Amassing miniatures

[Jerthanis]

I've been gaming for a while and after finally getting fed up with using dice and coins as miniatures, decided to start trying to acquire enough miniatures that my character would never be rolled for someone else's damage again. What I found were unpainted miniatures at 4 or 5 dollars a piece, and prepainted miniatures at even more exorbitant prices. Alternatively I could buy random booster packs out of the D&D miniatures game, but I had no way of knowing I'd be getting usable miniatures. When a Zombie Kobold is standing in for my Human Rogue, it's basically back to using dice and coins for how visually appropriate it is.

Is there any way I can get the miniatures I really need without breaking the bank?

[-Cor-]

Is there any way I can get the miniatures I really need without breaking the bank?

There are plenty of sites online that sell minis individually by name. Just do a Google search. You do pay a "premium" for them, but I think your average cost for non-rares is gonna be around $0.40 to $1.00. Ten bucks for 10 minis that fit a certain class "type" doesn't seem like breaking the bank to me.

[AKA_Bait]

I would suggest looking on ebay. It's pretty easy to get a relativley wide variety of mini's just from buying common sets or from folks selling off their collections.

This ebay store is a good example. Just look for the sets of commons rather than more expensive ones.

[holywhippet]

There are online stores that sell single miniatures (cost depends on rarity and popularity). Ebay is also a good source for both singles and bundles.

Each D&D pack has a limited set of possibilities so if you work out what you need you can focus on the packs that might contain what you want.

You can get some surprisingly good deals if you look. I had one store tell be that standard barghests are rare and costly, but got one for just $7.50 on Ebay.

[deadseashoals]

D&D Miniatures commons and uncommons are ridiculously cheap online if they're from a recent set (pretty much anything in War Drums or later). You can see what minis are in the various sets at here.

[Hazkali]

If you steer clear of Games Workshop stuff, you probably could find white metal wargames miniatures for about $2 a piece (based on £1 ~ $2), depending on the quality of the sculpt and a myriad of other assorted factors. Or alternatively, you could do as I do and make dedicated card tokens. I use 2cm diameter OotS style faces that I stuck onto some card. Not brilliant, but looks quite good. If you want to do better, you could make them stand-up card style, like you get with cheap board games.

[TempusCCK]

Or, you could just do it like me, and not let WotC or other companies screw you out of extra money and don't play with miniatures, they're not necessary even in the slightest.

[Mojo_Rat]

If you want los of figures the best thing to aim for is a) Purchase a war game and b)Aim for bulk packs.

One of the previous posters mentioned staying away from Games workshop Which I by and large agree with. However They do have some plastic figure packs which are worth looking into.

You can get some human soldier packs Or zombie packs or similar Which come with a bunch of mix and match pieces. It means that int he case of the human solder pack you can make a large number of people outfit them how you want to make Bandits or knights or anything Suitable to humans.

Also If you have the money to aford purchasing the rules for a war-game Alot of the time they come with plastic figures for both sides. However I dont have a recomendation here. As the Game i got into (Grenadier Fantasy Warrior, which came with 50 plastic orcs and 50 plastic dwarves) No longer exists. And the Ones the Games Workshop Warhammer box set come with are not very good.

Secondly there are a number of lead minautre packs which come with multiple figures. Like 3-4 orcs in them Or similar.

If you have a little money every month just buy 1 or 2 packs and stay with it. It buils up in in the end. I recomend Reaper Miniatures.

[Sleet]

Or, you could just do it like me, and not let WotC or other companies screw you out of extra money and don't play with miniatures, they're not necessary even in the slightest.

Or, you could do it like me, and embark upon a new and extremely enjoyable aspect of the hobby - miniature painting.

[AKA_Bait]

Or, you could just do it like me, and not let WotC or other companies screw you out of extra money and don't play with miniatures, they're not necessary even in the slightest.

Necessary? No. Adds to the fun? Yes. I have known players to get VERY attached to some random mini they picked at the beginning of a campagin, even if it didn't look much like their character.

I recomend Reaper Miniatures.

Reaper makes good and interesting stuff. I haven't wanted to spend the money on it, since it's still a little pricey, beyond the bar patrons ones though. Then again, I'm cheap. Reaper is a good choice to tell your players go buy one at the beginning of a campagin and to drop $20 on your BBEG and major NPC's.

[Jerthanis]

Or, you could just do it like me, and not let WotC or other companies screw you out of extra money and don't play with miniatures, they're not necessary even in the slightest.

Yeah, but I've been playing for years now, and in 10 years my strategy for battlefield depiction has had a lot of revisions. At first we used a dramatic storytelling way of making battles, but with that I had to go through a rigmarole of "I attack the hobgoblin shaman." "Well, you can't get to him because of the Hobgoblin spearmen in your way", "You mean I can't slip between them?" "No, they're abreast across the corridor and you don't tumble" "Well, can I move to a place where I can shoot the Shaman with my bow?" "Yes, but you'll have a -4 due to cover" "Screw it, I attack a Spearman" I eventually decided a battlemap was necessary, since one glance at the map tells a player everything he needs to know.

Then, with a battlemap, and dice and coins as enemies, and other dice and coins as the PCs, we run into a new problem of "Okay, I charge attack this one here" "Dude, that's our Rogue." "Oh shoot, okay, I'll attack this one" "Alright, roll to hit"*rolls* "You just rolled Dumas again"

(When my group was running through the Witchfire Blade module, a key NPC, Dumas was represented by a d12, which people kept mistaking for a d20 and rolling on their attacks and saves, leading to us coining the term "Rolling Dumas" to refer to rolling a die which is supposed to represent a hero or villain. Sometimes "Rolling Dumas" is said with an emphasis to make it sound more like Dumb-a**, yes, we are as mature as 12 year olds)

So basically, there's a problem around the table which would be solved through minis, and thus it's more than worthwhile to grab a few.

BTW, thanks for your suggestions everyone!

[Mojo_Rat]

Necessary? No. Adds to the fun? Yes. I have known players to get VERY attached to some random mini they picked at the beginning of a campagin, even if it didn't look much like their character.



Reaper makes good and interesting stuff. I haven't wanted to spend the money on it, since it's still a little pricey, beyond the bar patrons ones though. Then again, I'm cheap. Reaper is a good choice to tell your players go buy one at the beginning of a campagin and to drop $20 on your BBEG and major NPC's.

The trick really is to make sure all the PC's get their own and that you have exacts for the Major NPCs (Ie DMPC or important plot figure) Alot of the Rest bu ones you like or have Idea's for and then when push comes to shove use another figure thats the right size of the monster you want for a BBEG rather than going out of your way.

the figures dont have to be exact just enough to help represent.

[Jack Zander]

Graph paper. Makes the battle map a more manageable size and cost a lot less. Use pen for walls and such and pencil marks for characters. We usually abbreviate the first letter of each PC and monster we will subscript if there are more than one (H3 for the third hobgoblin). Provided the party doesn't fight 5 battles in one room, the erasing has never been a problem for us and it really goes just about as quickly as moving a piece on a board.

EDIT: It's also really easy to just pass the sheet of paper around so each character can get a good detailed look at what's going on if we are spread out on a large floor or table.

[horseboy]

If you want los of figures the best thing to aim for is a) Purchase a war game and b)Aim for bulk packs.

One of the previous posters mentioned staying away from Games workshop Which I by and large agree with. However They do have some plastic figure packs which are worth looking into.

You can get some human soldier packs Or zombie packs or similar Which come with a bunch of mix and match pieces. It means that int he case of the human solder pack you can make a large number of people outfit them how you want to make Bandits or knights or anything Suitable to humans.

Also If you have the money to aford purchasing the rules for a war-game Alot of the time they come with plastic figures for both sides. However I dont have a recomendation here. As the Game i got into (Grenadier Fantasy Warrior, which came with 50 plastic orcs and 50 plastic dwarves) No longer exists. And the Ones the Games Workshop Warhammer box set come with are not very good.

Secondly there are a number of lead minautre packs which come with multiple figures. Like 3-4 orcs in them Or similar.

If you have a little money every month just buy 1 or 2 packs and stay with it. It buils up in in the end. I recomend Reaper Miniatures.

Yeah, the regimental boxes are good. You could also look into the old Mordheim boxes. They've got a lot of the weird bitz for making adventurers.

Also, go to the toy department in Dollar stores, buy a bag of army men. They're cheap.

[TheOOB]

Funny, I remember using pencil erasers with thumb tacks on graph paper for make games way back in the day.

I got a few packs of minis I got a few years back, most of which I won in a small contest. My general rule for my players is try to get something that at least is the same race, we don't care too much for appearance. D&D minis acually isn't a bad game really, so you might want to invest in it anyways if you can find other players. The biggest problem I have is that D&D is the only PnP RPG I play that needs minis, due to AoO rules and what not, most other games I player don't need that specific measurements of combat positions, knowing what range and if you are behind cover is usually enough.

[valadil]

I'm very fond of Reaper. I like their minis as much as any other brand, but they're usually under $3 each. I can afford that each time I start up a new PC.

I also occasionally get the D&D mini game minis for use as NPCs and monsters. Cheap plastic minis (ie less than a buck each) are also nice since I like having a horde of 10+ orcs with a cohesive look.

I like painting though, and will paint the minis for the sake of painting. I can understand if not everyone can manage that much painting.

[herrhauptmann]

I compulsively buy dnd minis, I shouldn't. But I do.
What I use for my current campaign is my random minis for the characters, and i took an hour out of my day to start drawing lines on a piece of posterboard, then took it to officemax to get laminated. Now I can just draw maps as I need to, erase when needed, the guys can put their minis where they want, and the random assortment of goblin, hobgoblins, ogres whatever I just represent with letters on the board. Only BBEG's and necessary NPCs are given minis.

Just rolled Dumas. hehehe.

[Miles Invictus]

I've spent about two hundred dollars on minis: the first hundred on random minis, the other on metal (pewter?) minis and paint supplies. The metal minis are a far better use of your money. You know what you're getting -- which pays for itself many times over -- but you also get to personalize your models, which is a fun hobby in and of itself.

[deadseashoals]

Or, you could just do it like me, and not let WotC or other companies screw you out of extra money and don't play with miniatures, they're not necessary even in the slightest.

Except that they practically are for 3.5. Unless you mean to play with coins and paper clips and jelly beans and somesuch, which works fine, but it really adds to the enjoyment to have something that's representative.

[DeathQuaker]

Reaper makes good and interesting stuff. I haven't wanted to spend the money on it, since it's still a little pricey, beyond the bar patrons ones though. Then again, I'm cheap. Reaper is a good choice to tell your players go buy one at the beginning of a campagin and to drop $20 on your BBEG and major NPC's.

Reaper has a new line of prepainted plastic miniatures that run about $2.00-$6.00 per mini, depending on size and detail (a skeleton is $1.99, a big honkin' minotaur is $5.99). The line is NEW so there is not a lot to choose from YET, but I imagine they'll be a good source for cheapish prepainted minis as the line expands.

Their pewter figs are of course more pricey (around $4.00-$8.00) but great for that special fig you want to have.

And a lot of places you can try to get a discount from (try the Warstore for Reaper and lots of other miniatures).