When bad minis turn good ...

[Ant]

I love collecting the WotC D&D minis but often curse my luck as I seem to pull multiples of certain minis that I figure I'll never use.

One of these is the Skeletal Equiceph from the Underdark set. I disliked it yet I seemed to get one in every second booster. I'd mutter and spit and throw it into the "Undead" container where I figured it would stay buried.

Then last session the party ended up in the Nightmare Realms (thank you, Heroes of Horror) where they were beset upon by giant spiders and drow, one of which was a cleric. I needed some undead minions for the cleric and, on a whim, decided that the Skeletal Equiceph was perfect for enhancing the creepy atmosphere of the Nightmare Realms.

The result was ... delicious ...

The players panicked as these terrifying, horse-skulled, undead creatures wielding massive great axes strode out of the mist towards them. The main fighter fell to a critical due to her failing her massive damage save. The second fighter beat a hasty retreat. Then the mage was dropped in a single blow.

It was beautiful and now I see my undead horsies in a new light.

So, has anyone else found cool ways to use minis that they've initially shunned?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

It is posts like this that made me wish I could afford to buy minis.

 

[Huw]

Celestial giant badgers. You never meet celestial giant badgers. I've never even known someone summon one. Yet they can stand in for just about any medium sized and most small monsters.

 

[Glyfair]

I love collecting the WotC D&D minis but often curse my luck as I seem to pull multiples of certain minis that I figure I'll never use.

It's worse when it's a rare. Out of 8 boosters of War Drums or so, my brother & I ended up with 3 Arcane Ballista's. I was going to trade it to an acquaitance who does the D&D minis thing, too, but he got several as well.

 

[SteelDraco]

I had the same problem with Chuul that you had with the Equiceph. Seemed like they were the rare in just about every booster I bought from that set; I ended up with half a dozen of the things.

I recently started running an Eberron pirate-y game, set in the Lhazaar Principalities. The party's first mission was to help a small fishing village with some disappearances caused by 'lobster monsters'.

The look of horror on a player's face when he noticed I had lined up a half-dozen chuul minis behind me was priceless.

 

[Balgus]

I used to collect minis. Until it finally dawned on me that I will NEVER get to use any of them in actual gameplay. I spend about 10-20 hours painting each of them and if my DM ever wants to use them, I usually give a horrid look.

Also, I never seem to have the one that he needs. It's kind of funny when

he asks, "do you have a vampire?"

"nope- but I have this demon with batwings."

"that'll do"

Gameday:
"And from teh shadows, you see a small figure with outstretched wings"

"Holy SH*T! It's a Huge Demon!!"

"Yeah- but this guy is allergic to garlic."

 

[Kunimatyu]

While I don't let them constrain my monster choices, I love it when new, slightly esoteric minis give me new ideas for an encounter.

Some of my personal favorites involve chittering Mad Slashers in a burning building, the PCs activating an Arcane Ballista on a ship to take down some griffon and gargoyle pursuers, and an Orcus-worshipping Half-Fiend Ogre and his zombie white dragon servitor accosting the party outside of a temple of Demogorgon they just looted.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Exactly this thing happened to me with the Mad Slashers. I looked at them and said "hm". Then I needed some spiders for my game, grabbed those, and wound up turning them into an ad hoc monster that creeped out my players!

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Most of the time, we just have various minis to represent bad guys/monsters. It's rare we have the exact monster we need... although our DM was lucky enough to grab a Beholder and sicced it on our party one session.

 

[DaveStebbins]

So, has anyone else found cool ways to use minis that they've initially shunned?

Why, yes, I have. At the last game night at my house I used a wrackspawn...

...under the short table leg to even things up. It was perfect!

-Dave