Pathfinder Battles Preview: The Living Dead

Friday, September 28, 2012

Last night we finished up session 35 of James Jacobs's office campaign, which has morphed into an adaptation of Gary Gygax's classic fantasy Egyptian superdungeon, Necropolis. James has done a lot to make the adventure his own, including transporting it to the nation of Osirion in the Pathfinder world, and adding several devious traps and monsters not in the original adventure.

But we're still in ancient tombs and pyramids and stuff, though, so if one thing has changed, it's that we're running into a LOT more undead these days.

Which brings me to today's preview of upcoming figures from the Shattered Star set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures! The set supports the brand-new Shattered Star Adventure Path, which sets the players on a quest around Varisia to reunite an ancient artifact created by the progenitor of the Runelords. It's a sort of sequel to other Varisia-based Adventure Paths, including Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness, but the campaign also stands alone as a self-contained Adventure Path.

And, truth be told, it's got a fair number of undead.

Here are two of them, both ready to menace your player characters and both slated at the uncommon rarity.

Up first is the Skeletal Champion, a figure I've wanted to create since I first saw his illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. We later used the same illustration in the Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box, where the Skeletal Champion is one of the major antagonists provided in the set. I've long had a goal to create miniatures of every monster in that set, so when it came time to plan the Shattered Star miniatures set (and the Shattered Star Adventure Path itself), I asked James Jacobs to make sure to include a skeletal champion somewhere in the campaign. He obliged, and I finally got my miniature.

The Mummy Cleric is a similar story. Back when we were doing the Rise of the Runelords set, we almost slipped in a "Thassilonian Mummy" figure, partly because a few appeared in the Adventure Path, and partly because the Mummy in Heroes & Monsters, our first Pathfinder Battles set, looked a lot more like a rank-and-file bruiser from a Scooby Doo episode than a chilling, memorable villain.

The Thassilonian Mummy didn't make the final cut for Runelords, so when it came time to create the Shattered Star outline, I asked James if he might include more Thassilonian Mummies in the new campaign (which was, after all, set in the ruins of Thassilon). We then asked artist Tyler Walpole to draw what one of these guys might look like, and he came up with a skull-faced menace that blew our socks off.

Accordingly, this figure is now one of the tougher opponents PCs will face in the campaign. He's still Thassilonian, but he's his own villain, a nasty undead cleric of Groetus, God of the End Times. We call him (appropriately enough) the Mummy Cleric.

Good luck with this one, player characters!

That's it for this week. I have other undead I could show you, but we have a few more weeks to go before things get really spoooooky for Halloween.

I have tricks, and I have treats.

Erik Mona
Publisher

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Tags: Miniatures Pathfinder Adventure Path Pathfinder Battles Shattered Star
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Dark Archive

$65 for 4 huges is pretty reasonsble. Hell paid $100 for 6 last time. I'm in favor of some non dragon goodness but I can understand that they're always in demand too. Anything avatar-like for Golarion deities? Always liked the "aspect of x" from DDM

Shadow Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder PF Special Edition Subscriber

I'd happily pay that. $65 for 4 is not a bad price at all ~$16 each is cheaper than most at that scale. I'd have paid that for the huges from runelords, I'd have bought 2 at that price without hesitation, the treachery demon and the kourzag assured that. And I support Berks impressions as far as the lamia harridan goes. As for what Anguish notes in a prior post I actually think Huges hit the table less simpley because there are less of them. As for a 4 pack give me a frogemoth, a mobogo, the female cloud giant and white that are floating around. Call it Frog and Fog! Hell yeah.

As for the gargantuans - the more the merrier. Live to see a green but reallylove to see the Spawn of Rovagug? Been waiting on them since the article in Legacy of Fire. Or a Shemhazian Demon! But a garg blue in the pathfinder style will be awesome, and lets face it you can't really take the D&D icons into account since they can't evenbe had at any reasonable price anymore


A gargantuan purple worm would be nice. I have a couple of the huge's, but something even bigger would rock.


Erik Mona wrote:

I suspect Paizo would only do such a thing if:

A) The "repeat" dragon looked super-awesome
B) It was an important character/NPC/Villain in the Adventure Path the set was meant to support

Either way, I'll bet Paizo wouldn't want to make an official comment on this until it had a chance to show off amazing pictures of the miniature in question, because it would stink to have everyone worrying about something before they've seen it.

And if they had amazing pictures, I'll bet they'd show them off on the first Friday blog they could once the paint masters had been delivered to their offices.

That's how Paizo would do it, anyway.

If only they'd drop some hints.


Erik Mona wrote:

The visible pack of 3-4 Huges is a good idea. Would you pay $65 for it? Would you do so even if you hated/didn't need one of the figures?

One? Yeah, probably. One.

I'm entering this discussion because it's open; I have refrained from making comment earlier, and I'm not trying to be generally critical. With the RotRL set, the demon is exquisite. It's absolutely beyond reproach. The Karzoug statue is very well done but beyond RotRL it's almost useless. (I know some will disagree, but my groups have been playing non-stop since 3.0 was released and not once have any of us said "I wish I had a 15x15 statue.") The Lamia Harridan is... okay quality-wise. Too much unbroken uniform area, it's really kind of bland. And rarely useful. The Storm Giants are just... really, really boring. Look. Big chick. With a fork. Shrug.

Bottom line is that for us, three out of four are nearly useless outside of Runelords. I'm running it, I've played it, and I support Paizo, so I went through with the Huge add-on with my case. But if circumstances were different, no way would I have blown the money on one each of these. I would've tracked down a demon on the secondary market and saved myself the difference.

But again, if the case of four were more generally useful and one weren't to my liking I'd still buy the pack.

I hope this expression of my opinion doesn't sound too negative. I know you pour your heart and soul into these minis, so I'm very reluctant to say anything negative at all. I just think honesty is worthwhile.

Liberty's Edge

Erik Mona wrote:

The visible pack of 3-4 Huges is a good idea. Would you pay $65 for it? Would you do so even if you hated/didn't need one of the figures?

Personally, my preference would be encounter packs based on a theme that would contain one huge. My need for huge minis is somewhat selective and a pack of four huges would be a tough sale. A pack containing 1 huge, 1 large, and 3 small/medium at a price point of $35-40 (approx the cost of 1 huge and 1 standard RotRL boosters) would be about right for me.


The_Hanged_Man wrote:
Erik Mona wrote:

The visible pack of 3-4 Huges is a good idea. Would you pay $65 for it? Would you do so even if you hated/didn't need one of the figures?

Personally, my preference would be encounter packs based on a theme that would contain one huge. My need for huge minis is somewhat selective and a pack of four huges would be a tough sale. A pack containing 1 huge, 1 large, and 3 small/medium at a price point of $35-40 (approx the cost of 1 huge and 1 standard RotRL boosters) would be about right for me.

I was also thinking the encounter packs would be a way to meet this need: something like one new huge mini and a handful of smaller repaints.

It's similar to the new DnD Dungeon Command sets (minus the game and dungeon tiles, of course) - predominantly repaints with a couple of new miniatures.


Erik Mona wrote:

The visible pack of 3-4 Huges is a good idea. Would you pay $65 for it? Would you do so even if you hated/didn't need one of the figures?

If I would get visible pack containing something like ddm huge red GoL (YES), ddm Eldritch Giant (mm okay),ddm Goristro (still okay mini) and then get ddm Yuan-ti Anathema or Enormous Carrion Crawler or Chain Golem (yuks those 3 are a waste). It would stil be worth it to me and would buy a pack like this because I get something awsome, something enormous, something good that grow on me over time and a 4th sculpt that might be usful in an adventure path someday even if I hate the scupt. Anyway, hater will hate, even if you try to please everybody, mr. Mona. Not every one will like this model of packaging. Economicly speaking, I think its the most approriate model for Pathfinder Battles line for avoiding pegwarmer with the least popular huge mini.


If a set of 4 huge minis sells for $65 I'd want 3 out of the 4 but would drop $50 if I only wanted 2 of the 4. Seeing them would make me more likely to grab them because the details don't get justice from online pictures.


Preview: 'Pathfinder Battles: Shattered Star' Miniatures

5 new figures SPOILER

Koriah
Lem
Xin
Runelord Sorshen
Troll Champion

Also comfirm The incentive piece will be the Gargantuan Blue Dragon Case ($39.99) which will be tied to case purchases of Shattered Star Booster Packs.
Think im in love, dont need to see monster anymore ;) Just take my money Paizo.


I love them. The Koriah figure is wonderful.


I need Sorshen now! She's perfect for a villian mini for an upcoming bad guy in my campaign!

--V


Pathfinder Adventure Path, PF Special Edition Subscriber

I am hoping for some Gray Maidens in this set. I haven't read through the book yet, but at least the second book had a gray maiden on the cover.


Gee, the one huge per booster at $35 would mean a case would cost around $1120. You would get 32 huges in the case, though... That really isn't a good option for me. I like the seperate Huge case approach, or the visible Huge blister packs. And, it would be nice to get all different sculpts in it instead of duplicates like in RotR (even though I'm not willing to trade the extra giant or demon away).

And if you make an adventure pack, I'd sure like to see something with the H&M skeleton in it. That piece has been cleaned out everywhere.

Grand Lodge

32 Huge Boosters is too many. But 24 Boosters to a case may be more doable with a 120 total miniatures. I would suggest more of a $30 per booster price or $720 for a case at the full booster price. Case price would likely be discounted. With a higher percentage of cheaper to make commons and uncommons, they could possibly shave $5.00 a booster off the price. The set could look something like this:

8 Rare Huge x 1 (8)
8 Uncommon Huge x 2 (16)
8 Rare Large x 1 (8)
8 Uncommon Large x 2 (16)
12 Rare Small or Medium x 1.33(16)
8 Uncommon Small or Medium x 2 (16)
8 Common Small or Medium x 5 (40)

60 Piece Set (120 Total Minis)
28 Rares, 24 Uncommons, 8 Commons

24 Boosters x 5 minis per booster (120 Total Minis)

Cheers,

Mazra


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I've gotta say, it was WotC's "Giants of Legend" that really got me hooked on collecting pre-painted miniatures. GoL was a great set, had a total of 72 miniatures (from size Tiny to Huge) and 12 of them were the Huges.

If Wizkids and Paizo could somehow/someday work out a new booster configuration that offered (1) Huge, (1) Large, and (3) minis of Small through Medium (or possibly Tiny through Medium) I would be very interested in such a "hypothetical" set/configuration.

Mazra's idea/projection above my post gives a good basis, and I'm sure Wizkids and Paizo would be able to refine that into a plausible business model ...

I keep hoping circumstances change for me and that I am able to resubscribe in time for RotR ... and then keep the minis sub for the forthcoming Shattered Star (which is looking more and more impressive with each preview).

Regards,

Dean

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