Welcome back to the Gallant Goblin. I'm Theo
and today we're here to look at an entire
case of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist minis. A case
is 4 booster bricks and a brick contains 8
booster boxes in it. The reason we wanted
to get an entire case is because that supposedly
promises a distribution of minis in which
you'll get one of everything, including the
rares. We had a little trouble getting this
to us. Our friendly local game store where
we ordered it—when they got it from their
distributor, they just had 6 booster bricks
in the package they received and there was
no way to tell which 4 of the bricks actually
went together to form a case. It seems like
they had just ordered— they asked for a
case but they also ordered for two extra bricks,
so the distributor just opened up a case and
threw 6 together. So we had no idea what we
were going to get. Luckily our store was willing
to order another case for us. So we got a
case. It came in a box like this—you can
take a look at it here—that's labeled with
the Wizkids tape and it talks about Dragon
Heist, set 9, Icons of the Realms. Inside,
the bricks that you see here, they're not
cellophaned together; they still come as 4
separate bricks, but hopefully this is what
an actual case is. We weren't sure exactly
what a case would look like unopened. So let's
take a look at one of the booster boxes and
see what it looks like. I'll go ahead and
tell you what it says on the box. So these
are, again, for Icons of the Realms: Waterdeep:
Dragon Heist. There's 44 figures in all, as
it says on the box. It says, "Collect all
44 figures from the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist,
our newest set of randomly sorted miniatures
in Icons of the Realms. As villains conspire
behind closed doors in Waterdeep, our heroes
must save the city from an outbreak of gang
violence. The deeper they go, the more they
will uncover about the true reason for the
conflict. Experience one of the greatest treasure
hunts of all time in the glorious city of
Waterdeep!" So now what I'm going to do is
I'm going to go ahead and open all these boxes
offscreen and we're going to go through from
1 to 44. All of the minis that come in this
set. And then I'm going to tell you a little
bit about them. I'm not going to give any
story spoilers, so don't worry about that.
But I am going to talk from a Game Master
perspective, so when we look at creatures
that come in this—when we look at monsters—I'm
going to tell you a little bit about what
they do so hopefully, if you're watching this
video and you're not sure if this is a set
for you, you might get inspired by some of
these monster descriptions to say, like, "Oh
that would be something that I can include
in my campaign." Whether it's Dragon Heist
or not. Give you some ideas that you can use
in your own work that you're making. Or any
campaign that you're running. So we'll go
through, look at them one by one. After that,
we're going to look at what the actual distribution
was in this case. I'll show you what came
in each box. And then we'll show them all
together and we'll look at how many of everything
I got. And then we'll do a summation at the
end to talk about what we think of this set.
So sit back, relax, and let's take a look
at some minis.
#1: Cranium Rat Swarm.
These little buggers are normal rats that have been
dosed with psionic energy from mind flayers.
If you happen to play Guild Wars 2 like I
do, these fellas bear a lot in common with
skritt. Individually they're not very smart,
not more so than your average rat, but you
put them together and they merge minds into
a collective and have a heightened intelligence.
They also develop psionic powers. In Volo's
Guide, you'll find an entry for an individual
cranium rat and one for a swarm of cranium
rats. They're often used by mind flayers as
spies. They're able to send their sight and
sound back to the elder brain as long as they're
in range. Sometimes they slip away from the
mind flayers' range of influence and carry
on under their own motives. A single cranium
rat has a challenge rating of 0 and the swarm
of cranium rats has a challenge rating of
5. Both appear in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
These can also be used as a swarm of regular
rats which have a challenge rating of ¼ and
appear in the Basic Rules.
#2 and 15: Darkling.
Darklings are fey creatures who are descended
from a particular fellow named Dubh Catha
who once betrayed the Summer Queen. She cursed
him and all of his descendants, who are now
called "darklings." The curse caused their
bodies to absorb light, which causes them
to age rapidly. For this reason, when they
venture out they cover their bodies in clothing
to avoid exposure to the light. They often
live in caverns and chambers under the towns
of other species. They live as thieves and
assassins. When they die, the light they've
accumulated over the course of their lives
explodes from their body, which be quite blinding
to anyone nearby. It has a challenge rating
of ½ and can be found in Volo's Guide to
Monsters. There is a common and uncommon variant
here. Not much difference between the two
as you can see here in the video.
3 and 14: Vargouille. These are just unpleasant little
fiends. As you can see, they resemble severed
human heads whose ears have been replaced
with bat-like wings. They come from the abyss
to infest other planes of existence with a
disease that creates more of their kind. It's
quite an unfortunate fate for a player character.
They crave living prey, which is not often
available in the lower planes, so they are
very eager to escape. Sometimes they will
attach themselves to demons who have been
summoned into another plane, hitching a ride.
They have a challenge rating of 1 but underestimate
them at your peril. They can be found in Volo's
Guide to Monsters. Again, there is a common
and uncommon variant. Very subtle differences
between the two, mainly just the hair color.
4a and 4b: City Guards. The next few sets
contain variants of common characters you
might find in Waterdeep or other cities. Here
you have the city guards. These will work
as any kind of regular troop or guard or infantryman.
The Waterdeep City Guard are a militia organization
made up of soldiers. They investigate foreign
threats to Waterdeep and protect against them.
They guard the gates and important locations.
Guards have a challenge rating of ⅛ and
they appear in the Basic Rules.
5a and 5b: Nobles. Nobles wield great authority and influence as members of the upper class, possessing
wealth and connections that make them as powerful
as monarchs and generals. These two here have
different color schemes and different skin
colors. They're both considered commons. Nobles
have a challenge rating of ⅛ and they can
be found in the Basic Rules.
6a and 6b: Merchants.
These are both also considered commons. There's
a pretty good paint job differentiating the
two and you could probably use these as a
druid or a mage if you wanted to. There's
no entry for merchants but they're usually
considered under commoner and commoner has
a challenge rating of 0 and is found in the
Basic Rules.
7a and 7b: City Watch.
There's basically just a different skin color on these
two commons. The city watch perform the everyday
policing duties in the town. They don't often
act outside the city walls. Again, there's
no entry for city watch, but they are considered
guards, which have a challenge rating of ⅛
and they're also included in the Basic Rules.
8a and 8b: Apprentice Wizard.
In Waterdeep, most apprentice wizards reside and train
in Blackstaff Tower along with Vajra Safahr,
the current Blackstaff. They also defend the tower
against monstrous incursions and hostile wizards.
The apprentice wizard has a challenge
rating of ¼ and appears in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
9: Ziraj the Hunter. This is our
first named character from the Dragon Heist
adventure. There's quite a few of these in
this set. I'm going to give you just a very
brief description of the character and otherwise
let you discover their role in the story for
yourself. Ziraj the Hunter is a half-orc legendary
mercenary. This figure could also easily be
used as a half-orc ranger or other player
character.
10: Mirt.
Mirt is a retired adventurer
famous for the fortune he acquired exploring
the Undermountain. He's a bit past his prime
now but could inspire the creation of an interesting
player character if you wanted to.
11: Human Sun Soul Monk. This is our first of several
minis designed for player characters. The
Monastic Tradition of Way of the Sun Soul
was introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
They can learn to channel their life energy
into searing bolts of light. This was a popular
subclass in my little gaming group and it's
nice to see a mini designed around it.
12a and 12b: Dragonborn Draconic Sorcerer. Here's
a natural combination of race and class. Interestingly,
they didn't change the skin color of the character
in the mini to perhaps give you a choice of
which draconic ancestry you claim. Though
the orange skin color could pass for bronze
or brass or copper or gold or red. Of course
the draconic ancestry doesn't have to match
the skin color of the dragonborn character
itself.
13 and 17: Cambion Devil.
These are based on late European mythology. Cambions
are the offspring of a fiend, usually a succubus
or incubus, and a humanoid. They inherit aspects
of both parents, but their horns, leathery
wings, and tails betray their infernal parentage.
They have an evil alignment and grow up to
be ruthless adults full of wickedness and
perversion. Even as a youth, the cambion may
feel superior to mortals and may orchestrate
uprisings in towns and cities, gathering gangs
of pliable humanoids and lesser devils to
serve it. While they are uncontrollable by
their humanoid parent, they are generally
subservient to their fiendish parent, regarding
them with admiration and dread. They have
a somewhat lesser status in the Nine Hells,
serving as soldiers, envoys, and servants
to greater devils. They have to use their
own strength and willpower to climb the ladder
of power. Cambions have a challenge rating
of 5 and can be found in the Monster Manual
under "cambion." They appear in random urban
encounter tables in Xanathar's Guide as well. Again,
a common and an uncommon variant here. The
common variant wields a spear while the uncommon
one has a slightly different paint scheme
and has a fire ray spell effect.
16a and 16b: Spy.
These are pretty generic humanoid spies
or assassins. Both of these are considered
uncommon. One just spends a little bit more
time out in the sun and has a dagger in stabbing
position. Like bandits, these can probably
see play in a lot of different scenarios.
The generic spy has a challenge rating of
1 and appears in the Basic Rules.
18: Slithering Tracker.
Sometimes a creature becomes consumed
with thoughts of revenge and seeks out a hag,
lich, or priest who worships gods of vengeance.
These disciples can perform a ritual on a
willing soul that will remove all the liquid
from that person's body, killing it. The mind,
however, lives on in the puddle of liquid
that was removed from the remains. The liquid,
now known as a slithering tracker, also retains
the person's insatiable need for vengeance.
A slithering tracker can flow into places
other creatures can't go. It can lie motionless
on the ground, appearing as nothing more than
a puddle of water, ready to surprise a creature
passing by. As a tracker, it can taste the
ground as it flows, seeking any trace of its
prey. Once found, it can rise up and engulf
the creature, drowning it while draining the
blood from its body. Once its original target
is found, its bloodlust isn't sated. It may
find others who once supported its target,
or slip into madness from being trapped in
a liquid body and begin attacking others indiscriminately.
A slithering tracker has a challenge rating
of 3 and can be found in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
19: Renaer Neverember. Renaer is the son of
the previous Open Lord of Waterdeep, Dagult
Neverember. This mini could also be used as
a player character for any number of classes,
anything from a bard to a fighter.
20a and 20b: Human Warlock of the Fiend.
We have two
uncommon varieties here, one of which has
a spell effect. The Fiend is a patron from
the lower planes of existence, one whose aims
are evil. Examples given in the Manual include
Demogorgon, Orcus, archdevils, pit fiends,
and balors. There's also an entry in Volo's
Guide to Monsters for a Warlock of the Fiend.
The art from there seems to have inspired
these minis. It has a challenge rating of
7.
21a and 21b: Wererat.
Ready to join my band of werecreatures,
wererats are lycanthropes who are generally
sly, wiry, and twitchy,
with thin hair and darting eyes. They can
shapechange into rat-humanoid hybrids, as
it is here in the minis, or into giant rats,
or into its original humanoid form.
Wererat clans form and act like thieves' guilds,
transmitting their curse into new inductees.
If another is accidentally cursed or breaks loose from
the clan's control, they are tracked down
and killed quickly. Wererats can be found
throughout urban civilization, usually hiding
in cellars or sewers or catacombs. A wererat
has a challenge rating of 2 and can be found
in the Basic Rules. They appear in Tales of
the Yawning Portal ("Against the Giants" specifically),
in Out of the Abyss, and in the random encounters
list in Xanathar's Guide. Both of these minis
are considered uncommon.
22: Sun Elf Arcana Cleric.
The Arcana Domain for the cleric was
introduced in the Sword Coast Adventurer's
Guide. Gods of the Arcana domain know the
secrets and potential of magic intimately.
They include Azuth and Mystra, and Corellon
Larethian of the elven pantheon. Clerics of
this domain can abjure or turn otherworldly
creatures including fiends, feys, and elementals.
At higher levels, they can banish them for
a minute. At 6th level, they can end spells
that affect their allies when they heal them.
At higher levels, they can make their cantrips
more powerful and add spells from the wizard's
spell list to their own domain spells.
23: The Black Viper.
The Black Viper is the leader
of the Waterdeep sect of Shadow Thieves. This
mini can also easily be used as a player character
for a rogue or similar.
24: Animated Door.
This is an unusual one. This creature would
be the result of someone casting Animate Object
on a door, or a door crafted with potent magic
to follow the commands of its creator. Assuming
that it's considered a medium creature, it
would have around 40 hit points. It's one
of the more unusual choices for inclusion
in this set, and I'm quite curious to see
what role it plays in the adventure.
25: Brown Bear.
Brown bears can be found out in the
world, obviously, but they can also be summoned
by a Conjure Animals spell, a bag of tricks,
a Conjure Fey spell, or a druid may transform
into one via its Wild Shape feature. They
are known to claw, bite, and steal picnic baskets.
They're found in the Basic Rules
and have a challenge rating of 1. They show
up specifically in Princes of the Apocalypse,
Curse of Strahd, Out of the Abyss, Tales of
the Yawning Portal, among many other adventures,
and in the random encounters tables in Xanathar's Guide.
26a and 26b: Annis Hag.
These monsters
are based on English folklore. Annis hag lairs
can generally be found in mountains or hills.
They're the largest and most physically imposing
of the various kinds of hags and can easily
tear a grown man apart. They like to hunt
and eat children. They'll leave tokens of
their cruelty at the edges of their territory
to provoke fear in anyone who ventures by
or lives nearby. They love to turn a vibrant
community into a place paralyzed with terror.
When an annis hag is feeling particularly
cruel, she may approach a child in disguise
as a kindly old woman and offer the child
an iron token with which it can communicate
with the child over long distances. She'll
speak to the child, corrupting him or her
into doing bad deeds until the child becomes
a pariah. They may also keep a group of ogres
and trolls, or similar as a tribe to do their
bidding. They have a challenge rating of 6
and can be found in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
If it's part of a coven, it will have a challenge
rating of 8. The "b" variant here has a spell
effect. While individual annis hags can only
cast disguise self and fog cloud, if the hag
is part of a coven, it gains access to spells
such as ray of sickness and lightning bolt,
which seems to be what's represented in this
mini.
27: Shield Guardian.
Shield guardians are often employed by wizards
and other casters as protection.
It is magically bound to its owner by an amulet.
The shield guardian will
absorb half of any damage done to the owner
as long as they're within 60 feet of each
other. The guardian can also store and cast
a single spell that was bestowed to it by
the creator. It can also use its reaction
to shield the owner during an attack if it's
within 5 feet, giving the owner +2 to its
AC. To my eyes, there aren't any written rules
for creating a shield guardian, unless it's
part of the Dragon Heist book which I don't
have access to as of this recording. So it's
up to the DM if you want to make these craftable.
If we're going by the Manual of Golems from
the Basic Rules, it would probably cost roughly
75,000 gold pieces and take about 3 months
to craft. They have a challenge rating of
7 and are found in the Basic Rules. They show
up in Tomb of Annihilation, Out of the Abyss,
and briefly in Storm King's Thunder.
28: Pentadrone.
Let's start with the big picture here. Modrons
originated from the Planescape setting and
are lawful neutral, cute, quirky robot bureaucrats
that defend their clockwork plane of Mechanus
from the forces of chaos. There are 15 distinct
types, divided into two main groups. There
are 5 varieties of base modrons and 10 types
of modron hierarchs. Pentadrones are the highest-ranking
base modron. According to the DnD Beyond article
by James Haeck, these star-shaped advanced
modrons serve as law enforcement for their
society, stopping disorderly conduct by visitors
from other planes. Obviously other modrons
would not break any laws. Pentadrones do not
typically run a battalion of lesser units,
since quadrones are capable of running their
own units. So a unit of 12 pentadrones by
themselves usually serve as elite protectors
for their battalion's headquarters. They have
a paralyzing gas attack and can attack with
each of their 5 arms each turn. They have
a challenge rating of 2 and can be found in
the Monster Manual. Pentadrones show up in
Tomb of Annihilation. If you're looking for
other modrons, monodrones and duodrones can
be found in the Tomb of Annihiliation Icons
of the Realms set. A package with a monodrone
and a duodrone can be found in Wave 6 of Nolzur's
Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures, which is due
out in October 2018. Quadrones were included
in the Monster Menagerie III set. Tridrones
were apparently considered for the Monster
Menagerie III set as well, but if you order
one you'll discover that it's actually a kraken
priest that's been mislabeled, as you can
see in one of my previous videos. There don't
appear to be any official tridrone minis out
there just yet.
29: Lion. Like the brown bear,
lions can be summoned using Conjure Animals,
or a Conjure Fey spell, or from a bag of tricks.
It can also be summoned by a figurine of wondrous
power. They can also be transformed into by
a druid with Wild Shape. They show up in random
encounter tables across different environments
from mountains to deserts. Lions have a challenge
rating of 1 and can be found in the Basic
Rules.
30: Crocodile.
Crocodiles can also
be summoned from the Conjure Fey and Conjure
Animals spells. They also show up in random
swamp encounters table in Xanathar's Guide.
There's also a giant crocodile that shows
up in various adventures. It has a challenge
rating of ½ and it's from the Basic Rules.
31: Dire Wolf.
Dire wolves can also appear
as a Conjure Fey or Conjure Animals spell
result. They can also be summoned with a Find
Greater Steed spell or from a bag of tricks.
It's another beast for druid's Beast Shape.
They show up in Curse of Strahd fairly extensively.
Now here's one compared to the winter wolf
from the Storm King's Thunder Icons set. Dire
wolves are considered large, as are winter
wolves. Regular wolves are considered medium
creatures. It's also in various encounter
tables in Xanathar's Guide. It has a challenge
rating of 1 and is from the Basic Rules.
32a and 32b: Pit Fiend. The pit fiend is one of
the showcase models in this group. This large
creature serves as a lord for most other devils.
They attend the archdukes and archduchesses
of the Nine Hells and are the generals in
their armies. They form a kind of grotesque
aristocracy in the infernal realm, domineering
and manipulating the politics of the realm
to suit their desires. They have a challenge
rating of 20 which puts them on equal footing
with ancient white and brass dragons. They
appear in the Basic Rules. Pit fiends can
serve as patrons to warlocks as well. Named
pit fiends from recent history include Baazka
and Bel. Two variants are included in this
set. The primary difference is that one has
a mace.
From here on out we have the rares.
33: Vajra Safahr.
Safahr is the current Blackstaff,
or highest ranking wizard, of Waterdeep. This
mini can also be used as a player character
mini for any number of classes. I think she'd
make a quite striking monk, pun fully intended.
34: Durnan.
Durnan is sometimes known as the
"Wanderer." He runs the Yawning Portal Inn
in Waterdeep. This mini could probably also
be used as a generic bartender or bar patron
for any number of encounters.
35: Laeral Silverhand.
She's a member of the Lords' Alliance and
the Open Lord of Waterdeep, meaning that she
runs the place. She's wearing heavy armor
and has her distinctive long, silver hair.
Her skin on the mini appears to be blue. I'm
not sure if that's a miscoloring or there's
some story purpose behind it. I guess you'll
have to read the adventure to find out.
36: Lady Ammalia.
Lady Ammalia is a notable member of Waterdeep nobility.
37: Manshoon.
Manshoon is the legendary founder of the Zhentarim.
This mini could also be an interesting one
for a spellcaster player character.
38: Jarlaxle Baenre.
Jarlaxle is a swashbuckling and flamboyant drow
and the founder of a mercenary and mercantile company.
39: Lord Victoro.
Lord Victoro is another notable member of the Waterdeep aristocracy.
40: Volothamp Geddarm.
You can just call him "Volo" though.
He's a legendary traveler and storyteller
who wrote some pretty famous guidebooks.
As you can see, we got the very special
headless Volo variant.
No, apparently there's some
sort of mistake in the factory. There was
no missing head in the box. So this is one
that we sent off for a replacement and I'll
let you know how long that takes. But here's
the rest of him for you to take a good look at!
41: Devourer.
Devourers are fiends who
were released by Orcus to wander the planes,
consuming souls and spreading Orcus' creed
of replacing life with everlasting death.
A lesser demon who proves itself to Orcus
can be transformed by him into a devourer.
It appears to be an 8-foot tall desiccated
humanoid with a hollowed-out rib cage, hungry
for souls. When they're sent into the material
plane, it's usually on a mission to create,
control, and lead a plague of undead skeletons,
zombies, ghouls, ghasts, and shadows. Any
creature it kills may be reborn as one of
the various kinds of undead creatures under
the devourer's control. The devourer has a
challenge rating of 13 and appears in Volo's
Guide to Monsters.
42: Griffon Cavalry.
Waterdeep is well-known for its famous griffon cavalry
so this was an obvious inclusion for the Waterdeep
mini set. The griffon cavalry rider has a
challenge rating of 2 and appears in the Waterdeep:
Dragon Heist adventure book.
43: Elephant.
Elephants can be purchased as mounts for about
200 gold pieces and can be summoned by a Conjure
Fey spell, a figurine of wondrous power, or
a wand of wonder. This is a very particularly
attired elephant, so it may be difficult to
explain why your Conjure Fey spell appears
to have lifted this specimen directly out
of a very exotic parade. But as you can see
here, it's a very rideable mini for your other
player characters. This is the only "huge"
creature in this set. Elephants have a challenge
rating of 4 and appear in the Basic Rules.
44: Xanathar.
Finally we have Xanathar, a
beholder and the crime lord of Waterdeep.
Keep in mind that your players may not realize
that the Xanathar is actually a beholder.
This was a bit of a twist back in the day,
although it's pretty well known these days,
even outside of the Dungeons and Dragons community.
Don't necessarily assume that your players
know this. It may be a nice twist. Now Xanathar
is different from other beholders in that
he has 3 rings on 3 of his eyestalks. I'd
noticed this mini only has 2 rings. So bear
that in mind. But beholder minis can be a
little difficult to get your hands on so this
one may be one of the more expensive ones
from this set.
So first let's talk about numbers
and distribution. In this set, in this case,
we got 55 commons. That breaks down to about
4.2 of each common and we got 61 uncommons,
which breaks down to about 3.2 of each of
those. Now that's taking into consideration
these, where you have variants. So these are
both considered nobles, as 5a and 5b, so when
we say we got about 4 of each, we got 2 of
these and 2 of these, for the most part. So
overall, each one, including variants, you
get about 4 of the commons and about 3 each
of the uncommons. And this time you get 1
of each rare. 3 rares in a brick. So in this
set, unlike the last set—Monster Menagerie
III—there's none of this rare variant nonsense
where there's some rare variants where you
don't get one in every case. That one had
a problem where you would get a case and there
would be a couple strange, weird rare variants
that you just wouldn't get. You'd have to
get them on the aftermarket. So that was not
a problem in this set. There's no ultra rares,
there's no invisibles, so finally, I think
they've got the distribution pretty good.
If you're a collector and you're hoping to
get one of everything when you buy a case,
which is what we got here. We got one of everything.
As far as the actual quality, the paint job
seemed to be about on par with what you normally
get with an Icons of the Realms set. I know
there's a lot of people who think that the
paint jobs aren't fantastic. Surely if you're
an expert painter and you're doing each of
these by hand, you could probably do a better
job. But most of these, to my eye, seem fine.
I don't see anything here that strikes me
as being superbly terrible. Most of them are
better than I could do myself if I was trying
to paint them, so I'm pretty happy with it.
Some people complain about the build quality
of some of these—that they can be brittle
and break easily. I had one of my King Hekatons,
in one of the Storm King's Thunder sets before,
the scepter broke off when he was in storage.
And of course, in this set, my Volo arrived
with no head. It wasn't in the box, by the
way. It wasn't anywhere in the packing materials,
so apparently it was a problem with the manufacturing
of it. What we had to do for that is you go
to their website, you create an account, you
print out an RMA form. You pack it all up,
take it to your post office. It cost me about
$5 to ship it off. And hope for the best.
I shipped mine about a week ago. And I just
got an email today saying that they have shipped
mine back to me. Supposedly they're sending
the same, exact Volo. It's not going to be
another rare. They have in the fine print
when you send one back that you may, if they
don't have that in stock, you may get another
of the same rarity level in that set. So they
could've sent me a Jarlaxle or something.
But it says that they packed up a Volo and
sent it to me so fingers crossed I'll get
that in a few days. So the build quality,
for the most part I haven't had any trouble
but I've had 2 that were broken. So there
is a way to get it taken care of, if that's
what you want to do. But just something to
be aware of. As far as what's actually in
this set, there's not a lot of showcase monsters
in this group. I think the elephant and the
beholder. The griffon cavalry, which is my
favorite actually, and the pit fiend are probably
the ones that you could bring out that would
get a bit of a "wow" factor at your table.
You know, maybe even the hag or something.
Or one of these [pentadrone]. But for the
most part a lot of these are humanoids in
this set. So who should buy this set? I think,
clearly, if you're running Dragon Heist in
particular, this is a good set to get. It's
really great when you're able to have a villain
or an NPC, like Jarlaxle, and instead of just
plopping down a random drow mini, you can
pull an actual Jarlaxle out and put him on
the table and it's kind of a lot more impact
that way. So having individual minis for specific
NPCs can be really great. If you're not running
Dragon Heist, then I don't know if this set
is particularly great for you. The only thing
I can think of is if you're running maybe
a city-based campaign, some of this might
be nice. You have a lot of NPCs you can use:
guards and nobles and merchants. Plus you
can repurpose these named NPCs as somebody
else, I suppose. And some of the villains,
some of the enemies that are in this group,
are kind of city-based. Like the wererats,
you find in cities. The cambions, some of
those folks. There's not too many that wouldn't
fit in. I think the hag over here is not necessarily
an urban-based monster. But for the rest of
them, you can usually probably incorporate
them into a good city-based campaign. I think
some of these you can develop good stories
around too. You could have a whole campaign
with a pit fiend as the villain at the end.
Or a beholder, if it's not necessarily Xanathar.
The beholder at the end of a campaign is pretty
good. And you can have story arcs based around
the annis hag. I mean, this is a great character
with a great background that you could do
some interesting things with, with your story.
I think you could also probably base a good
session or two around the slithering tracker.
That would be pretty fun. Or even the... vargouilles—I
think they're pronounced—they could make
an interesting little session-ending encounter
for your party. So if you are a new DM and
you're looking to stock up on your minis,
this may not be the very best set for you.
But if you're a new DM playing Dragon Heist—and
I think Dragon Heist is a pretty good campaign
to start with from what I've read of it so
far. It's very clearly written with a lot
of the background information you would need
if it's your first campaign. So if you're
a new DM, you pick Dragon Heist as your first
campaign you're running, getting a case or
even a brick or two of this set is probably
a good place to start. You won't have a lot
of enemies because there's not too many enemies
in this set. But it's a place to start and
you can stock up on some Monster Menagerie
boxes or something, too, to kind of fill out
your ranks for your enemies. The other thing
that's nice about this set if you have a druid
or anything that's going to be able to summon
wild animals, you've got the lion, you've
got the bear, you've got the crocodile and
the dire wolf. So you have a few of those
in there too, which can also be useful for
any kind of random forest encounters you might
have. Every set of course comes with a few
characters that can be player characters.
So in this set you've got your dragonborn
and your sun soul monk. Unless you happen
to have a player who wants to play one of
these characters, these might not hit the
table very much. Unless you use them as a
repurposed NPC. But I've found that one thing
you can do for new players when they're trying
to come up with a character for the very first
time, if you just lay out a bunch of your
player character minis, they can often serve
as inspiration for your new players to create
their own character. So while some of the
expert players may create their character
in their imagination and then go to something
like Hero Forge to make their mini—their
very specific mini they have in mind—you
can work it the opposite way where the players
start with a mini and build a character around
that. So that's what those can be used for,
I think. And, yeah, I think that's it. I'm
looking forward— I'm happy with this set
myself because I'm very much looking forward
to running Dragon Heist as a campaign. I also
bought the Dwarven Forge city builder set
so I was happy to get, like, merchants and
guards and nobles to fill out the ranks of
my tavern and my town or my city square. So
I think that'll be amazing. If you have any
particular questions or comments or concerns,
please leave them in the comments below. Otherwise,
thanks for watching and we'll see you next
time.
