadowrun
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover supplement
• RETAIL PRICE: $49.99
• DESCRIPTION: An advanced combat supplement. PCs who fight for a paycheck need more than just the latest hardware—they’ll need to master the deadly art of combat itself. Otherwise, they’re cannon fodder. Maybe it’s the local street samurai who just got some upgraded ’ware and is looking to settle some long-overdue scores. Maybe the mercenary just got a new gun, and their trigger finger is itching. Or the rigger is in control of one of the most advanced military vehicles on the planet, complete with bleeding-edge control systems and weapons.

Necessary Evil - Cosmic Crisis | Necessary Evil - GM Screen & The Return of Dr. Destruction Adventure by Pinnacle

• SYSTEM: Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition Super Powers Companion
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover supplement/GM screen and adventure
• RETAIL PRICE: $39.99/$19.99
• DESCRIPTION: In Necessary Evil - Cosmic Crisis, PCs villains rise after the super heroes fall. When all the super heroes of the world are blown to kingdom come by an army of invading aliens, only the crafty and self-serving super villain PCs are left to fight. Years after the original invasion, a formidable group of Cosmic (Power Level V) scalawags get one chance to free themselves from an inter-galactic prison and save their own futures. Freedom, though, requires that they kill the omnipotent Outsider first. The GM Screen also includes an adventure. After the events of Necessary Evil - Invasion the powerful villain Dr. Destruction has long since faded from view. Decades later he’s back. The PCs have to find out what he’s up to.

Egil | Arvid | Svartarvid by Redbox Games

• SYSTEM: fantasy RPGs
• PRODUCT TYPE: 28mm unpainted metal miniature (some assembly may be required)
• RETAIL PRICE: $9.99 each
• DESCRIPTION: Two Njorn humans with a sword or bow and an evil barbarian archer. Paint them and use them on the Map Tiles - Roads & Bridges below.

Map Tiles - Roads & Bridges by Kobold Press

• SYSTEM: fantasy RPGs
• PRODUCT TYPE: over 20 24 7”x7” dry erase tiles
• RETAIL PRICE: $24.99
• DESCRIPTION: A collection of back-alleys, drawbridges, and other essential travel routes. Examples include: gothic bridge, dirt forest road, crossroads, cobblestone path, back alley, hedgerows, a roadside shrine, and more.

Dice - Bald Eagle Inside with Gold (7) by Old School Dice & Accessories

• SYSTEM: RPGs that use dice
• PRODUCT TYPE: seven dice with a bald eagle miniature inside
• RETAIL PRICE: $17.99
• DESCRIPTION: Includes: one of each: d4, d6, d8, d10, d10 (00-90), d12, and d20. Each one has a bald eagle miniature inside and gold numbers.

Dice - Halloween Pumpkin - Jack O'Lantern (7) by Q-Workshop

• SYSTEM: RPGs that use dice
• PRODUCT TYPE: seven glow in the dark (UV charge) dice
• RETAIL PRICE: $19
• DESCRIPTION: Have a pumpkin head depicted on the highest face. Comes with: one of each: d4, d6, d8, d10, d10 (00-90), d12, and d20.

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[dbolack]

They're metal miniatures, so I suspect that's a huge part of it (and a bit of a shock, I know, compared to pre-painted plastic minis).

That seems in line with what I remember paying for lead 25 years ago at that scale.... If anything, these may be too inexpensive.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

.

 

[EthanSental]

I’ve purchased numerous red box games minis in the past and had forgotten about them until this mention. Looking through older emails, I picked up some from Tre’ in 2015 and 2017 but can’t find the amount I paid. They are on the smaller 28mm size compared to reaper and darksword metal minis which are “heroic” 28mm.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Am I misreading something? Are they really asking $10 each for unpainted figs, two of which you could easily find proxies for in the catalogs of any company that does historical Middle Ages figs?

Spend what you want, but maybe shop around a bit first.

Metal minis seem to vary in price just like dice do. Here is a screenshot of metal minis from Reaper:

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Metal minis seem to vary in price just like dice do.

Of course they do. Usually it's related to the amount of metal used in the casting and the number of individual parts involved (which is why you'll see little sprues with smaller bits attached directly to the basing tab now and then - marginally easier to cast and de-mold that way), and some sculptors do earn more than others. Sometimes the prices are just inexplicably higher or lower than you'd expect too, although in Reaper's case it may be based on experience with how rapidly a sculpt wears out the mold, since that impacts costs to. Other factors can get involved too, like "charity donation" figs often being a bit more expensive.

Looking at a few of your examples:

That Ed Pugh tribute (RIP) uses as much metal as any two human sized figs (maybe three for slender sculpts with tab bases) and is priced accordingly.

Stitch the halfling is literally the most expensive pack that comes up if you search for "Halfling rogue" and that's due to that cute little chest he comes with. If you look at the overall results from that search (after you filter out the Bones and actually-a-dwarf models) single halings range from ~$4 for some older figs up to a high end of ~$7-8, with most of the pricey figs either having cloaks (which add a lot of volume and use more metal) or details that probably result in higher-then-normal reject rates (another added cost even though you can just melt them down and try again - an advantage of metals). Moreover, Stich has been available in both metal and Bones plastic, one of which (no longer available) came without his chest and cost $5 versus $7 for the same materiel with chest, making $9.49 in metal the highest cost. That's something that isn't always true when searching for specific figs, since the more modern Bones Black material is on par with metals for costs and sometimes higher, again presumably because you'll get different reject rates in different materials and Bones can't be easily recycled.

You'll also note a general trend toward older figs being a little (or even a lot) cheaper than newer ones, not because of any particular difference in quality but because old sculpts have long since been paid off (and were paid for in rates from 20-30 years ago) and the molds refined to minimize rejects - and in some cases inertia, where no one's bothered to update the prices for slower-moving stuff in a decade or more. There's some old Warlord stuff (Reaper's last stab at a fantasy minis game) that's still the same price as it was 15 years ago, and costs have risen since then.

Lot of factors go into minis pricing even before you start factoring in distribution or having stuff cast on contract -something Reaper does a fair bit of.

 

[Marc Radle]

Map Title are such a great product line!