Preview 4

couple weeks ago, I mentioned something about poisonous turkeys showing up in a preview, and now I'm following through. This week's preview features two creatures that are turkeys. Oh wait, that isn't right! Well, how about two creatures that are poisonous! (I'm sure turkey's got to show up here somewhere). In addition to poison, both or these creatures share Rare status.

Yuan-Ti Champion of Zehir

There's a bit of a snake-theme going on in the set, with a handful of minis providing a perfect resource for an ophidian encounter (not to be confused with Ophidian from Fiend Folio and Angelfire). This creature is the highlight of those minis, and I'm really happy with its dynamic pose.

This guy is a sort of trimmed down version of the Yuan-Ti Abomination from the Aberrations set, with similar stats but not a commander or spellcaster. As you can see from the accompanying stat card, the Yuan-Ti Champion of Zehir provides a bit of immobilization and is capable of hitting for up to 45 damage each round plus poison. Combine him with one of Desert of Desolation's common commanders, and he's even more accurate (with deadlier poison, too). Blindfight helps address Concealed targets, and Spell Resistance might give you a bit more confidence against the odd spellcasting warband.
Yuan-Ti Champion of Zehir

Osyluth

As you might have noted from recent articles about the future of D&D's cosmology and fiend hierarchy, we've been taking a hard look at how the various demons and devils fall into their respective categories. Of course, while all these discussions were going on, we were also trying to put together this minis set -- and this particular creature was in a state of flux, as there was discussion of making it the bone demon, not the bone devil. After some significant deliberation, we put the Osyluth back into the devil camp, where it will continue to foster tyranny and corruption wherever it goes. As you can see, the look of the bone devil got a bit of a makeover, too, though the trademark stinger-tipped tail and gaunt features preserve the recognizable profile of the fiend.

The Archfiends Bone Devil was never really competitive. It had a lot of hit points and a really good AC of 25, but its damage output was not on par with its 74-point cost. The new Osyluth, on the other hand, gets a boost in its poison damage and the area of its Fear aura but loses flight, some minor resistances, and 18 points off its cost. It also looks meaner.

Oh wow, these are awesome. It makes the bone devil look like junk and cartooney to boot. The new yuan-ti's really vivid, and bright, which I love. I like the non-standard look of this set.

Meh.

Meh.

Hopefully the Commons and Uncommons will show us something a bit more than we've seen so far. I've just been very underwhelmed with this set...the sculpts aren't doing much for me (Spider Priestess, Umber Hulk, and Drider--which still has its weak points are the exceptions).

I love Yuan-Ti and have been wanting some more, but I'll pass on Lame-o McSpootmeister. Crappy sculpt, is he flying? Levitating? Jumping? Why is he so skinny? Has he not eaten for several years? Where are the straps on his armor? Or is it fused to his skin?

Take note, WotC....Armor needs a way to stay put. With this guy, it's just one more log on the funeral pyre, but it ruined the Nightmare completely.

As for the Bone Devil, No one's rushing to trade me their Archfiends ones to go with the whopping one that I have, so I'll take several of these. It's not quite what I want a Bone Devil to look like, but neither is the AF one. It's not so much a departure that I won't take them though. really wish it had been Uncommon. I could use about 9.

Hahahahaha thats because the old Bone Devil looks like a bone Devil this one looks like Pumpkinhead its crap sorry I dislike it. I'm glad I have the 4 bone Devils I do have because I dislike the look of this one very much. So far I don't like the look 4th Ed. is heading
Give me the drow, drider,sphinx,Gcube the new yuan-ti and the drake and thats the set for me. (so far) which is pretty bad in my eyes so far.

Thus far I am happy with:

Drider
Drow Priestess
Gcude
Umber Hulk

The rest, if I get them in pulls then so be it.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about the G-Cube. Oops. After all the clamoring that folks have done wanting one, you'd think it wouldn't be possible to forget it. Ooops.

The Guardian Mummy isn't bad, but it's not exactly jaw-dropping, eye-popping, out-and-out-gotta-have-it, either.