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I am a recent convert to using minis in RPGs. I've bought a bunch of Flip-Mats and Map Packs, and I've got a bunch of paper minis, but I wanted to get some actual miniatures to use as well.
The difficulty here is that I simply don't have the time to assemble and paint minis (I barely have the time to assemble the paper ones!), so I wanted to find a way to get a bunch of pre-painted, ready-to-play minis, fairly cheaply.
At this time, I'm looking for mainly fantasy-based minis (I'm currently running the Kingmaker AP). Does anyone have any ideas how to start a collection? Most of the minis I can find for sale are from Warhammer games, and are either unpainted or else are too similar (I don't need a dwarven army, or 80 mostly identical elves, for instance). Is there any way to get started using minis quickly and cheaply?
Thanks.
I'm pretty sure the "Age of the Rag'narok" line from Rackham is all prepainted plastic. I have some of them (the Knights from the Griffon faction and the Clones from the Scorpion faction) and they all look great. And you can get them for pretty cheap at the Paizo store:
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I'm pretty sure the "Age of the Rag'narok" line from Rackham is all prepainted plastic. I have some of them (the Knights from the Griffon faction and the Clones from the Scorpion faction) and they all look great. And you can get them for pretty cheap at the Paizo store:
I typically use the WotC mini's, which you can usually fill up fast on the commons from local FLGS. I saw some of the Rackham ones recently and wanted some stand in for typical trolls because the varient at hand were meaner and nastier. The Rackham mini's look great! No doubt about it, but they were very expenisve, and fragile. They are a hard plastic, not the soft kind wizards used, and I think it was either my Pathfinder Core Rules, or my Balrog that crushed the life out of one of my trolls. Where as when something like that happens with a WotC mini, you just need to sort of drag it to true, or a little beyond, and it will regain close to its original shape.
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I typically use the WotC mini's, which you can usually fill up fast on the commons from local FLGS. I saw some of the Rackham ones recently and wanted some stand in for typical trolls because the varient at hand were meaner and nastier. The Rackham mini's look great! No doubt about it, but they were very expenisve, and fragile. They are a hard plastic, not the soft kind wizards used, and I think it was either my Pathfinder Core Rules, or my Balrog that crushed the life out of one of my trolls. Where as when something like that happens with a WotC mini, you just need to sort of drag it to true, or a little beyond, and it will regain close to its original shape.I'm pretty sure the "Age of the Rag'narok" line from Rackham is all prepainted plastic. I have some of them (the Knights from the Griffon faction and the Clones from the Scorpion faction) and they all look great. And you can get them for pretty cheap at the Paizo store:
Any idea where I can buy them online? My FLGS is more of a comic shop than anything...
Paizo sells tons of WotC plastic prepainted minis.
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I typically use the WotC mini's, which you can usually fill up fast on the commons from local FLGS. I saw some of the Rackham ones recently and wanted some stand in for typical trolls because the varient at hand were meaner and nastier. The Rackham mini's look great! No doubt about it, but they were very expenisve, and fragile. They are a hard plastic, not the soft kind wizards used, and I think it was either my Pathfinder Core Rules, or my Balrog that crushed the life out of one of my trolls. Where as when something like that happens with a WotC mini, you just need to sort of drag it to true, or a little beyond, and it will regain close to its original shape.
Just a question...which ones did you use for trolls?
Prepainted WotC minis are also available on Ebay, although true bargains are rarer than they once were. Useful search terms include "D&D minis", "DDM", and "D&D Minis lot".
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I'm pretty sure the "Age of the Rag'narok" line from Rackham is all prepainted plastic. I have some of them (the Knights from the Griffon faction and the Clones from the Scorpion faction) and they all look great. And you can get them for pretty cheap at the Paizo store:
I saw some of these on the table for the first time this weekend and they really look good. Unfortunately, the bases are way bigger than a 1" square used pretty much universally for an RPG grid.
I'd recommend some of WotCs minis or Reapers Legendary Encounters prepainted plastic minis.
I saw some of these on the table for the first time this weekend and they really look good. Unfortunately, the bases are way bigger than a 1" square used pretty much universally for an RPG grid.
True, it looks like the human-sized minis have 30mm bases. But I think the overall quality level of the ppp Rackham minis is higher than the ppp D&D minis. Depends on what you're looking for, I suppose.
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The overall quality of the Rackham minis is vastly better and they are proportionally higher priced than the random D&D Minis (DDM). On the other hand if you are looking for a specific group of figures the DDM singles are actually more expensive. Also, the newer D&D minis are more expensive.
I don't mind painting minis and you can learn pretty quick. I've hunted around and found warhammer fantasy (and even some 40k) minis to use in my game and had a lot of luck with them. I also pick up some privateer press minis when they are on sale and those can be quite nice when painted.
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The overall quality of the Rackham minis is vastly better and they are proportionally higher priced than the random D&D Minis (DDM). On the other hand if you are looking for a specific group of figures the DDM singles are actually more expensive. Also, the newer D&D minis are more expensive.
I don't mind painting minis and you can learn pretty quick. I've hunted around and found warhammer fantasy (and even some 40k) minis to use in my game and had a lot of luck with them. I also pick up some privateer press minis when they are on sale and those can be quite nice when painted.
What I'm trying to do is build up a "library" of minis I can pull out as needed. The Paizo store has a bunch for sale at $1 each that I'm going to grab once I get back from leave, and some of the Rackham sets look like they could be generally useful. I'm not sure about the random packs, though. I'd really like to avoid having duplicates as much as possible.
As for the size of the bases, 30mm is about 1.2 inches, right? I wonder if that's close enough to work with the Flip-/Battle-maps...
As for painting... Not only are visual arts NOT my strong suit, I either have time for playing or painting, but not both. But I still like the increased immersion players get from well-drawn maps and minis, so...
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30mm is a touch on the big side for most battle mats. they work but can be tight.
Painting as good as you get from prepainted is not a visual arts kind of thing. With about 10 minutes per mini and about 3 techniques which are easy to learn you can easily match the quality of painting you get from prepaints. A bit of practice and you will be surprised at how nice your stuff looks (trust me, I'm not artsy either).
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Any idea where I can buy them online? My FLGS is more of a comic shop than anything...
You can also try Miniature Market.
Finally, Reaper's Legendary Encounters. While they don't have a big variety, their multipacks of skeletons, orcs, and goblins are really great for gettings some basic monster minis.
Also, you might check out local toy departments of stores. You can often find things like dinos that are pretty cheap.
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and I've got a bunch of paper minis,Might I inquire as to where you get your paper minis? I primarily use paper ones because they're cheap to create and print, and I'm always on the lookout for new ones to add to the collection.
Well, I've love the official Pathfinder Paper Minis, as they have what you need for a specific adventure, but for some reason they only seem to make them for the first one or two issues of each AP, then stop. They look beautiful, but take some effort (not much, but some) to assemble properly.
I've also bought a ton of Cardboard Hereos. You used to be able to buy them pre-printed, but these days you can just buy the PDFs. They have a very retro look, and are simple A-frames.
In both cases, you get a ton of minis for your money (but, of course, you still need to print them). While the art styles are vastly different, they both look good. The only real issue with mixing sets is the scale.
I've decided to pick up some of the minis recommended here, and just use the paper ones for the "fodder" npcs (I'm not buying fifty pre-painted goblins...) and the NPCs specifically referenced from the APs.
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Another good place to pick up paper minis (and they are free) is here: one monk miniatures
Thanks for the link. These are some really awesome Paper Minis!
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I've had to recently do something similar since someone absconded with my mini collection. There are a variety of sources; here are a couple more other than those mentioned:
Mage Knight minis (cheaper, bases are not standard)
LOTR Minis (prices fluctuate on these)
Heroscape Minis (good sculpts- i find them better than WotC)
World of Warcraft Minis (pretty good overall)