MTG Reidane Unpainted Miniature (Wave 14)
Reidane, Goddess of Justice comes from Wave 14 of WizKids’ Magic: The Gathering Unpainted Miniatures line — a Kaldheim character sold primed, unpainted and single-piece, at roughly 8-12 EUR. Buy her as a test piece if you already paint a little and want a sculpt with enough detail to be worth the effort. She is the wrong first miniature: the fine work on her armour and jewellery will punish someone still learning brush control.
What you get
The package holds one unpainted Reidane miniature and a detailed base, in a clear plastic case that doubles as storage once she is painted. Nothing needs gluing and nothing needs priming — WizKids apply their primer at the factory, so the figure goes straight from packaging to base coat.
That pre-primed surface is worth a note. It has a slightly tacky texture that helps thin paint grip rather than bead up, which removes the step most likely to go wrong for a newer painter — an uneven rattle-can prime on a cold day.
The sculpt catches Reidane mid-stride with her shield raised. That pose matters practically as well as visually: the raised arm and the folds it creates give natural shadow zones, so even basic drybrushing reads as deliberate shading.
Scale and cross-use
The figure is scaled for standard 28mm tabletop grids and the base fits a 25mm round slot, with a total height around 40mm including the base. That makes her usable well beyond Magic — she reads convincingly as a medium humanoid, so a painted Reidane can serve as a cleric or paladin in a D&D or Pathfinder campaign and go back to decorating a Commander deck box between sessions.
WizKids produce this line under licence from Wizards of the Coast, to the same manufacturing standards as their D&D Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures range. In practice that means the casting quality is a known quantity rather than a gamble.
Painting her
Reidane’s palette leans on white and gold for the divine theme. A workable starting set:
- Vallejo White
- Citadel Retributor Armour for the gold
- Army Painter Soft Tone for shading
The sequence is the standard one, and thin layers matter more than anything else. Base coat everything first, then wash the recesses — the robe folds and the shadow under the shield arm are where a wash earns its keep. Highlight last, with a lighter mix of each base colour on the raised edges, which is what produces the glow the sculpt is asking for.
Two practical notes. The details are sharp enough to take fine brushwork on eyes, jewellery and weapon edges without those elements merging under a loaded brush — but that cuts both ways, since it means a heavy hand shows. And a simple snow base, white PVA mixed with baking soda, matches Kaldheim’s Norse winter setting and takes a couple of minutes.
In the card game
Reidane is not only a display piece. Her abilities do specific work at the table:
- Anti-snow: she taxes snow-covered lands, which makes opponents think twice about a snow deck.
- Taxing non-creature spells: slowing an opponent’s spells buys you tempo.
What works and what does not
Works well:
- Pre-primed and single-piece, so there is no assembly and no priming step to get wrong.
- Clean casting with minimal mold lines.
- 28mm scale and a 25mm base make her useful in RPGs, not just Magic.
- Around 8-12 EUR, well under premium resin figures while holding comparable sculpt quality for a single character.
Does not:
- The fine detail is genuinely hard for a first-time painter.
- She costs more than the cheapest unpainted minis, and the value depends on you actually painting her.
- A finished piece takes real time; this is not a shelf-ready collectible out of the box.
Where she sits in Wave 14
Against the rest of the wave she holds up well. The armour detail and the dynamic pose make her a standout next to more static sculpts, which is part of why she works as a centrepiece rather than one figure among many on a shelf.
The clear plastic case she ships in is worth keeping — it stores the finished miniature perfectly adequately once painted. Anyone carrying figures to a convention or a regular game night will still want a foam-lined transport case, but for a piece that lives on a shelf the original packaging does the job.
Availability is not a problem: the line is stocked by game shops that carry WizKids products and by the usual online tabletop retailers.
Verdict
8/10. Reidane is one of the better sculpts in Wave 14 and the pre-primed, single-piece format removes the two steps that most often put people off starting. What keeps her from a higher score is that the detail level assumes some existing skill, so the people most attracted by the character are not always the ones best served by the figure.
She is an accessible entry point for an MTG player curious about painting — a familiar character is real motivation to pick up a brush — provided they accept she is a project rather than a purchase. Wave 14 holds other Kaldheim characters if you want a coherent Norse shelf once you have finished her.
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