Okay, now that we don’t have to poke around on Ebay to get early glimpses of the Giants of Legend set (well, one day early at this point, but still…), let’s have a look.
Okay, first, the complaints. Enough with the minotaurs already (there’s a Skeletal Minotaur and another large Minotaur in the set). I don’t use ’em, nor do I know anyone that needs more than one for an encounter. And should I care that Lidda, Regdar, and the rest are here on Gilligan’s Isle yet again? Oh, they’re modified, as in Lidda, Adventurer. What was the first Lidda figure supposed to be if not an adventurer? Lidda, Working Mom? C’mon, let’s expand the line, not rehash it. And if a bunch of my uncommon figs end up being the tiny Quasit, I won’t be happy.
Now to the drooling. Most of the huge figures look outstanding, as do the large fire giants and the Otyugh. I’m psyched to see the Ettercap, Grick, Blue Slaad, Manticore, and Displacer Serpent, just for the neat variety of monsters to have on hand during D&D sessions. Looks like there’s multiple thieves in the set, too: the Lizardfolk Rogue, Drow Rogue, Bugbear Footpad, and the aforementioned Lidda. I can always find a use for more dire animals, so the Dire Wolf is a welcome addition. What else… a Gnoll Sergeant, that’ll be cool… and a Basilisk. Sweet. Mordenkainen’s just icing on the cake, at this point.
And the laugh-out-loud moment of the set: the Glabrezu, one of the huge figures. He looks like the emcee of the set. “Hey there, enjoy the set! Try the veal, and be sure to tip your waitresses!” Whoever comes up with the best caption for that figure gets a Cave Dweller Brownie Point (TM).
I assume the the figs are close to scale on the site, I always thought that fire giants were taller than they look compared to the human sized figures
I regularly needed and used multiple minotaur figures in my last campaign, actually. I was using them in a hunting-pack type of modification, and so regularly needed trios of them.
When it comes to the monsters, I don’t have an issue with reptition – especially the generic, iconic monsters out there. DMs all have favorite. I, for instance, think enough with the drow – I just sat in on a game, and the drow are his big thing. Having huges sets of them was like a dream come true for him.
I did pull a Behir in my set – I will say, the huge monster is definitely huge. I actually did a bit of a double take when I first saw it.
Brian: I’m glad to hear *someone* is using the minotaurs. I used a ton of Lizardfolk and Kuo-Toa, myself, so to each his own. I don’t mind WotC continuing each race they’ve established (adding more drow, another gnoll or two, and so on), but here’s what concerns me more than having creatures I don’t personally use: repetition, especially so early in the lifespan of the game. If you look at the gallery for the GoL set, you’ll see a Werewolf (U) and a Minotaur (R); if you look back at the Harbinger set gallery, you’ll find the same titles & rarities applied to earlier figures. I’m hoping it’s coincidence, and not the game’s first reprints.
Hey, I like the minos and the quasits 🙂
As for the small dudes … more power to them! I am having a shortage of space dealing with sorting all of my minis (over 600 at this point). Small ones pack better 🙂
That said, I’m really looking forward to some of the huge dragons!
D
I’m the DM that ran the Drow game Brian mentioned above. Just thought I’d chime in with an interesting observation on the D&D minis stuff.
See, Brian mentioned “and the drow are his big thing” which is funny, because I’ve never really given them much thought in the past. Always sort of saw them as just a cheap knock-off of Melniboneans.
The thing is, with the D&D miniatures random sort, I get to “collect” and play with all sorts of miniatures I’d _never_ have thought about buying before. Honestly, I ended up using the Drow for this game, simply because one day I was going through my figs planning my next few sessions and found I had lots of them. It was a slow build up to “Hey, I’ve got a lot of Drow figures… I wonder what I could do with all of these guys?”
From there, the entire adventure sort of grew out of reading a bit about the Drow and looking at all the figs I had.
That’s one of the things I really enjoy about the randomness of the new figs. I never know what I’m going to pull from a booster, and I feel that has actually _bolstered_ my creativity as a GM rather than hampering it.
Agreed, Ben. For a roleplayer, the random miniatures assortment is a great thing, suggesting creatures that might not otherwise see much use.