WotC Miniatures

[DaveStebbins]

Like Henry I have about 150 of them. I bought most of them from The Card Vault. Their prices are good for the commons and uncommons and so I have purchased most of those, multiples of some.

While the paint jobs are not stellar, they are better and much more convenient than the unpainted lead ones I have had for over 20 years and never painted.

Several members of my group are hooked, like me, and we use them almost exclusively for everything we need. I've never tried the skirmish game and, frankly, I'm not interested to do so. Just not my bag, I guess.

 

[rgard]

Our group uses them for D&D almost exclusively, but we have played the skirmish game occasionally. I own about 150 of them, and I find that I have a wide enough range to create any setpiece I really want, and there is enough variety that most of the time a player can find a mini that represents them fairly well.

I also want to thank some of the posters who listed various trading and selling sites besides ebay - I will be checking those out.

One thing to be careful with when trading is to make sure the other trader sends the minis in a box as opposed to a padded envelope. I always mailed and received mine in boxes, but I have heard stories of guys getting crushed minis in legal sized envelopes.

The other thing is make sure everybody agrees to send the cards with the minis...again, never had a problem, but you never know.

Best thing for shipping the minis is a D&D mini expansion box...plentiful in the game room if you are like me.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[rgard]

<snip>

What I wonder is: Why hasn't anyone just made big bags of cheap, injection molded unpainted generic monsters? Like those Army Men or Cowboys & Indians bags they have at toy stores, make a big bag of Orcs, or Men-At-Arms, or Undead, or the like, they'd probably sell great to the "discount mini" crowd, and they could even get non-gaming sales to little kids

There are some 54mm (1/32nd scale or so) bags of knights and monsters usually with some type of fortification facade. You can find these at some hobby (the kind that sells models) stores. I looked at one bag, but didn't see any figs that made spending the $3.99 a priority.

The other solution for cheap minis is to go 20mm/22mm (1/72nd or 1/76th scale) and get Revell, Airfix, Hat or Esci boxes of minis. You usually get around 45 figs for $7 to $10 bucks. Every possible historical time frame is covered just about. From Greek Hoplites to English and French knights at Agincourt. Several companies also do good looking 20mm castles.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Holy cow! I thought I had screwed up the poll or something, it's a landslide!

Yes, ENWorld may be home to more D&D players than Skirmish players, but I think the former outweigh the latter heavily. I hope WotC takes that into account when it decides what minis to produce (i.e. which figure is a commander really doesn't matter to most of the buyers out there).

When the WotC minis first came out, I wasn't impressed. The quality was pretty crappy, and so was the paint job. But I must admit that the quality has advanced tremendously over the past few sets and I now buy off Ebay regularly (I probably have 200+ minis now). The two biggest factors for me are having a lot of the common monsters I need (like zombies, kobolds, etc.) and cost. I can now have all commons I need for cheap, whereas buying 25 metal kobolds or building 25 kobolds from warhammer pieces (neither of which are painted) just ain't gunna happen. I've also noticed price increases in metals which, combined with the improving quality of D&D minis, is driving me away from the metals. If the metal fig producers aren't careful they'll find themselves backed into a corner as a niche market for the hardcore mini collectors.

Merric's 3 laws of minis is very true and I can accept that when the issue of randomization comes up. I think I'd rather have a wider variety and deal with the randomness (by buying on Ebay).

 

[Stormrunner]

Well, I paint metals(A), and I also buy the plastic(B).
(A) has three big advantages: I get only the ones I want, they're very detailed, and I can paint them however I want. Three big disadvantages: price, weight, and fragility.
(B) has three big advantages: price, sturdiness, and time. Three disadvantages: randomness, low detail, sloppy painting.

For general play, especially at cons and the like, the plastics rule simply because of their lightness and sturdiness. They're not works of art, but they get the job done. I use a few carefully-detailed metals for important BBEGs, and plastic for the nameless mooks.

 

[MerricB]

The result is pretty similar to the last time.

I know from the designers' posts that they're very aware of role-players needs, and so try do as well as they can by us.

However, pure expense in production keeps some figures rare.

Cheers!

 

[xazil]

The result is pretty similar to the last time.

I know from the designers' posts that they're very aware of role-players needs, and so try do as well as they can by us.

However, pure expense in production keeps some figures rare.

Cheers!

With all the large size figures being rares is painful, since a good amount of commonly encountered DnD monsters are large. Even with a few odd uncommons being large in upcoming sets I would still love to see a "Large Box" expansion along the same line as the huges for GoL.

 

[Sir Elton]

WotC sells minis?

those pieces of plastic don't count as minis if you are a true wargamer.

and they don't count as minis if you are a roleplayer.

basically they don't count.

I like the way you think, Diaglo.

Hey, I like 'em, I use 'em and I don't care who knows about it!

I don't care if you use them either, Mystery Man. They cramp my style.

 

[stevelabny]

my group just got our 2 cases of Giants of Legend. we also had 2 extra packs.
so thats 26 packs total.

we have 6 of almost every common
4 of almost every uncommon
and 20 of the 23 rares.
so i have 6 "double" rares. (actually 2 doubles, and 2 triples)
we also have 3 of every uncommon huge. and 1 of every rare huge plus 2 extra rare huges (lucky on the 2 solo packs)

that is now FOUR sets. every set we bought 2-5 more packs than there are regular rares, and wound up missing only 3 rares, and 0-3 uncommons.

of course, then you head over to maxminis and trade for what you need/want

so you can factor out the randomization (and cut 40% off retail) if you buy them in case qty rather than one pack at a time.

so anyone who wants to fork over some harbinger rares or frost/fire giants can send me a line :-D

 

[John Crichton]

I buy 2-3 cases when the sets come out and trade for anything I'm missing for a complete set. This typically gets me all the figures I need/want. The problem is organizing and storing them all for transport. We don't game at my place and my tackleboxes are filling up very quickly. The huges don't even fit anymore.

I typically use them more for the RPG but a buddy of mine likes the skirmish game so we play that from time to time.