A Rare Farewell

Friday, October 2, 2015

It's Friday, which means it's time for your (mostly) regularly scheduled preview of upcoming figures from the Pathfinder Battles line of prepainted fantasy gaming figures. Up this week are three early looks at digital sculpts for November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set. I should add here that while these are digital sculpts, I've actually seen and approved all of the paint masters for this set, and they look phenomenal. Because so many of our figures include stamped-on additional details (called "tampos" in the lingo of the business), I don't tend to photograph paint masters, even when I really want to. Once we begin to receive early production samples, we'll shoot several of them and show them off here. But for now, we're still looking at digitals.

I've showed off a lot of the set's common and uncommon figures so far, so this week, in celebration of something special (which I'll get to below), I want to pull back the curtain on some of the set's rare figures. Our partners at WizKids always pack an amazing amount of paint and sculpt details into the rare figures, and this set is no exception. Some of my absolute favorites from the set are found at this rarity.

And so, as my favorite television scientist might say: "Awaaaaaaay we go!"

Here we have the imposing Allevrah, Elf General, looking splendid in her green dragon skin armor. A few months back, as I was working on Pathfinder Battles set lists, my boss and Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens came by and said "Mona, put some more elves in the line. We need more elves!" I decided to fulfill that request in the form of a few figures from The Lost Coast, but I think Allevrah here is the coolest of the bunch. She was, in a slightly different form (NO SPOILERS) a major NPC in the Second Darkness Adventure Path, but I think she works just as well as a major NPC ally or even a player character. There's no denying that she looks ready to kick some serious ass. Allevrah, Elf General is a Medium, rare figure.

Up next is the Goblin Vulture Pilot, from page 109 of the Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex hardcover. I love the way WizKids' sculptors perfectly captured this guy's facial expression, and I can't wait to have him (literally) dive bomb my player characters. This figure looks incredible in hand, and I'm delighted to get more mounted figures into the line. Let me know if there are other mounted monsters and characters you'd like to see, and I'll try to sneak them in somewhere! The Goblin Vulture Pilot is a Medium figure at the rare rarity. (Ok, the goblin himself is Small, but the vulture is Medium and on a Medium base.)

Last up today is one of The Rusty Dragon Inn's stranger visitors, a multi-dimensional merchant of arcane wares known as Zilvazaraat. The towering planar peddler first appeared in Pathfinder Adventure Path #70: The Frozen Stars, and he was originally slated to appear as a miniature in the Reign of Winter set. That set (and a few others at the same time) lost about 10 figures when we went from 55-figure sets to 45-figure sets, and Zilvazaraat here has been waiting for his time to strike ever since. I figured, hey, you never know who might stop by The Rusty Dragon Inn for a bit of drink and some back corner business, so he sauntered his way back into our lives. I think it's fair to say that this creature has never been made before in prepainted plastic. He's a little bit off-kilter, but he's got a gorgeous sculpt and I hope you like him. Given that he appears anywhere to buy, sell, and trade magic items, your players will probably love him. Zilvazaraat is a Large, rare figure.

With the previews behind us, I'd like to reveal some sad news to Pathfinder Battles fans. Although I tend to get a fair amount of credit for the line in public forums based on the regular appearance of this blog, the truth is that making these sets as amazing as they can be is a team effort. Over the last few years, I've been honored to include in that team Paizo's Licensing Coordinator, Mike Kenway. Mike has been an absolute workhorse behind the scenes of Pathfinder Battles, tracking down art, managing the approvals chain with WizKids, and making sure that I don't fall too behind on planning set lists and other Pathfinder Battles business.

We've got Mike to thank for the awesome Bone Golem from Dungeons Deep, and numerous other figures he's championed over the years. A significant part of the line's quality and success can be attributed directly to Mike's keen eye for detail and excellent work ethic.

Unfortunately (at least for us!), Mike has accepted a job with another company, who understands how good he is at this type of thing, and what an asset he is to licensing coordination. Mike's last day in the Paizo office is next Thursday, October 8th, and I wanted to be sure to take this opportunity here in the Friday Publisher Preview to thank Mike for his tireless efforts on behalf of Pathfinder Battles fans. The line would not be what it is today without his hard work, and we will miss him dearly.

That said, time (and minis production) waits for no man, and the show must go on. We're currently looking for Mike's replacement to join the Paizo staff as Licensing Coordinator. Since a major part of the job involves helping me manage the Paizo side of Pathfinder Battles, I thought I'd put a link to the job opening here in the blog, in case some of you miniatures stalwarts might consider a change in career.

I could definitely use the help!

I'm off to New York Comic Con next week, and will try to drop a preview from the road. There's still so much awesome stuff in The Rusty Dragon Inn set that I can hardly believe it!

Until next time, I remain...

Erik Mona
Publisher

Short and Sweet

Friday, September 25, 2015

This week's figures come from The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted fantasy Pathfinder Battles miniatures. With amazing paint masters, great digital sculpts, and lots of creatures and NPC types not previously available in prepainted plastic, The Rusty Dragon Inn is shaping up to be one of my favorite sets ever!

This week, I'm previewing a few of the set's "shorter" figures, to account for this week's relatively short blog!

Up first is the Dwarf Wizard, a stalwart who appears on the cover and interior of the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex. Quite a mustache on this guy, who is showing off some elemental power by turning his hand to stone. I think it's safe to say... he packs on HELL of a punch! (Ahem.) The Dwarf Wizard is a Medium, uncommon figure.

It's long been a goal of mine to provide male and female figures for all of the primary Pathfinder class types (arcane spellcaster, rogue, warrior, cleric, roughly speaking). The Rusty Dragon Inn has proven very helpful in that regard, allowing us to grab some of the coolest images from the NPC Codex and bring them to you in prepainted plastic. Here we have the Gnome Wizard from that volume. Honestly I think she also works well as a gnome rogue, if you want to play it that way. The Gnome Wizard is a Small, uncommon figure.

Like the NPC Codex, the Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex has likewise been a great resource for this set, and from its pages come this week's monster, the Kobold Trapmaker, a Small, uncommon figure. This guy is a good example of a figure that I think looks even better in hand than in its 3D render, and I can't wait to add him to my kobold army.

That's it for this week! As one of my favorite Doctors once famously said:

"Sorry, must dash."

Erik Mona
Publisher

Bugbear Brigade

Friday, September 11, 2015

I can't believe it's already Friday, which means it's time for another installment of the Friday Publisher Preview! I'm still a bit giddy from our recent in-office review of the paint masters for November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted plastic Pathfinder Battles miniatures. The set looks absolutely fantastic, and I couldn't be happier with the communications and production standards WizKids and Paizo have been able to achieve with this set. It really feels like we are firing on all cylinders at the moment, and I'm thrilled to think of what the future has in store.

We've spent some time recently focusing on the NPCs, townfolk, and bar denizens of the set, so this time around I wanted to get back to the monsters. In this case—bugbears!

Since the very start, I've had a personal goal to have at least one kind of "focus creature" per set. My experience shows that if you can get multiple figures of one type (say, orcs, goblins, and the like) in the same set, paint application and sculpt details tend to be more consistent. For this set, my focus creatures are ghouls (most of which we've previewed already) and bugbears (most of which we haven't).

I previewed the Bugbear Tyrant back in June. This week, I'd like to show some of his companion bugbears. A tyrant isn't a tyrant without someone to boss around, after all.

Up first this week is the brutish Bugbear Lurker, whose image comes from the opening illustration of the bugbear section of the Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex. His statistics appear on page 25 of that volume. Bugbear Lurkers double as any kind of nasty bugbear menace, so I decided to slot this guy into the common rarity to help you build up a small gang of them. The Bugbear Lurker is a Medium figure.

Next is the Bugbear Mystic, our take on the bugbear bloodmage from page 26 of the Monster Codex. It's also a goal of mine to create both male and female figures for all the major humanoid races, and in this case the Monster Codex has been something of a godsend in terms of art reference. The Bugbear Mystic is also a Medium common, all the better for building a little bestial cult of your very own.

Perhaps my favorite bugbear in The Rusty Dragon Inn is the Bugbear Flesh Glutton, from page 22 of the Monster Codex. These unruly beasts so love the taste of intelligent creatures that they have grown to a disgustingly large size. The Bugbear Flesh Glutton is a Large, uncommon figure, perfect for peppering your growing bugbear brood with a few loutish brutes.

These three bugbears add to the Bugbear Tyrant to flesh out the Pathfinder bugbear ranks (which also includes a base common Bugbear Warrior from Legends of Golarion and the bow-wielding Bugbear Hero from way back in the Rise of the Runelords set.

What other humanoid "focus creatures" would you like to see in future sets? Drop some suggestions in the comments and we'll chat about it until next week, when I return with another batch of previews from The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Erik Mona
Publisher

More from the Rusty Dragon

Friday, September 4, 2015

It's a gorgeous Friday afternoon in Seattle, and I'm on vacation. After an utterly amazing PAX Prime weekend in which we ran more than 3,000 Pathfinder demos in four days, I'm exhausted and reveling in a genuine four-day weekend away from work.

But almost nothing can keep me from sharing my enthusiasm about our Pathfinder Battles line of prepainted fantasy miniatures. Not vacation, not sleep, not even my brand new Xbox One. I've got the goods, my friends, and I feel compelled to share them!

This week started with a bang on Tuesday, when I returned from PAX to spend a couple of hours looking over the paint masters for the entire The Rusty Dragon Inn set of miniatures, which releases in November. Sometimes paint masters arrive in the Paizo offices a few at a time, but every once in a while we get the while thing all at once, and it's possible to get a "big picture" of what the entire set will look like all together.

And I'm here to tell you, the entire set looks GLORIOUS. The Rusty Dragon Inn is filled with useful figures, from bands of ghouls and bugbears to horses, bar staff, monsters, and NPCs galore. On a production note, we had far fewer changes and comments on this set than any previous offerings. From the sculpts to the paint masters, I feel like the Paizo and WizKids teams are really gelling together better than ever before. These figures sailed through our approval process.

Although the set contains several savage humanoids, genuine monsters, and undead beasties, the theme of the set emphasizes characters and creatures you might expect to find in a fantasy tavern, the titular Rusty Dragon Inn.

We've already seen tavern denizens like the Serving Girl, Merchant, and Half-Elf Bard, but that Dancing Girl we revealed several weeks ago has got to have something to dance to if the tavern's really going to be a top night spot, and today's duo of previews is here to oblige.

First up this week is the Dwarf Bard, a drum-banging buff-master who marches to his own beat. He's also got a stringed instrument across his back when the situation calls for more subtlety. He's slated at the uncommon rarity—I figured two or three dwarf drummers wouldn't look out of place in a band of dwarves—perhaps accompanying a noble or command unit. The Dwarf Bard is a Medium figure.

This Half-Elf Enchanter isn't really a musician, but the way she wields her wand and her fancy outfit give her the demeanor of an orchestra conductor. During the approval meeting I put her alongside the set's other musicians and the dancer, and she looked right at home. Her look—wild hair color and all—comes from the NPC Codex. The Half-Elf Enchanter is a Medium, rare figure.

That's it for previews this week. I wish I could tell you about our in-office meeting with WizKids's president on Wednesday afternoon, and about the absolutely amazing ideas and developments we discussed there, but it's getting late, and after all, I am supposed to be on vacation today.

It'll have to wait for future Friday Publisher Previews!

Until then, I remain...

Erik Mona
Publisher

Innside and Out!

Friday, July 10, 2015

Welcome to another edition of the Friday Publisher Preview, and another look at November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted plastic gaming figures! Before we get to this week's reveals, I'd like to update everyone on the status of our popular Pathfinder Iconic Heroes sets. The first three sets are currently available, and ever since they hit shelves, people have been asking for more! I'm happy to report that WizKids has just announced official release dates for Iconic Heroes Set #4 and Iconic Heroes Set #5, which will be released in November and January, respectively. We're also at work on a Set #6 (and possibly more beyond that!), but we're not quite ready to announce release dates, yet.

I'll have nice images of the figures from these sets here on the blog over the next couple weeks, but until then, let's take a look at three more figures from The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Here we have the Ghoul Huntsman, inspired by the ghoul stalker art on page 82 of the Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex. GMs often overlook ranged combatants when it comes to undead hordes, and we wanted to make sure we had a figure that could help! This is the third of four ghoul figures in The Rusty Dragon Inn, so there are even more to come! The Ghoul Huntsman is a Medium, common figure.

Last week we revealed a draft horse, and we're not yet finished with the set's beasts of burden. Here we have a handsome Riding Dog for all your Small heroes. I'm looking to see some interesting gradients and stuff on the final paint job for this figure that don't quite come out in the digital sculpt, but I really like the looks of this figure and am glad to add it to the line. The Riding Dog is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Finally today we have the gorgeous Half-Elf Bard figure, straight from the cover (and page 29) of the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex. She's great as an adventurer OR an NPC entertainer, and pairs perfectly with the Dancing Girl figure we showed off a few weeks back. I remember a day when literally the only bard figure available anywhere was a lute-playing metal Ral Partha figure with a big floppy hat. We've come a long way since then! The Half-Elf Bard is a Medium, rare figure.

And with that, I'm off on a couple of days of vacation back to the ancestral homeland of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'll be back next Friday with a look at some of the fantastic Iconic Heroes figures yet to come!

Until then, I remain,

Erik Mona
Publisher

Dungeon Dressing Singles Online!

Friday, July 3, 2015

Welcome everyone to the Friday Publisher Preview, and another look at some of the sweet Pathfinder Battles miniatures coming up in November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted plastic gaming figures. Before we get to that, however, I'd like to talk a little bit about the PREVIOUS set, Dungeons Deep. Specifically, I'd like to discuss dungeon dressing.

Dungeon dressing is a new type of figure introduced in Dungeons Deep. That set saw the release of six different sculpts, the Anghazan Idol, Bubbling Cauldron, Burning Brazier, Chest, Iron Maiden, and Sarcophagus.

Based on online commentary, it appears as though dungeon dressing has been very popular, and some of the singles have been selling for crazy money on the secondary market. From my perspective, that's primarily due to a small handful of factors. The most important is availability.

In order to test the market for this sort of miniature, WizKids inserted them in place of uncommon figures in randomly selected boosters, with at least a full set of each figure in each case (case collation not guaranteed, etc., etc., etc.). In practice, that makes them equivalent to rares at the very least, which is probably fitting in some sense. Since we announced dungeon dressing, a minority of customers have been very against the idea, either because they don't use "props" on their table, or simply because they'd prefer another monster or character mini.

This sort of distribution for dungeon dressing has another effect—it significantly reduced the number of figures we at paizo.com have to sell. That's meant that, until today, zero dungeon dressing singles have appeared on our web store.

Well, that changes as of now, with one major caveat. As of this moment, customers can order dungeon dressing from paizo.com. However, we know that the demand for these pieces will be very high, so in order to spread their distribution as widely as possible, we are limiting sales of dungeon dressing minis to one of each piece per customer account. I want to stress that we have an extremely limited supply of these pieces, so even with the one-per-customer limit I do not expect them to last very long. We'll evaluate how this goes for the next set, and I'll do my best to keep you updated here over the months between now and November.

But wait, I hear some of you saying. One Sarcophagus or Iron Maiden might be enough, but how about that awesome Burning Brazier? I want like a dozen of those things!

Happily, I anticipated the demand for the Burning Brazier immediately upon seing the final brilliant design by WizKids, and I immediately ordered a special repaint Burning Brazier Promo Mini, that is available exclusively from paizo.com. They are online right now, with no per-customer limit. Trick out your whole dungeon in these things!

I also made sure to differentiate the Burning Brazier Promo from the regular Burning Brazier figure by changing up the colors. The promo version is a flat silver metal color, whereas the Dungeons Deep version has a gold color to it. That means you can set up an encounter with several "normal" Promo Burning Braziers and use the more rare "gold" version as some kind of "special" set piece.

So buy away to your heart's content!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a promo version of the Chest (probably the best other candidate from this set), and there's no guarantee I'll be able to do this with "common" dungeon dressing in future sets. But I knew people would want more than one of those braziers, and I did what I could to make that possible.

And Now, Back to The Rusty Dragon Inn

With that out of the way, let's take a look at two pieces of dungeon dressing from November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set. As many of you have suspected, the dressing in this set follows the theme of the set in general—the tavern. Let's take a look!

Here we have a Cart that will look great as part of a campsite, to liven up an urban street encounter, or carry around random junk. I don't have final outputs of any of the Rusty Dragon figures yet, but the idea is to make the back of this thing big enough to fit a figure into, so it also makes a crude chariot. To my knowledge, the wheels on the cart are stationary, so (as with all figures), you'll have to use a bit of imagination.

Even cooler than the cart is its older brother, the Wagon. This simple wood-textured vehicle has a ton of uses. Cart around a player character! Pick up several to fashion a crude barricade! Carry your dungeon treasure back to town in style!

So, there you have it. Two of The Rusty Dragon Inn's dungeon dressing figures. But wait! I hear your questions already!

"Hey Erik," I hear you say. "Just who is supposed to pull around this cart and wagon? Our player characters?"

"Why no," I reply calmly. "I expect the set's Draft Horse to pull them."

The Draft Horse is a Large, uncommon figure.

See you next week!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Crazy Good Commons

Friday, June 26, 2015

One of my favorite things about November's The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted Pathfinder Battles figures is the strength of the common figures in the set. Picking the right rarities for figures is both an art and a science, and we've been doing our best to get the balance correct since the start. I'm very pleased with how things shook out for The Rusty Dragon, and hope that you agree!

First up this week is a staple of tavern life, the Dancing Girl! She works great as a solo performer or as part of a troupe, and if you imagine her hands are raised for a purpose other than a seductive dance, it's also possible to see her as a spellcaster. Her cultural details suggest the Varisian race of the Pathfinder world, which means she'd also work as a Harrower or a commoner NPC. Anyway, I think her sculpt turned out pretty well! The Dancing Girl is a Medium, common figure.

Last week we revealed the Guard, and this week we introduce his better-armored, haughtier cousin, the Pious Guard. His illustration comes from page 117 of the Pathfinder RPG NPC Codex, where he is depicted as a 10th-level paladin of Iomedae, but he could just as easily be a temple guardian or a heroic player character. Heck, he might even work as a cleric or even a member of the city watch. The Pious Guard is a Medium, common figure.

Although the general theme of The Rusty Dragon Inn set is taverns and the folks who patronize them, not all figures in the set slavishly follow the theme. For players wanting more creatures than barmaids and commoners we have a variety of honest-to-goodness monsters in the set, including several examples of my personal favorite low-level undead critters—ghouls. This Ghoul Cultist looks best in large numbers, surrounding your player characters at the culmination of a profane ritual. Luckily, he's a common, so you'll be able to build a coven of these guys pretty easily! The Ghoul Cultist is a Medium figure.

And that's it for this week! The Sun is shining in Seattle, and I'm ready for the weekend. See you in seven days for more previews of The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Men and Monsters

Friday, June 19, 2015

I'm pleased to see that our current Pathinder Battles set, Dungeons Deep, is arriving in stores and in the hands of collectors, and early reaction to the set has been very encouraging. We put a lot of effort into making Dungeons Deep the best and most useful set of figures we've done to date, and with tons of high-utility figures, it looks like we either achieved or came very close to that goal (hey, we've done some great sets in the past too, so the competition is fierce!).

This week I'd like to move on from Dungeons Deep to present three figures from our NEXT set, November's The Rusty Dragon Inn. After I announced that we planned a tavern-themed set at this year's PaizoCon, a few miniature collectors expressed some concern about a set with so many non-combatant figures. I guess the taverns in my campaigns see a lot more fighting than the national average, but never fear! In addition to barmaids, bartenders, and other NPC figures, The Rusty Dragon Inn set also includes a good number of monsters or fight-ready humanoids.

Here are three of them.

Every location needs a Guard, and I knew I had to make a miniature of this guy as soon as I first saw his image on page 267 of the NPC Codex. Good guy, bad guy, you be the judge. The only thing that's certain is he is way, way lower-level than your player characters, and he's probably going to die in large numbers. That's why we made this Medium figure a common!

We've already produced a couple of frost giants in the Pathinder Battles line, but I'm not convinced we've created enough to build a truly meaningful battle royale. Thus, I present to you the Frost Giant Ice Mage, a regal figure who could just as easily double as a cleric or leader type. What's a frost giant doing at the Rusty Dragon Inn, you ask? Shhhh. Shhhh. Not everything has to fit the theme perfectly, you guys. There's always room for more monsters. The Frost Giant Ice Mage is a Large, uncommon figure.

Last up this week is a real winner, the mounted Orc Rider on Dire Wolf. I'd like to see the look on the faces of bar patrons when this dude wanders into town. The Orc Rider on Dire Wolf comes with a sword and a battle standard bearing the symbol of the Hold of Belkzen, where orcs have carved out a bit of a nation for themselves. Will he carve out a place at your tavern table? The Orc Rider on Dire Wolf is a Large, rare figure, and I can't wait to see what he looks like in his final form!

That's it for this week. Tune in next Friday for another early glimpse at digital sculpts from The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Until then, I remain,

Erik Mona
Publisher

One Last Look at Dungeons Deep

Friday, June 12, 2015

Last week, I previewed some Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic figures from the upcoming set, Dungeons Deep that had originally leaked to the Internet thanks to trade show photos, which often don’t reveal the figures in the best possible light, or even from a decent angle. And, while I’m eager to show off a bunch more figures from Dungeons Deep now being shipped to paizo.com customers and appearing in retail stores, today seems like the best time to make up for that omission.

So, without further ado, here are most (if not all) of the remaining Dungeons Deep figures, now available as singles or in booster boxes from paizo.com and elsewhere. Thanks especially to our crack Community Team members Liz Courts and Chris Lambertz for taking snazzy new photos of the final figures from the entire set, which you can browse in our singles gallery here.

First up this week is the Nuglub Gremlin, one of my favorite creatures from Bestiary 2! The Nuglub’s three eyes shine with a pearlescent blue paint that adds a touch of color to this dastardly figure. The Nuglub Gremlin is a Small, common figure.

The Pukwudgie was originally intended for the Reign of Winter set, but got bumped to Dungeons Deep for a variety of reasons. Its statistics appear in Bestiary 3. The final figure features some really nice paintwork for a Small common, including picked-out fingernails and a wash on the garment that adds a nice sense of three-dimensionality.

The Andrazku Demon is another refugee from the Reign of Winter set. Its statistics appear in Pathfinder Adventure Path #69: "Maiden, Mother, Crone", which among other things details powers like “icewalking” and “mutilating gouge.” WizKids did a nice job with the Andrazku’s sculpt, giving the creature a great, menacing scream. The Andrazku Demon is a common, Medium figure.

Here we have the Dire Bat, a long-anticipated creature for the line. Based on the illustration from page 30 of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary, the mini depicts the Dire Bat hovering in flight, facing its enemies directly. This pose gives it a strange, almost humanoid appearance that, for my money, makes the figure great as a proxy for any number of bat-like foes. The Dire Bat is a Large, uncommon figure.

Dungeons Deep is the first set to greatly benefit from the amazing art in the NPC Codex, and almost as soon as we saw the Half-Orc Adept on page 245, we knew we needed to add him to a Pathfinder Battles set. With a mace, blade, and a nasty mask, this guy works great for any orcish villain or for a decidedly nasty player character. The Half-Orc Adept is a Medium, rare figure.

Our last figure today actually comes from the very first volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path—the adventuring hero Eando Kline! The first 18 Pathfinder Journals depicted Eando’s field reports to his Pathfinder Society masters, and in the years since his 2007 debut we’ve come to think of old Eando as the “iconic Pathfinder.” He’s subsequently appeared on the cover of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide, and he was an NPC in the Serpent’s Skull Adventure Path. And we definitely haven’t seen the last of him, either. Based on fantastic art by PaizoCon 2015 Artist Guest of Honor Jason A. Engle, Eando Kline is a GREAT choice for a player character figure, an NPC Pathfinder Society agent, or really just any sweet-looking human warrior with a sword. Eando is one of my favorite figures in the set, and not just for reasons of nostalgia. Eando Kline is a Medium, rare figure.

All of these figures and more than 40 others are currently available in the Dungeons Deep set. Snap them up before they’re gone forever!

Until next week, I remain…

Erik Mona
Publisher

Catching Up, Looking Ahead

Friday, June 5, 2015

Whew! What a roller-coaster the last few weeks have been here at Paizo HQ and beyond! Two weeks ago from this moment we were deep in the throes of PaizoCon 2015, which is rapidly earning a place in my heart as the best PaizoCon to date! It's always such a wonderful experience getting to spend a weekend with Pathfinder players tossing dice and throwing back beers, and this year's show was no exception.

Actually, it was a bit of an exception in that the new, larger hotel space at the Doubletree Hotel allowed for more focused gaming and a slightly more relaxed atmosphere, conjuring memories of the earliest PaizoCons. I had a wonderful time chatting about Pathfinder Battles with fellow minis enthusiasts, and from the attendee reports I've read so far, everyone on hand seemed to appreciate the two full booster boxes of Pathfinder Battles figures we packed in every attendee's goodie bag. These packs primed the pump for my favorite PaizoCon event, Erik Mona's Miniatures Trading Afterparty, now in its SEVENTH consecutive year.

This year I seeded the party with a few samples from the forthcoming Dungeons Deep set, which is now shipping to paizo.com customers and should be hitting retail stores any day now. Folks were very positive about the new figures, and I was very proud to show them off. Dungeons Deep is one of my favorite Pathfinder Battles sets to date, and I'm confident you're going to really enjoy it.

PaizoCon was also special from a Pathfinder Battles perspective in that I announced the very next set of Pathfinder Battles figures at the Preview Banquet—The Rusty Dragon Inn! I've long wanted to base a set loosely around a tavern theme. Not only does it provide a great excuse to produce dungeon dressing suitable for the tavern environment, but it also allows us to feature several NPC and even player character-appropriate figures in a naturalistic way. Of course, The Rusty Dragon Inn set will also include a nice mix of monsters, but we'll get to those shortly.

Before that, however, let's preview the one figure from Dungeons Deep that somehow slipped through the cracks: the Anghazan Idol! Anghazan is an ape demon lord in the Pathfinder campaign setting, and his blood-soaked idol—based on one of the first metal miniatures Paizo ever created back in 2006—seemed like a natural (ahem) fit for our first round of dungeon dressing.

The Anghazan Idol comes complete with blood-stained hands and cheeks, and works well as any primitive stone idol, either in a dungeon or in the wilderness. I've teamed it up with a gaggle of dancing Charu-ka from Legends of Golarion in the photo above to put it in its proper context.

While out in the Sun, I noticed the idol's special, somewhat secret feature. The green gem at the crown of the idol is, in fact, translucent plastic, and it caught the light of the Sun in a really interesting way (did I mention that I love summers in Seattle—these outdoor dioramas will definitely be vanishing in a couple months as our weather turns terrible). Check out the gem in particular in this close-up shot:

Anyway, the Anghazan idol is, in many ways, the most modest of the dungeon dressing in Dungeons Deep, but I hope you'll discover that it's got a charm all its own.

But what about the Rusty Dragon Inn?

The big Pathfinder Battles news out of PaizoCon was, of course, The Rusty Dragon Inn, currently set for release in the fourth quarter of 2015! As I said, I've wanted to do a tavern-themed set for a long time, and I'm thrilled with the characters, creeps, and critters we've been able to fit into this set.

Ever since the line debuted, I've been trying to balance the different requests I get from customers and retailers. Generally speaking, super-collectors want stuff they don't already have, while retailers (who often break boosters down for singles) say they want figures suitable for player characters, since that's what their customers most often want to buy.

Well, the Iconic Heroes boxed sets are serving the need for straight-up heroes admirably (and sets 4, 5, and 6 are currently in the works!), but that still leaves the need for NPCs. But again, they should be NPCs that not everyone already has—a tall order after 15 years of prepainted plastic figures.

Anyway, I think we did a pretty good job making our selections. Honestly I'll be thrilled to have the figures in The Rusty Dragon Inn set for my own gaming, in which fights seem to break out in taverns nearly as often as they do in dungeons!

Let's take a quick look at many of the figures I revealed at PaizoCon, and get into some of the whys and details I didn't have time to cover during my banquet presentation.

No tavern set would be complete without a Serving Girl, here with a tray laden with food and drinks. This figure takes inspiration from Wayne Reynolds's cover to the NPC Codex, and I can see plenty of uses for this figure—mostly involving getting caught in an area of effect spell, but hey, that's tactically important too! The Serving Girl is a Medium, common figure.

There always seems to be a Merchant lurking about in the inn right before things go down, so he was another obvious inclusion in The Rusty Dragon Inn set. Whether you use this guy as an NPC to be protected, as an alchemist player character or adversary, or as a villain with an amazing mustache to twirl, he's bound to make an impression on your players. The Merchant is a Medium, uncommon figure.

We've been doling out city watchmen for a long time in the Pathfinder Battles line, and with The Rusty Dragon Inn, we're finally providing a no-nonsense commander. Decked out in the familiar blue from previous watch figures, the City Watch Commander cuts an imposing figure, fists on hips, ready to kick some ass. We based her look on Kasadei, a character from both Dawn of the Scarlet Sun and the Pathfinder Comics series, but she can really be anyone you want, including a player character. The City Watch Commander is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Of course, a set filled with nothing by NPCs would likely doom the line, so I'm pleased to report that The Rusty Dragon Inn also includes a bunch of monsters!

We've had really good luck picking a couple of adversary types and providing multiple figures within a set, and The Rusty Dragon Inn is no exception. This time, we're focusing on monsters that, while not exactly welcome in an urban setting, certainly aren't out of place there.

The first focus race this time is GHOULS, one of my all-time favorite fantasy races. Yes, we've done a few ghouls in previous sets, but The Rusty Dragon Inn allows us to plumb the pages of the Monster Codex in particular to present even more ghoulish goodness. The Ghoul Champion depicted here, for example, is just one of a small handful of amazing ghouls that we'll reveal over the weeks to come. He's a Medium, rare figure.

The set also focuses on bugbears, a staple humanoid enemy race that has long been plagued by inconsistent or just flat-out unappealing figures. Here we see the imposing Bugbear Tyrant, a Medium, uncommon figure.

And, because I love you guys, here's a bonus reveal that we didn't show off at PaizoCon. It's one of my favorite figures in the set, a nasty, sticky… thing we can only call: the Quivering Cube. The Quivering Cube is a Large, rare figure that comes complete with skeletal remains and some gear visible within it. Hooray!

Lastly this week I'd like to mention that the replacement figures for the badly produced Feiya and King Irovetti figures that were originally going to appear in Dungeons Deep have been moved to The Rusty Dragon Inn instead. WizKids simply wasn't happy with the quality of the figures, and they want to make them as awesome as possible. I'm eager to see how they turn out.

And that's it for this week, folks. Tune in next Friday for even more amazing reveals of all-new figures from The Rusty Dragon Inn!

Erik Mona
Publisher