Large and In Charge

Friday, October 9, 2015

Greetings and salutations from New York Comic Con, where I have braved halls choked with cosplayers to bring you another Friday preview! I had to escape from the terrible Cobra Clutch of Sgt. Slaughter himself to bring today’s blog to you, so let’s make it a good one!

We all love monsters, right? And when it comes to miniatures, I’m a big proponent of “bigger is better.” Lots of people, if presented with a time machine, would go back to solve some prominent historical mystery, or to witness some great achievement first hand. At this point what I would probably do is go back and convince the earliest tabletop gaming figure companies to make their tin soldiers just a little bit larger, so the gamers of future generations could get more detail on their prepainted plastic miniatures.

I imagine those gamers would be shocked by the idea of well-painted plastic figures of today’s quality, but shame on them for living in the past. In retrospect it was a very poor choice.

So, since regular-scaled minis are so small, it’s really something to get a larger creature, because they often have so many more details and personality. Today’s previews are certainly expressive, well-sculpted monsters that benefit from a larger presentation. I’ve seen all three in-hand at this point, and I’m proud of all of them.

These figures are all in the forthcoming The Rusty Dragon Inn set.

Here we have the Kirrix, an enormous six-legged rat monstrosity from the ratfolk section of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Monster Codex. When that art rolled in, I couldn’t resist putting it on the fast track for miniature-dom. What a great match he makes for our oversized Dire Rat from Heroes & Monsters or the Wererat from Skull & Shackles. Rats are mainstays in dungeons, and I think this beast has what it takes to be the pinnacle fight against a whole rat-based faction. His mouth is huuuuge. The Kirrix is a Large, uncommon figure.

This imposing Flesh Golem will look very familiar to players of "The Trial of the Beast", the second adventure in the Carrion Crown Adventure Path, since the image comes directly from that volume’s cover. I’ve never seen a better flesh golem illustration than that one, so into the minis line he went. We’ve only got a few more “core” golems to go, and lots more from the later Bestiaries after that. Very exciting! The Flesh Golem looms over other figures, being an amalgamation of body parts from other similarly Large creatures. Seeing this guy hit the table will definitely have your players reaching for their torches and pitchforks. The Flesh Golem is a Large, uncommon figure.

There have been a lot of dragons hitting the prepainted plastic market in recent years, so I’m not in quite the hurry that I once was to cover all of the sizes of all of the basic dragons. That said, some of our dragon designs, like Ben Wootten’s Silver Dragon, simply cry out to be made in prepainted plastic, and who am I to resist their clarion call? They have breath weapons, don’t you know? The Silver Dragon is a Large, rare figure.

That’s it for this week. Come on back next Friday with a look at more figures from The Rusty Dragon Inn. I still have such sights to show you.

Until then,

Erik Mona
Publisher