Maximize your miniature dollar

[CharlesRyan]

The ball of lint: It's a ball of lint.

 

[Nebulous]

I know that this is very old school of me, but you could just put a penny down and imagine what the figure looks like. Cost: 1 cent.

I am physically and mentally unable to do this anymore, although between this and scratching out positions on a sheet of paper, that's how we played for many years. Once i saw how cool a 3D mini looks on the board, i can never go back to pennies and scraps of paper.

I've scoured Big Lots, Target, Michael's, and other toy stores for minis in D&D. You can sometimes find just great stuff. I found an awesome 5-headed Huge pyrohydra for $10. It's a little bigger than Tiamat. i've also been making lots of my own minis with air dry clay, paint and gloss sealant.

And Todd McFarlane's dragon line is probably better than anything WotC ever put out. I've also bought those for as cheap as $11 apiece. The only time i used one though is to substitue a hunting horror in a Cthulhu game.

There's another without wings that i've always wanted to use as the Tarrasque or a Rancor.

 

[frankthedm]

Paging Frank the DM

Now on ebay a LOT of the saving are eaten by higher prices and shipping because the pressure is on the sellers with heavier fees. Communication BEFORE bidding about how much shipping will be is VERY important.

If you find a mini you want on ebay, search agian for that minis. Compare shipping rates and look for the almost extict flat rate shipping.

eBay Store - Hubb's Wholesale: WoW Hunt for Illidan Rares, Drums of War-Rare, Drums of War-Uncommon has dreamblade minis. Shipping is usually $5 +$0.10 per each mini, but ask the seller to be sure.

this one has some Mageknight minis. eBay Seller: shoppingframe: Toys Hobbies, Collectibles items on eBay.com

Keep your eyes peeled for any of the Mcfarlane dragons that might still be on shelf. Wonderful toys. Even better minis.

web surfing can help you price check for figs you want. if you have a local game store see if any Mageknight /Dreamblade /horrorclix players are willing to sell thier older figs they are not using.

metal washers and poker chips are good for re basing the figs.

Dollar stores, toy stores, garage sales, thrift stores & Goodwill sometimes have possible figs. Unfortunatly, there are a lot fewer canidates for minis than just a few years ago it seems.

Old Glory Miniatures Dwarves with Sword, GD-02 six dwarves for $10 bones ain't bad.

Considering those dwarves were retailing for $6 dollars just a few years back, it is a sign of the times how cheap minis are much rarer.

WizKids Mage Knight Conquest Iron Rain Hill Giant | Dave and Adam's Card World Amusing huge giant with dwarves on his shoulders. I bought the 12 case myself.

Dreamblade Boxes, Packs, and Singles | Dave and Adam's Card World

Depending on how much your time is worth, scratch building minis may be worth your time. My minis thread may have some useful ideas... http://www.enworld.org/forum/art-ga...ure-thread-9-27-2007-ruby-elemental-wall.html


Or just print up flat counters to use as minis. Klaus's work for Firey Dragon is good, and the counters are economical. If you LIKE video game flavor stop down by this thread http://www.enworld.org/forum/art-ga...ainting/225315-sources-images-use-tokens.html



Sprite rippers include: emonoya, CACM, bogleech & VGS.net

 

[Badwe]

You could always use cheetos, but the monsters tend to get eaten.

There actually WAS an encounter like that, wherein a party of 5 level 6 PCs took on enough level 9 orc minions, represented as M&Ms, in a gladiatorial arena as XP totals would allow (re: alot). Whenever you killed the minion, you got to eat the M&M. The wizard was a happy man that day

 

[JoeGKushner]

Dreamblade has been off the market for a year or so now, so it may be hard to find. But where you do find it, it's probably dirt cheap.

Many Dreamblade minis are completely unsuitable for D&D, but many are great. You'll have to rebase them, however, and that's a pain in the butt. (I have two carrier bags full of Dreamblade minis waiting to be rebased.)

The ones that are large aren't too bad. The base is a little taller than I like but outside of that...

 

[frankthedm]

I like the ogre repaint. Looks more like an ogre than the 3E ogres.

While the season is wrong, Halloween party favors can sometimes make decent minis. Some are downright moronic looking, but others have a respectable level of detail.

Oct 13 2007, 12:22 AM
Most won't be worth painting, but sometimes swelling the ranks of the DM's monster minis means going with the next best thing. This time of year, that gets easier since a good amount of cheap Halloween favors will make decent minis.

Just today a $3 bag at a corner drugstore netted me a lot of bugs including multiples of;

Some iffy looking plastic flies
Very good small sized plastic ants
very good small/medium plastic spiders
Decent medium rubber spider, that would have to have it's feet glued onto the base to fit
Very good, if flat, large red tinged rubber roach. It's antenna almost look like horns
Mediocre rubber centipede. Maybe wrapped around a column it could work.
Decent rubber pincer beetle with an extra set of legs
Decent huge rubber spider

Up at a Party supply store I found a nice bag of Large bats with enough detail to hold a tabletop level repaint along with a bag of just barely large size rubber rats with noticable mold lines. Still the rats would look kinda nice with skaven riding them.

The huge snail is from wally world's toy isle.

Other recent finds were a bunch of glow in the dark tiny ants and flies at a Ma' & Pa' drug store. The ants will be used in a swarm base, the flies I want to convert into stirges. Also found a bag of cheap sea critters with some possibly salvageable crabs and stingrays. That store also had a boatload of plastic animals too numerous to note, and in the Halloween section they had two versions of huge rat toys that would work on the battlemat.

 

[Monte At Home]

I know that this is very old school of me, but you could just put a penny down and imagine what the figure looks like. Cost: 1 cent.

But then WotC will make fun of you in a video the next time they come out with a new edition.

And man, FranktheDM, I looooooove that giant snail. I gotta find one now.

 

[Dausuul]

Incidentally, if you don't mind providing your own base for it, the Alice McGee Jabberwocky action figure makes a freaking awesome tarrasque. You should be able to find them on eBay for a fairly reasonable price.

 

[bobthehappyzombie]

Have you guys got no Lego?

some folk just use scraps of paper of course
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[tbk409]

We made some figures out of Shrinky Dinks, and they worked pretty well. You can get Shrinky Dink paper for your printer, and if you bend them when they are hot they get a little bit of the third dimension.

We also have a bag of Cowboys and Indians we bought from the dollar store. We trimmed and painted a few, and they don't look half bad. (The Indians spears and shields work much better than the Cowboys' rifles and revolvers)

We have also used the cheap bags of bugs or lizards, as someone mentioned above. And yes, we use LEGOs.