Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Old School Monsters: Snurre Ironbelly

WOTC's Giants of Legend D&D Miniatures Set probably represents the zenith of WOTC's miniature production quality, and contains some of the more iconic D&D personality miniatures. This is sad, considering it was only the 4th of 17 miniatures sets, prior to them changing their miniatures set format. In my opinion, subsequent miniatures sets never met the high standards created with the Giants of Legend set of miniatures.

Case in Point: King Snurre Ironbelly, the BBEG from the final module in the classic "G" series of early D&D adventures. Few miniatures could be more iconic than the heroes, and evil leaders, from the early modules. Not only did WOTC capture the feel of the original G3 artwork in this pose, but the paint-job is first rate.

Now compare this to the Aspect of Vecna, found in the fairly recent Dangerous Delves set of miniatures. Considering how iconic to the D&D mythos Vecna is (Hand and Eye of Vecna, Vecna Lives, Die Vecna Die, and Vecna Reborn), you would think they would have lavished more care and attention to that sculpt, and the related paint-job.

2 comments:

Timeshadows said...

Wow, those new ones must be prototypes.
--The ones I have seen recently aren't masterpieces, but they have far more detail than any of those.

Sad, though, I agree.

Aaron E. Steele said...

I have picked up several of the new minis, some are decent sculpts and paint jobs. I must admit I have not seen a Vecna mini "in the flesh" but I have heard reliable reports that it looks just as bad in real life. Overall, I think the earlier mini sets (say between set 3 and 7) is where WOTC hit its stride, after that, mini quality and concepts suffered. Maybe they ran out of good concepts, but I find that hard to believe, considering it took them this long to produce the Remorhaz.