Was Aberrations a good set?

[Nightfall]

Kae,

See I think there's already too many gnomes to begin with. But then that's my racial bias showing.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Kae,

See I think there's already too many gnomes to begin with. But then that's my racial bias showing.

So because you don't like them, they should gnot be in the game? Even though they're core material? Even because many others would love to properly portray their character? Pretty egoistic. Let others enjoy the game, too.

 

[Nightfall]

Kae,

I'm saying it's my opinion. You all can have your gnomes. I just don't see the need for another short race.

 

[Sammael]

BTW, I whined today to the WotC web developers and we now have Blood War box art. Solar, Marilith, and Githyanki on Red Dragon:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndmin/950530000

 

[Nightfall]

Sam,

Okay now I'm suitable impressed. I just hope they don't screw up the Solar or the Marlith. The cover art does look might impressive. I just will reserve judgement for when we get the actual sculpts.

 

[Anti-Sean]

Sammael and Kae'Yoss pretty much summarized Aberrations already; I'd take it a little further and say that not only were the rares by and large lackluster, but in addition to the lack of one or two real standout rares (a la the Beholder from Deathknell) there were quite a few rares that were pretty crappy (Ogre Zombie and Skullsplitter, I'm looking at you!). I think the set is great, though; some of the uncommon sculpts are top notch, such as the Sahuagin Ranger, and the Bladebearer Hobgoblin (my favorite sculpt so far, bar none).

Sounds like I should look into War Drums. I'd heard the paint job was pretty bad, though. How bad is it?

IMNSHO, the fulmination over the quality of War Drums was by far a tempest in a teapot (and unfortunately, really turned me off of the spectacular DDM community at maxminis.com for quite a bit). Yes, some of the figures were missing a paint step or two (Chimera, Large Bronze Dragon) and the Frost Dwarf looks horrible, but by and large, the sculpts are stunning and the paint jobs are adequate to very good. There were some complaints about a heavy dark wash on a few uncommons (Hill Giant Barbarian, Combat Medic), but at least in my 2.5 cases, this problem seems to be heavily exaggerated. It's one of my favorite sets so far.

 

[Pinotage]

Aberrations originally seemed bad for Skirmish as well, because its minis were designed for the 100 pt format, which is pretty much dead. Still, there are several Aberrations minis that are frequently used in 200 and 500 pt games (HEBI, Crow Shaman, Frenzied Berserker, Green Dragon, etc.).

So the current tournament standard is either 200 pts or 500 pts?

Pinotage

 

[Glyfair]

So the current tournament standard is either 200 pts or 500 pts?

200 pts. is the "standard" format (with a maximum of 140 pts. for any single figure, plus no huge figures allowed).

500 pts. is "epic" (no maximum cost for a figure, huge figures allowed, but limited maps because they have to work with huge figures)

 

[blargney the second]

Personally, I find Epic to be annoyingly all about the save or die effects. 200 point has much more interesting shades of gray.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I play online D&D, so have no real use for minis. I also don't play DDM, so no excuse there.

I just buy them because they're fun. Aberrations was bland for me, I bought a Chuul alone, and some kobold sorcerers, but otherwise most of the set wasn't really very attractive. I'm a gnome fan, but both Clerics I bought were badly painted.

Underdark was nice looking, and so far DragonQueen has been great too. Wardrum was bland also, not a lot of mini's I wanted, and most of them I would want were problem pieces. (I'd love to have a Wardruke, but since all I heard was bad paint about them, it's not worth the risk.)