Harbinger Expansion Pack
Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures
Harbinger Expansion Pack
D&D Miniatures (8 per box)
ISBN 1-7869-3315-1
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast, $9.95
The first in a possible ongoing collection of miniatures sets, the Harbinger Expansion Pack is a set of eight random, plastic, fully assembled and painted collectible miniatures. These miniatures come with statistic cards for use during game play, or for fast, head-to-head combat using the rules from the D&D Miniatures Entry Pack (which I am not reviewing here).
The biggest thing you will note about these miniatures is the they are plastic, not metal. Of course, this isn’t a big deal, but being plastic, some of the figures come with bent swords and such right from the package. A little practice with heat and cold solves most of the bending problems with the figures. As for the paint jobs, these are not the best painted figures you can buy. They are decent, but some of the figures are done somewhat poorly. Of course, the rarer ones seem to be done better.
I predict the fact that these miniatures are collectible is where some people will have a problem with them. In each box, you get typically 4 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare. Now, there are 80 total miniatures in the Harbinger set, of which 20 are Common, 33 are Uncommon, and 27 are Rare. If you do the math, and add in the randomness, you’ll quickly realize that it will cost you lots of money if you plan on getting a complete set. On eBay, complete sets go for over $200 minimum! That is the part I hate about these miniatures. I wish they had just made it so that you could buy them as a whole set, but then Wizards needs money, and collectible products are a very good way of getting it. Plus it becomes so darn addictive if you let yourself get carried away with buying these (and I should know). Suffice it to say, I will not have a complete set here, but I do have a decent-sized collection already. Of course, if you are just looking to have some miniatures for your game, at $1.25 each, which is about what they come out to, you can’t really go wrong with these. For that price you get decently painted miniatures, ready for use in your game, as opposed to metal miniatures, which can run five dollars and up and are not painted! So, buy a box if you are curious, and if you like them, buy a few more. Just don’t get carried away, unless you have lots of cash.
(review (c) March 2004 / David Flemming)