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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9290729" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Have you looked into 2D minis?  They are not going to be as impressive on the table as $20 (and often much higher) professionally hand-painted 3D miniatures, but you can get good art on a 2D standee for a small fraction of the money.  There are fancier plastic standees from Arcknight or thick cardboard ones that Kobold Press and others sell to go with their bestiaries. The best bang for you buck is to buy a paper cutter (Cricket and Silhouette are the two most popular brands), get good quality hard stock and buy the mini art from various makers on Drive Thru RPG or Patreon. Some of them come with the paper cutter files so you just have to print and cut. But even for those that don't, after a bit of a learning curve I soon found it easy to quickly set up the cut file from the art in the free Silhouette software that came with the machine. Get a bunch of plastic stands from Litko for various creature sizes. When I was running games in person, this was a godsend. If I was was already spending thousands on Dwarven Forge terrain or spending a lot of time (and money) making fancy terrain myself with a 3D printer or plaster casting, they might seem out of place. But, like you, I didn't want to spend that kind of money (or time) on terrain that I likely would not get a lot of reuse out of--or worse, would let the investment in terrain influence the encounter setups so I could get more use out of them, rather than running what I though was best for the story. Instead, I used lower cost terrain options and eventually went to a digital battlemap (i.e. a TV laid down horizontally).  In that context 2 minis look great. I could make zombie hordes in an an hour or so. Nice full color art, lots of variety among the different pieces.  I could print gargantuan-sized creatures for the cost of a sheet of card stock and some printer ink.  I had also went through a phase of printing tokens and cutting them out with a 1" punch. But I can print and cut for less effort using a paper cutting machine. The only advantage of tokens/pogs is they are ready to place a bit more quickly than 2D standees (which have to be slotted into bases before setting on a map). The other advantage of 2D standings (and tokens) is how easy their are to store and transport.</blockquote>

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