Return of Prepainted D&D Miniatures

[Zarathud]

For the upcoming New York Toy Fair (16-19 February 2014), WizKids announced an all-new line of pre-painted Dungeons & Dragons miniatures for Summer 2014. The new line will "feature creatures and characters that players have come to know and love, allowing them to wage their battles and experience their adventures with a greater level of immersion and tactical interplay."

The prices have become ridiculous for the prepainted D&D miniatures, so I'm happy to see more options.

[TiLT]

I have an enormous collection of D&D miniatures already, so I don't really need another one. Still, this is good news as we're heading into a new version of D&D though. Hopefully they won't do a total makeover of the monsters again, like they did between 3E and 4E, which would make the old miniatures outdated.

[Zarathud]

My 4 year old daughter has decided that rolling dice and moving plastic miniatures around is awesome, and I picked up her own set of "turquoise" dice this weekend.

Unfortunately, she does not permit anyone to roll any defense or counterattack: "There are no NOM-NOMs in this game, Dad!" Instead, the "little dudes" must party with the My Little Ponies and Disney Princesses. Or the "ugly bad guys" have to await their doom by the "awesome good guys."



The older one is going to turn 7 and likes to add and subtract rolled dice. The new sets can't arrive soon enough. I need an excuse to feed our habit.

[Zarathud]

Has anyone picked up the new D&D figures from Tyranny of Dragons yet? The Pathfinder miniatures were too fragile to survive the mauling from my 5 year old daughter Bug. On the plus side, her Hello Kitty dice bag is sitting among the stuffed animal horde at the foot of her bed.

[Papa Smurph]

I bought a brick. I am happy with my purchase. The models are generally good and the paint job is fair to middling (better than early Pathfinder minis, not as good as the later Pathfinder minis). One word of warning: the dragons are in "flying" poses, and so have stands the must be assembled. I normally throw all my minis into a cardboard box until I need them, but I'm afraid the stands will come loose and I won't know which stands go with which creatures. So, these dragons (and Pegasus and Wyvern) are on display instead of in a box.

As for you daughter, these will survive no better, I think. The plastic is soft, but still too fragile for anything but gentle play.

[hentzau]

I actually picked up a single box of these yesterday, and I thought they were pretty good. I'd be tempted to buy more of them if I thought I was actually going to have opportunities to play more D&D.

[IceBear]

I have a legal file box full of the minis from the last set so I'll probably hold off on getting any more for now. No room and no cash

[IceBear]

I actually picked up a single box of these yesterday, and I thought they were pretty good. I'd be tempted to buy more of them if I thought I was actually going to have opportunities to play more D&D.

Plus, minis aren't needed for 5E (sorry, reading too many opinions by gronards)

[Zarathud]

I picked up a single box and the icon set. The figures are stronger plastic than the Pathfinder. Decent detailing, but not as good as the latest Pathfinder. Not too far off from the older D&D miniatures. I'll buy a brick to fill out my next order from Miniature Market. If I end up with a Dragon, it'll go on display.

Bug received a set of the new Spiderman Heroclix which are pretty solid. After pulling out my old box of miniatures, I decided to give her the massive Treant to play with as "Groot." It's a $20 miniature now, but it's solid plastic that would be difficult to break.

[hentzau]

I actually picked up a single box of these yesterday, and I thought they were pretty good. I'd be tempted to buy more of them if I thought I was actually going to have opportunities to play more D&D.

Plus, minis aren't needed for 5E (sorry, reading too many opinions by gronards)

Not needed, but always add to a fun and fantastic looking game!

[IceBear]

Trust me, you're preaching to the choir. I have been using minis since I started using Stratego pieces on a checker board to keep track of everything back with the red box. Just the numerous posts by people over joyed with "the death of minis* made me cynical. Even games like Edge of the Empire that uses abstract distances and movement came with a map and tokens in the starter box.

Also resisting getting new ones because I have sooo many of the last set. Even have the giant red dragon and Orcus

[Zarathud]

Heck, I even use miniatures to visualize Paranoia -- the game where questioning the GM's description of events is Treason and other players are happy to urge your full compliance.

Every time I see the prepainted miniatures at a convention, I wish that I had purchased more. And I have a letter file box moderately full. Now that my kids are using miniatures as dolls in the morning and want to paint some Reaper Bones, I have the excuse to buy miniatures again.

[IceBear]

Yeah, when my son is a little older I (hopefully) I will be in the same situation of having an excuse to buy more

[Blackhawk]

I first got into miniatures during first and second edition, where actually using miniatures in conjunction with the rules wasn't just frustrating, it was nearly impossible if you didn't have a table the size of a football field.

They were still awesome for visualizing fights, getting a rough idea of who was where, who was close, who was at range, and so on. Since I usually paint miniatures for specific characters, they also function almost like portraits, too.

[IceBear]

I posted this over in my Dungeon World forum game, but since this is a recently active thread by people who would probably appreciate the humor I'll post it here too so it doesn't get missed

[Zarathud]

I ordered a brick of 8 boxes from miniaturemarket and had my oldest daughter open it for the "board game" dungeon she's making for my sister and her fiance. I ended up with 4 dragons (shadow, green, copper and gold), a pegasus, wyvern, ararocka, ogre magi, stone giant and invisible dwarf. Only 3 duplicates out of a set of 24 figures. Pretty happy with the results.

Rarity distribution from 8 3/4 boxes (35 out of 36, my kids ran off and can't find 1):
11.5% Rare
48.5% Uncommon
40.0% Common