Wow – haven’t posted in a few days – I apologize for that. I’ve been in the midst of a most terrible head cold. I believe the worst has passed and I can now get back to the business at hand.
Adventurer’s Vault 2 was just released!!!!! I decided to go down to my FLGS (friendly local gaming store) and pick up a copy to check it out. While I was there I also picked up two booster packs for the new DDM (Dungeons and Dragon’s Miniatures) Monster Manual: Legendary Evils miniatures set.
I want to write a full-on review of the 2nd Adv Vault in the next couple of days and so I don’t want to say too much right now, except… wow, it looks awesome and so very useful… please check back for my full review of that book after I have gotten a few days to soak it in.
I was going to pass on buying the miniatures because I thought they didn’t have one with a beholder, and then I spotted a bunch of stacked booster packs on a table at the rear of the store and saw my precious beholder staring at me… I found myself…. hypnotized….. I couldn’t say no. I picked up a pack with the beholder and one with an iron dragon.
The Legendary Evils boosters are arranged just like the Dangerous Delves DDM booster packs, that is, with one visible mini and four randomized minis per package, all consisting of monster minis (i.e. no hero figures allowed). This makes sense becase the Legendary Evils set is an expansion of the Dangerous Delves booster set, which is only monsters, and also because they are releasing a bunch of hero packs individually. In this set the visible mini is a huge figure whose base takes up a 3×3 square on the battle mat and the random minis are all either medium sized (1×1 base) or large sized (2×2 base) creatures.
Here are the figures I received in my two boosters:
2 Duergar Guard, # 13/40, common, medium sized (Level 4 Soldier, introduced in Adventure H2)
1 Duergar Cleric of Asmodeus, #12/40, rare, medium sized (Level 7 Controller, new creature)
1 Foulspawn Mangler, # 18/40, rare, medium sized (Level 8 Skirmisher, MM page 112)
1 Chillfire Destroyer, # 8/40, rare, large sized (Level 14 Brute, MM2 page 98)
2 Slaad Spawn, # 36/40, common, medium sized (Level 17 Minion Skirmisher, MM2 page 185)
1 Elder Iron Dragon, # 16/40, uncommon visible, huge sized (Level 19 Solo Lurker, MM2 page 84)
1 Hezrou, # 25/40, rare, large sized (Level 22 Brute, MM page 56)
1 Beholder Ultimate Tyrant, # 6/40, uncommon visible, huge sized (Level 29 Solo Artillery, MM2 page 26)
Variety: There is a typical amount of variety that you expect to get in one of these booster packs. I feel really good about the mix I received. I only got two duplicates and they are of creatures that would occur in groups of at least two of the same creature, rather than a bunch of duplicates of creatures that I would throw on the table in diversely mixed groups (or solo, for that matter). I can imagine that if I bought 3 or 4 more booster packs I would have 2 to 4 of each common and probably still only one of each rare – but maybe not… in any case, I am generally happy with the variety in only two boosters, so I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. To give you an idea of my scale, to earn a 5 I would have had to get no duplicates, and to garner a 4 I would have had to get only 1 duplicate. Since I don’t plan on buying any more boosters from this set (famous last words) this rating probably will not change.
Mold Quality: By this I am referring to the quality of the sculpt or casting that they used to mass produce them. These are generally good, not great, but not horrible. A couple of my minis have a noticeable molding defect: 1) the beholder has a couple of teeth that look like the plastic rippled and therefore they aren’t smooth like the other teeth, and 2) a mold seem on the iron dragon’s left wing is poorly concealed (as it is on the right and looks great on that side). In contrast, the Hezrou has some awesome detailing that shows well (e.g. the bulging veins in its legs and the skin texture), and the Chillfire Destroyer looks like a chunk of ice come to life and is an excellent rendering. All in all, I would say that the small defects I have seen do not detract from the minis on the table and can be overlooked, and this set looks much better than some of the sets in the past – 4 out of 5 stars. (for reference, 5 stars = no defects and all rendered wonderfully)
Paint Quality: Hezrou is fantastic, Beholder and Iron Dragon are good, Mangler, Slaad Spawn and Duergar all pretty unremarkable. While the Chillfire’s mold is phenomenal, the paintjob is mediocre. None of the paints ruin the minis, but only the Hezrou makes you say wow. Of course, my biased opinion says that the Beholder is awesome to look at, so they must have done something right there – there is just something about a giant, fleshy, purple, teethy, giant-eyed creature with tentacular eyestalks that yells: I am going to eat you! I actually wish the Beholder was a little less purple and more on the grey side, but I don’t care that much, and I still think it looks good (It’s almost as good as the Eye of Flame from the out-of-print Dungeons of Dread set). The paint color scheme for Legendary Evils is mostly drab and dark in order to fit the dungeon theme, and the colors do match that theme well, but they also do not allow for any truly wonderful paint jobs on the minis that I received in my sets. 3 out of 5 stars.
The Stat Cards: These are great. Well produced, nice looking, easy to read, etc. They tell you all the information that you need, as well as where the creature comes from (e.g. MM or MM2 or a published adventure, etc.). Well, most of them tell you everything you need. Unfortunately the card for my beloved beholder is not big enough to contain all of its attack power goodness, so it refers you to the MM2 for full text and then it doesn’t give a page number (luckily the MM2 has a good index, but still…). So that is a bummer, but honestly, there isn’t much they can do about that – the Beholder Ultimate Tyrant stat block takes up an entire column + 1/3 in the MM2 (page 26, go check it out). They can’t possibly fit that all onto a small stat card, so I guess I can forgive them this time… the stat cards get 5 out of 5 stars.
Price: Thumbs down :( For each booster pack I paid the list price of $21.99 US dollars. For 5 miniatures. Plastic ones. $21.99. That’s $4.38 a piece. I just think it’s a little steep considering it is 5 pieces of molded plastic produced in bulk and made in China. I mean, I can’t begrudge a company for trying to do business and make a profit, but DANG!!!. On the other hand, I am not planning on buying any more of these boosters and I am not a miniatures completist, so I don’t have a staggering outlay of cash in mind when I think of minis. Still, the price receives 1 out of 5 stars (if it even deserves that).
Well, let’s see, that makes it 3.5 + 4 + 3 + 5 + 1 = 16.5, so an average of 3.3 stars out of 5. Not a bad showing, but not absolutely mind-blowingly stellar. The price point takes it way down on the star scale, and if price was not considered, this set would rank a 3.9, or almost 4 out of 5 stars. I think it’s worthy of picking up a coupe of boosters if you like the huge visible mini, but maybe not worth laying out a large pile of bills to get a complete collection.
That about wraps it up – hopefully this was helpful to you, but keep in mind it is only my specific opinion of the 8 out of 40 minis from this set that I have held in my hand and inspected, and I love the beholder, which makes me biased towards my purchase. In any case, I would like to thank Wizards of the Coast for producing and distributing the game that is the centerpiece of my favorite hobby, Dungeons and Dragons, and to remind you that WotC holds all appropriate trademarks and copyrights to the materials they produce.
Until my next post, I wish you good gaming.
~DM Samuel