First up a friend of mine was looking for some painted undead for a game he is playing with his daughter and I knew I had some stuff in cases I hadn't used in a while.
Second, I started my prep work to run a new Ravenloft game so I wanted to look back at some of the stuff I had painted last time I ran a Ravenloft game.
When the much maligned 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released (which to be honest I really liked) I ran a casual group through some vaguely connected one-off adventures. Me being me meant that there was a lot of undead and I knew that at some point The Count himself would make an appearance. I decided on the unofficial-official Strahd Von Zarovich model from Reaper Miniatures. I've got to say I've been a huge Ravenloft fan since the original I6 module and to this day this model stands up as one of the best interpretations of the character I've seen in a model.
I can't say enough about how good this model is. For anyone looking for a readily available model to represent Strahd when they run Curse Of Strahd (coming out in March 2016!) I highly recommend it. The figure doesn't lack for detail or texture but it isn't overdone.
Back to my 4th edition game.
As I was getting ready for my player's confrontation with the horrors beneath the castle Wizards Of The Coast released the Castle Ravenloft board game. I was elated! It had floor tiles and most if not all of the miniatures I would need to run the players through my planned encounters. The great thing about the Castle Ravenloft board game is that I came with a lot of staples of low level fantasy/horror; rats, skeletons, ghosts, gargoyles, etc and although the models were vinyl rather than hard plastic most of them were very crisp and nice looking....most of them....
I decided to paint the "official" Strahd model that came with the game and was super-disappointed. The figure itself is flat and uninteresting, and to boot he's actually a bit smaller than all of the various low-level minions the box came with. The truly funny part is that when I put the Reaper model on the table NOBODY asked me who or what he was, they all knew. But when I put Strahd from the actual game on the table everyone just wondered what he was.
Oh well. Honestly the rest of the box contents still made this a great purchase even if the main character was a let down.
So those are the Strahds of yesteryear. I'm working on a new Strahd model now that I really like but sadly he was gifted to me in a plain zip-lock bag so I have no idea who makes him or where he came from. Maybe when I get him posted someone will recognise him and let me know who makes him.
-Jay
No comments:
Post a Comment