D&D Minis is a collectable miniature game set in the D&Dverse. Taking obvious inspiration from Magic the Gathering, each box set (20 or 30 AUD) comes with 8 collectable plastic miniatures already painted for you. The miniatures are numbered and have a rarity (ie, some are more commonly found in the boxes than others). Each of the miniatures also comes with a card that explains its key stats and abilities.
All well and good. Except. What’s the real point of it?
Reading through the rules for the game, it seems a bit pointless to be honest. You build up ‘Warbands’ from the models you have collected and then duke it out with other people who have also spent a small fortune so that they can have enough miniatures to build a ‘Warband’. There doesn’t seem to be any real strategy to the game and it looks on paper like it will play like a very unlikely standard D&D encounter.
Can you use the models in a ‘real’ game I hear you ask. Well, sure you can. The models are actually surprisingly well painted and the detail is not bad for what they are. At what is essentially $2.50 a model, its not a bad price. Except of course, for one thing. You can’t pick which models you are going to get. Absolutely useless unless you plan on spending a fortune so that you can get enough of the same damn thing to make up an encounter. Yes, yes, I know – encounters in D&D4e somehow have to include a complete menagerie of monsters and buying random models might actually work out – but still, it would be much cheaper just to buy the superior pewter models in the end. Reaper miniatures will sell you 11 orcs for about the same price. You have to paint them AND look up their details in the book, but hey, its a hobby right?
In the end, I am probably going to buy more of these. Not because they are worth it (they are not not worth it), but just because I like surprises. That, and they will look good on my new dungeon tiles (more of which later…).
For those of you who are interested – I bought the $30 box set that comes with 1 Huge creature and 7 Medium creatures. In the box was the following:
- Death Titan (Huge)
- Feybound Halfling
- Dragonborn Defender
- Shifter Claw Adept
- Blazing Skeleton
- Orc Zombie
- Ochre Jelly
- Degenerate Cultist of Orcus
And for what it is worth – the models are surprisingly close to their Monster Manual illustrations, which is kind of cool in a way…
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