D&D 5E Miniature Collecting and Use

[jasper]

When I not depress, I try to pull the minis I have which match the encounter. But I be defaulting to different minis. Ok the orc is the scout. The Kobold is the mage. I have a big plastic (wrapping paper ?) container of big minis. And at least two boxes which hold 144 minis.
Now I have bought some "Frozen" $1 minis for Icewind dale. And need to buy Bullwinkle for this week.
I do admire the people who can bring off Theatre of the Mind.

 

[Fenris447]

I troll miniature market nonstop going through recent releases. I find it much more economical to buy or trade for Singles usually.

the new gray stuff from WizKids can be a game changer. 13 bucks for a treant is not so bad. 50-60? Ouch! Sometimes having something at scale is enough for play. If I won the lottery I could paint em all and quit work.

I'm lucky enough to live nearby Miniature Market's brick-and-mortar shop, so they're my FLGS for everything. The staff is fantastic, and you absolutely can't beat their prices + free ship-to-store.

I'm rubbish at painting, but my wife is pretty artistic. So she enjoys painting up minis for me every now and then. She did an absolutely amazing job on a few Grung, even finishing their skin with gloss to make them look wet! The only downside is that I have to be careful with what I ask her to paint, as she's a player in my campaign and it might spoil stuff that's coming up.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I'm lucky enough to live nearby Miniature Market's brick-and-mortar shop, so they're my FLGS for everything. The staff is fantastic, and you absolutely can't beat their prices + free ship-to-store.

I'm rubbish at painting, but my wife is pretty artistic. So she enjoys painting up minis for me every now and then. She did an absolutely amazing job on a few Grung, even finishing their skin with gloss to make them look wet! The only downside is that I have to be careful with what I ask her to paint, as she's a player in my campaign and it might spoil stuff that's coming up.

Ha! I drive over there too! It’s a FLGS with discount pricing. I visited them back when they first came to St. Louis over on Watson I think.

matter of fact, that is the first place I ever looked at a 5th edition book! I liked the orcs in the monster manual compared to 3e...

that place is great. I have a bunch of minis awaiting payment there now (I sent them in and am waiting for them to review and give me store credit...)

 

[aco175]

We use minis for nearly all the encounters, but terrain varies. We have a lot of old 3e/4e maps and terrain tiles box sets that get used. A lot of the time when I make an adventure I use the tiles and maps as planned encounter areas. The King's Road get used a lot for random encounters on the road.

 

[Azzy]

Heh. I've collected and painted lots of miniatures (though I must admit that I've collected far more than I've painted)—just not for D&D. I have extensice armies for WH40K and Dust 1947. I rarely used miniature prior to 3e, and even after 3e I had few actual miniatures (using standies and counters instead). However, I've been playing D&D online exclusively sice about 2015 so I'm reduced to using "virtual" miniatures.

 

[the Jester]

I love minis, and have hundreds (mostly the old randomized plastic 3e era ones, but a healthy collection of others too). I am fine with swapping in substitutes for whatever I am running; not having the proper mini has never stopped me from using a monster!

I find terrain to have one major downside- storage and the size of it all. I generally prefer battlemaps and wet erase pens; preprinted tiles or maps are pretty useless, or at best, single-use, for me. I'll sometimes print out or draw maps of interesting set pieces to use, though.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I love minis, and have hundreds (mostly the old randomized plastic 3e era ones, but a healthy collection of others too). I am fine with swapping in substitutes for whatever I am running; not having the proper mini has never stopped me from using a monster!

I find terrain to have one major downside- storage and the size of it all. I generally prefer battlemaps and wet erase pens; preprinted tiles or maps are pretty useless, or at best, single-use, for me. I'll sometimes print out or draw maps of interesting set pieces to use, though.

That is how we roll at my friends house. Works great really.

I have tons of buildings trees etc but have only started using them much.

got a farm set, barracks and orc huts. Generic enough it should come up time and again...

 

[Richards]

I have one of those "under the bed" plastic storage boxes which I've sectioned off into six equal slots with cardboard, in which I store a good chunk of my plastic minis (mostly D&D Minis, but a fair selection of other stuff like creatures from the Toobs line, plastic spiders, and the like): undead/constructs, outsiders, vermin, animals, aberrations/magical beasts, and elementals. Then I have some smaller plastic containers holding my other D&D Minis: humans, dwarves/elves, monstrous humanoids, reptilian humanoids, dragons, and oddballs (to include oozes); those are stored in a dresser drawer, while another drawer holds the bigger plastic figures: the larger dragons, dinosaurs, a dire elephant, a pair of giant spiders, a giant bee, my Beholders boxed set, etc. I try to match the mini with the creature it represents in the adventure; if there's no real good match, I'll resort to creating a stand-up token on card stock. (Those get saved in flat plastic contains that used to hold oversize cassette-type tapes.) On rare occasions, I'll make my own "mini" out of poster board, construction paper, or colored card stock: I've done a stone colossus, wood colossus, zygomind, and "walking brain" in such fashion.

We're purely a face-to-face setup, currently on hold due to COVID. But we make use of battle maps (I've got about three dozen of Paizo's Game Maps and Map Pack sets) and I make my own geomorphs: paper or cardboard with 1" grid lines for smaller areas or the back of a desk calendar page gridded out with 1" lines for larger areas. The homemade geomorphs get filed in manila envelopes in another "under the bed" box, and the calendar pages get rolled up inside an empty toilet paper roll with the adventure name written on it, then stored in a dresser drawer (one of two, nowadays) in my gaming room. (I've found multiple uses for several of the geomorphs/calendar maps; each time the new adventure title gets added to the envelope/toilet paper roll.)

I also have a small collection of unpainted metal minis from decades ago; my grown son paints some of them on occasion, as well as a bunch of plastic minis he purchases for his own campaign. Those are hanging in three display cases on my gaming room wall, while his sit on his dresser in his bedroom.

Johnathan

 

[pukunui]

I’m so addicted I splurged on a chardalyn dragon only to find out it was going to cost me more in shipping than the dragon itself cost to get it here to NZ. I had it sent to my parents in the US instead and now I have to figure out how I can get it here without it costing me an arm and a leg.

I didn’t realise how heavy it was.