Once the pandemic is over and we’re able to play D&D in-person again, you’ll want to have your first game back be one to remember. If you play with maps and minis, there’s no better way to make a session memorable than to plant a gigantic monster miniature on the table and give your players the fight of their lives.
WizKids has just released (or made available for pre-order) a trio of hulking dragon miniatures that will have your players’ characters running for cover! Take a look at some photos of these monsters, and learn how you might be able to use them in your campaign!
Adult White Dragon
The most common of the three new dragon miniatures is the adult white dragon. Clocking in at CR 13, the adult white dragon is an excellent boss monster to challenge adventurers at the high end of tier 2 or the low end of tier 3.
White dragons are the most bestial of the chromatic dragons. They lack the intelligence of their other chromatic kin, but they do possess a certain bestial cunning. It’s easy to imagine an adventuring party being hunted by an adult dragon and their young through an icy wasteland.
An adult white dragon appears not once, but twice in the Tyranny of Dragons saga. The first, Glazhael the Cloudchaser, appears at the end of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The second, a mighty dragon known as Old White Death, can be found within his iceberg lair in the early chapters of Rise of Tiamat.
This miniature is massive compared to adult white dragon miniatures from previous editions. Its intimidating size is sure to make an impression!
You can pre-order this miniature from WizKids’s website.
Sapphire Dragon
Last year, for D&D’s 45th anniversary (the “sapphire anniversary”), Wizards of the Coast released special statistics for the mighty sapphire dragon.
The sapphire dragon's game statistics were originally bundled with an incredibly expensive commemorative dice set with a real sapphire embedded in the d20! Fortunately, you don't need to shell out hundreds of dollars to get the sapphire dragon’s game statistics on D&D Beyond.
Sapphire dragons are living gemstones imbued with immense psionic power. They are also lawful neutral, meaning that they could be either ally or enemy for a group of adventurers—no matter their alignment.
At CR 15, an adult sapphire dragon could be a truly mighty boss monster for tier 3 adventurers to test their mettle against.
You can buy this miniature on WizKids’s website.
Chardalyn Dragon
Monstrous and enormous beyond any dragon miniature seen since the dawn of fifth edition D&D, the chardalyn dragon is a truly terrifying foe found within the upcoming adventure Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
This dragon is a construct crafted from chardalyn, a mysterious substance that is cold as black ice and yet harder than steel. This unsettling magical material can be found scattered across the snowy wastes of Icewind Dale.
The chardalyn dragon is suffused with evil magic, and its malevolence radiates from its icy body to corrupt those around it. If your characters fight this creature in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, this truly colossal miniature will make a huge impact.
Even though this creature’s size is Gargantuan (it occupies a 4-by-4-square area), its base size is bigger to support its massive size. There’s a white line drawn in a ring in the middle of the dragon’s clear plastic base to show you where its “true” space is. This lets miniatures move onto its base without entering its space, so the fight keeps running smoothly.
You can pre-order this miniature from WizKids’s website.
Get ready for icy adventures in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden by preordering the digital version on D&D Beyond, and get free preorder bonuses like the Glacial Digital Dice Set.
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James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Poorly worded title, okay article. Overall I'm disappointed.
He has returned
the B L U E B O I
Geeze
Even with the white ring denoting its true space, that sapphire dragon is larger that Huge (3x3 square). From the photos, the white circle on the mini occupies 4x4, making it Gargantuan; which would make it an Ancient dragon rather than an Adult.
That Chardalyn mini is amazing, I can only imagine the looks I would get from my players if I dropped that onto a table.
can i get the dice any other way without preordering?
I love these huge dragon minis. The bigger the better. i missed out on the old Colossal Red (The one used for Thordak) because at the time, the 99 bucks was too steep. (Now it would cost me ten times that... sigh)
I have plans for that Chardalyn dragon. It's going to get a paint job upgrade and some mods... bwaahaha! Can't wait.
Is it just me or did anyone else notice the text reads
”This dragon is a construct crafted from chardalyn, a mysterious substance that is cold as black ice and yet harder than steel."
Yet it is specifically stated in the Lore that Chardalyn is super brittle and used for holding magical properties and being able to be broken easily to release a spell cast on it like a gem stone.
Things are absolutely capable of being extremely hard, yet quite brittle. See: diamonds; glass.
Cool. Doesn't ship to Canada.
No international shipping... sad
Brittle doesn't mean weak. It means the material will break before it will bend. The harder a substance is, the more brittle it will be, because the less malleable it is.
Titanium and diamond are real world examples of hard, brittle substances. Titanium is often only used in industrial tools and jewelry rather than large scale construction because of this property.
There are also methods of taking relatively weak substances and refining them into something stronger.
Then: there's just the fact that sometimes things change from one edition to the next.
No one picked up on the Strong Bad quote in the title? I must be getting old.
As someone already pointed out, gargantuan means 20 by 20 feet or larger, so no, they're not too big.
Statistically sure,, but I'm talking functionally. The white dragon is only huge, not gargantuan, thus should fit in the force cage, but won't. The chardalyn, given its statistical true size inner ring, should fit on the stone bridge, but won't. The larger base is for stability; if its size was just "or larger" than 20ft, it wouldn't need the inner ring. So yes, they're a bit too big.
I think you're right that these were not created with support in mind for fitting within walled 3D terrain spaces, or for allowing spell templates to be placed over or around them. The assumptions here are clearly that they're being placed on a 2D surface and that the majority of other objects on that surface are also 2D (like flat spell effect templates, character sheets) or are Medium sized creatures that fit underneath the wings. That's not a terrible tradeoff for most people, since 3D terrain and spell effect templates aren't used as often as minis are used in general. However, I'm guessing that most people buying these "minis" end up using them for display more than for actual play, anyway. A truly practical "mini" would be smaller simply because that would be less expensive.
Consummate V's! I said CONSUMMATE!
Not that these aren't cool, they are. But for the budget minded among us I think looking in garage sales and bargain toy bins might be better for our games.
I really hope with all the new miniature releases WizKids makes a miniature set for the starter set and Essentials kit along with figures for the Rick & Morty set.
i really like the Adult White Dragon design. It’s my favorite chromatic, and I like to see it as the big , bestial predator, dropping on the party.