Minis: Stand Ups Vs Counters

[JoeGKushner]

Why oh Lord! Why do you torment us with a Prefix seciton but no miniatures on a board where minis play a usually useful part?

Anyway, going through my stuff while cleaning and came across the old Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes.

And I like's 'em.

I like them more than the old Fiery Dragon counters or the old WoTC punches. The 3-D effect of having something 'standing' there is much more useful to me than laying a flat piece on the table that if you're not tall enough to look down at it, might as well be a penny.

Mind you I love the cost on the old counters and have used them and intermixed them with minis many a time. Especially when FD was super cool and put out the freebie pack for the first 4e adventure.

Other opinions?

 

[jephlewis]

The 3-D effect of having something 'standing' there is much more useful to me than laying a flat piece on the table that if you're not tall enough to look down at it, might as well be a penny.

Mind you I love the cost on the old counters...
Other opinions?

I strongly prefer standup paper minis to counters for pretty much the same reason. What I ended up doing was buying PIG's 'disposable heroes' [not the 'statix' ones], and just as soon as I get access to a color laser printer, i'll make a paper army!

The price was nice too. Wish they had more monsters.

 

[withak]

For humanoid foes, I use Lego dudes. I kept all my Lego from my childhood (plus my brother's, woot) and we played with a lot of the Castle sets from the late 80s, so I have a good variety of "armor" types and little plastic weapons to arm my dudes with.

I'd much rather have something 3D than counters, but for non-humanoids and really big monsters, sometimes a counter is the way to go. It might be easier to visualize and pick up and move around, but when your stone giant is represented by a Mountain Dew can... well, there's part of me that thinks that's awesome, and part of me that wants to print out a cool picture and use it on the battle map instead.

 

[jdrakeh]

I prefer stand-up paper cardstock minis (Arion Games makes some nice ones for pretty much every milieu you can thingk of), though if I play old school stuff like TFT, I use the counters that the game originally shipped with.

 

[Klaus]

Why oh Lord! Why do you torment us with a Prefix seciton but no miniatures on a board where minis play a usually useful part?

Anyway, going through my stuff while cleaning and came across the old Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes.

And I like's 'em.

I like them more than the old Fiery Dragon counters or the old WoTC punches. The 3-D effect of having something 'standing' there is much more useful to me than laying a flat piece on the table that if you're not tall enough to look down at it, might as well be a penny.

Mind you I love the cost on the old counters and have used them and intermixed them with minis many a time. Especially when FD was super cool and put out the freebie pack for the first 4e adventure.

Other opinions?

What about using counters with plastic bases for 1x1 creatures?

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm surprised the stand-up minis aren't marketed much better. I thought the same thing. I used to have those Steve Jackson minis as well and I thought they did a fine job.

 

[S'mon]

I've used the SJG 2D stand-ups as well as flat counters. I find in practice the counters work a lot better as they are visible from any angle around the table; 2D stand-ups vanish when viewed head-on.

 

[Storminator]

I like to use counters for dead bodies. Still retains that cluttered battlefield look without having minis standing on fallen minis.

PS

 

[Drkfathr1]

I like the stand ups better, but you have to have a good base or they blow over too easy.

I like my Fiery Dragon counters though, so I have to mount them on bases and turn them into stand ups! (Claudio has artwork too good not to use).

 

[El Mahdi]

Well, I prefer actual minis, but this isn't always possible (especially since most of my minis are currently in storage in another state).

In my current game, PC's are actual painted minis, but all of the bad guys (monsters and npc's) are standups. I definitely prefer the standups to flat counters.

Even though there are some really good pre-made counters available in pdf, I prefer to make my own. I simply use Power Point.

I start out with a blank slide and overlay a 1" grid (so I can keep them scaled for use with minis).

Then I'll either cut-and-paste a picture of a mini (usually WoTC's) or artwork (whether from WoTC site, Dungeon or Dragon, or cut from my Monster Manual pdf's). I'll usually open it in Paint first, so I can flip it and make a "negative" version that I can use for the backside of the standup (so I can differentiate front and back). If I need it a bit more customized I'll do some work on it in Paint or photshop (for instance, I made a mounted Shade - from the 3E FR Campaign Guide - on a Nightmare - from the MM and WoTC site - even if the alterations aren't perfect, on the scale that they'll actually be printed out at, it's very hard to see imperfections or goofs).

It's very easy to resize and crop on Power Point.

Then I simply print and cut them out (I leave enough extra space for a 1" base), then fold them over and tape the bottom (making a triangle).

I can make an entire army of Orcs, from cut-and-pasting to cutting out and taping, in about 45 minutes. The price can't be beat, and I never have to worry about the "minis" getting damaged. I can always print up more.