Why bother with a swarm of ravens miniature?
Swarms of ravens are far from the most dangerous Beasts, but they are surprisingly popular. Any stories with even a touch of horror or gothic in them will probably slip a swarm of ravens or two in. Swarms of any kind throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works for the PC’s, since they act so much differently than single counterparts, so it’s fun to throw a swarm in every now and then when your players are getting too complacent. Get a swarm of ravens mini, because you will likely use it repeatedly.
What about this mini?
This unpainted metal miniature is medium sized like it is meant to be, which made me happy. This mini is made by Reaper Miniatures: Murder of crows #03479. Julie Guthrie, one of the absolute greats in the field, who started sculpting minis back in the 1970’s, has created another magnificent mini with this sculpt. I have dozens of her minis, like this one and this one, and you will see plenty more of her sculpts here in future. It was an absolute pleasure to paint and looks great.
How useful is this mini, really?
Swarms of ravens are included in 9 published Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition books:
- Acquisitions Incorporated
- Candlekeep Mysteries
- Curse of Strahd
- Explorer’s Guide To Wildemount
- Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
- Monster Manual
- Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
- Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
- Xanathar’s Guide To Everything
That’s a decent number of publications. If you’re running published campaigns, you will need one eventually. Even if you don’t run published campaigns, they are a fun creature to toss at the party, and the mini looks so nice, it seems like a shame not to get one. At least, that’s what I told myself when I bought mine.
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 swarm of ravens miniature is on a medium sized base as it is supposed to be. In addition I would like to thank legendary wildlife artist Sherrie York, an astonishingly skilled 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 best linocut artist of our generation.