Pathfinder Battles Heroes & Monsters Preview: Common Courtesy

Friday, October 7, 2011

I don’t have any color previews to show you today, so instead I’ve decided to share three “behind the scenes” shots of unpainted preliminary sculpts for miniatures in the forthcoming Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters set. The complete set features 40 miniatures plus the premium Huge Black Dragon miniature. Of those 40 minis, 13 are packed in the common rarity.

When deciding which miniatures to assign to which rarity, we thought about how the miniatures would be used on the game table. If you generally encounter a single example of a given creature (say, a manticore), we assigned that miniature to the Rare rarity.

For creatures that come in larger numbers in game play, we were more likely to assign them the Common rarity. Stuff like orcs, goblins, city watch guards, and the like fit easily into this category, because everyone needs more than one. Our partners at WizKids put a lot of work into creating amazing sculpts even for the more common figures, as you can see below.

For starters, here is a nasty-looking Orc Brute, complete with a big club and plenty of need for good dental work. Note that this early sculpt has the wrong number of toes on each foot, something we fixed for the final sculpt.

Next we have a slightly more civilized Orc Warrior, whom you might recognize from the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary.

Lastly (for today), we have another nasty humanoid, the savage Lizardfolk Champion! Beware his trident!

This week is also the first in which we begin to reveal the final set list. In the spirit of the Common creatures revealed above, I thought I’d reveal the entire list of all 13 Common creatures in the Heroes & Monsters set! They are:

COMMON CREATURES
Goblin Warrior
Goblin Hero
Dire Rat
Gnome Fighter
Orc Brute
Orc Warrior
Skeleton
Watch Guard
Watch Officer
Lizardfolk Champion
Zombie
Giant Spider
Wolf

Next week I hope to show more color images, as well as reveal the 10 Uncommon figures in the Heroes & Monsters set! Come back to see what else we have in store, and look for Pathfinder Battles: Heroes & Monsters in stores this December!

Erik Mona
Publisher