Reaper's Legendary Encounters Minis

I got my batch of Legendary Encounters Pre-Painted Plastic Miniatures last week. They really exceeded all expectations and are going to be very useful in the campaign.

20004: Skeleton Swordsman
20005: Skeleton Archer
20006: Skeleton Spearman

I didn't get any Skeleton Archers in my packet from Matt at Reaper, but the skelies I did get were all great. They are a an ivory or off white color and nicely shaded. What can I say about skeletons?

20010: Orc Swordsman
20011: Orc Archer
20012: Orc Spearman

These are great. I know in the official D&D chat rooms they are all freaked out about orcs being green instead of grey. Get over it. My orcs are all still grey, but Swamp Orcs (Jor) are supposed to be greenish blue. They are also bald and use scimitars. Ka-ching! I now have a huge pile of swamp orcs that I don't have to paint. And I don't know that I could have painted them any better than this. The paint jobs on these Reaper plastic figs is head and shoulders above the WOTC pre-painted minis. Check out the detail!

20013: Cave Troll

I was very pleased with the Cave Troll miniature. I don't know if WOTC is ever going to do a cave troll based on their 3E artwork, but if they do, I am sure that I can find something else to use it for. This mini is perfect for the cave troll and it gives me a reason to buy all the Reaper metal troll line. I hadn't been before, because all my normal trolls are the old Ral Partha official AD&D line trolls. I liked the Reaper Trolls, but didn't really have a use for them...the plastic version really changed my mind about that and I just today added the Cave Troll sheet to my Monstrous Compendium. Nice work!

20014: Ogre Chieftain

There is a very wide variation among minis of ogres. Even among the WOTC line there are some ogres that look like half-orcs on steroids and some that look like feral horse people. I was very glad that Reaper made their ogre an ocher color. I mostly use the Ral Partha ogres from the Bilidum box set, and Reaper's looks like an orog version of those, which makes me pretty happy about including it on my shelf. The painting is really nice.

20015: Minotaur of the Maze
I already had two of the metal version of this minature, it really is a fantastic sculpt. I love the paint job on this mini, and in general, it blows all of the WOTC minotaurs out of the water. The only problem with the mini is that it is easily knocked off balance, and could use a wider base. One of the two minotaurs I got in the box had legs bent so that it was even more off balance than it would ordinarily, and so it won't stand up.

I haven't tried the hot and cold water trick yet, but I suspect that will be all it will take to fix the problem. With plastic minis, pour very hot water on them if they are bent and then move it into the place you want it to be, then have someone else pour ice water over it and it should hold in place in the new position.

So, in general, I give the new line of plastic miniatures from Reaper a bit thumbs up.

My only suggestions would be to concentrate on doing plastic versions of the really large miniatures, which are prohibitively expensive, like the Pit Fiend.

I also had a dream last night that Reaper started doing plastic hallway and cavern sections like Dwarven Forge does in resin or plaster. Plastic, pre-painted sections wouldn't break. They would be cheaper. They would weigh less so shipping costs would be less. I wouldn't want them to do the bow tie thing (which is probably trademarked anyway) and I would want them to be whole sections instead of half sections...so more like Hirst Arts but already assembled. Spiral staircases, dungeon features, altars...and in the underdark, lots of plastic shrieker fungi and other cavern features.

I'd buy a lot of those.

A lot.

Especially if they did cavern geomorphs.

It would be cool if they did a product that got WOTC customers buying a bunch of stuff to use in their system too.