Pathfinder Battles Preview: A Gaggle of Goblins and Gargoyles

Friday, December 8, 2011

Today’s preview blog marks an important milestone for the Heroes & Monsters set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles miniatures. With this preview, we’ve revealed all 40 miniatures in the set! In the few more weeks leading up to the formal release of Heroes & Monsters (looking like very early January, at this point), I’ll go back through the set and show off painted versions of early unpainted preview sculpts and digital renders, but with the images below, you will have seen (in one form or another) every single miniature in our first Pathfinder Battles set.

The most elusive preview image for Heroes & Monsters has been this Gargoyle, based on art from the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary. Like his counterparts perched upon gothic buildings, the Gargoyle blended in well with his surroundings, and I never managed to add him to the preview pile until now. There’s no reason we’ve been holding him back—he’s a really cool miniature, with sweeping wings and big curved horns. If you’re feeling adventurous, a coat of paint on this guy could make him into a demon or devil too.

Next up we have all four goblins in the Heroes & Monsters set. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we had to remove the Goblin Mystic sculpt for quality control reasons (his noggin was way, way, way too big), leaving us in a significant pickle. Unfortunately, there was no time to add a full-on new goblin sculpt, so we made the best of a bad situation, and decided to add a re-decoed Goblin Hero in place of the badly sized Mystic. The four goblins in the set, from left to right in the image above, are Goblin Warrior, Goblin Hero, Goblin Hero, and Goblin Warrior.

We’ve painted these similar miniatures in two distinctive paint schemes, making it possible to imagine them as members of different goblin tribes. The two Goblin Warrior sculpts are very minor variations with very slight pose differences. The Goblin Heroes are the same sculpt painted differently.

The goblin minis come two to a pack, so you should be able to start your goblin horde fairly quickly. The next set, Rise of the Runelords, has several more goblins on the way, including a Goblin Warchanter, Goblin Commando, Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog, and a goblin chief astride a giant gecko.

But those will have to wait for a future preview!

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Goblins Miniatures Pathfinder Battles Pathfinder Roleplaying Game
Dark Archive

yay goblins!

Dark Archive

YES!!

Thanks Erik!

I don't think I've waited to see a gargoyle this long since my first visit to France.

The goblin squads 'be rockin'!

What will you have in store for us next Friday?

;)


Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Goblinzes! Huzzah!


Goblins chew and goblins bite!


I hope that the Goblin Pyro makes it into a set soon!

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

"The next set, Rise of the Runelords, has several more goblins on the way, including a Goblin Warchanter, Goblin Commando, Goblin Commando on Riding Dog, and a goblin chief astride a giant gecko."

The whole Burnt Offerings Cast!


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The goblins look great! The skin tone is just about perfect, and the poses are dynamic.

One question for you, Erik. In the photo (at least on my PC), the teeth of the goblin heroes aren't quite visible - I can just see gaping black maws. Do the teeth stand out more in person (like they do for the warriors in the photo)?


Hurray, finally all the minis have names and images.

One request though (although it may be too late?): From a collector's point of view its nice to have minis with unique names. Since you have a repainted goblin in this set and you have suggested that they could be from different tribes, could you please just give them tribe names to differentiate them?

(i.e. Reefrunner Goblin Hero, and Licktoad Goblin Hero?)

Alternative, just giving them different names would also be good.

(i.e. Goblin Warrior, and Goblin Fighter for the warriors).

Thanks.

www.pathfinderminis.com


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm really glad that you pulled back a mini with a way out of size/scale head.

I'd rather have a slightly different pose and painted goblin than another Dwarf of Mithril Hall situation.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I REALLLLY hope you meant Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog

Paizo Employee CEO

Kor - Orc Scrollkeeper wrote:
One request though (although it may be too late?): From a collector's point of view its nice to have minis with unique names. Since you have a repainted goblin in this set and you have suggested that they could be from different tribes, could you please just give them tribe names to differentiate them?

Way too late for this set. The minis are all manufactured and have been on the boat from China for weeks now.

-Lisa

Sczarni

Joseph Mandato wrote:

The goblins look great! The skin tone is just about perfect, and the poses are dynamic.

One question for you, Erik. In the photo (at least on my PC), the teeth of the goblin heroes aren't quite visible - I can just see gaping black maws. Do the teeth stand out more in person (like they do for the warriors in the photo)?

I think once again its a victim of the flash/lighting they are using to take the pictures. looks like the flash/white balancing might have caused the green of the skin to bleed into the teeth area

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Reckless wrote:
I REALLLLY hope you meant Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog

Yes.

And as a special bonus for being cool about the Goblin Mystic situation, I will also reveal that Rise of the Runelords contains a stand-alone Goblin Dog figure as well as a Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog mini!

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

The Goblin Heroes have visible teeth, though not quite as visible as the teeth on the Goblin Warriors. Those guys are grinnin' fools!


"A Gaggle of Goblins and Gargoyles" is my favorite book from A Song of Ice and Fire.

Grand Lodge

Awesome stuff all around. I will definitely need to start another RotRL campaign next year. Great joy! Burnt Offerings will just come alive. The only thing that could top this is if Peter Jackson could secured the screen rights for RotRL and make a half dozen movies.;)

Later,

Mazra

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Erik Mona wrote:
Reckless wrote:
I REALLLLY hope you meant Goblin Commando on Goblin Dog
Yes.

I've adjusted the blog entry.


Awesome Set, I'm very excited, My one big request for Pathfinder minis is this:

consistent color schemes.

This drove me nuts with DDM, different sets had wildly differing color schemes for the same race

If a goblin's skin color is green in this set don't make them gray or neon orange in the next. If I'm fielding a tribe of goblins I expect them to be thoroughly inbred not inexplicably genetically diverse.


Maugan22 wrote:

Awesome Set, I'm very excited, My one big request for Pathfinder minis is this:

consistent color schemes.

This drove me nuts with DDM, different sets had wildly differing color schemes for the same race

If a goblin's skin color is green in this set don't make them gray or neon orange in the next. If I'm fielding a tribe of goblins I expect them to be thoroughly inbred not inexplicably genetically diverse.

A slight defense of the DDM goblin-colour situation. The goblins in DDM were consistently of a yellow - orange - red skin-tone (goblins, hobgoblins, and the Dekanter mutant) throughout the 3rd / 3.5 era minis (exceptions - the Norker, a mutant hobgoblin, and the Blue, a related, but different race), just as the kobolds had a coppery-brown tone and the bugbears were tan to brown furred. The goblins only turned green when WotC switched over to 4E D&D for the minis line to keep them consistent with how they were described in the MM.

Grand Lodge

Leo_Negri I agree with Maugan22. I am holding Goblin in my hand from Harbinger to Deathknell all 3.x sets. Almost every Goblin has a different skin tone from Brown to Red to Orange. I couldn't come up with a consistent looking hoard of Goblins using DDMs if I tried. After reading many posts in this Blog and throughout I trust Sir Mona to maintain a consistency with the Pathfinder Goblins. Having four in one set that are consistent with that exceptional Pathfinder style is already heads above DDMs. I anxiously look forward to adding the RotRL Goblins to the mix.

Later,

Mazra


The consistency with Guard garb, Wolf fur color and Goblin and Orc skin color already shows a dedication to continuity. Just keep it up across sets where appropriate! I'm really looking forward to the additional Goblins and Ogres in RotRLs.


I'm surprised the paint variations are a coping strategy and not another purposeful innovation. Is there anything you guys can't make look smart?

So, when are we getting the blue goblins? RotRL? :-)


I spent a long time trying to figure out from illustrations and descriptions what color goblins were in Pathfinder. After looking a few places, I got the impression they were gray.

The conclusion that goblins were gray was significantly influenced by Classic Monsters Revisited, which says on page 23 that hobgoblins have a number of the same superficial physical characteristics as goblins, including their gray skin and orange eyes.

So I'm guessing Golarion has room to support goblins of more than one color, but what colors are common? Are there still gray goblins? I've also seen Paizo illustrations with bluish-purple and green goblins.

Shadow Lodge

Lisa Stevens wrote:


The minis are all manufactured and have been on the boat from China for weeks now.

-Lisa

So there on a slow boat from China? ;)

Dark Archive

dartnet wrote:

So there on a slow boat from China? ;)

I chuckled when I read Lisa's post as well.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

These look GREAT!

Paizo Employee CEO

dartnet wrote:
Lisa Stevens wrote:


The minis are all manufactured and have been on the boat from China for weeks now.

-Lisa

So there on a slow boat from China? ;)

I am glad somebody took the bait on that one. :)

-Lisa

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

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Pathfinder goblins range in color from gray to a sort of grayish blue to green. Most of the ones we do in the Pathfinder Battles sets will be green, because we wanted to pick one color and stick with it.

All of our minis use specific Pantone colors, so I can tell you precisely what color an orc's skin will be, what color a goblin's skin will be, etc.

We will try to match colors and clothing styles within "factions" as much as possible. I'm certain that the Rise of the Runelords goblins, for example, will have the same color skin as the goblins in Heroes & Monsters.


I love the idea of differentiating goblins by clothing. Can we get a few different, but distinctive, clothing styles for goblins?


Thanks. Not sure which color of goblins I prefer yet. We need more goblin artwork showing off all the diversity of goblin coloration, even if all the minis are green.

I know, you're going "More goblin artwork? Really?" But I say yes.

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