Full disclosure: I do not have (nor am I planning to purchase) the entire Icons of the Realms set. This review is based on my purchase of a single booster, supplemented by a few singles. I own:
#001 Rock Gnome Female Wizard
#007 Mane Demon
#008 Human Paladin
#009 Sun Elf Guard
#011 Human Zhentarim Bandit
#012 Hobgoblin Fighter
#013 Human Female Barbarian
#017 Green Hag
#019 Human Red Wizard
#026 Stone Giant Elder
#028 Pegasus
#031 Green Dragon
#036 Half Red Dragon Fighter
The good:
* These minis are very durable, maintaining the flexibility of previous D&D releases. It's hard to imagine these not standing up to years of use.
* Sculpts and paint. The good figures in this set -- such as most of the dragons -- are as good as I've ever seen in pre-paints.
The bad:
* Price. $4 a mini is a bitter pill.
* Sculpts and paint. What, wasn't that a pro? Yes, but the bad figures in this set -- such as most of the commons -- are as bad as I've ever seen in pre-paints. The face on #011 Human Zhentarim Bandit...*shudder*
* Figure selection could use some work, especially since this is a "re-launch" of the line. How does this set not have a skeleton? Or a zombie? Or a wolf? How is there an Ogre Mage, but not an Ogre? This was a wonderful opportunity to cover the major bases, but they missed it.
This line has my attention, but they need to bring the sculpt and paint job quality of the commons up quite a bit. For now, Pathfinder Battles is a better bet, despite the comparatively brittle plastic employed in that line.
Full disclosure: I do not have (nor am I planning to purchase) the entire Lost Coast set. This review is based on my purchase of two boosters at the FLGS, in which I received the following minis:
06 Small Water Elemental
10 Firepelt Cougar
11 Lamashtu Cultist
13 Lamashtu Thug #2
14 Shifty Noble
21 Sinspawn Champion
27 Forest Drake
30 Troll
The Good:
* The sculpts are very detailed.
* The paint jobs are generally quite good.
* This set has a strong selection of minis with well-considered rarities, with only a few questionable decisions (two boggards?).
* Packaging is very good -- there was no breakage in either booster, with each mini individually wrapped.
The bad:
* The paint job on my shifty noble was poor; the figure completely lacks any detail on the face. It's just a fleshy blob. Easily fixed, but kinda defeats the purpose of buying pre-paints.
* These minis are still pretty fragile, especially protrusions like the cougar's tail. Throwing these in the bin with my D&D minis will definitely result in some breakage. I appreciate there is a trade-off between sculpt detail and durability, but my preference would be err a little more on the side of durability. This is especially disappointing because WizKids seemed to have this issue sorted in Undead Horde.
* The Price: $4 a mini is a bit steep, but it appears to be the new normal for the industry.
All in all one of the better entries in the series, both in terms of figure utility and sculpt/paint quality.
Just ran this on October 30th; great fit for Halloween.
We ran with four players, high sub-tier. Things were pretty easy until the final battle, which was a stiff (but not overwhelming) challenge.
Pros:
* Oozes flavor. Lots of neat little descriptive flourishes really make things easier on the GM.
* Some hard choices can come up during negotiations.
* Came in right at four hours.
* Secondary success condition isn't a gimme.
Cons:
* Some of the pertinent info is a bit scattered around the manuscript.
* The descriptions of the hazards in the first room are a little jumbled.
* Many seemingly unnecessary changes in ceiling height (20'! 12'! 10!') were a bit of a pain to keep track of...
Wow, are these a great idea. The implementation, however, could use a bit of work. That said, it's nice to see this product realized, even in a somewhat-less-than-ideal form.
Pros:
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* Price. These won't break the bank, and they definitely add something over an empty grid.
* The doors are great, especially if given a quick ink wash. Combined with a bit of poster tack as the instructions suggest, they are ideal for use on just about any 1" grid. In fact, I wish they sold the doors separately, maybe in a few different styles. Hmmmm...
Cons:
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* The walls need to be 25-30% taller to hit that sweet spot of looking clearly like a dungeon but still allowing easy manipulation of minis. As it stands, these can look more like a field-stone fence than a dungeon wall.
* Slightly higher quality casting would have made these much more user-friendly. As it is, you definitely want to carefully cut away the flash before use. On the other hand, that's inexpensive, mass-produced plastic for you.
WotC bravely brings its tradition of mediocre adventures in the era of 5th edition with this wholly unremarkable product. Unfortunately, it does so on ground which has already been tread by (the superior) Red Hand of Doom.
Pros:
* High quality full-color book with heavy paper.
* Most of the art is good.
* First major adventure available for the new edition.
Cons:
* Plenty of editing mistakes, some seemingly related to the fluid nature of the rules during development; Others...not so much.
* Punishingly difficult in the early going.
* Zero PDF/eBook availability (at least at the time of this writing) is a MAJOR disappointment. -1 star.
