Jeronimus

I also saw one of those odd 'peeling' bubbles on the back of the ogre. I was concerned about how to 'fix' it so I left it for the time being. No paint on him yet, though I was hoping to turn him into a large orc. I've been doing some clean-up, and came across some pretty poorly placed mold lines, weird flash, bad details... and not sure if it's stuff worth spending a lot of time on. Generally though, the sculpts are quite good, but some of the casts did turn out a bit messy. Quality is just a bit all over the place - some parts very good, some parts not. I agree on this one too. I do like all the ones I ordered extras of - spiders and stirges and gargoyles, all good "bulk" miniatures and really usable imo. I haven't really gotten back into painting since moving house, so I'm not sure if that's where I want to start. The humans are smaller than most, for sure. Some still work, most of them feel 'paintable' at least, or usable to some degree.

I haven't received mine yet. It went out for shipping last week, and said to arrive today, but in a shock twist FedEx decided to offer it to my address last week, several days before the communicated date. Very fast, but I wasn't home to receive them, so now there is an extra wait! These painted examples do still excite me! I felt like the best models in the Kickstarter were the non-human ones, and monsters tend to work well enough in different scales. Who's to say exactly how big a troll needs to be? A dragon can be a young dragon (though yes, it was not advertised as such), and a beholder can be a spectator, or what-have-you! I already have some minis in wildly varying scales, so I'm looking forward to seeing if they really are that unusable. Worst case scenario is they're good for back-up and testing out paint schemes, maybe.

Boris' sculpts are among my favorites, for sure. There's something special about them. The hand-sculpted detail at that scale is so wonderful to look at. I quite like these as well, though I'm the least sure about 'Boromira' (I think she's the busty human, at least?). I appreciate the distinction between the two, but she maybe stands out a bit too much. The rest feels a bit more conservative/realistic, which I really like about them, and makes them useable in a different context as well. It distracts a bit from how good the other figures really are. I love the Frodo, I think Sam's curls have gorgeous texture. The Gibson girl bun on Gimli is great -- and she has sideburns!!! Lego-lass feels more like your standard elf lady, but then again, all of these characters have become archetypes, and I like how she looks practically dressed. There's a lot of character, same with the undead side of the campaign. Very expressive stuff. They had a big delay with the Virus & True Monsters campaigns, that's definitely true, but they finally ended up shipping those recently. That sort of timespan seemed like an outlier, though. I had a bit of an issue with one mini swapped out for another, which they quickly responded to and quickly found a way to settle it. All good in my book.

As we reach the end, I really feel like Reaper would've been better off explicitly making this a campaign for Bones USA or Bones Black - replacing basic sculpts for common monsters, some of which have been around since the early bendy low-fidelity bones material - with a newer sturdy material. I think a lot of us were just a bit bewildered and unsure of the direction of this one, even if what's on display isn't bad at all! I think more focus would have done it well. That could've spoken to novice DMs more than it did now - although there hasn't really been a lack of 'arsenal of monsters for novice DMs!' Kickstarters around. Maybe that's also just made it feel a bit weird. In the long run it's more important for Reaper to have a healthy amount of gnolls, and orcs, and goblins in their catalog that'll be readily available, the kind of thing that'll make a DM come to your actual web store to buy it. Which may be why so many said "i'll wait for retail" - it's where some of these certainly will perform better.

In terms of game material, the most interesting thing seems to me like it would be be stat blocks and encounters that line up to the figures - that is to say, exactly what Steamforged has already been doing with the Epic Encounters line, by making a box full of figures, and including a little booklet with a short dungeon/adventure that uses all of those figures. I know they published a few .PDFs of adventure modules last year, and listed some suggestions for miniatures at the end. I feel, though, if you're going to suggest miniatures from your collection, you need to have enough different miniatures for that - does that make sense? If your adventure features five wererats, don't have a single wererat in your catalog, because then you're saying "buy this five times". Now that you're setting five bugbears, write something with five bugbears! Write something with up to three salamanders! You have the ability to cater entirely to your own collection.

I think the terrain in the Bones 5 encounters certainly seemed more versatile; the troll bridge could just as well be any bridge - and there are bridges all over the place. The Ruins of Ravenhome could be any set of ruined walls - and there are ruins all over every campaign setting. The charnel pit of the ghoul queen was a set of stones leading up to a pit - I didn't get it, but I believe the pit came with a piece you could insert or not, so that also increased versality as a piece to actually hit the gaming table. Gallowgard had that drawbridge. Overall, the scenery pieces were very commanding - and even if you don't actually use them for a game, they make for an excellent display piece for those and other miniatures as well. The owlbear nest is nice though, and I think you can stage those figures around it rather well. The salamanders are lacking in a 'bigger' set piece, but the minis are large to make up for it! Maybe some piles of gold/treasure as versatile scatter terrain could have made it feel more like a complete "scene" that lines up with the story blurb.

Well, I would expect to see at least a mummy in an Egyptian expansion, if only because it's so obvious, and it would make sense to add a sarcophagus as well. I'd probably go with an undead pharaoh and some undead tomb guards - but I do think there should be more to "Egyptian" settings and adventures than raiding tombs! Then again, they did call the expansion "lost tombs"... I also expect to see a sphynx, that's the other creature you can think of without having to actually look into Egyptian myths. Scarabs, I really hope to see a big one and/or swarms of them. In terms of humanoids, YES to adventurers with different cultural garb. Think of the fighter in the D&D 5E player's handbook - that illustration really got people thinking out of the box. Get guys with turbans and headscarves who aren't bandits - though some desert raiders aren't a bad idea either. Get some camels, get a flying carpet! Maybe some ideas will begin to lean a bit more Arabian than Egyptian, but hey, I would certainly not say no to a "1001 Nights" expansion, either.

Yes! I was really impressed with that one. They get it right with a lot of the bigger sculpts, a round base with slots for the feet. I think of the five big dragons from the last Kickstarter, only Aganzarax has part of his tail actually sculpted into the tower he's sitting on, but the others are all separate from the base. But even then, it's a nice round base that perfectly fits them. Base size isn't the most important thing - the reaper Bugbears don't fit on a "medium" base, so they go on bigger bases for me. But I do generally prefer round bases over the cobblestone ovals. Cobblestones, to me at least, are harder to build out into a full base than old abstract broccoli bases. Granted, the texture might be better, but a figure standing on a rock, that's easy to blend into a base and have it look a bit organic. An oval cobblestone... what do I do, snip the bases off of all of those? That's far more work, now. Do I slap a cobblestone oval onto a round base and build up the rest of the cobblestone? A lot more work. So, I would just leave it as a cobblestone oval. I've been reading complaints about the way Reaper's figures are based for a long time, so it's not new. I think Julie Guthrie still tends to put miniatures on rocky bases. Those tend to be my favorites, but that's also because they're so obviously hand-sculpted and it's just lovely. Though ultimately, I can see how it's nice to not have to base your minis when you have hundreds of them to go through, and truthfully it really isn't that big of a deal. Basically, I feel like a lot of people would say they don't mind, but certainly don't prefer them over round bases or anything.

I also feel, and this probably depends in how you approach the game, that far more people will be making their own unique player characters. Probably the result of Actual Plays like Critical Role where roleplay takes such a strong focus, that generic figures won't be the greatest representation of your player's characters. Of course, if you're introducing people to the game, or if they haven't quite decided on an "appearance" until they see a miniature that captures their attention... generic adventurers can still be useful, but characters are obviously more than "dwarf fighter". I definitely enjoy hunting for miniatures that could look right for characters, but I think that's where figure finders* come in. The success of Hero Forge goes to show that people do care to have customized, unique figures for their character - it's a different kind of feeling. But I don't know. A big box of grey toys to spark imagination also kinda works. *EDIT: obviously, these kickstarters also supplement the adventurers that can be found in the figure finder. The more diverse the offerings, the better, but I also understand you don't want your character concepts to be too esotheric, and it doesn't hurt to have multiple options for the same concept.

It does make me wonder; how many owlbears are too many owlbears? In D&D encounters, they strike me as a monster to use in isolation for a low level party. Like, bears are solitary hunters, which is probably where the "mama bear and her cubs" idea comes in as an excuse to have more... It's not an encounter I'd be likely to run (I don't want to force my players to orphan these poor cubs), but an added benefit of the encounter sets is that they're ready made for dioramas. I did get the Bones Black Owlbear, and then got it again in the Dungeon Dwellers set. I think there's another owlbear in one of my orders somewhere. Same for the Ogre, had that as a promo figure and also in Dungeon Dwellers. But beyond that, there's an ogre in the Bardsung set, there's an ogre in the Next Level Miniatures kickstarter... all with similar features but slightly different design. Ogres do seem like they could form a small society, so they seem more likely to show up together in games.

Someone in the Kickstarter comments brought up Ashardalon. Fiendish influence makes sense for a dragon who tried to bind a Balor to his chest. Though in that case, maybe he'd be even bigger.

The backturned horns give me red vibes, but I do like the idea of making that a deep, bruised purple, reddish shade. Ultimately, it is whatever color you paint it as. The 5 big dragons from last time were quite obviously meant to be one of each color, but for some of the dragon sculpts that came with the Bones 5 core, or the smaller dragon from the Dragonslayers, I still haven't quite decided what color I'd want to give them.

Yes.... ha ha ha .... YEEEESSS!!!!

I agree, but I do think that if this is their niche, they could build for it much better. Look at common monsters that somehow aren't abundantly available. Quality animal sculpts are appealing, which I think explains why the ants are a breakout success. Provide more than one sculpt, an RPG encounter rarely features one of an enemy and the painting DM likes variety on the table - you're better off looking at board games, otherwise. Those briarlings from the last kickstarter were great, but two sculpts isn't enough for a monster that usually comes up in large groups. (Yes, at that point I should go to the catalog if I want it and look for those figures to buy, absolutely, that should probably be Reaper's primary model and the result of these kickstars, a good and expansive, searchable catalog of quality figures) Another reason the encounters worked so well. Kind of a light version of what Steamforged has been doing with their Epic Encounters line; you get a box full of figures, which in their case comes with a booklet of maps and a small 5e adventure with stat blocks. They'll have multiples of the same sculpt, but I still think it's a pretty good concept.

No, no, you're right. We'll have to fix that. Other than a bog encounter, we're going to need a marsh encounter, and a swamp encounter, and a bayou encounter, and a fen encounter, and a carr encounter, and a mire, and, uhh... a coastal wetlands encounter, and uhh, a river encounter.... lots of water.