D&D Minis Icons: Gargantuan Black Dragon

Overall score:

I’ve been holding off doing single figure reviews for any miniature game for quite some time. I’ve never cared for discussing one single unit out of hundreds because most of the time the figures by themselves aren’t all that cool or interesting--only when you combine them with other figures where each can play off of each other’s abilities can you really see how useful a unit really is.

However, what do you do with the large figures that companies have started to release? Wizkids has been doing this for as long as I can remember and now Wizards is, tool. When you have one figure you’re spending anywhere from $30-$60 on, you need to know if you’re getting your money’s worth.

At a recent trip to Borders I decided to break down and pick up the Gargantuan Black Dragon from the Dungeon’s and Dragons (D&D) miniature line. Out of the three that have come out (Black, Blue and Red) this is the one that I’ve been eyeing for quite some time, but never wanted to spend the money on, and for some reason whenever we get cool things like this from Wizards they tend to never end up on my desk despite me being the main miniature game reviewer at TWG. After all, $30 for one figure is quite a lot to spend, it’s one thing you’re getting compared to several DVDs, a Nintendo DS game, or even an RPG book.

Oddly enough when I picked up this dragon I also picked up two of the new Star Wars mini boosters, since I also picked up the new Star Wars RPG book as well as Labyrinth—you can never have enough David Bowie (not that me buying Labyrinth is important to this review...but I'm sure David Bowie fits into it somehow)—and the cost of those two boosters came to the same price as the Black Dragon did.

So what does $30 get you, comparatively? Well I’ve added pictures so you can see for yourself and when you examine what’s there you can easily see how much of a better deal plastic wise, there’s about three times as much. So if you have no problem plunking down $30 for 14 small miniatures, the same amount for one really large one shouldn’t be a problem right?

It depends, are you going to use it? The miniatures Wizards releases have two purposes: for their RPG lines and for their miniature combat games. I don’t play D&D minis, I couldn’t get into it even after the rules refresh, so I really can’t say how this plays in the game. If it’s like the AT-AT for Star Wars minis, then don’t bother if that’s your only reason--the AT-AT is worthless in most fights. But from what I can tell from the rules insert, the Black Dragon isn’t as gimped as the AT-AT so it might be playable. The figure also comes with a new map, which is an underground lair with pools that looks cool, and new maps are always a nice bonus.

From an RPG point of view, and a collectors one as well, this is a really nice figure. Out of the three drago’s released so far this one has the most dynamic post and looks the most menacing despite not being as large as the Red Dragon. Just about every detail is well done and despite the Black Dragon not being one of my favorites in the D&D lexicon, I’m glad I bought this. It really stands out even against an AT-AT. If you like to collect dragons or action figures I suggest looking into the Gargantuan Black Dragon. For the rest of us, the limited use of this figure may make the $30 harder to justify, which is what I based the score off of.

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Written by Spriggan on July 23rd, 2007