Dragons Counter Pack
One thing I noticed right away on my Dragons Counter Pack is that there is no D20 symbol. I don’t know if this is because the people at Fiery Dragon have put a minimum amount of role playing material, there is a new dragon, or because they’re relying on name recognition now for their quality counters, but it is a strange thing.
The second thing I note is that these smaller counter packs must work great for them. For example, they don’t have to bind the book. They don’t have to staple it. Just shrink-wrap it and its good to go.
The counters feature the great art of Claudio Pozas and because many of them are dragons, the sizes of many of the counters are larger and provide us with more detail than we’ve seen in previous products.
The product manages to provide numerous sized counters to represent different age categories of dragons. It’s too bad that they couldn’t work out a deal or some sort with Mongoose who recently came out with the Slayer’s Guide to Dragons. Some of the unique dragon sub types in that book need representation and as Fiery Dragon proved with their Demons & Devils counter pack, they can be trusted with another company’s material.
My main grip here though, isn’t the detail or style. It’s the fact that they didn’t take advantage of the larger counters. For example, some of the counters have a lot of detail, showing the majority of the body with the wings cut off while others go with the traditional head shots. This wouldn’t be too bad, but when you have multiple sized versions of the creature, like the red dragon, and its just a bigger head shot, it doesn’t look quite as cool as say the blue or green where you’ve got pretty much the full body.
Outside of the standard dragons, we also get an undead, and a psionic drake icon. The psionic drake is actually done up in the text accompanying the book. This dragon has all the standard size ratings insuring that GMs can challenge groups from 1st level to 20th level. Strangely enough, this is a chaotic beast. I thought that unusual since I always think of psionics as a lawful undertaking. The dangerous thing about psionic drakes is that they gains psionic powers as a psion using their charisma as their modifier. Coup this with the drakes natural physical powers and immunities and you’ve got a very dangerous opponent.
The non-dragon counters include kobolds, lizard men, chimeras and wyverns. They make a nice addition to those who need more than just dragons but want a dragon related set. Mages also get a pseudo-dragon counter finally.
The counters are done in the standard style which means the art is good but sometimes suffers from the shrinking process when its highly detailed. In some instances though, I wish the counters were labeled as there is something, perhaps a yuan-ti, that I have no idea what it actually is.
The counters are a great way to avoid having to buy those Mage Knight dragons because I know I’m not buying a $45 metal dragon and after spending hours painting it, placing it into play. Those things get chipped way too easily and even after pinning, I don’t like to move ‘em. This leaves me with two choices. Mage Knight or Fiery Dragon Counters. The Mage Knight larger models are great but the variety with the Counters can be beat, especially for the price. The stats for the psionic drake are just icing on the top.
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