Do you use minis?

Do you use minis?

  • Yes, I buy minis and paint them

    Votes: 70 29.7%
  • Yes, I buy pre-painted minis

    Votes: 88 37.3%
  • Yes, but I just use counters or whatever is on hand

    Votes: 51 21.6%
  • No, I keep it up to the imagination

    Votes: 27 11.4%

Don't use minis, leave everything sculpted in the imagination. It's just my style and it doesn't feel like the same game if everything is a mini, or on a grid like I'm playing a boardgame. *shrug*
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Its a learned behavior thing

I chose the no minis option. Not because I find anything wrong with minis, but when I first started playing we didn't use minis. And on the few occaisions that I have tried to game with them it has been weird for me. Kinda like swimming with cowboy boots on.
 

It was a cross between "pre-painted minis" and "we paint our own minis" choices. But since more of us have pre-painted minis, I went with that one. But we do use minis, maybe not the correct ones for the monsters... or sometimes for our characters.
 


Using Miniatures

I buy many (I have hundreds from Ral Partha, Grenadier, TSR, Reaper--mostly Reaper now), paint a few. These generally represent the PCs.

I don't really like the pre-painted because I can only pick up random boxes and that seems like a waste of $$ to me.

I use counters I made. And some templates I made.

I use 48 vinyl, multi-colored, transparent ninja I bought from OrientalTrading.com for chump change (they sell now for less than $6). Then I mounted them on square bases--that cost more than the ninja themselves! Used a silver sharpie to give each base a number and swiped one side to be the front. Everybody loves the ninja. Useful in any genre, perfect for Ninja Burger (their original purpose)! :lol:
I've stuck them into a large dice bag. They are light-weight, don't scratch, easy to pick up, drop, and face on the table, identifiable by color and weapon if you're not sitting on top of the map.
 

My answer would be "all of the above" I suppose.

I have this discussion all the time with one of my gaming friends about use of minis. He says he likes them, but never uses them in games he runs. He thinks players think too hard about the minis instead of about the roleplaying. He assumes that everyone expects the characters to look exactly like the minis, too.

I think minis help to refine things, especially during combat. I don't have a tape measure in my eyeballs; just how far away is 100 feet? Is there a tree between me and those orcs?

Putting minis on a battlemat gives me something to work from. It helps to put me on the same page with my fellow players, instead of each of us having a completely different picture of the situation in our minds.

Plus, I really enjoy painting them and want an excuse to show off my work to my friends!
;)
 

Remove ads

Top