PUBLISHER: WIZKIDS | RELEASE DATE: EARLY MARCH

Anyone who’s ran a fantasy table-top game will know that sometimes you need to hammer the point home to the players that the thing they’re dealing with is very impressive and scary. Not all dragon encounters involve combat and sometimes your party will make the (frequently lethal) mistake of letting their guard down.

Case in point, Pathfinder’s Mengkare,  a massive golden dragons who rules the island kingdom of Hermea. Depending on who you talk to, it is either the wisest and most generous ruler in the history of the world of Golarion, or an utterly despicable dictator who rules with smooth tongue and sharp claw. Regardless, meeting this creature should be something memorable, so of course Wizkids have produced a rather lovely model for your Pathfinder game.

In the RPG, Mengkare is a gargantuan creature, which means the model is over ten inches tall with an appropriately impressive wing-span to match. The wings are gorgeous looking things; giant golden feather-like petals that each terminate in a single claw. The ‘beautiful but deadly’ themed continues throughout the entire sculpt.  The dragons tail is long and heavily plated, with the occasional long gash or healed wound to remind us that this creature has won many battles.

Even the face sculpt is well rendered; both stern and powerful. Ideal for a glorious golden saviour (or dictator; it depends on your campaign). The paint job is very good and as you would expect, very gold. This is a very shiny model.  It’s posed on a large rock/mountain tip which allows us to have a long model that doesn’t take up the entire table whilst still looking imposing.

Overall, a worthy addition for any fantasy gamer who likes having a dragon to scare the pants of their players, or just anyone looking for a really impressive gold dragon to put on their shelf.