Minatures

[merfolkotpt]

Hey gang,
Was thinking back on the hodge podge of figures my old group used to use and was wondering what everyone liked to use for their groups. So what kinds of figures do you use? Do you use any at all? Are they repurposed from another game? Do you make your players bring one for their character?

[Assassin89]

My D&D group has some plastic and pewter figurines, but most of the time, we use dice as playing pieces (another use for d12s).

[monty]

One group I'm in uses little plastic animal figures. I'm usually the blue turtle
Actually, this was a little confusing in the Heavy Gear session we had yesterday, when the bear figure was a Mad Dog, the dog was a Tiger, and the cat was a Grizzly. That was a pain to keep track of.

My other group doesn't use minis very often, but when we do, we just use whatever small objects are handy.

[RTGoodman]

Well, I've got a small duffel-bag full of WotC plastic D&D minis, so I usually use those when I DM. Occasionally DMs will ask me to bring those for other games, too, but not always.

If we don't use those, I've been in groups that just use coins and other knick-knacks for PCs and dice for minis, and even groups that just used initials written in squares in pencil so they could be erased with the character moved.

[merfolkotpt]

One of the reasons I ask is because in my previous intense gaming life we always used figures, and more recently we haven't been and as a result combat seems much more confusing. This may be the result of a less competent DM, but there is also something cool about seeing your character, if a little bit off, standing in front of you, or flanking the big bad.

[Thurbane]

We used to use a hodge-podge of painted (and unpainted) lead minis from a variety of manufacturers, as well as a lot of game pieces borrowed from games like Hero Quest and Space Crusade.

These days, we have a decent collection of DDM minis that we use.

[BobVosh]

All of us are nerdy enough to play D&D minis. In fact 3 of us worked at game stores. I easily have over 2000 minis. I also probably have the smallest collection.

Although I did use some Tyranids from WH40k to mess with them.

[AgentPaper]

I use WotC minis, and have at least a few hundred of them, all sitting in my closet when not in use. I would actually love to have a lot more, but refuse to buy any more from WotC until they allow me to actually choose what I'm buying. I have more kruthik figures than I have orcs and goblins combined, for example, which gets annoying. Most of the figures I have are uncommon and strange types, and I don't even have an ogre! I have a single dragon, at least, though it has a rider, unfortunately.

Anyone know some place where I can buy painted DnD figures like what WotC sells, but either by the model or in themed packs? (ie, a pack of 30 assorted goblins, mostly warriors and archers) It's eternally frustrating to never have the right type or amount of minis. For example my planned campaign will have a lot of cultists, and trolls, and greek-style and persian-style soldiers, so if I could go and buy a dozen or so of each, I think it would add a lot to my game. (the fighting bits, at least)

[Totally Guy]

We dress up mannakins and put them in our group's actual dungeon. We don't call them miniatures however.

Just kidding. That room's reserved for the giant wizard chess set.

Does anyone know where you get replacement giant wizard chess pieces?

[RTGoodman]

Anyone know some place where I can buy painted DnD figures like what WotC sells, but either by the model or in themed packs? (ie, a pack of 30 assorted goblins, mostly warriors and archers) It's eternally frustrating to never have the right type or amount of minis. For example my planned campaign will have a lot of cultists, and trolls, and greek-style and persian-style soldiers, so if I could go and buy a dozen or so of each, I think it would add a lot to my game. (the fighting bits, at least)

Ebay is the place to go for that sort of thing for now. Check there first. After that, well, WotC is going to non-randomized minis sometime this year (you can get one pack with the PHB classes, one pack of certain kinds of monsters, etc.).

[AslanCross]

I've got a box full of D&D miniatures. It took me 2 years to actually assemble the proper miniatures for our 5-man party. <_< Stupid randomization.
At least they're scrapping the skirmish game and catering more to the DM/Player crowd, hence the departure from the totally random format.

[monty]

We dress up mannakins and put them in our group's actual dungeon. We don't call them miniatures however.

Just kidding. That room's reserved for the giant wizard chess set.

Does anyone know where you get replacement giant wizard chess pieces?

Wizard chess. That would be any battle involving a mid- to high-level wizard, right?

[Totally Guy]

Wizard chess. That would be any battle involving a mid- to high-level wizard, right?

Didn't I mention we've all converted to 4th Edition?

[monty]

Didn't I mention we've all converted to 4th Edition?

Never mind. So wizard chess changed to wizard doing-the-fighter's-job-in-a-slightly-different-way, then.

[Zaq]

Generally speaking we use dice. It's convenient for monsters of the same type, because they have numbers built in. (The dire rats are the red d6s, the trolls are the blue ones...) Sometimes we use a whiteboard and just write in and erase what we need. In one campaign I was in a couple months ago I brought in a handful of random Mario figurines. I was Mario, my roommate was Luigi, the orc with a permanencied Enlarge Person was the huge-ass Toad figure I have...

[Totally Guy]

Never mind. So wizard chess changed to wizard doing-the-fighter's-job-in-a-slightly-different-way, then.

I hate to kill jokes be explaining them...

I was referencing Harry Potter. Then on the follow up gag I was trying to ride on the 4th edition fan reaction. This is why I wish the little emoticons worked for me reliably.

[Waspinator]

Here's how I do 'em:

Spoiler

Show

Nice, customizable, and cheap. Only takes some paper, hot glue, and a penny for each one.

[Avor]

Hey gang,
Was thinking back on the hodge podge of figures my old group used to use and was wondering what everyone liked to use for their groups. So what kinds of figures do you use? Do you use any at all? Are they repurposed from another game? Do you make your players bring one for their character?

I usaly use nothing but grid paper and pencil. Works as fine as game mat and figures.

But I do own a decebt ammount of reaper minitures, I just realy enjoy painting them. I have enught to equip a party, but not enough to run a game.

[d13]

One of my players, for my birthay, made me TWO COMPLETE CARDBOARDS of generic monsters drawings...

Random Zombie-ish thingies, Kobold-ish thingies, Random Humanoids... And even the PCs' portrait fully detailed...

He's teh gawd of pencil and paper xD

[Narmoth]

For PCs, we use Warhammer miniatures. For monsters, I've used some warhammer stuff, like skeletons, some of the boxes from D&D (not a good buy at all), and chess pieces

[monty]

Here's how I do 'em:

Spoiler

Show

Nice, customizable, and cheap. Only takes some paper, hot glue, and a penny for each one.

Spoilers please. They make the page fat, and it's annoying to read the other posts.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

I'd like to have all of Rich's Avatars as a set of minis. Front and back, taped to a penny as shown above.

Of course, we'd need all the mosters done up OotS style as well!

Good, cheap minis!

[Kiero]

I have never, in 15 years of gaming, used minis in a game. Not when I was playing weekly AD&D, not in our WFRP game, not even when we were playing Star Wars with Saga Edition.

[PurinaDragonCho]

I have a large pile of minis and I used to try to use them. One day, I saw some small poker chips in a game shop, and I bought them. Sure enough, they fit perfectly inside one square on the battle mat. Then, I got a sharpie and numbered them. So now, when my group is attacked by 12 badguys, it's easy to remember which bad guy got hit for four points of damage, which one is entangled, etc. I don't have to remember "the orc with the longsword mini got hit for 6, and the undead kobold monk got hit for 8" - especially when the badguys are moving around, it can be really difficult. The players still use minis, but it's easy to remember which mini is which character.

This solved one of my biggest problems as DM.

[kamuishirou]

I love using Miniatures. We use to paint them back in the early days of 3ed. Our DM would even give us bonus experience for painting some of his miniatures. It was a lot of fun. Then Mage Knight came out and I bought a case of that. We bought bases and ripped all the Mage Knight guys off there bases and glued them to square bases. It worked great. Then DDM came out and it was even easier.

I have thousands of miniatures and love using them. My DM always uses a different mini for each NPC, so he doesn't have much trouble distinguishing them. Though I've been thinking about painting the bases a different color to help split them up. Especially with all the goblins I have that look similar.

I can't wait for the new packs to be release. It'll be nice to have some Dragonborn miniatures instead of using the Half-Dragon miniatures that I've been using.

[Magnor Criol]

The group I first started playing with, who'd been playing for several years before I met them, never used miniatures of any sort, it was just a mental thing. If distance is important, we'd ask the DM "Are we close enough to charge," "I step just close enough to cause him to provoke an AoO if he moves," etc. If we need it the the DM sketches a map on his notebook for us. It works out for the most part.

Recently, though, I got us using dice as miniatures; we were playing through an Eberron module at the moment and our specific positions were very important, so I convinced the DM to bust out a dry erase board and I provided the markers (for the grid) and my spare dice for the figures. It caught on, and we've been using them since, even in other games in the same group.

We use miniatures in another group I play with, but their collection isn't too broad, so the figs rarely match up well - or even at all - with the characters they represent.

[AslanCross]

I once had to improvise miniatures because I didn't have a Bluespawn Godslayer mini. I cobbled one together with Zoids BLOX parts. It still looked pretty awesome. My players were shocked when they saw it was about 4 times the height of their own miniatures.

I also have three dragons now: the Large Green dragon that came with that nonrandom 4E miniatures pack, the Gargantuan Blue dragon, and the Gargantuan White that came with the Drizzt and Wulfgar miniatures in that set. (One of my classes gave it to me as a Christmas gift. It is still the best gift I've received from my students ever.)

[Mando Knight]

I can't wait for the new packs to be release. It'll be nice to have some Dragonborn miniatures instead of using the Half-Dragon miniatures that I've been using.

Yeah... WotC kinda dropped the ball on that one. Dragonborn Paladin? Sure... not. I've got a Elder Red Dragon, but not the Dragonborn from that pack. The Ghoul King? Yeah, I've got one o' him. Any Dragonborn? Not. A. Chance.

[Olo Demonsbane]

I have lots of different types of dice, so I use them as minis whenever I decide to use minis (repeating terms, X on OR). I turn the numbers to show the initative order.

[Alteran]

Yeah... WotC kinda dropped the ball on that one. Dragonborn Paladin? Sure... not. I've got a huge Red Dragon, but not the Dragonborn from that pack. The Ghoul King? Yeah, I've got one o' him. Any Dragonborn? Not. A. Chance.

According to WoTC, the biggest problem with dragonborn is that they were complicated enough so that they couldn't make a good-looking one at uncommon quality. This means they're all rare, and therefore expensive to buy.

Our DM was lucky enough to actually get two Dragonborn Defenders, so that's what I use for my paladin. Before he got those, I used a blackspawn from an older pack.