Legendary Encounters
In August 2007, Reaper introduced a new line of plastic, pre-painted miniatures. Besides being highly detailed and just completely bad-ass, this line introduced a new concept of non-random figures. You buy what you want and just what you want. Unlike the D&D Miniatures, each of the fantasy icons can be bought separately. In addition, the smaller ones can be bought in packs of three.
As I understand it, WotC flirted with this idea after releasing its first box of randomized characters. If I remember correctly, they considered releasing non-random groups of orcs and other minions. But since this would affect the whole randomizing count and availability, they were convinced by store dealers to drop the idea.
First Set of 9 I bought the first set of 9 figs when as soon as they became available and I wasn't disappointed. There are 3 Skeletons (swordsman, archer and bowman), 3 Orcs (swordsman, archer and bowman), 1 Cave Troll, 1 Ogre Chieftan and 1 Minotaur of the Maze
My favorite is the Minotaur of the Maze. The picture at the right just hints at how good it is. The colors are bright and the detailing is fine, even down to the hairs on his neck. I love the pose and the feeling of raw power for this and the others.
The Cave Troll is probably the most disappointing. While the model and the pose are well done, the coloring is mostly a uniform green as seen in the picture. There is some discussion about the paint job done in China versus the production model so maybe this can be explained.
Green Orcs?
The poses for the orcs are a bit awkward because nobody stands like that, but this isn't the only set of figs with the stance. I'm also not used to seeing green orcs but that's maybe just a D&D standard. I don't know if Reaper has a game world standard but they feel more like goblins than orcs, except for the price.
Skeleton Fighters
The coloring on the skeletons looks better than these photos but the they are still a bit bland. On the other hand, they work fine as skeletons and I like the different weapons they each hold.
Value for Your Money? The figs selling on Paizo have a range of $1.79 for the skeletons to $5.39 for the minotaur. If the Reaper collection were as big as the WorC collection, these figs would definitely be more cost effective. Instead of opening 10 boxes for a Tiamut and possible not get it, you could pay a fraction of the cost and get exactly what you want. However it will take awhile for their collection to grow and until then WotC is the only alternative.
Only Gets Better Reaper has released its next set of figs on its website, although it doesn't give a release date. It looks like the newer set will be even more kick-ass. The new set will contain: Good Knight, Evil Knight, Female Demon, Ghost, Gnoll Archer, Gnoll Fighter, Mummy, Succubus, War Dog, Zombie, Bathalian, Dwarf Warrior, Elf Archer, Female Ranger, Great Worm, Ettin, 3 goblins and 3 kobolds. Below are select pictures from the set:
dDemonicAngels is the online identity of Bil White, a freelance writer living in Montreal. Even though Bil loves the idea of these non-random figs, there's still a part of him that also loves digging into the box of WotC figs to see which rare mini Fate has assigned to him.
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