Minis on the cheap

**Erom** · 2010-04-01, 08:59 AM (ISO 8601)

Hey all. Advice question.

Typically, to save money, I've always played with stand-in minis (cardboard tokens, lego figures, whatever) which works great, but the group I'm in now seems to enjoy actual figures. I'd like to roll with the crowd here, and get some minis of my own, but I don't exactly relish shelling out enough of an investment to get into actual DnD minis (If I was only buying a couple of heroes for my characters that would be fine, but we rotate DMs so once every 4th session or so I also need monster minis.). I can borrow from one of the other guys most of the time, but I would like to contribute, you know?

So, does anyone know a good source for cheapo minis that are scale-compatible with dnd? For less money, I expect less quality, and a lower resolution paint job/ no paint job, so that's fine. They just have to look OK and be the right size.

**bosssmiley** · 2010-04-01, 09:27 AM (ISO 8601)

eBay / Craigslist, or just buy bags of cheap plastic (dino, zoo animal) minis and kitbash them into monsters with snips and polyglue

**Ravens_cry** · 2010-04-01, 09:41 AM (ISO 8601)

Print out pictures of the beasties on card-stock and fold into a tent like shape for minis that are super cheap. Weighting them down may help stability.
Like this

**Iban** · 2010-04-01, 10:00 AM (ISO 8601)

To stick with the 'make your own' theme, you could make some out of fimo.

If you haven't heard of this, its a plastacine like substance that you can mold into shape and bake to set it. There are thousands of colours and its dirt cheap.

So you could make lots of really basic monsters (like rats or something) that you would end up using over and over again.

**Erom** · 2010-04-01, 10:03 AM (ISO 8601)

Indeed, paper is my backup plan (Tri-folds are nice, but I prefer plain front-back cutouts like www.onemonk.com has - something about the white border on a trifold throws me off) but I wanted to see if anyone had ideas on where to get cheapo plastic stuff before I start printing.

**valadil** · 2010-04-01, 10:03 AM (ISO 8601)

For bulk I really like eBay. I check once a month for "mini lot" or some variation on that. Got 200 mage knights for $15 a while back. They don't quite fit our grid though.

For individual minis, I prefer Reaper. Their minis are usually $3 each. Very affordable.

**Erom** · 2010-04-01, 01:07 PM (ISO 8601)

I feel compelled to mention that Ravens_cry's monster is totally bad-ass and also pretty adorable.

**tcrudisi** · 2010-04-01, 01:40 PM (ISO 8601)

I don't know how artistic you are, but one of my groups decided they didn't like not having mini's (this was their first 4e game and I don't own any mini's of my own). As such, they all went out and bought a pewter mini that best resembled their character. Then they had one of the guys hand-paint them to their description. I must say: it was cheap (since they each only bought one) and absolutely beautiful. And there was never any wondering who was who.

That's what I'd suggest doing. If you only need 1 mini? Well, splurge a little bit. Go to your FLGS and spend $3 to get a nice mini. Then hand-pain it. Then love it for a long time.

Or, buy a bunch en masse. But really, that's what most people do... be different! (the different fallacy: claiming that someone is being different because they do what you do.)

**Iban** · 2010-04-01, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by tcrudisi

I don't know how artistic you are, but one of my groups decided they didn't like not having mini's (this was their first 4e game and I don't own any mini's of my own). As such, they all went out and bought a pewter mini that best resembled their character. Then they had one of the guys hand-paint them to their description. I must say: it was cheap (since they each only bought one) and absolutely beautiful. And there was never any wondering who was who.

That's what I'd suggest doing. If you only need 1 mini? Well, splurge a little bit. Go to your FLGS and spend $3 to get a nice mini. Then hand-pain it. Then love it for a long time.

Or, buy a bunch en masse. But really, that's what most people do... be different! (the different fallacy: claiming that someone is being different because they do what you do.)

Thats personally what I do. I'm currently running what should be a quite lengthy campaign (hopefully the PCs will get well into the epic levels) and because of that I've bourght a £8 minature from Games Workshop purely because it helps to have a visual representation of the character and I love the detail in the Citadel minatures. I have yet to get round to painting it mind you, but I shall spend a few days doing so

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