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Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons  > WizKids Miniatures Review – D&D Icons of the Realms – Monster Menagerie 3

WizKids Miniatures Review – D&D Icons of the Realms – Monster Menagerie 3

Kickstarter Korner for August 2018, Week 3
Quick and Easy D&D Adventures Redux

I know everyone who collects or uses miniatures on their gaming table buys them in different ways. If you are a casual user or player you might buy a few things here or there. I have done a couple of articles so far where I bought the booster brick, which comes with 8 boxes, of minis. I feel this is a good method to really see what the set is all about and gauge what the split is going to be much easier than if you buy a single box every so often. But that is my strategy. Please feel free to do as you like. Today I wanted to talk to you about D&D Icons of the Realms: Monster Menagerie 3, a series of WizKids miniatures for use with Dungeons & Dragons or any tabletop roleplaying game. This set was released in March 2018 and I have bought some previously but recently I got a booster brick to really get into the heart of it. You can take a look at the full gallery of miniatures in the set over here.

Monster Menagerie 3 Icons of the Realms WizKids miniatures

Take a visit through Monster Menagerie 3

From over on the WizKids site

“The menagerie of monsters also includes new heroes and player characters such as the Aasimar and the Tritons, villains and monsters that include the Neogi and Slaad as well as some powerful new giants like the Dreamwalker and the Dreadnought. Collect all 44 figures from Monster Menagerie III, the newest set of randomly sorted monsters and heroes in our exciting line of D&D miniatures, Icons of the Realms.”

There are a bunch of great WizKids miniatures in this set. And with this set in comparison to others they really dove in on the variant options, and it is more than just a paint difference in most cases.  By my count there are 17 variant figures in this set. It only looks like two figures from this group are just a different paint job. A lot of them have replaced weapons or hold different things as well as having a different paint job. I received both frost giants in my brick and at first I was a little sad at getting a duplicate, but it was my 6-year-old daughter who noticed first that they were in fact different. The coloration of their gear and clothes is different as well as one has a sword and the other an axe. So should I be ready to throw giants at my players. I am ready.

Icons of the Realms

Did someone say Against the Giants? That classic D&D adventure and several others got the 5E treatment in Tales from the Yawning Portal, a great go-to resource for your DM toolbox when you need an adventure.

This set really pushes heavy on the huge giants. In my group of minis I landed a storm, hill, fire, stone, two frost giants as well as a Mouth of Grolantor and a cyclops. I could certainly pit my players Against the Giants after this one. Sadly I did not get the Ulitharid or the Goblin Hucker as these were on the box and was very much looking forward to them.

But enough about what I did not get. What was I happy to see that I could add to my collections? I already mentioned the giants and the storm giant is major league cool. You can see the expression on his face and it looks like he is ready to kick some butt. His sword is great and more than three times the height of medium-sized mini. How can you get hit with that and survive? Either way you plop him on the table and players should worry.

I have never used modrons in any of my games. I like them and think they are cool but I have not found a good enough story element to have them on the table. Nevertheless I like the figures and wanted them, just in case, you know? And the sculpt on the quadrone is really well done. I can see details in the cube and on the extremities. Rather than being a d6 with limbs it can really be a thing to pit your players against.

Slaadi are devastating opponents if you are using them correctly, especially because if you are fighting slaad it is probably already too late. The grey slaad is one of those that have a variant and I have the one with the fire. It is pretty scary looking.

The bearded devil is a must-have as you may have guessed because of Nerdarchy. If you don’t know why you need to watch more of our videos on YouTube. Other variants are the mephits. I got the mud mephit and the dragonborn fighter. I got the one with the shield and axe. Having more dragonborn minis is great. There are just not enough of them.

Looking at number 12 in the set was a little odd. I did not recognize the mini by looking at it, which is odd considering my knowledge of the Monster Manual entries. The base describes it as a tridrone. I know this humanoid is not a modron so it looks like someone goofed somewhere. When I look at the site mentioned above this is a common mistake, or all of them are that messed up. There is no tridrone in the set. It really is kraken priest from Volo’s Guide to Monsters. There is no picture there so it would make sense that I was unable to identify it. The mini could easily be able to be a kraken priest or some kind of spider mutant so I consider it a useful figure to have.

Next up on the block are the tiniest figures I received in the set and oh, man my daughter keeps wanting to steal them. She is obsessed with everything tiny. I have a stirge and a gazer. You want to attack your players with the smallest in the beholder family here is your chance. This thing is barely the same size as the head on a standard mini. I just have to pray it does not get lost. I now want a swarm of these to see how chaotic I can make a low-level battlefield with them. I also want to use a gazer as a familiar.

The case incentive if you pre-ordered was the Kraken Island set. To be perfectly honest I was unsure of how I was going to like this after seeing some pictures of the set. Some people have a different take on what the kraken looks like than what is in the Monster Manual. But when looking at this mini up close as opposed to the far away shot in the product page, it is a FANTASTIC mini. He captures the size very well and given that he comes with six tentacles says how much bigger he actually is if he is below and above the surface of the water. I would have liked the tentacles to be a little bit thicker for stability and because they should be bigger to propel a creature of this massive size. But I understand why they are that way.

Getting two sandbars, a treasure chest, and a rowboat is pretty cool with this figure, though if you ask me, if you are getting attacked by a kraken and you are in a rowboat you are worse than in serious trouble. That boat is gonna be gone and you with it.

In the end the sculpt is excellent and another great figure will grace the Nerdarchy table.

If you want to grab these figures you can do so here it helps the channel if you purchase on Amazon, or maybe you just want to get a good deal.

Thanks for reading and as always, until next time, stay nerdy!

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Ted Adams

The nerd is strong in this one. I received my bachelors degree in communication with a specialization in Radio/TV/Film. I have been a table op role player for about 20 years 17 of which with the current group. I have played several itterations of D&D, Mutants and Masterminds 2nd and 3rd editions, Star wars RPG, Shadowrun and World of Darkness. I am an avid fan of books and follow a few authors reading all they write. Favorite author is Jim Butcher I have been an on/off larper for around 15 years even doing a stretch of running my own for a while. I have played a number of Miniature games including Warhammer 40K, Warhammer Fantasy, Heroscape, Mage Knight, Dreamblade and D&D Miniatures. I have practiced with the art of the German long sword with an ARMA group for over 7 years studying the German long sword, sword and buckler, dagger, axe and polearm. By no strecth of the imagination am I an expert but good enough to last longer than the average person if the Zombie apocalypse ever happens. I am an avid fan of board games and dice games with my current favorite being Quarrios.

2 Comments

  • BB Shockwave
    August 21, 2018 at 4:11 pm

    Nice article, if a bit late to the party. But you know, in 2018, you could maybe upload pictures that don’t remind me of the early Geocities days of the internet where 300×300 was considered a large photo… 😀 I dunno if it is the website’s settings, but the gallery in all your blog posts is just tiny. I tried double clicking but there is no way to enlarge them…

    • Doug Vehovec
      August 22, 2018 at 10:10 am

      Hello! Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it. I am not sure what the gallery view is like for you; on my phone and desktop the images appear full size. But I will look into it and see if there are adjustments I can make for a better experience.

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