How to get a lot of minis on the cheap?

[Wulf Ratbane]

If you can find cheap minis, do so. However, I started out this route, and quickly found that even the cheapest minis start to add up once you start trying to have enough for "bigger badder combats."

Say you can find commons at .25 cents. You want at least 20 goblins for a full Minion battle, right? That's $5. Sounds reasonable.

I managed to make it through goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, bugbears, skeletons, kobolds, drow warriors, zombies, and troglodytes before I realized that I was still going to end up spending hundreds of dollars on miniatures.

You really, REALLY can't go wrong with Claudio/Fiery Dragon's Digital Counter Collection-- not sure what the "best" collection is called (Gold? Platinum?) but it's very good.

I also bought a 1" round craft punch and a lot of 1" round steel washers, so that I can punch out old Magic the Gathering artwork and glue them directly to the washers. That's a nice, durable option as well.

 

[Voadam]

I find printing counters very cheap and easy.

For D&D PCs, NPCs, and monsters I am partial to:

Fiery Dragon's Counter Collection.

IDA's fantasy set.

Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes are great if you are willing to cut them out and their dungeon/cavern sets are great for making configurable D&D terrain.

The IDA set are front and back counters, cut them out, fold them over, then tape the bottom (with or without a penny) and they work and look great IMO.

 

[Lhorgrim]

Another vote for Fiery Dragon.

I have Counter Collection Digital v.2.0 and it has everything I've ever needed so far. The M.S.R.P was $29.95 when I got it, but you can keep printing counters over and over again. You can also re-size the counters for different sized creatures. Now you can adjust that dragon counter to be any age/size.

Can't recommend them highly enough!

 

[JVisgaitis]

That should give you about 750 counters for about US$30. To give you a look at the end result:

I was so happy that Claudio and Fiery Dragon did these. We tried them, and hated every minute of it. The art was nice, but they really should have been done as a circle. They really just make a mess on the table and no one knew who was in what square. Last night we switched over to D&D minis and they were 100 times better.

Also, you can try doing circular counters on 1" washers. I've used these before and they are much better than the square ones. I have 1" washers and 2" washers that I use with a hole punch. Here's a tutorial on Alea Tools website: http://www.aleatools.com/Tokens.aspx

 

[JVisgaitis]

I recommend both Auggies and Oryan77. Great 'dealers'!

How about some links?

 

[Lorthanoth]

I thought I was pretty au fait with minis and counters, but 'IDA'?

 

[frankthedm]

Still holding out hope for anyone who has tons of minis they'd be willing to sell, though.

Sorry, I hoard minis, and wont give any up. But i will make sprite based countersheets

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5859/keepextraminionsnn0.png
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/1166/comscasterspetsbanditsux8.png
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1792/skeletontypesws0.png

 

[Heselbine]

I too hoard minis. Counters simply don't cut it for me. We tried them once, I bought the whole set of Fiery Dragon counters, but it just wasn't right.

There don't seem to be any kobold singles left in the whole of the UK. Who's nabbed all the kobolds?

 

[am181d]

I've used GameHollow.com, but I'm not sure if they're cheap or expensive, as I'm not a very informed consumer...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sorry, I hoard minis, and wont give any up. But i will make sprite based countersheets

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5859/keepextraminionsnn0.png
http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/1166/comscasterspetsbanditsux8.png
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1792/skeletontypesws0.png

These are fourteen different kinds of awesome Frank.

Edit: SO BLIND. Found the link. Downloaded!