Good miniatures set?

Torchiest · Jul 31, 2011

I'm looking for a good starter kit of assorted miniatures to add into my AD&D game. Once upon a time, I had a few dozen really awesome die cast figures, most of which were painted and amazing, but my mom sold them in a garage sale years after I moved out! :rant:

I've been looking around Amazon, but haven't found anything that's reasonably priced. I don't want super top notch amazing figures at this point; I'm more interested in bulk sets, since I have none at all now. Can anyone recommend a brand or set of cheap decent quality figures?

Stormonu · Jul 31, 2011

About the only thing I can think of is looking on ebay for assorted DDM miniature "lots". That should get you a wide assortment of figures at a pretty cheap price.

Sadly, I'm not aware of anything beyond say, either a starter set or one of the 3E D&D basic sets that would have an assortment of figures, and even then, it's still a pretty small selection.

scourger · Jul 31, 2011

Look at the EM-4 prepainted minis from Crystal Caste--those are metal. Or the Legendary Encounters line from Reaper Miniatures--those are plastic. Otherwise, you might find a lot of D&D miniatures as suggested above. Lastly, you could print counters; but I find that works best with minis for the heroes and counters for the foes.

Torchiest · Jul 31, 2011

Ah, eBay, good idea! I've found one assortment of three dozen minis for about $1 apiece so far. I'll have to do more digging, but this could work.

thedungeondelver · Jul 31, 2011

Torchiest said:
I'm looking for a good starter kit of assorted miniatures to add into my AD&D game. Once upon a time, I had a few dozen really awesome die cast figures, most of which were painted and amazing, but my mom sold them in a garage sale years after I moved out!

I've been looking around Amazon, but haven't found anything that's reasonably priced. I don't want super top notch amazing figures at this point; I'm more interested in bulk sets, since I have none at all now. Can anyone recommend a brand or set of cheap decent quality figures?

Both HOLISTIC DESIGN and E4M MINIATURES make and sell pre-painted miniature sets. I have a great many of both and they are all quality.

Later this fall, PAIZO PUBLICATIONS is slated to release pre-painted plastic minis.

REAPER MINIATURES has a line of miniatures called LEGENDARY ENCOUNTERS (which I also have a great many of) that are plastic and pre-painted and quite nice.

Hope this helps.

You should also look for bulk sales of WARHAMMER FANTASY BATTLES armies on EBAY; people are usually churning out of the hobby and turnover is pretty high.

Torchiest · Jul 31, 2011

scourger said:
Look at the EM-4 prepainted minis from Crystal Caste--those are metal. Or the Legendary Encounters line from Reaper Miniatures--those are plastic. Otherwise, you might find a lot of D&D miniatures as suggested above. Lastly, you could print counters; but I find that works best with minis for the heroes and counters for the foes.

Good suggestions. Currently, we're using counters for the party and dice for the monsters. The dice actually work really well, as I set them all with the 6 facing up, and then I can turn them to other faces depending on what spell effects they're under, e.g. 1 for sleeping, 2 for held, etc. But my wife asked me if I might want something D&D related for a birthday gift, so I'm looking for luxury items now.

scourger · Jul 31, 2011

Torchiest said:
...my wife asked me if I might want something D&D related for a birthday gift...

Sounds like a good woman.

S'mon · Jul 31, 2011

I use em-4 Elfsera range a *lot* for PCs, they are very nicely painted and start at just over £2 per mini, each with a free d20 too! I think the price is incredibly good in this day and age, when I'm often paying £1.75 or more for some rather crappily painted WoTC bendy plastic figure. The big disadvantage is that of all metal minis - being pewter, a careless doofus like me can easily damage them in transit, breaking off weapons & scratching the paintwork.

Ebay can have great deals when people are just trying to get rid of huge piles of minis. I ended up with 31 very nicely painted GW Chaos Warrior minis at a very good price. Finding the right stuff can be challenging though, and IME Ebay is a poor resource for that 1 particular mini you want; getting stuff on Ebay is more like dredging than line fishing.

TheAuldGrump · Jul 31, 2011

There are also places that sell the unpainted plastic minis from WotC's board games, Auggies being one of them.

While refilling the lost ranks you may also want to consider paper miniatures from PDFs. One Monk is a good example. Typically less than $5 for a set, and you can replace them with real miniatures over time.

Some of their free minis also look quite decent -

The Auld Grump

S'mon · Jul 31, 2011

One obvious reasonably priced option is the recent 4e products with counters; the DM's Kit and Threats to the Nentir Vale have lots of humans & humanoids and some monsters, Monster Vault has lots of monsters.