One of the frequent complaints that hobby gamers make about Wizkid’s output is that the pre-painted plastic models are pretty difficult to modify and adapt. Gamers will frequently find themselves looking for a model that is almost perfect, and it’s harder to modify an already painted model.
The people at Wizkids are gamers and hobbyists themselves, and it’s clear that they’ve been looking to expand their range to include more options for a while. The Dungeons and Dragons Frameworks Beholder kit is a fantastic example of how far they’ve come, as it’s a multi-part plastic kit that you assemble, paint and modify yourself.
The Beholder is an excellent choice for a plastic kit. These are one of Dungeons and Dragons more iconic monsters, being essentially a floating eyeball with teeth, which also has armour plated eye-stalks that can shoot a variety of weird magical effects. Beholders are meant to total maniacs; powerful and malevolent almost alien beings that can easily wipe out a badly prepared party. As such, when a DM introduces one of these horrors into a long running campaign, they’ll want to make it memorable.
This hard plastic kit certainly helps you achieve that. They are plenty of options, from variant tongues to tentacles, and lot’s of ways one can cut into or resculpt portions of the model to achived the abomination you have in mind. Translucent plastic is included for those who want their beholder is casting spells all the time.
This is a sprue kit and it’s interesting to see how Wizkid’s approaches this sort of thing compared to the likes of say, Games Workshop. The Framework’s sprues are crammed with features and you will end up with plenty of spare parts; however these are the sort of spares that you’ll end up using else where and the whole range has been designed to be very compatible. It’s a flexible kit, so if you’re looking to make a regular bad-guy or something a bit more special, this is a great choice. Beholders if done poorly can look quite goofy, but this sculpt is all about the malice.
Painting wise, these are hard plastic models, so remember to prime the hard to reach bits before you glue it all together. Planning and some blu-tack will save a lot of problems here. The flying base options are good enough to present the model, though you’ll probably want to adjust the base itself to suit your needs.
Overall, an exciting piece that we expect to see flying (or possibly floating) off the shelves.
