Happy Birthday to Me!

Friday, April 24, 2015

As I mentioned in last week's preview, Wednesday was my birthday, so for this week's preview blog, I want to be a bit selfish and focus on three of MY personal favorite figures from June's Dungeons Deep set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic gaming figures.

Without further ado (and because I'm old now, and I'm rapidly losing patience), let's get on with it!

Here we have my favorite figure in the whole set, the Cruel Conjurer, from page 190 of the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex. The Conjurer in that book is statted up as a 15th-level human wizard, but I think the figure works for just about any sort of evil mystic. I say evil because of the various hooked chains and things hanging from his belt, and for the foreboding hood he wears, but we all know a lot of player characters like to look a little tough now and again, so I can even see the Cruel Conjurer used as a player character mini. The Cruel Conjurer is a Medium, uncommon figure you won't believe isn't a rare.

Aside from a great sculpt and an awesome paint job, the Cruel Conjurer has two unusual elements that push it to the top tier of minis, in my opinion. The first is the unusual swirl of green mystical energy keeping him levitated off the ground. This is a weird effect for a mini in general, making the Cruel Conjurer stand out from the crowd, but the really exciting element here is the color of the energy. It's difficult to describe, and I'm not certain it comes out perfectly in the photos, but the green WizKids used here is an AMAZING shade of green. It's got just the right level of tone and opacity to create a very special effect. Whenever I take the Dungeons Deep figures around the office, the Cruel Conjurer is one that everybody highlights as a favorite.

But really, the coolest aspect of the Cruel Conjurer is his grimoire, which balances atop the green energy. WizKids went above and beyond with the tampo stamp effects on this guy to the point that his magic book even has magical writing on the pages! The photo above is a little rough and blurry, but you can see over his shoulder that this mini is reading a bit more than the usual blank pages so common among his 30mm peers. I love it, and consider the Cruel Conjurer the greatest birthday gift of the entire set.

But the Cruel Conjurer isn't the only disturbing figure in the set. For my favorite of the gross figures we've got the Mouth Horror, a familiar creature from page 153 of the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. Dude is gross. I don't know what else to tell you except that you probably need three of them. The Mouth Horror is a Medium, uncommon figure.

And here's a figure that no one outside the office has seen yet, as we haven't taken him to any of our spring trade shows—the Emperor Cobra! Oversized snakes are a staple of fantasy fiction and gaming, and when it came time to add our own to the ranks of prepainted plastic, I just knew we had to go cobra. Inspired by Wayne Reynolds's cover illustration for Pathfinder Adventure Path #9: Escape from Old Korvosa, the Emperor Cobra stands well higher than a Medium adventurer, and its open mouth promises a nasty poison bite. He's even got a cool symbol on the back of his hood, as seen below. The Emperor Cobra is a Large, uncommon figure.

And that's it for my birthday favorites! Actually, there are so many cool figures in this set that I could add a handful more, but hey, I've got to make these previews last through June!

And now I leave you as a broken old man, crippled with age and arthritis, shuffling off into the slow decline into retirement.

Godspeed, all.

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Dungeons Deep Miniatures Pathfinder Battles

Happy Birthday Erik :-)

Hopefully the crippling arthritis holds off for another year :-)

Dark Archive

love the conjuror although at uncommon I may wind up,with a few more than I need.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Waah, Wednesday was my birthday also...

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Subscriber

The conjurer is absolutely fantastic--can't wait to get my hands on one!

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

All 3 look to be very solid additions to what is already a solid set. Been excited to see better pics of the conjure re since he was 'revealed' in the GAMA trade pics. Like him a lot. I have the same issue as mine all mine, at uncommon I'm sure I'll get more than I need, but it's a nice figure so I'm happy.

The gibber...mouth horror is incredibly cool. I love the detail in the eyes, the teeth in the mouth may need some picking out in white though. At the uncommon rarity this is simply awesome. The old one from a previous line was too rare to care, now this one at uncommon means you should get 3-4 in a case. Just the right number.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this also the first LARGE snake in PPM? At first glance I thought wow, a snake. Not very impressed. Then I looked closer.the detailing is great, the pose is cool and it's large. What's more its uncommon, so I can actually get the 3-4 I would want for a higher level encounter.

Nicely done old man. Enjoy the wisdom they tell me comes with old age, although my wife would say she hasn't seen any.

Scarab Sages

Happy Birthday, Erik!!


Dungeons Deep is a great set.

They should make sets like this all the time.

The adventure path sets are nice and all, but they focus too much on adventure specific monsters.

A better balance is all I'm saying....

B@#$%in Conjurer man!


I'd call this reveal a hat trick; all 3 minis look great! Cat-thulhu is absolutely right that most people can't afford the old WotC gibbering mouther in any quantities, and it's a reasonably common monster in published adventures, so I expect there's a lot of demand for it -- and that's without even factoring in just the coolness of the monster and the mini. I also agree that we're overdue for a Large snake. It's always possible to use snake minis that are from dollar stores and the like, but it's nice on occasion to have something sized just right and on a base like the rest of the minis, and this is a lovely scuplt and paint job to boot. And the conjurer is just great. I find myself pitying the office plant he seems about to obliterate, though....


Yay for the Large Snake! A long time needed mini.

Sovereign Court

Aaaand now to preorder a second brick.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Best snake ever.... That is awesome.


Every new mini revealed is just great, but is there are iconic included in this set?


Do you have to use such a small font in these blogs?


Steve Geddes wrote:
Do you have to use such a small font in these blogs?

Any modern browser supports CTRL-+ to increase the font size of web pages on the fly. Just FYI...

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hey, go easy on us old folks--we're not up on the latest technology like you puppies.


John Woodford wrote:
Hey, go easy on us old folks--we're not up on the latest technology like you puppies.

Sorry didn't mean anything by it. I use it all the time as I have Paizo website set to like 150% size increase. =)


Just realized the spikes on the snake. Not sure how I feel about those. Right now they look odd to me.

But regardless of how I end up feeling about the spikes, this set is ranking as my most favorite set so far.


I'm getting pretty excited.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
ShadowChemosh wrote:
John Woodford wrote:
Hey, go easy on us old folks--we're not up on the latest technology like you puppies.
Sorry didn't mean anything by it. I use it all the time as I have Paizo website set to like 150% size increase. =)

I probably should have put a smiley face after that. No worries; my wife and I have Galaxy Note phones, with the big screens, and she refers to them as the presbyopic specials.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

"Snakes.... why did it have to be snakes?"
Seriously cool stuff. I think I am loving the non-AP sets more and more.


Erik Mona wrote:
And now I leave you as a broken old man, crippled with age and arthritis, shuffling off into the slow decline into retirement.

Yeah, sure, that what all the great wizards want you to think!


The Large Cobra is great due to it not only being large, but simply being a great sculpt! Large snakes are needed! The Mouth "gibbering" Horror is very nice. I can use more of this beasty!

The cruel conjurer looks cool, but I certainly don't need more than 1 of these? I'm confused why this was made uncommon. This mini is certainly a 1 needed kind. How many characters are you going to encounter all levitating on the same swirling green energy. Once again looks nice, but no need for multiples. Put it as a rare and maybe add a little something extra to it.

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