Legendary Evils: Preview 1

Keith Tatroe, lead designer on Monster Manual: Legendary Evils, gives us our first sneak peak at this summer's huge release!

Welcome to the first DDM Guild preview of Legendary Evils! It feels like just yesterday, a new set came out. Or was it yesterday? While Legendary Evils won’t be out until after Gen Con, not everybody is preparing for the upcoming Constructed Championships. Some of us are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to share what we've been hard at work on for the past several months.

Epic has always been my favorite form of DDM (well, after Limited, but more on that later), and as soon as a huge set was announced, I eagerly anticipated it, like many fans.

I happened to be in Seattle as the Guild leadership was preparing to start work on the stats for the set, and had the opportunity to see the set list -- and upon seeing it, I knew I had to be involved. Not only was it an Epic set, but there were all sorts of figures people had been wanting for a while. We haven't seen a Draconian in many years, and now we were going to get two. And how could you go wrong with a huge Balor (which we're calling an "Unbound Balor" to distinguish it from its older, less huge sibling)?

But there was also another huge that demanded special attention. There was a Beholder. A big honking Beholder. And it needed big honking stats.

Up to now, Icons aside, the Nightwalker has held the honor of being the figure with the highest point cost in the game. But no more. The Beholder Ultimate Tyrant is a big, bad solo in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and it needed to feel like a big, bad solo in the skirmish game. It demanded to take the throne from the Nightwalker and stomp all over its paltry 393 points.

But fear not, even in sealed play, you can actually run multiple figures when you run the Beholder. Well, if you get the common Human Rabble in your booster, anyway. We decided to not go for a full 400 points for one figure... and scaled it way down, to 397 points.

But what do you get for 397 points? Pretty much a warband-on-a-stick. How can one figure take the place of a whole warband? Well, Multi-Activation 4 is a good start. It's like having four 100 point figures, all wrapped up in one shiny purple eyeball with eyestalks.

Beholders are known for their array of Eye Rays. But, as this is no ordinary Beholder, its four rays target areas, rather than a single target. It only lets its foes take one action per turn, thanks to its minor action Central Eye. And it worries less about ongoing conditions than the average figure, mitigating one of the traditional problems with putting too many of your eggs in one basket.

Oh, did I say more about Limited later? Jim Ansaldo (design conspirator on this set) and myself will be at the prerelease of Legendary Evils at GenCon. We’ll be playing. And there will be cool prizes if you can manage to take us down. Want to know what those cool prizes are? You’re gonna have to show up to find out.

But above all, keep playing!

The next preview will cover one of the groups of figures Peter mentioned we’d start seeing. But which one – the creatures people have been clamoring for more of since Archfiends or one that first showed up towards the end of 3.5, yet has gained quite the following?

Despite being balder and more handsome, Keith Tatroe is not the ktatroe you're looking for.