The Wayward Wyrmling Review

Warning: This is an adventure review that contains spoilers.

I remember back in the days of Old Editions Past when dragons had hard-wired personalities based on whether their scales were made from metal or simply gone over with a Crayola, with metallic dragons usually having a Good component appended to their alignment. Like most “Always X Good” monsters, this meant that if you wanted to throw them at the party you had to get “creative”, which is another way of saying using a cliche. Popular ones included a case of mistaken identity/gross misunderstanding, mind control, or just because. 4th Edition makes this easier by having most monsters be unaligned at best or changing their origins, making them easier to justify as opponents.

The Wayward Wyrmling is a level 3 adventure in the Chaos Scar written by Aeryn “Blackdirge” Rudel that tells the woeful story of an adamantine dragon hatchling who loses his mother to adventurers, only to befriend a band of kobolds while meandering about the Chaos Scar region. This might make a good Disney movie except for the part where the kobolds kidnap humans and feed them to the dragon. They also do goblins and other kobolds, but those are monsters so no one gives a fuck. The party can be thrown in the mix by either being re-hired by the dwarf that sent the first party in to fetch some scales, or retrieve the corpses of the good-for-nothing husbands that figured going into a notoriously dangerous region to fetch wood was a capital idea (I do like how if the party helps out the wives for free that they get bonus XP).

The adventure isn’t long, reaching delve proportions, but then quality over quantity is paramount when avoiding a KotS-worthy grindfest. The adventure consists of two encounters tackling kobolds doing what they do best: cower behind shit while trying to goad the party into traps or hazardous terrain, while the last encounter includes a dragon with a twist skill challenge that allows you to–mid combat no less–convince it to change sides. As a bonus if you don’t kill it (the pathological pastime of all adventurers), it can team up with you for a few levels while you tour the Chaos Scar as your personal pet dragon. This is a very well written, short adventure with a twist that’s not too predictable.

Second Opinion on Dangerous Delves

As a disclaimer, this isnt me changing my opinion about Dangerous Delves so much as its me continuing my last review, since a case of eight packs got delivered about 20 minutes ago. I’m curious to see if my expectations hold up from yesterday. I guess if you order the 8-pack, they make sure to pitch you one booster with a different visible, meaning that I’m now the proud owner of like, three fucking slime magi. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future reference…

Anyway, here’s what I got:

• 1 Skalmad, the troll king
• 1 cyclops crusher
• 2 grimlock minions
• 1 yaun-ti fangblade
• 1 aboleth slime mage
• 1 clay golem
• 1 unicorn
• 1 rust monster
• 1 feygrove choker
• 1 war devil
• 1 hippogriff
• 1 hellstinger scorpion
• 1 bonechill chimera
• 1 frost giant
• 1 foulspawn grue
• 1 orc eye of Gruumsh
• 1 Xen’drik drow stingblade
• 2 blood scarabs
• 1 berbalang
• 1 goblin delver
• 1 kobold wyrmpriest
• 2 goblin sharpshooter
• 2 kruthik young
• 2 snake swarms
• 1 harpy
• 2 bloodseeker drakes
• 1 aspect of Vecna
• 1 bladerager troll
• 2 orc terrorblades
• 1 arbalest
• 1 gnoll huntmaster
• 1 githzerai zerth

Which combined with the 16 I got yesterday, means that I am six short of the entire set. I’m still pleased with the price-to-quality ratio. I shelled out about $3 per mini, and considering that I would fully expect to pay ten or more for the Large ones, I think its a steal. Didnt have to do shit except pay far less than I would have to just get the minis unpainted and unassembled, and they are way more durable than the do-it-yourself fare. If I drop my clay golem, no harm done. If I drop my soul grinder? Well…fuck.

The best part is that I dont have to get minis from Reaper or wherever that look “close enough’, get them all setup, an then remind the players what they are. I mean, I already have to do that in some cases, but I didnt pay way more just to get a proxy. I can count on the fact that in most cases, what I need has a mini that is at least of the same monster type. I might not have a cyclops that matches perfectly, but I do have a few on hand.

Nothing being perfect, I have a few more nitpicks to add to the list from yesterday.

• War devil looks a bit…cartoony and flat. More colors or an ink wash would help out, but overall I think its a below-average sculpt. It is a visible, however, so its easy to just not buy it.
• The bladerager troll could have used some drybrushed metal on the armor plating. Not a full layer, which would look to clean. Drybrushing it would give it a metallic-yet-dirty look, which I think would great.
• I can see more detail on the yaun-ti fangblade that I got this time. Since I only have two, I cant be sure which is the accident.
• I dont particularly care for the beetles humping rocks, but at least there is a common medium beetle that I can use.
• There are some slight paint splashes on the commons (again, grimlock minion). This is what I’d expect from anyone trying to hurredly paint a shitload of mooks, however.

Other than that, looks good. They’re very cheap to buy, and very functional.

Review: Dangerous Delves

Impatient as I am, I journeyed out into the sun yet again in order to procure several sets of Dangerous Delves in order to see for myself what the fuss was about. I shelled out $60 and walked away with the following:

• 2 aboleth slime mages
• 1 unicorn (which are totally cool)
• 1 hippogriff
• 1 clay golem
• 1 berbalang
• 1 hellstinger scorpion
• 2 goblin sharpshooters
• 1 kruthik young (where the fuck were you a week ago?)
• 3 serpent swarms
• 1 githyanki warrior
• 1 foulspawn grue
• 1 arbalest
• 1 orc eye of gruumsh
• 1 grimlock minion
• 1 gnoll huntmaster
• 1 yaun-ti fangblade

Aaand I’m content with what I got. Granted, the paint schemes arent all the best, but then I can paint things extremely well. What I was expecting was something that would be acceptable and work at the game table, and I think I got a great deal for what I paid for considering that I saved myself an assload of time and money on supplies.

Getting into specifics, the aboleth slime mage doesnt look bad. It looks alright, especially considering that its a visible and runs for about a quarter of the price of the entire box on Ebay, and thats not even taking the shipping and handling into account. I dont know why people are bitching about the paint job, as whatever they did gives it a dirty, mottled look, which is what I’d expect from an ancient fish monster that spends most of its time covered in slime, living in dark caves, and bossing fungus people around.

Seriously, how much would I expect to pay for a metal mini of the same thing? If GW has anything to say about it, anywhere from 15-25 bucks, and thats for an unassembled, unpainted, metal miniature. Reaper charges you around $5 a pop for a normal, unpainted humanoid, which is around double what the slime mage goes for. Now if you want them painted, you can tack on around twenty-or-so dollars to the price just so you can sit down and get painting.
Of course, you’re end results will be far superior since apparently blind children can paint better than anything you get from Wizards.

A few of them have very questionable paint jobs, but then this is what I would expect for Common mook minis like the grimlock minion: its passable if you compare it the “bare minimum” by Games Workshop, and really I’d rather shell out the buck myself if it allows me to side skip the entire sweat-shop operation.

A few nitpicks to make:

• The githyanki warrior has flash/sculpt lines. Not a big deal from a distance, but still there.
• I would have liked to see a fur furrier texture on the gnoll huntmaster.
• The pose on the foulspawn grue looks kind of lame and distorted: I think it should have had a more hunched over pose instead of having one arm jutting to the side like its surfing.
• The yaun-ti fangblade details look a bit undefined, but it might be a case of too much paint applied.

All things considered, many of them are alright or even daresay good (such as the orc eye of gruumsh). Maybe I’ll have something more negative to say when the case I ordered shows up tomorrow, but for now I think its at the least a good deal for your money.