The Last Cut is the Deepest

Monday, May 7, 2018

This week, we look at the final batch of Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts miniatures coming out in the July wave, wrapping up a brief series on the unpainted plastic miniatures from our partners at WizKids. Each of the figures below is sold individually, and is pre-primed for your painting pleasure.

Both figures this week are mounted warriors with a lot of versatility. The first is the knight on horse. The sample paint scheme depicted below shows him as a knight of Iomedae, with her holy symbol emblazoned across the knight’s tabard. The figure could just as easily be painted with the symbol of any nation, faith, or organization to fit the needs of your campaign.

Facing off against the knight on horse is the similarly named skeleton knight on horse. While not as easily adapted to represent a player character (unless they’re undead PCs, I guess. Anything’s possible!) this figure makes a great addition to any undead army, especially those fighting for the Whispering Tyrant, the nation of Geb, or summoned by a particularly powerful necromancer.

Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts aren’t the only unpainted plastic miniatures available for Pathfinder and Starfinder, though. In addition to the Pathfinder Bones figures from Reaper, we have copies of the Starfinder RPG iconics and their ship, the Sunrise Maiden, from Ninja Division back in stock, so get yours today!

Keep posting your custom-painted Pathfinder Battles miniatures on social media with the #PathfinderBattles hashtag, and we might feature your work on a future blog! Heck, why not paint the Starfinder iconics with the #StarfinderMasterclass hashtag? The sky’s the limit, miniature lovers!

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

A Short Blog Post

Monday, April 30, 2018

Each wave of Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts unpainted plastic miniatures comes with both monsters and player character-appropriate figures, usually around a shared theme. Each blister pack of characters comes with two figures—one low- and one high-level—which can either represent the same character across his or her career or two completely different adventurers. The ancestry featured in July's release wave is none other than gnomes, specifically gnome spellcasters.

Gnomes are a miniature painter's dream, in no small part because they're small minis, so they don't use up a lot of paint, but also because they come in every color you can imagine. The sample painted renders depicted below are pretty conservative with their hair color choices, but you can paint them whatever hue catches your fancy, and repaint them when the gnome's mercurial fey blood leads them to change that hair color mid-campaign. First we have the male gnome bard. A world-renowned musician, this character has a version with and without his short sword (and different armor), but he never goes anywhere without his harp!

Joining the bard is the fellow arcane caster, female gnome sorcerer. She’s got two spell effects sculpted into her figures, which can be customized to be flames, lightning, acid, or whatever you need them to be with a simple ink wash. If you’re fine with her clothes changing, she could even represent the same character casting two different spells, getting swapped out for one another in the middle of combat.

Turning to a more natural set of spellcasters, we have the male and female gnome druids. Like the sorcerer, they all have clear plastic spell effects (including call lightning and produce flame, it looks like). One of my favorite aspects of the druids and sorcerer is that they could also serve as members of just about any spellcasting class, from arcanist to wizard. There's no reason you can't use the sorcerer above as a druid (just put her in a green robe; that's what makes someone a druid, right?) or the druids below as sorcerers.

Next week we'll look at the final two minis in the release wave, and show off the community's painted versions of previously released Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts figures. Just post your painted minis to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag #pathfinderbattles, and tag the official Paizo account on that platform, and we'll post the best ones here next week (or sometime thereafter). I can't wait to see what our fans have done!

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager

Elemental Invasion!

Monday, April 23, 2018

Last week, we announced the Kingmaker set of Pathfinder Battles pre-painted miniatures and the associated case incentive figures: Huge earth and water elementals. But they don't come out until October! What will fans of elementals do until then?

Fear not, valiant Pathfinders, for our partners at WizKids have you covered with their next wave of Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts unpainted plastic miniatures! Due out in July, these non-randomized figures are pre-primed with Acrylicos Vallejo primer, making them ready to paint straight out of the box. The preview images in this blog show digital renders of both the unpainted sculpt and a sample paint scheme to serve as inspiration. Each 2-piece blister pack comes with two copies of the same figure, in the same pose, so you can easily build an army of identical elemental warriors, or paint variant versions of the same figure.

First among this wave's elementals is the Medium earth elemental. Pathfinder Battles fans will recognize this sculpt as a boulder-throwing variant of the similarly named (and out of print) figure from the Shattered Star set from way back in 2013. Just like the sample paint scheme illustrated here, that figure had granite and emerald coloration, but this figure's unpainted finish means you can customize your earth elemental to fit whatever setting you want! Need a desert elemental? Paint it a tan, sandstone color with topaz or turquiose accents. Is your party facing an earth elemental on a tropical, volcanic island? Paint its body black, with ruby accents. And if it's especially lava-bound, try putting bright orange or yellow in the cracks of its body to give it a magma glow (see the lava lurker promotional figure for inspiration).

Next we have the Medium water elemental, again varying up the pose of the similarly named (and out of print) figure from Shattered Star. Composed of clear plastic, the figure maintains the sense of transparency that makes water elemental figures so much fun to use at the table. Whether you want a clear blue elemental from tropical waters, or a muddy, murky gray or brown from a swamp or sewer, this figure can be customized with a thin ink wash. If you're using a pre-existing map, like a Pathfinder Flip-Mat, you can even paint the mini to match the color of whatever body of water it's going to rise out of in your game! Give it an appearance of being icy or particularly roiling with some white dry-brushing to make the whorls and wave caps really pop.

What good is a water elemental if there isn't a fire elemental for it to quench? The Medium fire elemental is—you guessed it—a resculpt of the Shattered Star figure of the same name. Also composed of clear plastic, this figure can be customized with a variety of shades of red, orange, and yellow for traditional flames, or other colors like green and blue for more supernatural elementals summoned by strange rituals or specialized spellcasters. You can even give the figure a smoky look with a dry-brushing of sooty black.

And that's it. Just three elementals.

Nah, I'm just kidding. Of course there's a Medium air elemental to complete the set. One of the best things about this figure is that you can use it straight out of the box without getting your brushes dirty as any number of invisible air creatures. If you are looking to paint it, however, the clear plastic again allows for a lot of variety with different ink washes. Cool blues or pale whites can capture the brisk chill of a winter breeze, while darker colors like gray or even black can give the swirling elemental the look of a raging tornado. With a bit more customization, you can attach small green or brown "leaves" to the figure's surface to represent the detritus sucked up into the whirlwind in forested or autumnal settings.

While this is our first Deep Cuts blog, these are far from the first figures in the line, with dozens already in the wild in your local game store or here on paizo.com. Rather than go back and show off these unpainted figures, I'd rather give the community the chance to show off your finished Deep Cuts from the myriad figures we've previously released. Post your painted Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts figures on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter with the hashtag #PathfinderBattles and tag the official accounts for Paizo and WizKids, and we'll collect and show off our favorites in a future blog.

Next week we'll examine the wave's batch of gnome spellcasters. The "shortlist," if you will. Until then, keep your paintbrushes wet.

Mark Moreland
Franchise Manager