4ereviews.com

A resource for independent reviews, interviews, and opinion
pertaining to 4th Edition D&D, Pathfinder, 3.5 OGL, and d20 RPGs.
(last updated 04/20/2008)

What is this site?

Hello! Welcome to 4ereviews.com! Thank you for visiting and checking out the website. My name is Bradford Ferguson. Back in the day when d20 roared, I wrote for the now defunct Silven Crossroads. I wrote over four dozen product reviews and interviewed gaming industry insiders such as Monte Cook, Erik Mona, and Skip Williams. I also published three issues of d20 Filtered where I had a team of d20 product reviewers and reviews for large books were often three to four full pages. I've taken a long hiatus from product reviews and since come to the conclusion that product reviews should be much shorter.

I am excited by the dream that is 4th Edition D&D and fired up by Paizo's strong efforts with Pathfinder RPG and the various Adventure Paths. Wolfgang Baur is doing some cool stuff with Kobold Quarterly and Open Design. I am also curious to see what other publishers will do in the wake of 4th Edition.

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Review of D&D Miniatures Game Starter Set

Product: D&D Miniatures Game Starter Set
Maker: Wizards of the Coast (WotC)
Price: on sale for $14.99 $11.98 at FRPGames.com
Reviewed by: Bradford Ferguson
Review date: April 20th, 2008

Packaging & Contents

As you can see from the picture on the left, the packaging does a good job of showing you which miniatures you get with the purchase of a starter set. You get 5 exclusive (not available in booster packs or other sets), non-random (they do not vary among starter sets) miniatures: Elf Warlock, Human Sellsword, Dwarf Battlemaster, Yuan-Ti Swiftscale, and Young Green Dragon. You also get 5 corresponding color game stat cards, a 20-sized die, Battle Rules booklet, 2 double-sided full-color battle maps, and damage counters. This starter set kicks off the "Dungeons of Dread" set of D&D Miniatures. The booster packs contain a checklist (which the starter set does not contain) and 8 randomized, fully-painted, durable miniatures and their corresponding color game stat cards. Dungeons of Dread booster packs are available at FRPGames.com for $14.99 $11.98.

The battle maps are good-sized for a skirmish miniatures game. They each measure 22 inches by 34 inches and have a front and back side. The art for the battle maps is on par of what many have come to expect from WotC, or the art is very good. Pictured right, the two maps when placed side-by-side take up the entire space of my 3 feet by 4 feet Chessex battle mat. Ample variety of terrain and cover are present for your warbands to manuever around on the maps. D&D Miniatures are multi-purpose so that you can use them for either a miniatures skirmish battle or incorporate them into a tabletop role-playing game. Most creative Dungeon Masters could find a use for these battle maps in their role-playing campaigns. While getting the maps and the rulebook and the exclusive miniatures all in one package is a good deal, they really are not enough to run either a satisfying skirmish battle or to use as your only miniatures in a tabletop game. You will need more miniatures than these five if you do not have other miniatures.

Contents laid out on the gaming table

Close up of the Dwarf Battlemaster

The Miniatures The painting quality of the miniatures displays the quality that WotC has reached with the more recent D&D Miniatures sets. The miniatures themselves reflect the art direction that WotC is going with for 4th Edition. The style of dwarves in 4th Edition D&D is geometric and faceted, and this is readily apparent in the Dwarven Battlemaster miniature. I enjoy this aspect since the races in 3rd Edition D&D seemed to blend together in some respects. As far as monsters, whereas the troglodyte and kuo-toa looked the same in 3e, the troglodyte will now have a strong reptilian look while the kuo-toa will have a sleek fish-man look. The art direction in 4th edition is giving a unique racial look to the equipment (armor, weapons, dress). Hopefully, this will make it easier to pick out the races of the miniatures at the gaming table and also inspire players to make role-playing distinctions between the races. It appears that the art direction for the D&D Miniatures game will mirror the art in the books.

Battle Rules The previews ("Races & Classes" and "Worlds & Monsters") of 4th Edition D&D suggested that the rules of D&D were going to be easier to understand from a mathematical point of view so that the game would be more accessible to a wider audience of players. It seems clear that the tabletop game is being simplified in some respects and becoming more complicated in other respects. It is also clear to me as I read the 48-page Battle Rules booklet is that a beginning player will still feel rather out-of-sorts with all of the rules for D&D Miniatures. A good board game that is aiming to reach a wide audience would not have such a long rulebook. Luckily, the pages are half-sized, but still... The designers, Steven Schubert and Rob Heinsoo attempt to stagger the learning curve by adding a Quick Start scenario and providing hints and tips on the back side of each game stat card for the exclusive miniatures in the Starter Set (the back side of the cards for the booster packs has abbreviated role-playing stats). With 4th Edition, WotC is making changes and evolving the Dungeons and Dragons game. While WotC could further speed up playability and get rid of clunky rules, it seems they aren't following that idea to its conclusion. Instead they are keeping the rules complex enough so that their existing base of hardcore gamers stays happy, while the mountain of rules is formidable enough to keep new casual gamers away. For the tabletop game, the new Player's Handbook will be 320 pages! No casual gamer will want to touch that with a ten-foot pole!

Conclusion

Overall, the D&D Miniatures Game Starter Set met my expectations but did not exceed them. Hardcore gamers looking to play the D&D Miniatures game (instead of tabletop RPG usage) will likely enjoy the complexity of the rules enough that they may collect miniatures from booster packs that have abilities to compliment each other (so their warband is efficient in skirmishes). It will be interesting to see if WotC has the 4th Edition introductory adventure, H1 - Keep on the Shadowfell (click to pre-order), use the characters and monsters that are contained in the Dungeons of Dread miniatures set. Overall, the Starter Set represents good value for the money, but does not have a "complete" feeling to it since you will need more miniatures to make more use of it.

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Additional Resources
Official Gallery of all 60 miniatures in the Dungeons of Dread miniature set
D&D Miniatures Official Site

Additional Images
Young Green Dragon	(from left to right) Yuan-Ti Swiftscale, Dwarf Battlemaster, Human Sellsword, Elf Warlock