I've seen the term "exotic" used for heroes like Steelhorns, Zyla, Ispher, Karnak, Lyssa, etc. I'd even apply it to heroes like Oakaluk & Rakash, Vyra, Ronan, and Challara since while they're still sort of more common races at least they include animal partners.

I guess classes now allow for familiars too, and I do like the heroes in 2nd Ed and its expansions, but I just find that as a new player the Heroes and Monsters packs are so much more interesting (in regards to the miniatures at least) than the boxed expansions. Even relatively more vanilla heroes like Arvel Worldwaker, Krutzbeck, and Grey Ker seem to stick out and at the very least have interesting poses.

As I understand it, the miniatures for the Heroes and Monsters packs are not identical to those that came with the First Edition.

So, has FFG ever acknowledged the quality and creativity over the H&M minis over the boxed expansions? Do others feel the same as I do?

Again, I love almost all of the minis I have for Descent, so I don't mean to trash on the rest that second edition has to offer- just the fact that I feel so much more excited about and drawn to the re-implemented stuff, even as someone who did not ever play first edition.

I'm a big fan of the exotic heroes! In fact, in my playgroups Ispher, Steelhorns, Lyssa, Okaluk and Rakash, Ronan, Vyrah and Challara are amongst the most played heroes. Aesthetics matter a great deal.

Doesn't hurt that a lot of us are a bunch of furries :3

Karnon would probably see more play if he didn't have such terrible attribute distribution. It sorta makes him unplayable outside of RtL in my view...

I was in particular looking forward to a reprinting of Varikas the Dead - an undead hero would be an awesome new addition. Sadly, it doesn't look like that's ever going to happen.. to my great sorrow

And it is important you point out that all those heroes are from the H&M collections. The core boxes have much more 'generic' heroes of the Dwarf/Elf/Human variety with no familiars..

And speaking of exotics, Maliki the Claw from the Runebound universe would be awesome...

Maybe some distant future 3rd edition will surprise and delight us with more heroes of the exotic sort..

Ooh, I'm not very knowledgable of the Runebound universe yet, but Maliki the Claw looks awesome!

And yeah, I really miss not having Varikas. I wonder if he was excluded because it seems like 2nd Ed. features the dead as enemies a lot (particularly with the last few boxes)?

I see that we're missing 12 of the original heroes still. Are we missing any monsters from 1st edition?

I wouldn't mind another 3 H&M packs for the missing heroes, with either other missing monsters or original ones.

It's really sad that the last 12 heroes weren't re-released. There are even pictures of them in RtL, one of them even for Varikas.

But I think technically you can at least count Shiver as an undead hero.

1 hour ago, DerDelphi said:

But I think technically you can at least count Shiver as an undead hero.

Ah yeah, he's a shade.

According to the wiki, wraiths (including a picture of a shade) are aligned with Waiquar. So that means Shiver would be just as unlikely a hero as Verikas. So maybe that's not the reason he was excluded. Maybe I should just get the second edition conversion kit and just use Ardus as the mini?