Where Can I Find Good Miniatures?

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I enjoy supplamenting my Pathfinder, D&D, and Savage Words games with 30mm plastic miniatures. However, the D&D Miniatures line has been discontinued, and the Pathfinder Battles line is painfully overpriced.

I'm looking for a miniatures line that provides a decent selection of pre-pained plastic miniatures at no more than $5 a piece. Note that I live in Canada.

[nedz]

You can buy figures online. This (http://theminiaturespage.com/oldlib/fan/25mm.html) is a list of suppliers.

[Ason]

It's about creating tokens on the cheap, so it's not an exact fit, but this article (http://newbiedm.com/2008/11/22/newbiedm-tutorial-counters-tokens-or-pogs/) nearly always gets mentioned anytime anyone brings up ways to get minis/tokens. It's a quick and useful read, even if you intend to focus solely on minis.

[Katana_Geldar]

Wizards are bringing out more minis soon, I think. In hordes as well, which is great.

[Solaris]

Look at some of Reaper's stuff. The newer ones are expensive, but the older ones are within your price range - or were, last I checked.

[lt_murgen]

I started "making" my own.

Mage Knight was a semi-successful game by Wizkids. Many of their figures fit well along the classical d&D lines, and many more are steampunk-ish. It died a few years back, so you could pick up bulk lots on e-bay rather cheaply. The problem was the large clix base.

I carefully cut them off the bases (finding a good method cost me half a box of band-aids). Then I went out and bought some Sculpey in 2 different tones of gray. Mixing them together gave me a nice mottled-stone look. A quick cut with a pill bottle (the inside diameter is just about 25mm) and a bake in the oven, and I had my own minis.

Repainted as I could to seperate the ones that looked the same, of course.

[Thialfi]

Wizards are bringing out more minis soon, I think. In hordes as well, which is great.

They are? I'd like to see that.

As for the old D&D miniatures, Ebay has lots of listings for pieces under $5 as well as some pretty heavily priced ones as well.

[Anxe]

Gotta bring up legos. I'd also second Mage Knight's figures. I just use em with the big bases. Cutting them off sounds cool, but I don't care that much.

[wadledo]

As an aside, is it unreasonable to expect to get one plastic miniature (like the kind Wizards of the Coast sell) for a dollar?

[lt_murgen]

It depends on where and how you shop.

Singles from ebay- maybe, but shipping costs a couple of dollars at least, so you have to buy multiple figures from a person who combines shipping.

BUlk from ebay- you might get lucky and find an auction that the total works out to less than $1 per figure, but expect to pay large sums bulk lots.

Online retailers- in my opinion this is the best place to get cheap minis. Many places run on-line sales on a weekly or monthly bases.

FLGS- I highly recommend shopping your friendly local gaming stores. And by local, I mean anything within a couple of hours drive. Most retailers, if they ahve anything in stock, will haggle- particularly if you were willing to travel a distance.

[kaomera]

As an aside, is it unreasonable to expect to get one plastic miniature (like the kind Wizards of the Coast sell) for a dollar?
Retail the answer is unfortunately that yes, it's generally unreasonable. DDM singles that are sold for less than a buck have been pulled from packs where the average value of each mini was higher due to the rarity scheme and/or consumer demand. When WotC or Paizo or Wizkids or Reaper or etc. sell a box of minis their total costs may come out to a buck per mini or less, but they still need to make a profit... Maybe if you were able to bypass some of these costs (for example: picking up the minis in bulk directly from the manufacturer without any packaging) it might work out, but otherwise you'll have to stick to commons on the secondary market if that's the price range you're looking at - and as has been mentioned, shipping and such can still drive the cost above that mark.

[Emmerask]

I like to take my miniatures from boardgames, you get a fun game you can play and pretty nice miniatures to reuse in other games, its a win win :smallbiggrin:

Only thing is they are in most cases not prepainted.
Hero Quest and Descent both have fantastic miniatures:smallsmile:

[Sgt. Cookie]

If you can, try getting a copy of the D&D board game. Despite being a pile of crap, the minis were rather decent.

[nedz]

Go to a convention, especially a war games convention. You can often find people selling off their old figures.

[Hzurr]

There are a couple of good sites where you can find d&d minis for cheap. The ones I've had success with are

rpglocker.com
auggiesgamesonline.com
trollandtoad.com

rpg locker usually has the best prices, but the selection is pretty spotty. Troll and Toad has the best selection, but tend to be priced the highest, and Auggies games is a balance between the two. Between those three stores, I've spent waaaaay too much money over the last year or so.

Another strategy, if you want lots of minis for cheap, is to look through some of the old starwars minis (on the sites listed above). You can do things like Gamorrean for orcs, tusken raiders for desert nomads, etc. The starwars minis are dirt cheap (sometimes), and I've found some that work great for $0.25

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Go to a convention, especially a war games convention. You can often find people selling off their old figures.

I'm planning on going to GottaCon in Victoria BC this year, so I'll try to find some there. I rather dislike Warhammer minis however, since they are smaller than D&D ones.

[dsmiles]

Reaper Legendary Encounters is pretty good.

[nedz]

I'm planning on going to GottaCon in Victoria BC this year, so I'll try to find some there. I rather dislike Warhammer minis however, since they are smaller than D&D ones.

There has been size inflation in figures for a long time. Basically the larger the figure: the better the detail can be and so the better the sales. I have an Ogre figure from the '70s which is about 40 mm tall, and its holding a rock above its head :smalltongue: Metal was expensive then, apparently.

[dsmiles]

There has been size inflation in figures for a long time. Basically the larger the figure: the better the detail can be and so the better the sales. I have an Ogre figure from the '70s which is about 40 mm tall, and its holding a rock above its head :smalltongue: Metal was expensive then, apparently.No kidding. I have an earth elemental from the early '80s. It's supposed to be about 10' tall (a large creature), but the mini only stands about 1.8" tall. Holding a rock over its head, even. (That's about the same size as a light warjack mini, and they're only supposed to be about 9 feet tall. :smalltongue:)

[SotF]

As a fix that works rather well, especially with various mooks, either go with cardstock tokens or standees. I think one monk still has several free paper minis that are pretty versatile and getting the token tool and simply printing it on Cardstock and cutting it out with a pair of scissors works exceedingly well (Though for tokens, the best option for easy and relatively long lasting is the heavy glossy photo paper)

[Crasical]

Gotta bring up legos. I'd also second Mage Knight's figures. I just use em with the big bases. Cutting them off sounds cool, but I don't care that much.

Building off Anxe here, Lego just released Lord of the Rings sets, so you can put together Halfling, dwarf, and elf minifigs from those parts. Give it a google.

[zanetheinsane]

DDM Singles from CoolStuffInc are almost always cheaper than eBay. They have 99 cent shipping on all orders if you only get singles.

If they don't have it, I go to TrollandToad and as a last resort eBay. You can get a good deal on eBay lots where older gamers are selling their collections but you don't get to cherry-pick what you need.

Edit: Didn't see the Canada part, so check their costs! Not sure if they do the 99 cent thing for up there =p

I buy lots of stuff from Canada on eBay but dang, Canada Post prices to U.S. = :smallannoyed: Not sure if it works like that both ways.