Review Category: Merch

The second set of Critical Role themed monsters from Wizkids leans toward the more iconic, rather than generic, characters from the show. These are mostly story changing villains who make their impact known throughout Campaign One and frequently beyond. You can find our review of set one here.

Case in point, Sylas and Delilah Briarwood. A couple so awful that their love not only broke the world, but also almost condemned ever living being to a hellish eternity, The Briarwoods are perhaps one of the more significant villains in the show. These Vecna loving horrors look fabulous here. Delilahis her full, necromantic glory, looking human but not fragile. Sylas looks more like a powerful human than the unstoppable vampire he actually is, but it’s still a pretty model. They’re accompanied by Dr. Anna Ripley, the engineer and gunslinging wizard who built nefarious machines for the Briarwoods. Sculpted wielding a gun and casting a spell, the piece looks very ‘tomb raiding adventurer’ and would make an appripiate hero piece in the right game. And in case you’re wondering where the Briarwood’s biggest pawn, Cassandra, is, she’s in NPCs of Tal Doeri set.

Orthax, the shadow demon, is a key part of the De Rollo/Briarwood story in Campaign One, and not only helps bring firearms to the world of Exandria, almost single handedly destroys the Vox Machina team. It’s a creepy looking thing, with a bird skull mask for a head and the rest of it being made of black plastic representing shadow. A fun show piece as well as nice monster to bring to the table.

This set also comes with a single Magehunter Golem, one of the horrors that almost did for the Mighty Nein. It’s a nicely scary arcane horror, decorated in runes and has a wicked looking arm-hook thing. Couple it with a Forge Guardian for a total party kill at lower levels.

Speaking of horrors for the Mighty Nein, Ganix,The Laughing Hand is featured in this set. It’s a robed, hulking figure covered in laughing mouths. This is done very well for a 28mm scale model, and it’s appropriately horrifying. A nice piece to shock the party.

Obann is the accursed red-skin fiend who horribly under-estimates the Mighty Nein. This is a winged, fairly personable devil, with wings, a sword and a grin. It looks a little like a fiendish Matt Mercer. It’s a great version of the character and useful for most campaigns. Finally we get the Oni slaver. He’s posed looking for fight, it leather armour with an axe. His skin is a pale blue, almost green. Should make for a great baddy for your games.

Overall, Wizkids – Critical Role: Monsters of Exandria Two is a great addition for fans and DMs alike.

One of the things that has made Critical Role the cult hit that it is today is that though it sticks to a lot of the monsters familiar to fans of D&D, the show has also introduced thousands of D&D players to new and interesting horrors, which has delighted Dungeon Masters across the hobby.  Wizkids have produced two Critical Role monster sets so far, so more tactical players can figure out exactly how to beat these horrors.   As expected, these are pre-painted, durable minis at the approximately 28mm (heroic) scale. Let’s take a look at set one.

Osysa and Kamaljiori are the charismatic sphinxes encountered by the Vox Machina team as they quest for the Vestiges of Divergence, the god-like artifacts that feature heavily in Critical Role. Osysa is pale and Kamaljiori is dark, but both are quite impressive beasts. Osysa is posed in a more relaxed, cat-like form whereas their mate, Kamaljiori bears the sort expression and pose that makes you think someone has just got a riddle wrong.

Nahla is the nymph rescued by Grog when the Vox Machina team go into the Feywild. The model is slight, blue and naked, with hair covering up anything that would raise eyebrows. Staying with the Feywild monsters, this set includes Iotha, the tiny pixie who tries to make Grog into an ornament. It’s a nicely done mini, with a low-level flying stand and decently done wings, that aren’t translucent for a change.

Ukurat is another feywild denizen, a werewolf depicted in this set in full half-man, half-wolf war form. It’s a large creature, posed in the full howl, with a nicely decorated loin cloth.  The paint job is quite good and it looks like a good ‘boss monster’ piece.

Artagan is another large feywild figure, but also one of the more important pieces in this set, as this ArchFey also features significantly in Campaign Two. The trickster like fey is dressed in green and white, and posed in a contemplative way, with it’s ginger locks flowing. It’s a fun piece, and a knowing nod to further campaigns. It’s a very specific sort of model, so may be of limited use for some DMs, but a must for Critical Role fans.

A similarly large (but very different) model is Utugash, the pit fiend. This a big, red, muscle bound devil with a huge axes and looks to be laughing. Described as slovenly in the show, it looks like this Utugash has hit the gym. It’s still great model for the table.

Hotis is the humanoid cat-like monster who tricks the Vox Machina team (mostly Vax) throughout the early parts of Campaign One (and has a very brief appearance in the cartoon). The model is posed in full combat stance, dagger drawn, mouth as if to rage, making it both a great character piece and fun for encounters on the table.

Overall a fun and useful set, likely to appeal to collectors and fans alike.

Bells Hells is the name of the adventuring party in Critical Role, Campaign Three. Named after blow-hard adventurer Bertram Bell, it’s comprised of a rag-tag bunch of weirdoes who are facing off against forces that, on the face of it, seem utterly beyond them. And we really mean weird, even for D&D. They are some minor spoilers for the first few episodes of Campaign Three here, simply because of the nature of the show.

Obviously,  Wizkid’s has produced a miniature set for Bells Hells, featuring the primary characters of the show. It’s worth pointing out that this Bells Hells as the appeared close to the start of the show; some of them are also from another party, The Crown Keepers, who folded into Bells Hells early on.

First up we have Fearne Calloway, the character played by Ashley Johnson on the show. The Satyr druid is sculpted with a flowing dress. She is accompanied by Mister, the fire elemental monkey who throws flaming waste at its foes. Mister is not in full fling, but his tail is on fire.

We also get Dorian Storm, the Air Genasi Bard. Played by Robbie Daymond, Dorian brings a lot of levity to the party and the pre-painted model reflects this; Dorian looks simply splendid.  Liam O’Brien’s character, Orym of the Air Ashari, is a tough little halfling and their piece reflects this. Surprisingly small but compact. It’s a good Halfling fighter model in general, being well equipped but also interesting.

Travis Willingham’s curmudgeonly gnome, Chetney Pock O’Pea is one of the party’s heavy hitters> The wood obsessed Blood Hunter is dynamically posed and looks like a proper sneak. His alternative form is quite impressive, being all greys and fur. The sculpt and paint job is fab on both, though like all pre-painted models, experienced hobbyists may want to add their own touch.

Laura Bailey’s cult character, Imogen, the bookish sorcerer with eerie telepathic powers, is shown in her full occult glory, purple energy pouring from their hands thanks to the clever use of translucent plastic.  The other cosplayer’s favourit, Laudna (played by Marisa Ray), is equally impressive. Laudna is ‘sort of undead’ and looks like she’s stepped straight of a Tim Burton movie. Little shadowly things populate the models base, and the model is more inky and strange than expected.

Taliesin Jaffe’s character of Ashton Greymoore was always going to be a challenge to turn into a small painted model; the Earth Genasi Barbarian has some strange features (all of the Hells Bells are bit odd), including a glowing crystal in the side of his skull. The model struggles with the sort of detail at this sort of scale; we just get a blob of metallic paint, but the gem-like hammer he wields and the over-all ‘punk rock’ look of the character is quite well conveyed.

Finally we get Sam Reigel’s  Fresh Cut Grass, the most challenging hero to cosplay as, because he’s a tiny robot on wheels. This piece is very cute and doesn’t look scary at all; just a nice little heal bot.

This is a fun set, and goes well with the rest of the Critical Role range, be it monsters, NPCs from other campaigns or the hordes of other fantastic things.

If you’re a fan of Critical Role models, you should check out our reviews of Wave Two of the Unpainted range,  NPCS of Wildemount,  Monsters Set One, Monsters Set Two  and NPCs of Tal Dorei.

Frameworks is Wizkids range of hard plastic, unpainted miniatures, currently targeted at Dungeons and Dragons fans.  The pieces have to be clipped out of the sprue, prepared, assembled and painted yourself. The material is high quality, takes paint well, shows fine detail and each kit has a wide variety of options.

We’ve previously looked larger kits such as The Stone Giant and the completely wild looking Beholder, as well as some smaller kits for Orcs, NightHags, Mindflayer’s, Spider-like Driders and Minotaurs.  We’ve enjoyed all of these pieces, both for their flexibility in design and the sheer amount of grey plastic you get in the box. They’re also quite reasonably priced compared to similar competitors (most of whom can be found in Nottingham, England.)

A Dungeons and Dragons range revolves not on the monsters the range can provide, but the heroes.  The point of being able to paint and customise hero models is that it becomes easier to make that model look like the character you play. If you have enough of these kits, your bits box will be filled with various options. These models are all at the 25/28mm scale, a standard with this sort of thing.

The Dwarf Cleric kit is a good example. This is a lady dwarf (though if you have the bits or some green stuff you can add a beard).  We have helmeted or unhelmeted heads, various types of shields, a choice between a mace or a hammer, and flagons of ale to use in building the model. This model features some pieces that are readily swappable with the Dwarf Barbarian kit, who is a little less packed with options, but looks quite fierce. The Dwarf Fighter is a heavily armoured chap, wielding a Warhammer, pick-axe  or a flail and shield.  Plenty to build and those with decent conversion skills can get some fun results with these kits.

Elf fans get a ranger, a monk and a wizard. Of these, the wizard has the most interesting additions, as it comes with a small sprue of translucent plastic, evoking two distinct D&D spells, Magic Missile and Bigby’s Hand. The Ranger has enough options that you can get pretty much any elf ranger cliché created as long as the paint job is good enough (and yes, that includes two swords),  and the monk is simply packed with options, though he does look a little like Santa Claus.

Humans get a lot of great options in this range. We particular liked the criminal looking (and extremely dodgy) rogue, The Human Wizard and Monk. The Wizard has some great spell and equipment pieces, and the monk is equally nicely posed. The Human Warlock is literally summoning a demon, which is a great touch.

The Tiefling Warlock is distinct from the Human Warlock and has  good head options, though we’d have liked more. Equally the Tiefling Rogue looks deadly and fun to build, but is very much its own thing.

This is a solid range and we can’t wait to see how it progresses. Wizkids have proven that they can do good kits, we just need to see more.

Critical Role is the actual play Dungeons and Dragons stream that showed the world what table-top roleplaying games really looked like and exposed to everyone how fun and how geeky those games actually are.  The show has had plenty of guests in the past, people who’ve joined the main cast for a quick spot of tabletop fun before departing the main storyline (and perhaps appearing in everyone’s fan-fiction).

 

Wizkid’s Critical Role Guests of Critical Role showcases a number of the more well known guests, with a couple of notable exceptions. There’s no model for Joe Manganiello Arkhan The Cruel in this box, as he already has a mini in a different set) , nor is there a model for Chris Perkin’s Spurt The Kobold, as the that unfortunate creature is an off-the-shelf Kobold from the monster manual and as such, can be easily found in Wizkid’s range of Kobolds.

 

They are plenty of cool characters in the set. The models conform pretty closely to the official art from the show, are painted to a good standard and are well sculpted. First off is the world’s unluckiest dwarf, Thorbir Falbek, played on the show by Will Wheaton.  The model is posed in full defensive combat stance and is well done. Fans may want to glue little rats to him, and the model is designed in a way that modifying it should be easy.

 

Calianna Mordsson was played (and cos-played) by Mark Hulmes, the online presenter and dungeon master. You can really tell that the sculptors had plenty of reference material here as it is very well detailed. The draconically touched half-elf sorceress is striking and like many of the models here, interesting enough to double for hero characters for other sorts of campaigns.

 

The cleric Shakäste is a striking if ageing human Cleric who aids the Mighty Nein fairly early on in their adventures, performed by renowned voice actor Khary Payton. The model is scuplted leaning heavily onto his walking and you can almost hear the voice.  Zahra Hydris was performed by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and is firm fan favourite. The stylish tiefling warlock is sculpted with her staff and in eye-catching black and silver garb. It’s a good take on the character.

 

Will Friedle’s character of Kasha Vesh was almost a semi-regular character in Campaign One, and the golden armoured cleric is sculpted dynamically. It would also double as good generic armoured hero.  Esports host and D&D streaming regular Mica Burton guested on the show as the half-angelic druid Reanminere.  A firm ally of the Mighty Nein, the model for her in this set is surprisingly sedate for such a lively character. It balances well with the other dwarf in the set, Tova, performed by ND Stevenson. Tova is ready for action and is in her ‘mortal’ form.

 

Ashly Burch is better known as the voice of Tiny Tina from the Borderland’s games. On Critical Role, she played Keg, the dwarven fighter. This is a great sculpt of the character and rare take on a certain sort of dwarven warrior. Absolutely worth a look. TTRPG in-real-life bard Jason Charles Miller played the half-orc rogue Garthok. The model is painted in dull leather browns and wields a very pointy spear. It’s a good piece.  It pairs nicely with the model for Lionel Gayheart, the half-orc barbarian and bard. It’s sculpted with the exact same knowing smile that it’s actor, Jon Heder is known for.

Over-all this is a fun, if very specific set.  A must for Critters, of course.

Wizkids range of sprue-based hard plastic kits is an interesting new direction for their Dungeons and Dragons models. The majority of Wizkids out put are soft-plastic pre-painted pieces that are difficult to modify. The Frameworks range are hard plastic, un-painted and unassembled. Let’s take a quick look at some of the monster models in the range.

Night Hags are powerful fiends from the lower planes, capable of casting horrific magics. They’re the witches from fairy tales, down to the inhuman appearance and boiling cauldrons. The kit comes with two sprues; one hard grey plastic and the other is translucent. The latter consists of a variety of energy effects; arcane bolts, boiling potions and a steam-like creature that’s meant to be coming out of the cauldron. The model itself is a hunched and eerie figure and the kit has a load of accessories, everything from a plate of food  to a bag of gold. This is a fun set with a lot of options, including a cute ginger-bread man for that proper fairy-tale feel.

The Drider is half-spider, half-drow centaur like monstrosity, favoured by the Demonweb goddess, Lolth. It’s the sort of thing that would give Drizzt himself pause. This is a fiddly and complicated kit, as you’d expect from a multi-limbed monster. It’s fun to put together but does require patience and some experience putting models together. The drow half is well-sculpted and they are multiple weapon options. It also comes some cute extras, including a little spider pet.

Orcs are standard monster in D&D. The Orc Barbarian kit is a single sprue set, with options including a treasure chest, pick-axe, shield and a head with really silly antler horns. It’s a really easy build and a stoutly sculpted orc.  It’s a solid kit with lots of options.

A similarly single sprue kit is the Mind Flayer, the squid like brain-eating monsters that inspired the horrors from Stranger Things. It’s a delicate looking piece that’s surprisingly sturdy. It comes with an intellect devourer (a brain on legs) and  other little squid-like bits of detail.

The Minotaur is a two sprue kit and this is solid looking, traditional style Minotaur. Like the others, it has a fixed pose with various options to aid in converting. It’s easy to assemble and the two available heads are either ‘huge horns’ or ‘belowing’. We also get two axe options and they’ve really leaned into the labyrinth here.

Overall this is a very promising range. You will absolutely fill you spare parts/bits box with extra modelling options if you use these models, and they’re great for hobby modellers who also like D&D.

Large scale sprue-based models can be a challenge to get right.  You need to balance the need for the kit to be big enough to be worth with ease of construction and enough options to be able to alter the model to suit your needs.  Wizkid’s new range of unpainted kits, called Frameworks, takes some interesting approaches to this challenge and mostly it works very well.

The Stone Giant kit comes of three hard plastic frames, and need to be clipped out, prepped, assembled and then painted. Clear instructions are provided, but it’s a pretty obvious construction. We get some nice options weapons wise; the giant can wield a club, a boulder or nothing at all and the pose is such that adding extra items shouldn’t be too difficult.  We get a couple of options for the head and add some accessories, including a mountain goat to perch on the shoulder. We get a pretty basic base to mount the model on, and a clear plastic base as an alternative. As this is a s kit, you’re probably going to put something better together yourself, but it’s nice to have options.

The result is something the adheres closely to the Dungeons and Dragons monster manual; a huge, rock-like giant with gaunt features and a stern look.  Stone Giants are much more of a challenge when they are more than one and tend to work better as a distant threat. However this piece would, once assembled and painted, look great as a centre piece in various scenarios.

This is a fun kit and a solid example of what can be done with the Frameworks range.

Of all the merchandise that has come out of the popularity of Critical Role, the most interesting stuff is when it helps expand the world of table top roleplay. Dice and t-shirts are nice, but the various adventures and source books actually help bring the world to life on the gaming table. As do really good props, such as the pre-painted models provided by Wizkids.

 

The Forge Guardian first appeared in Critical Role’s Campaign One. It’s the creature that the Vox Machina team had to face before they could access The Core Anvil, the divine workshop that can be used to forge god killing weapons.

 

The model itself is in a single, guardian style pose. The paint job is pretty straight forward, obsidian like black for most of the model, with orange ‘lava’ highlights and some steel grey accents. It bears an enormous cleaver in one hand, with the other hand looking like a wicked looking mechanical gauntlet. The piece is very angular and covered in chains.

 

It makes for a good golem, robot or similarly inhuman threat for a party. It’s a striking piece, though not the sort of thing most people would instantly associate with Critical Role. A useful monster to add to the arsenal but definitely more a tool for Dungeon Masters than a bit of Critical Role Merchandise.