Painting and Using Miniatures or Not?

[The_Gneech]

Love minis!

Love painting minis!

Hate not having free time!

I started using minis about 5 years into my "gaming career" and won't go back. Besides being too hard to keep track of everything, it also gives too much "power" to the GM. By this I mean, the entirety of the scene is in the GM's head, from character placement to spell areas -- the players can't base their actions on independent data, only on whether the GM favors their action or not.

Plus, I just enjoy "setting the stage" with the battlemat, putting up obstacles or interesting terrain to add flavor to the story. During the heat of the moment, it's easy to forget that there may be trees between the heroes and the orcs they're shooting at -- on the mat, you can see where the trees are, and have the orcs dive behind them for cover. Anything that "concretizes" the scene is a good thing, IMO.

I have a ton of Cardboard Heroes, counters, metal, and plastic figs. Back when I had more free time, I enjoyed painting the figs, but these days I just don't have the time to do that -- but I hate using unpainted figures. In that regard, the WotC figs have indeed been a godsend.

-The Gneech

 

[Sammael]

I have around 600 D&D miniatures (of the pre-painted, plastic variety). They are great, because:

1) they cost less than lead minis
2) they weigh much less than lead minis
3) they are virtually indestructible
4) I don't have to paint them

 

[JimAde]

I have around 600 D&D miniatures (of the pre-painted, plastic variety). They are great, because:

1) they cost less than lead minis
2) they weigh much less than lead minis
3) they are virtually indestructible
4) I don't have to paint them

And, to address one of the OP's complaints, they almost never fall over.

They're so light and have such big bases that they're very stable.

I never used minis until the plastic ones came out. I still don't have hundreds of them (probably a couple of dozen) but with the shipment I'm getting next week, I'll finally have good minis for all the PCs in my group. I think it adds a lot to the game.

I've also just started a sculpt of my own. I've never done anything like it before, so I'm expecting it to be horrible.

 

[Darmanicus]

Have owned and painted thousands of minis in the last 23 years; I've seen armies come and go; I've lovingly nurtured a GW chaos warband or two from 1 champion to a mini contingent of chaosey goodness, happily converting away, each and every time something got a new 'gift' from god; I've had some happy times!!!

We use minis all the time and they're great, well some of 'em are and I'm not referring to the pre-painted placcy minis which are NOT great. Don't care what anyone says about 'em, they're tacky, they don't weigh enough......and they're tacky some more!

The only problem with lavishing hours and hours of attention on a great mini with a paintbrush you could easily wipe a gnats ass with is when your character dies and you're too low a level too really get hold of a raise.....that sucks!

 

[Dingleberry]

I think I'm an oddball: I use (and love) metal minis, but prefer them unpainted. I guess I like that when you look at the tabletop, it looks like a collection of statues capturing an epic moment.

 

[Ibram]

I've always used minis in my games, and always painted metal ones. I've got a fairly large collection of reaper and GW minis in various stages of being painted.

I dont care for the pre-painted plastics, they look crude.

Though I'm no master painter I do have some skill at it.

 

[Vrecknidj]

For years and years we used dice to represent characters, monsters, etc. Then we moved up to sometimes using metal minis. Then a local guy got into painting minis and we were all happiest yet. Then, when the plastic minis started coming out, I started collecting. Now we have huge piles of minis (literally thousands upon thousands if you count the three main collectors in our group) and so we can almost always use very good representations in our games. We really only use them for combat, but it's really nice to have them for that.

Dave

 

[KenSeg]

We always play at our DMs house and have a collection of several hundred lead minis that his wife and I painted in the past when our eyes were good enough to do the detailed work. Now that I am over 40 I find that I cannot focus well enough to paint the eyes and small details. Luckily we have our collection from days past to rely upon. Haven't seen or tried any of the prepainted plastic ones yet. Not available in my local shop.


-KenSeg

 

[Gnarlo]

Have hundreds of the prepainted plastics and love them, use miniatures all the time. I generally use miniatures and scenery for every aspect of adventuring and dungeon delving; my players are younger than me and grew up on a diet of video games, they scenery definitely helps them to be in the moment. I have several boxes of MasterMaze, and Have a lot of stuff I've made with the Hirst Arts molds.

These days, I'd rather spend my limited time on making scenery and dungeon sets than painting figures, it's easier to paint / make and you can get great results with less skill. It also feels more like "my creation" to put the blocks together into new pieces than painting a pre-sculpted mini does. Unfortunately, life over the last few months hasn't had room for playing, much less painting or building

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I liked painting miniatures years ago. Never really used them for much, other than determining party order, the once-in-a-blue moon battlesystem session, and just enjoying having them.

I don't really have the space for them, so that part of the hobby is long in the past. When I do have the room again, I might start collecting and painting them again.

I'd never dream of using them the way the current edition of D&D uses them as a integral part of combat.