Blind boxes are a fact of life if you collect pre-painted miniatures. Wizkid’s Icon’s of the Realms range tends to come a in few flavours, usually themed after a specific D&D adventure release. The The Wild Beyond The Witchlight adventure is filled with weird beasties and this booster set lets you get your hands on some truly interesting pieces.
Our common models include Feywild Goblins, Harengon Brigands and Bullywug Guards. The goblins look like they’ve stepped off the set of a Jim Henson movie, different from other goblin models yet very much fantasy beasties. Harengon are rabbit people, and the brigands look adorable. There’s also a hero in this set, a Harengon called Agdon Longscarf who is very dynamic and looks really cool if set to ‘lead’ the brigands. Bullwug’s are frog-people, and these models are sculpted with halberds and pantaloons; perfect for a royal guard. There’s also a Bullywug Royal in the same set. He looks very elderly and also kind of scary. The Bullywugs also get Gullop the XIX. Imagine Elizabeth The First, The Gloriana, as a frog. It’s a very fun piece.
Also in the common range are two different flavours of mushroom people. Myconoids are humanoid fungus monsters, and in this set they’re wearing a poison toadstool hat. They look chillingly dangerous. We also get much smaller Campestri; these are singing mushrooms with big smiles on their faces. They’re very silly and really well done.
They are some rarer to find hero models. These include Will (one of the heroic NPCs) and Star, the displacer beast kitten who’s sort of the poster cat for the whole adventure. These are nicely done, though Star could be cuter. The paint job on Will is very well done, as are the majority of the paint jobs in this range. Cradlefall, the Green Dragon Wyrmling is as cute as he is in the book. It also doubles as a medium sized dragon piece, which is very useful for any DM who is trying to explain scale to his players.
As to the bigger models, we get some interesting combos. They are two huge ‘riding beasts’, a Floating Lily Pad and mechanical bird. Both of these are designed to be ridden by hags (which come separately) and you can click the weird witches onto these. The lilly pad is especially fun as there’s nothing quite like it.
The set features two versions of Iggwilv’s Cauldron, a key item in the game and an Unicorn horn which is less a miniature and more an in-game prop. They are a lot of smaller sized models in the range and they are balanced out with the larger pieces, but expect to regularly open a box with one big thing and three smaller pieces.
If you’re only after specific models for your The Wild Beyond The Witchlight campaign, you’ll be better off looking The Witchlight Carnival Premium set or the League of Malevolence/Valor’s Call Starters. However if you having an army of Bullywugs, Redcaps, singing mushroom people, Giant Snails and some really unique models, it’s worth giving the boosters a go.