Why bother with a hill giant miniature?
Hill giants are likely going to be the first giant of the Ordning (the ‘proper’ giants) that your players will encounter, as the lowest ranking members of the Ordning. It’s a lot of fun to watch the expressions of the players as they realise just how massive they are compared to their PC’s. An entire town of hill giants will usually make them realise that violence is not going to be the answer in this case. As the lowest CR giants in the Ordning, they are likely to be the giants you will use the most, so it’s not a bad idea to pick one up.
What about this mini?
This unpainted mini is made by WizKids as part of their Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line, Hill giant #73679. It’s a nice sculpt, and wasn’t too hard to paint, while looking really nice. Also, unlike some of the WizKids minis of giants which I will discuss at another point, this mini is the correct size for the table. It is huge, which is the size that hill giants are meant to be, so I was happy when I got it. I put off painting this mini for a long time out of fear of how large it was and how long it would take, but in the end it wasn’t that bad, and it was worth it for how good it looks on the table. No regrets. Hill giants are so powerful that you won’t be able to pull it out until your players have quite a few levels under their belts, but it leaves an impression when you do finally get it to the table.
How useful is this mini, really?
Hill giants are included in 13 published Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition books:
- Bigby Presents: Glory Of The Giants
- Explorer’s Guide To Wildemount
- Ghosts Of Saltmarsh
- Guildmaster’s Guide To Ravnica
- Monster Manual
- Planescape: Adventures In The Multiverse
- Princes Of The Apocalypse
- Quests From The Infinite Staircase
- Storm King’s Thunder
- Tales From The Yawning Portal
- Tyranny Of Dragons
- Volo’s Guide To Monsters
- Xanathar’s Guide To Everything
That’s about a third of the published materials. If you are playing published campaigns, you will be bumping into these guys sooner than later, so it’s good to have a mini of a hill giant on hand for when you do. Even if you’re not playing published campaigns, they are still iconic creatures of myth and legend, and are just plain fun to throw into the mix. Just get one. You know that you want to…
But why are you doing this?
As usual for these videos, my aim is to provide you with good views of all angles of the miniatures featured, along with accurate sizing information for them. As I already pointed out, the hill giant miniature is on a huge sized base as it is supposed to be. In addition I want to thank master wildlife artist Sherrie York, a reduction linocut virtuoso, for graciously allowing me to use one of her reduction linocuts, Shivano Sunset, as the backdrop for my miniatures in the video. Check out her other reduction linocuts; she is, in my opinion, the greatest linocut artist of our generation.