Miniatures for your Game

[porkrind]

I'm currently running 2 games, and minis just take too long to prepare. I'm all about paper figs these days. I've got a template already set up in Illustrator. All I do is find the pix for the creatures I'm going to use, paste 'em into the template, print, cut, fold, and I'm ready to roll initiative.

Personally, I prefer paper figs that look like the creatures my players are fighting over a bunch of unpainted metal minis.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

There are some Scarred Lands figures I'd like to see. Asaathi ( long necked snakemen with armor thank you ) and spider eye goblins ranking up there among top choices.

Some Book of Fiend creatures would be great too...

 

[Bomont]

I realize there are plastric, prepackaged, prepainted minatures from WOTC. In my book these are products that have both pros and cons. Pros: 1 one is burnt out on painting minatures 2 one has never done it, and is skeptical of resualt of personail paint job,3 or one simply lacks the time. Cons: 1 these minis come assorted randomly and to get a suffecient amount of what a DM needs will run a tade to a suffecient amount over what one could purchase at such sites as the war store 2 the sculpts are down right crummy compaired to many metal sculpts out there 3 the paint jobs are indeed mediocore to shoddy. I bout three packs at a single trip to my LHS and two of these minis had areas that lacked paint (though tiny areas). But for a standard tabletop need the paint job will surffice.
The last of these cons brangs me to a valide truth: with a little extra time one could easly get good enouph to paint all the base colors on the mini without messing up. In return less time is spent buying the amount needed for an adventure, and one is getting astounding sculpts that the players can draw inspiration on for their characters, and monsters the DM can feel wickedly awe inspiring when slapping down on the matt.
2ed. D&D is pretty much exsempt from the need of minatures. 3ed D&D is just that 3-D in compairson. BTW about 120 bucks of quality paint and brushs will last about 200 minis with only using the base colors.
As for what company to buy from: there really is no compitition to Reaper minis. They got much more then one would ever need, and growing every month in huge quantities (no exsageration).

 

[Bomont]

Scratch what I said. Out of curosity I clicked one a link one of you gave above, and they must have put forth a lot of extra effort seince my three boxes becuase all of them are painted very well, and a few of them are sculpted emaculantly. Not enouph for me to switch over to prepainted, but cool enouph to buy multipules of a few - but only of the monsters (I can still get way more supior PC/NPC sculpts from Reaper).

Anyway, this is me taking my foot out of my mouth.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think each setting popular enough should get its own separate line of minis, unlike what WotC is doing by dropping a few Eberron figs here and there. :\

 

[TheLostSoul]

Personally I would like to see more prepainted miniatures. I really do not have the time to sit down and paint alot of miniatures. I do not like the way WotC have done it, however, since I have to buy 10 box's to get maybe one of the figures I need. The miniatures from Holistic Design looks good, but I have not seen them in my LGS. Sadly.

 

[Wombat]

One of the biggest problems with most minis if finding the right mini -- this one has too many weapons, this one isn't tall enough, this one has good clothes, but that shield is all wrong, etc.

Even when a line of figures come out, a good number of people find them "lacking" in some regard. In many ways the counters are a good option in that no one expects them to be much of anything other than vague representations of a monster or character.

Along that line, I would think more packaged counters would be the safest line to follow.

 

[ledded]

One of the biggest problems with most minis if finding the right mini -- this one has too many weapons, this one isn't tall enough, this one has good clothes, but that shield is all wrong, etc.

Ah yes, but that just supplies fuel for those of us who are truly miniatures psychotic . Every major campaign we have run, I have darn-near custom tailored miniatures for most of the PC's. I've done a good many conversions, both metal and pre-painted (and repainted) plastics. It's actually quite easy to do and doesnt take that much time once you get over the resistance to hacking up your minis a little, though I know most folks aren't much for it.

Even when a line of figures come out, a good number of people find them "lacking" in some regard. In many ways the counters are a good option in that no one expects them to be much of anything other than vague representations of a monster or character.

Along that line, I would think more packaged counters would be the safest line to follow.

Counters are good if you're not into miniatures, they offer a low-cost and easy to home produce option while still giving you visual aids for the job.

My advice is to look out on the net and on ebay for minis that will fit a specific genre like listed above; with some good searching and a little work you can often find decent substitutes for an unusual race or species. I did a lot of easy conversions for our Star Wars rpg and ended up building my own custom Duros, Trandoshans, and a few other species that we liked having around.