Welcome

This is a blog about the most important part of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing: the little tiny mens we push around on the battlemat. But I won't be talking about just D&D minis - I'll look at any little dude that can be thrown down for the Fighter to try and power attack. Horrorclix, Heroclix, Reaper metals, Games Workshop metals, paper minis, whatever strikes my fancy.

Modern D&D has one size constant: in 4e (D&D 'proper') and Pathfinder (Paizo's adaptation of OGL-era D&D) one side of a one-inch square on the battlemat is five scale feet.  That's 25.4mm - which means 5.08mm is one scale foot. I will be applying this 'unspoken' scale to all the miniatures I look at, although I will mention the figure's official scale when I know it. Base size is important in D&D, so I will provide its actual base size, and its D&D-intended base size. Clix humanoid minis, for instance, have a 1.5" base instead of the 1" base uses for medium-sized creatures in D&D.

I will also be measuring these miniatures as if they were living creatures. This means the following:

• Vertically-oriented bipeds (e.g., humanoids) are measured from bottom of feet to top of head
• Horizontally-oriented bipeds (e.g., birds, theropod dinosaurs) are measured for height from bottom of feet to hips. For length, it is tip of snout to vent/cloaca for currently extant animals, but total length (snout to tail tip) for extinct animals. Yes, this will cause confusion in the monster manuals.
• All quadrupeds and hexapeds are measured from snout to vent or anus, except again, for those creatures who are only known from fossil remains. Tails are often damaged or missing, or at the other extreme, are as long as the rest of the body. Thus tails can give a much misleading idea of the animal's size, and are excluded as part of the "size determination". These horizontally-oriented animals have their height measured from bottom of the foot to their shoulders.
• Winged creatures will have a wingspan listed whenever possible. This is measured from wingtip to wingtip when the wings are fully extended.
• Centauroids have their height measured as if they were humanoid, and their length measured as if they were quadrupeds.
• Diameters are used for creatures like cephalopods and oozes.
• Everything else will have this measurement information made explicit in the entry.

There is an inescapable review aspect to any opinion based blog, and this one will be no exception. I tend to favor realism in miniatures of things that actually exist, and pure coolness when looking at fantastic models. Dinosaurs will probably get especially savaged as most games are 20-30 years out of date on their dinosaur science, while Elementals will almost get a free ride as I'm happy as long as they're in the right neighborhood of size and look... element-y.

We'll start by looking at the summon monster suite of spells. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than trying to collect all the miniatures needed for these nine spells.