The Last of the Deadly Foes

Friday, October 14, 2016

Deadly Foes, the next set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures, releases next month! Over the last few months, I've been using this space to preview new digital sculpts for the figures, and this week I've got the final two miniatures for the set! The Paizo Warehouse Runelords tell me that our shipment of packaged product from WizKids hits our office soon, so I also hope to provide a few first-looks at actual production figures in the weeks between now and the set's official release date in the middle of November.

Then we've got ANOTHER whole set that WizKids just announced this week to cover in future previews—more on that at the bottom of this week's blog.

But first, let's take a look at the last two figures from Deadly Foes!

Up first is the Shadow Giant, the final creature figure to be revealed for Deadly Foes! This guy has a fascinating Pathfinder origin. The Shadow Giant first appeared in the illustration accompanying the religion chapter waaaaay back in the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, the first-ever look at the world of Golarion as a whole (co-written by yours truly). It took until The Inner Sea Bestiary to give the Shadow Giant statistics. Keep an eye out for their upcoming appearance in Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 6 next spring! The Shadow Giant is a Large, rare figure.

The last figure of the entire set to preview is the Rope Trick, a fun piece of dungeon dressing suggested by my friend Ross Williams, a player in my weekly Pathfinder game (under GM Jason Bulmahn). During a particularly rough patch in the campaign, we found ourselves frequently hiding out in the extra-dimensional rope trick created by Ross's wizard, and it often became necessary to know where exactly on the battlefield the rope trick was meant to be. Ross suggested a rope trick miniature, and I thought it a sufficiently fun idea to add it to the set. Opinions here at Paizo are somewhat divided as to the utility of this piece, but I know I'll use it in my game, so it's in. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Absolutely! The Rope Trick is a super-rare piece inserted once per case in place of an uncommon figure. I hope you like it.

And that's it for Deadly Foes, which I think is one of our best and most useful sets yet!

The end of Deadly Foes previews comes just in time, as WizKids this week announced the NEXT Pathfinder Battles set, Crown of Fangs! Crown of Fangs contains 47 creature figures and a bunch of dungeon dressing. My favorite element of the set is the case incentive, the Court of the Crimson Throne, a full throneroom playset that contains thrones, a banquet table, courtiers, and more. We took the idea from the bar incentive in The Rusty Dragon Inn set and said "how can we make this waaaay cooler?" I think you'll be pleased with the results.

But that's getting way ahead of myself. There will be a lot more time to talk about Crown of Fangs in future weeks!

Until then, I remain...

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Deadly Foes Miniatures Pathfinder Battles
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Great news across the board! I love the new giant, who has loads of dark personality, and as someone who's been asking for spell effect minis, the rope trick is perfect. I'm also getting ready to (hopefully) start a CotCT campaign soon, so more minis for that campaign will be most welcome! Huzzah!

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Most unexpected. I was expecting some angel or devil (Bone Devil) as the final reveal. That said am I disappointed? As Stone Cold would (almost)say; Hell no! This.Is.Freaking.Awesome! I have asked, nay championed, the shadow giant since the inner sea bestiary artwork came out. The artwork in the Gazetteer was OK, made him look a little spectral, but the art in ISB was just calling out to be plasticised. (The Gazeteer also contains one of the best pieces of art for an Andoran on page 25). I can not say how happy I am to finally be able to have my giant cake and eat it too. My only sadness comes from his rare status,which is understandable given the detail and paint steps he seems to require. Just means I will need to strain the bank account and order extras when the singles release.

The final dressing is also a surprise, and another great one. People have wanted spell effects and here we have one that I know our group use all the time - it really is the best refuge from a bloody storm. Plus getting 1, or possibly 2, in a case is really all you need.

Am I say to assume the purple extra dimensional effect at the top of the rope is made from transparent plastic?

Also how stiff is the rope part of the trick?

Thank you Erik (and Mike?) for another fantastic set. That's thanks form me, not necessarily my wife or bank account.

As for the crimson court incentive, while I'm sad to see no monster since there are soooo many of the huge+ size still out there waiting, in the shadows, patiently stalking the edge of our reality, waiting for their change to cross over into three dimensionality...err, where was I? The Crimson court intrigues me - dressing pieces like a banquet table are very useful, courtiers would be a welcome addition to a collection. Sounds like a very nice "piece", so when can we see it?


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Rope trick mini. Really? Not a fan at all. I hope your group finds your favoritism particularly useful. I doubt most of us will.

Shadow Lodge

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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Why can't the person in charge include a personal preference in the set? It's one mini, appearing in all likelihood once per case? I rarely find every mini in a set suits my needs, quite often there's at least one I have no need for either, the silver dragon in RDI was of almost no use to me at all, I'm sure others found it useful. Plus at least it's not yet another dwarf :P.

A spell effect like this means we may see more in future, or traps. A simple floating disk spell, shield spell or fire shield (like the clix effects bases), burning sphere, 10' transparent dome. All would be a little niche but that's the beauty of the dressing pieces.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I like the rope trick mini. You can also use it to represent where the adventurer's enter any dungeon or room from above. Or nestle it against a wall where they have climbed down or are going to climb up. Physically representing a rope on the battle field reminds the players (and the GM's minions) that it's there and can shift a battle's priorities dramatically.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Nice ideas dudemeister. Don't know why that hadn't occurred to me? Given the rope seems to line up with one of the flat edges it should nestle in to a map/room edge nicely


Hi Erik. Can you explain what it means to replace an uncommon figure with a super-rare piece? That doesn't seem to work in my mind - unless everything else gets slightly more common than it used to be... :/


Hey all, good set. I'm not usually a big fan of the dungeon dressings as I make my own from molds but off another site but that rope trick is cool. You can definitely use it to rep a rope or ladder entrance. And being rare as it is, 1 to a case is perfect, unlike the candelabra. LOL. The shadow giant is cool too. Just got a bunch of huge giants from some place else, I'm sure you don't know what I'm talking about, but this will be a great add to my collection.

I look forward to opening my case in the next few weeks. Great job and keep up the good work.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

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Duncan7291 wrote:
Rope trick mini. Really? Not a fan at all. I hope your group finds your favoritism particularly useful. I doubt most of us will.

Sorry! Here's hoping the other 48+ figures in the set are more your speed.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Steve Geddes wrote:
Hi Erik. Can you explain what it means to replace an uncommon figure with a super-rare piece? That doesn't seem to work in my mind - unless everything else gets slightly more common than it used to be... :/

I believe that the cases have x commons, y uncommon an z rates in them by standard, with x+y+z=128. Erik is saying that they've reduced y to allow for the dungeon dressing


I like the Rope Trick, doesn't matter which rare it get's replaced for.

Spawn of Chutulu is the only mini in this set I couldn't care less about,
but with the subscription discount the huge dragon is cool enough to get the incentive anyways.

Rarity distribution appears to be perfect for me as well: no need to top up, except for some dressing maybe.


I'm a fan of all the Dungeon Dressings. Spell effects like the Rope Trick are fine withe me. Deadly Foes has shaped up to be a quite nice set with some great never made before pieces.

I'd like to thank you, Erik, for taking the time to write these articles. The great promotion and communication about the Pathfinder Battles line is one of several important differentiators over that other line of Wizkid minis.


Erik Mona wrote:
Duncan7291 wrote:
Rope trick mini. Really? Not a fan at all. I hope your group finds your favoritism particularly useful. I doubt most of us will.
Sorry! Here's hoping the other 48+ figures in the set are more your speed.

They are ;). I think that's the source of my frustration with the rope trick. I can think of numerous other minis that fit the theme of this set that could had been included instead of the rope trick. Also, my reading of this blog post happen to catch me at a particularly bitter time. I apologize for the tone of my first post but my reasons behind the objection still stand.


What's funny to me is that I rarely have use for prepaints since I'm a big fan of nonrandomized paint and customize it yourself minis and I think I would find the rope trick mini very useful.
I hope they aren't too rare because I also generally find the boxes too expensive for what I'm getting. :(


DropBearHunter wrote:
I like the Rope Trick, doesn't matter which rare it get's replaced for

correction: which - uncommon - gets replaced, not rare.

Duncan7291 wrote:
I can think of numerous other minis that fit the theme of this set that could had been inluded instead of the rope trick.

The thing with deadly foes is, sometimes the Rope Trick is what you need to stay alive ;-)


In before Marco!

I like the Rope Trick--kinda. It'll never be used in my games but it's definetely a cool collectable.
And while I'll pick up a few singles from this set at the most, I'm so much more looking forward to the next set!

Ruyan.

Grand Lodge

Erik, I'm sooo excited to receive this set. The only thing that disappointed me about the rope trick mini is that I'll only get one in a case. Hopefully I can snag another when singles pop up.


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I really like the rope trick. I'd be interested to see a mini that could be used for the various (cough Bigby's cough) hand spells.

My major wishes for future sets would include any creature that hasn't been represented in a previous d&d or PF set. I would include a HUGE aboleth in this (not the annoying large from the old D&D set).

Also a planetar. It would be especially cool if the planetar had the jet-black skin it was originally illustrated with (in like Dragon #63 or something), as there aren't a lot of celestial minis that don't have your standard blonde hair, Nordic complexion thing going on.

Dark Archive

Rope trick is cool but I have a concern that it wont be particularly durable. The Pathfinder minis on a whole ( and by that I mean Wizkids) are nowhere near as durable as the old D&D figures were. It is a rare case indeed that doesnt have at least one or two busted figures. In fact I ordered a single Migo from you guys in my last monthly order and it came broken. The rope looks like once it breaks the figure is trash as there is no way to glue something that thin.

Dark Archive

The Shadow Giant is gorgeous and after thinking about it for a while, i'm glad that it's no rare Bone Devil, as i need a few of those and hope it is in Crown of Fangs or Set 13 in 2017.

While i applaud spell effects as dressing pieces, the way the rope trick looks, it won't survive a fall from the table.
I hope the design gets tweaked a little to make it extra sturdy.

Deadly Foes looks to be the best set yet, creature-wise (excluding the two huges)!

I can't wait till i hold the minis in hand come december (it takes a few weeks longer here in germany, i still havn't got my SKT case).

Great work, Erik & Mike!

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

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Duncan7291 wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:
Duncan7291 wrote:
Rope trick mini. Really? Not a fan at all. I hope your group finds your favoritism particularly useful. I doubt most of us will.
Sorry! Here's hoping the other 48+ figures in the set are more your speed.
They are ;). I think that's the source of my frustration with the rope trick. I can think of numerous other minis that fit the theme of this set that could had been included instead of the rope trick. Also, my reading of this blog post happen to catch me at a particularly bitter time. I apologize for the tone of my first post but my reasons behind the objection still stand.

Hey, man! No problem! It's totally OK with me if you don't like a mini, or even a bunch of minis. It's impossible to please everyone every time. I just try to do the best I can satisfying as many people as I can, and every so often I toss in a random "just for me" choice as a bit of a personal reward and because, while not everyone will like it, I figure it'll spike intense like in other folks like me, which works for me, too.

If you have ideas for other dungeon dressing that you think better fits the Deadly Foes theme, by all means please let me know what it is. I find this type of piece the most difficult to select, and am happy to receive as many suggestions as possible.

From the weird rarity to the need to make them as high-utility as possible (especially because some folks don't seem to use them _at all_), there's a lot of pressure to "get it right."

So, by all means, help a brother out! :)

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

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Yolande d'Bar wrote:

I really like the rope trick. I'd be interested to see a mini that could be used for the various (cough Bigby's cough) hand spells.

I'd say these are pretty high on my list. I have NO insight into what "that other line" does (obviously, or there would probably be less crossover), but I'd say they might want to do them, too. They could even have their full, proper name, which an old Greyhawk nerd who used to live in my body would really appreciate.

Anyway, good suggestion!


Bigby's expletive digit?

can't find the OotS comic in a hurry, sure enough people will know what I mean ;-)

Silver Crusade Contributor

I miss Bigby's slapping hand. ^_^


DropBearHunter wrote:

Bigby's expletive digit?

can't find the OotS comic in a hurry, sure enough people will know what I mean ;-)

Right up there with the Audible Curse spell. A favorite of frustrated magi of all stripes.


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An animated weapon (dancing sword most likely) is something that would be useful, IMO.


And for the record, I generally love dungeon dressing and fully support its inclusion in upcoming sets.


I'm going to enjoy this set, but I can't help but be a little disappointed that there isn't a large angel in it (considering the other ones). Sigh.

Dark Archive

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Something akin to a bear trap would be nice for various floor traps. And a mirror they seem to crop up frequently. Id also love to see fur rug/ pile of furs.

Dark Archive

When you say a bunch of dungeon dressing do you mean more than previous sets?


Enlight_Bystand wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Hi Erik. Can you explain what it means to replace an uncommon figure with a super-rare piece? That doesn't seem to work in my mind - unless everything else gets slightly more common than it used to be... :/
I believe that the cases have x commons, y uncommon an z rates in them by standard, with x+y+z=128. Erik is saying that they've reduced y to allow for the dungeon dressing

Thanks for clarifying. I'm not sure why I found it so hard to understand that. I guess I was thinking it was replacing an uncommon sculpt or something.

Cheers. :)

Dark Archive

SPELL EFFECTS:

-Dancing Lights (translucent white orb)
-Shield (of...) (translucent white)
-Floating Disc (translucent blue)
-Spectral Hand (translucent green)
-Spiritual Weapon/Mage's Sword (translucent yellow)
-Flaming Sphere (translucent red cupola)
-Wall of Fire
-Wall of Force/Wind Wall (translucent)
-Wall of Ice
-Blade Barrier
-Prismatic Wall
-Interposing Hand (large translucent)
-Magic Circle/Teleportatin Circle (translucent red pentagram)


Well, until the latest set announced, that "other" company hadn't made any dungeon dressing pieces, nor anything without a base. Pathfinder Battles rocks by forging into this area. I'd be quite willing to use any translucent giant hand spell effects we got from Pathfinder Battles. I don't think any of the players in my gaming group would pick up the mini to check the name on bottom.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

It would be nice if a Shield of whatever could be made in such a way to fit a figure in it so that both can be in the same square at the same time.


thaX wrote:
It would be nice if a Shield of whatever could be made in such a way to fit a figure in it so that both can be in the same square at the same time.

Easy, get a piece of saran wrap...problem solved :)


Marco Massoudi wrote:

SPELL EFFECTS:

-Dancing Lights (translucent white orb)

-Wall of Fire
-Wall of Force/Wind Wall (translucent)
-Wall of Ice
-Blade Barrier
-Prismatic Wall

Re: Dancing Lights

we got the Celestial Latern (Latern Arceon) as acommon in this set,
So a plain tranclucent white orb as a replacement for an uncommon, for a spell that creates up to four orbs? Insuficient and we have cheaper stand ins already.
"one vaguely humanoid shape" also covered with the invisible stalker from this set.

Re: Wall spells
At 20ft per level whatever we might get as a mini will be insuficient.
100 sheets of clear plastic for laser printer cost about 30€ - cheaper and more flexible
Some PDFs to print swarms and wall designs would be cool to have though.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber
thaX wrote:
It would be nice if a Shield of whatever could be made in such a way to fit a figure in it so that both can be in the same square at the same time.

Check out wizkids heroclix base effects . The same idea could work here and it's the same company anyway. Would work extremely well with shield, fire shield, that sort of thing. Only problem with this style is you'd need to make a large version if you wanted to use it for anything other than your medium figures.

Dark Archive

Thanks for making me aware of these, Cat-thulhu!

3 smoke-effect bases (darkness, fog, concealment) are probably a bit much, but

2 ice wall,
1 fire,
1 water,
1 web,
1 energy,
1 wind &
1 slash (bleed)

effect will come in handy.

11 effect bases for €20 seems ok too.

Dark Archive

Reaper miniatures also has
-Wall of Fire (3)
-Wall of Ice
-Burning Spheres (3)
-Shadow Hound (Mage's Faithful Hound)
-Spell Effect: Shadow Tentacles (2)

in it's "Bones" line.

But i'd still like to see what Erik wants to add to the Pathfinder Battles dungeon dressings/spell effects line.


Marco Massoudi wrote:

SPELL EFFECTS:

-Dancing Lights (translucent white orb)
-Shield (of...) (translucent white)
-Floating Disc (translucent blue)
-Spectral Hand (translucent green)
-Spiritual Weapon/Mage's Sword (translucent yellow)
-Flaming Sphere (translucent red cupola)
-Wall of Fire
-Wall of Force/Wind Wall (translucent)
-Wall of Ice
-Blade Barrier
-Prismatic Wall
-Interposing Hand (large translucent)
-Magic Circle/Teleportatin Circle (translucent red pentagram)

...black tentacles! and Entangle!

Dark Archive

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Hey guys...
Auggiesgamestore.com. Has tentacle minis as well as some dressing both prepainted and paint it your self. But the black tentacles are well done as is the vine.


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One more post to add love for the Rope Trick mini.

I remember abusing that life saving spell as early as 2nd edition. Back when it occurred to our table that you could cast the various monster summoning spells from inside the extra-dimensional space and then unload them en mass. Not at all sure if that really worked, but I'm not sure exactly how much of anything worked in 2E, except that we had lots of fun.

Rope Trick? Rope Awesome!

(... And now an awesome mini.)


The Shadow Giant appears to be wearing something very similar to a pair of Air Jordans I own.


Cat-thulhu wrote:
thaX wrote:
It would be nice if a Shield of whatever could be made in such a way to fit a figure in it so that both can be in the same square at the same time.

Check out wizkids heroclix base effects . The same idea could work here and it's the same company anyway. Would work extremely well with shield, fire shield, that sort of thing. Only problem with this style is you'd need to make a large version if you wanted to use it for anything other than your medium figures.

What size are these compared to pathfinder mini bases? Anyone happen to have some that wouldn't mind doing a photo comparison?


Nevermind, looks like they're 1.5 inch. That's too big and will make minis in adjacent squares tippy.

Sczarni

Lorian wrote:
Nevermind, looks like they're 1.5 inch. That's too big and will make minis in adjacent squares tippy.

Lorian, I user horror clix with my pathfinder minis all of the time. They do fall a little into the other square, but if they are centered, the other mini can be adjusted to still fit in thier own square by moving back.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

I was advocating use of the clix effects, just my feeling that a similar thing would work well in the battles line. Hell you could even add them to the existing structure without changing much, if anything. Same 46 minis, 5 dressing and 2-3 effect bases attached to particular rare minis, say a wizard with a shield effect base included with him, or a medium demon with a fire effect base added to it. That way you get the effects at a slow, but feasible rate.

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

Wizkids look to have paint masters on the promotions page for this set, not very large picture but they look to be a good quality. Hopefully Eriks pictures here will be of production minis rather than masters, either way they will be larger at least.

Dark Archive

Here is a link to a picture of all 52 minis:

http://wizkids.com/2016/10/17/pathfinder-battles-deadly-foes-new-set-with-r are-inserts-coming-soon/

Most look very good, but quite a lot large minis are either too large or too small.
Also, the spears of the Hellknight, Salamander and Bearded Devil are bendy.

Silver Crusade Contributor

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sigh

Marco Massoudi wrote:
link

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