Counters or minis?

[Kichwas]

I enjoy the hobby of painting minis more than the hobby of gaming.

So... naturally I'd choose minis in this test. But I have a set of Cardboard Heroes from SJG's as well:

http://www.sjgames.com/heroes/

$20 for 400 minis... hard to pass up even for me.


A few mini's I've painted:
http://www.geocities.com/arcady0/minis/
Poorly scanned by laying them directly on the scanner with a cardboard box the stop light reflections...

 

[Duncan Haldane]

I remember the time my DM used a dried apricot to represent a giant spider. After we defeated it someone picked it up and "decapitated" it with a mad cackle. You can imagine the jokes about killing and eating our foes.

heheh - I'm allergic to Apricots (all stone fruit, actually), so for me, biting the spider would be poisonous, even deadly!

Duncan

 

[Scarab]

I like to use minis in my games. So far we've used the figures from old Hero Quest, but I'm painting some Chainmail minis to use in the future. I'll be using lots of gnolls in the next few adventures just so I can use the gnoll minis from Chainmail. Man, they're nice looking...

 

[krushido]

minis & mastermaze

I enjoy using Miniatures, it makes the game much more of a hobby, (and I have a ton of them), and I am also using the 7 boxes of mastermaze pieces for my dungeons and caverns (it is a somewhat expensive hobby isn't it?).

Currently I am painting chainmail miniatures to use in the war game, and of course in roleplaying adventures. Just wish miniature companies would see that they should make miniatures that are common monsters in D&D, like ants, beetles, piercers, shriekers, centipedes, fungi, jelly, and could someone make a stirge!

 

[Rashak Mani]

I actaully have 2 stirge minis ! use to come with a plastic cone to hold them high (to look like they were flying or something like that).

Have a good collection of around 60 minis

 

[Valorian]

I've purcased counters from dragonscalecouters I like them

Hi All,

I've purchased about 200+ counters from dragonscalecounters...and I must say I'm quite happy with my purchase.

The good:
1) No work for me...the counters come pre-cut.
2) Plastic - the counters are printed on "credit card" plastic, making them very light and strong...I keep even the really big ones (my 4" by 6" dragons - very cool) in just a zip lock bag, into which I throw all my gaming books, and they never yet have gotten bent. Also because they have a plastic coating protecting the artwork, you can write on them with water-soluble pens and erase them, great when you have a bunch of the same thing and want to number them.
3) The artwork... I don't like counters that only show head and shoulders, etc. All the figures are full "downward" looking fiqures, that shows the whole "monster". Most of the artwork is very good, and some is downright exceptional...I really like the Dragons, and the Blebeth is fantastic.
4) Scaling- the counters are scaled apropriately to that given in the moster manual...ie they take up multiple squares like the monster should...I've used mini's in the past, where this has gotten to be somewhat confusing because the mini is scaled differetly that other mini's or the battle board.

The bad:
1) Price - the counters are somewhat expensive...I especially think the really big counters are overpriced (I think the people at dragonscalecoutners have reached the same conclusion and lowered the prices on their big counters last time I checked)...for the 250 or so counters I've paid about 80 bucks including shipping. I can't really say thier horribly overpriced, most counters are about 25 cents, which is 1/10 the price of a mini.
One good thing about dragonscalecounters are their shipping and handling prices...very reasonable, ranging from about 1.50 for smaller purchases to 3.50 for larger purchases with large counters....you can buy just a couple counters you want for the next game and not kick yourself about the shipping and handling costs.
2) The artwork - while most of the artwork is quite good, some of the counters are only adequate, but you can see which ones you like and don't like on their website (I purchased one of each counter just to get a good look at them, and their are some I wouldn't buy more of, just because I'm not a fan of the artwork...but then again there are some I purchased extras of just because of the artwork.)


Final Conclusion: 4 out of 5 stars

 

[Droogie]

however, on the old eric noah boards there was the topic of using Lego sets . . . which may be cool. a 2x2 box (which a character is glued onto) represents a 5x5 foot box, and you go from there. (plus there is the whole castle sets, and dragons and ghosts and tons of weapons to choose from). seems like a fun alternative, but a tad pricey (all the doors for example). but would make DMing even more fun if we got to play with lego and call it "prep" work . . .

We used lego for YEARS. We started playing D&D at our peak Lego time of age 12. We got too old for the lego, but the castle mini-figs found new life as our D&D characters. Over the years we would shamelessly buy new lego sets for the purpose of using the mini-figs in our game. Got to the point where we had 2 shoe boxes of castle lego pieces, chess pieces, and some of those plastic wall pieces from the 'Crossbows and Catapults' board game. We continued to use the lego well into our late 20s.
The lego rocked. You could put together any type of character you wanted. Hardest part was trying to ignore the dumb smiley face ) ) printed on the heads of every fig.


Nowadays I've been amassing a big collection of home-made half-inch counters made with CC2 Character Artist. Nobody I know is making 0.5" scale counters, a size I find really convenient.
Minis look great, but you will never have the time, the money, or all the ones you need. Counters all the way for me now.

 

[Umbran]

Minis for PCs and major, repeating NPCs. Counters for miscellaneous monsters. Simple because there's no real way to keep up with painting the flood of so many varied monsters a PC group will encounter. Unless you have a really high PC turnover rate, painting a mini for each PC shouldn't be too onerous.

 

[Falcon]

Is there a link for Dragonscalecounters?
And.. the Lego wesite is all weird. Where is the best place to check their stuff out?

 

[Valorian]

link

Is there a link for Dragonscalecounters?
And.. the Lego wesite is all weird. Where is the best place to check their stuff out?

dragon scale counters link:

www.dragonscalecounters.com