Gameplay Laeral comes on a tabletop-accurate medium size base, dressed in flowing robes, and floating in a fairly neutral pose. The sculpt is based on her official D&D character art, as depicted in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and other material. This is notable, because the other 5th edition Laeral figure from Icons of the Realms Laeral Silverhand miniature is a more martial figure, with a different hairstyle, and wielding a blade. An odd choice, considering Laeral is, and always has been, a spellcaster. The discrepancy is so great, I cannot help but wonder if the modeler got her confused with her sister, Storm Silverhand. As a result, the D&D Collector's Series figure here is the only one that will give a lore accurate visual on your tabletop. Modeling The miniature comes in two pieces, body and hair. Take care when removing her hair from the sprue, as it slightly overlaps with the main bar of moulding resin. In order to get the hair to sit flush against her head, you will have to use a pointed file to hollow its base out evenly around the very, very small attachment bump in the center. This is somewhat delicate work, given that the detail of her hair bun is very very easy to scratch. Her robe is very detailed, but can come with some resin flash or slightly irregularities that need sanding. This is not hard, but do not grasp her too tightly when doing so or you can damage some of the finer details. See the "Issues" section below for information about her base. Issues Laeral's base and getting her to stand up properly is the lone problem with this kit. The only portion of her miniature that touches the base is near the front of her robes. On the sprue, you will notice a small peg that connects with her sprue as well as some resin injection columns on either side of it. This peg goes into the hole on her base, but it is seriously undersized and given the floating nature of the model, you can't count on gravity to help you when gluing like you can with many of the other Collector's Series figures. Take care when clipping the resin columns on the left and right undersides of her dress. Putting too much stress can snap off the fragile base-peg. Once those are gone, you can just bend the sprue off the base-peg (carefully). To get her to stand up straight, you need to use some object to hold her upright and in place while the glue in the base sets. I cut out a square of cardboard from the side of a toilet paper roll and set it upright (with the cut space on the bottom). Then I slid her back up against the roll so that her base was partially underneath it using the space i made from cutting out the square. A setup like this is useful because it is difficult to get her centered, and not leaning forward, backwards, or to either side. I put a circular labeled sticker on the bottom of the base to make sure the glue stayed in (and didn't pour out the bottom onto my modeling table). This is more of a concern here than with other Collector's Series figures due to how undersized her base-peg is. In the unfortunate circumstance where you break off the base-peg, you're going to need to use a modeling drill and insert some kind of tiny pipe clipping into it to serve as a replacement. Just gluing the bottom of the dress to the base does not creating a strong bond and will likely snap after any amount of play or handling while painting. Conclusion Despite the issues with the base, I can't really down-rate this miniature. Assuming you are aware of the nuances of getting her properly assembled and have at least basic modeling tools (file, pointed file, sandpaper, something to stand her up while drying), its not that much of an imposition. The figure looks fantastic when completed, like she's popped right out of the book. Laeral appears in Tyranny of Dragons (Hoard of the Dragon Queen + Rise of Tiamat) and is also relevant for the Waterdeep based adventures (Dragon Heist + Dungeon of the Mad Mage) so you'll get more than enough use of her to justify the extra work she requires compared to some of the other human-sized Collector's Series Minis. If you want a Laeral Silverhand that actually looks like Laeral Silverhand, this is the one to get.
