I don't usually use miniatures in my games. Instead, I use dice: extra dice from collectable dice games like Dragon Dice, Chaos Progenitus and Dicemaster. You can cheerfully throw away all of those annoying extra commons and uncommons that you get from your favorite collectable card game, but you can't throw away dice, can you? You need to use your extra dice in some clever way, and that means gaming. So I've always used my extra collectable dice to mark locations of characters and monsters on the tabletop. It's a good use for the dice, and you don't really care when people walk away with them at conventions. I'm almost ready to change my mind when it comes to miniatures, and the new D&D miniatures are why.
Last Christmas my kids each received a box of the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Harbinger Expansion Pack in their stockings. In the rush to open their other presents they quickly cast aside the little plastic miniatures in favor of bigger, flashier gifts, leaving me to get a good look at the miniatures. Boy, was I ever impressed. These figures are painted better than I could ever manage. The paint jobs are unlikely to ever win a figure-painting contest at any game convention, but they're certainly good enough for tabletop use. And the figures were actually ones that would come in handy in a game. It was almost too good to be true.
I can't help being somewhat cynical about WOTC's move into miniatures. Their famous gaming marketing report showed that gamers who use miniatures tend to spend quite a bit more on their hobby than gamers who don't, so that's almost certainly why they decided to make the move. On the other hand, I also can't help but notice what a great deal these figures are, and how you're really getting a fairly good quality figure for a fairly reasonable price. I definitely won't be collecting these figures, but there's a pretty good chance that I'll be picking up enough for gaming use. Now if I could only find another use for those extra Dragon Dice...
