D&D Icons of the Realms Miniatures: Monster Menagerie 3 - Booster Case (32)

This is my third full case, and I was buying it for a specific purpose: to bring giants to my miniature collection. In that regard, this set (MM3) is strongly competing with Storm King's Thunder (SKT): MM3 contains 15 out of 44 (including variants) huge-sized giant-themed miniatures, while SKT offers 14 out of 44. In the end, both sets provide cool gigantic minis, so I chose MM3 over SKT based on a more useful (in my optinion) selection of common and uncommon miniatures. The good: - There are some really impressive minis, such as male and female Storm Giants, Ulitharid, Fire Giant Dreadnaught, Frost Giant Everlasting One. There's also a really badass Goblin Hucker mini! - Useful commons: you will get a selections of Mephits, Goblins, Kobolds, Gnolls, Death Dogs and Vampire Spawns. The bad: - The naming of this set is a bit misleading. From the Monster Menagerie you would expect a set of the most basic and popular monsters which you can use at the game table time and time again. I don't believe the giants are currently one of them. - The rarity distribution is sometimes disappointingly odd. Bearded Devil, a bulk of the demon army, is a rare? You would need a dozen of these... Two almost identical Frost Giants count as uncommons, so you will end up with as much as 8 from a single case! Empyrean, a rare CR 23 (!) titan, is an uncommon (!) mini with two variants differing with kilt color. Why include wereboar, if werewolves and wererats are much more common in play? What should I do with a single Neogi Master? - The variants. This set contains figure variants, including the controversial invisible ones (you are paying for a pre-painted set, remember?), so you will not get all the minis even if you buy a full case! - The paint job leaves much to be desired even on some rares, especially The Nameless One (why is he even here?) and the Frost Giants (ugh, that skin color!). Verdict: If you are a new DM, this is probably not the first set you want to buy, because it very heavily leans on the giants theme. I was a bit disappointed with the miniature distribution, as well as the painting quality lacking detail. The newer sets have become much better in this regard. Still, if you are planning to run SKT and are not into painting miniatures (or, on the contrary, are eager to repaint some), this set offets some unique and intersting sculpts.

I'm going to keep this short and to the point. Minis look great except the Nameless One which looks terrible and is the most common rare. I got 3 in booster packs before buying the case because it was the only way to get the other rare minis it seemed. Once again I ended up missing 5 or 6 rare minis from the full case. I guess the rumors about getting at least one of every mini in a case are not true. On a side note there are soooo many doubles, triples and quadruples...yes quadruples that I'm sending more than half the minis back through the buy back program here. Which I think is great and pretty fair.

I'm going to keep this short and to the point. Minis look great except the Nameless One which looks terrible and is the most common rare. I got 3 in booster packs before buying the case because it was the only way to get the other rare minis it seemed. Once again I ended up missing 5 or 6 rare minis from the full case. I guess the rumors about getting at least one of every mini in a case are not true. On a side note there are soooo many doubles, triples and quadruples...yes quadruples that I'm sending more than half the minis back through the buy back program here. Which I think is great and pretty fair.

Pretty good mix of figures. I nearly got at least one of every figure except 5 of the alternate poses and only one invisible. I hope you like frost giants, though. The case I bought ended up with 8 frost giants in it. Other than that, you should end up with a reasonable mix and have duplicates where you'd probably want them, anyway. Quality of figures is as good as it has been over the past 3-4 releases. The sizes of the figures are consistent. The paint jobs are acceptable for what they are. The poses aren't bad. Although I set the grey slaad next to the tiefling and suddenly disco started playing in my head because those two figures really look more like they're dancing than anything else. A few figures had some wonkiness to their weapons, but that's par for the course. Overall the entire case was in good shape and all were game-ready. I really liked that they've added the stirges and mephits. There are a few cool new minis in here that I don't think have good representation elsewhere. WotC and WizKids now need to flesh out some of the other less used, but more interesting figures. I didn't give this 5-stars all around because I reserve that for something special. This release is worth the cost. It'd have to be a steal to get a better rating from me, though.

Pretty good mix of figures. I nearly got at least one of every figure except 5 of the alternate poses and only one invisible. I hope you like frost giants, though. The case I bought ended up with 8 frost giants in it. Other than that, you should end up with a reasonable mix and have duplicates where you'd probably want them, anyway. Quality of figures is as good as it has been over the past 3-4 releases. The sizes of the figures are consistent. The paint jobs are acceptable for what they are. The poses aren't bad. Although I set the grey slaad next to the tiefling and suddenly disco started playing in my head because those two figures really look more like they're dancing than anything else. A few figures had some wonkiness to their weapons, but that's par for the course. Overall the entire case was in good shape and all were game-ready. I really liked that they've added the stirges and mephits. There are a few cool new minis in here that I don't think have good representation elsewhere. WotC and WizKids now need to flesh out some of the other less used, but more interesting figures. I didn't give this 5-stars all around because I reserve that for something special. This release is worth the cost. It'd have to be a steal to get a better rating from me, though.