My group has been playing together for almost two years. Saturday night rolls around and people start showing up. We have never used minis but the topic was bought up last weekend. We're all interested.
So I start looking online to find some. HOLY CHRIST TH PRICE!!!
Is there anywhere I can find these for cheaper, I'd rather not have to whore my body out to afford some.
Thanks in advance.
Define 'cheap'.
Metal minis are pricey. (For starters, you can look up some here on-site).
There are plastic minis from Reaper, the so-called bones series.
(In fact, they are having a Kickstarter right now, where you can get a crapton of minis for less than $1 apiece... problem is, shelling out $100 might not be what you are looking for, and you'll have to wait until march.)
|
Hmmm...
While there are always some pretty cheap D&D minis floating around on the secondary market (as well as earlier Mageknight Minis, but they are generally notas well made and need to be rebased), it is hard to find a reliable source for good/average cheap minis.
That said, have you considered pawns or paper minis??, even if you end up buying real minis for the game, getting a decent selection will take time (and your money) and you can use the pawns to back up your growing collection.
I'd perfer plastic, but love the price of the paper pawns.
|
|
I know what, you mean, myself I prefer metal over plastic over paper. Thankfully I have build a reasonable collection over the years (starting with early Ral Parha, consisting now mainly of Reaper and older D&D minis, so I actually won't get any pawns beyond those in the Beginners Box, but if you have not a single mini right now, getting the minis for PCs and adversaries for even a single module, let alone a campaign, is very expensive, pawns might help you buy some time so you can spend money on plastic minis, month by month, slowly building a collection.
Should I buy random packs or individual monsters?
|
Buying individual minis carries the benefit of getting exactly what you need for an adventure but typically costs alot more. Random packs usually cost less but typically net you more minis. My solution? Buy random for monsters and NPCs, buy specific for PCs and, if you like, for important or unique BBEGs.
Sure, it's cool to have a manticore that's actually a manticore but, honestly, that thing is going to be on the table for, like, 15 minutes maybe before your players waste it. In other words, buying random means you'll save a little bit of money and probably still wind up with a Large beasty of some sort to serve as a monster you might only use once in an adventure. I'm pretty sure I didn't make this up myself, but I call them "proxies." I have some ghoul minis that I jokingly refer to as an acting troupe because they've played so many different roles.
Barring that, paper minis and tokens seem to be popular and there are plenty of ways to make your own. The simplest, cheapest method I've found is to find a picture of what you want online, copy and print it at the correct size and cut it out and glue it to a sturdy cardboard base. This works really well when you need large groups of mooks. Need 20 goblins? Copy the same image of a goblin 20 times onto a document, print and cut. I've got a cigar box filled with all the monsters you can summon with Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally spells thanks to my printer.
|
All of the suggestions above are good ones. If I was you I would get some of the pathfinder tokens - try out whether you like using minis on a grid, and not have to invest a whole lot to find out.
Then I would wait a bit before buying a ton of minis for a couple of reasons.
First, reaper is kickstarting it's line of super cheap plastic minis. Those will be available in march. Besides being able to get them cheap in stores, I think there will be a ton of ebayed minis as folks sell off the parts of the vampire pledge they don't need.
Second, Ed Fortae from trollforged games is really pushing his plastic/resin spincast molds. I think you will see a lot of the independent sculptors switching to his material - for example tre manor is shifting his stuff over. That will lower the price of a lot of the low volume / high quality / character / unique models.
Third, paizo's prepaints and wotc's restarted prepaint line should be available from mini resellers at decent prices.
Fourth, Mantic should have their new molds from their kickstarter in production so there should be a wide variety of cheap plastic minis available for a bunch of different common races and monsters.
|
Actually, in a lot of gaming stores they have a Bargain bin. In it are some minis that didn't quite pass the test to be shelved. Most of the time, though, its just because of a lot of flashing.
Another option are Historical Miniatures. For example, 1 Exemplar Venger from Privateer Press costs $10 dollars. 20 Mounted Samurai cost #20. Now, you might not want 20 mounted Samurai, but for the price its really good.
|
@g0atsticks
if you you want to get into painting there are two kickstarters that are live at the moment:
Reaper Kickstarter and 1 Day left on RED BOX GAMES MINIATURES
I also really like Mega Miniatures for classic 80's miniatures. They ship really fast.
A friend of mine likes Gold Dragon Horde
Buying individual minis carries the benefit of getting exactly what you need for an adventure but typically costs alot more. Random packs usually cost less but typically net you more minis. My solution? Buy random for monsters and NPCs, buy specific for PCs and, if you like, for important or unique BBEGs.
Sure, it's cool to have a manticore that's actually a manticore but, honestly, that thing is going to be on the table for, like, 15 minutes maybe before your players waste it. In other words, buying random means you'll save a little bit of money and probably still wind up with a Large beasty of some sort to serve as a monster you might only use once in an adventure. I'm pretty sure I didn't make this up myself, but I call them "proxies." I have some ghoul minis that I jokingly refer to as an acting troupe because they've played so many different roles.
Barring that, paper minis and tokens seem to be popular and there are plenty of ways to make your own. The simplest, cheapest method I've found is to find a picture of what you want online, copy and print it at the correct size and cut it out and glue it to a sturdy cardboard base. This works really well when you need large groups of mooks. Need 20 goblins? Copy the same image of a goblin 20 times onto a document, print and cut. I've got a cigar box filled with all the monsters you can summon with Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally spells thanks to my printer.
You are obviously MASTER RACE. This is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank You.
gez. i just finished reading the rest of everyones post. These are ALL by far really good points. I think I m going to buy pack first. I am also going to buy a PC for my friend. my friend said he has some pics of goblins and stuff already. Today has ended well.
Thanks everyone.
Hey goatsticks,
Take a look at the board games from WoTC. Wrath of Ashardalon and Castle Ravenloft. They have hard plastic unpainted minis from the same sculpts they used for their pre-painted plastic DDM line (now defunct). If you compare the price it would cost you much, much more to get the minis on the second hand market. For example, there's a Dracolich mini in one of the board games. That mini alone on the second hand market would cost more then the whole board game.
Another "cheap" solution is the pre-painted plastic line that Reaper did, called Legendary Encounters. It doesn't look cheap at first but it is compared to most of the alternatives, because you don't buy them blind. You pay for exactly what you need. They use the same sculpts as their unpainted metal line, but they're cheaper and pre-painted.
You might also keep an eye out for board games that have miniatures, like this.
I have a rather large metal miniatures collection from my Games Workshop collecting days but for RPGs, I use paper miniatures which are tons cheaper and saves a lot of time putting them together (cut them out, glue or clip on a base and there you go). Plus if you game with over-enthusiastic players (are there other kinds?) you won't get too distressed if the minis get decapitated by players demonstrating exactly how they cleaved the Orc chieftain or squashed beneath your 1000+ page Slumbering Tsar book.
Just a random selection from the paper minis I have used:
Paizo's selection - great for running the Pathfinder APs.
Precis Intermedia - makes nice sets of miniatures and plastic bases to mount them on.
Arion Games - makes a ton of different sets of miniatures done with computer graphics
|
If you want to jump start your collection of plastic minis for a relatively cheap price per mini, I would suggest going to Ebay, and search Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures, or D&D Miniatures. Look at the "Auctions" tab. Go through the pages of miniatures, and you will likely find some poor soul selling his or her collection or some part of their collection. Often there will be someone selling fifty or more minis for around $1.00 each including shipping. Determine what you are willing to pay per mini including shipping, and get in on the bidding. Be careful not to get in a bidding war with someone. If the prices per mini is more than you want to pay, then go to the next auction. There are always more auctions. You can always broaden your search parameters too to use keywords like just the letters and ampersand D&D or Pathfinder. You will get more junk, but you might find an auction that others aren't looking at.
You may not get exactly the minis you need for adventures, but you will get plenty of minis to use as a proxy. And Pre-Painted Miniatures (PPM) are much better proxies, than using pennies or erasers, or whatever I used to use back in the day before miniatures. (Yes. I am an old timer.)
Eventually, you could build up a sizable collection. Then you could go to trading sites to trade duplicate minis for ones you don't own. Though those sites are slowing fading away.
Finally, there are a few good vendors out there that sale singles at good prices. My favorite is Auggie's. No offense to Paizo, but they can be a bit pricey.
I really like having the exact PPM I need when I create or play through an encounter. Though a close proxy will often do. It adds a lot to the experience. Also, collecting minis in an of itself can be fun.
Good gaming!
Mazra
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My blog has a ton of posts about cheap miniatures and cheap terrain. It's not all cheap, I've got some of the hard stuff too, but most of my couple thousand miniatures were made or purchased for pennies apiece.
Here's basically how I did it:
I started with some copper wire, a block of Sculpey clay and a cheap paint kit from Hobby Lobby. I made some simple stick figure armatures, covered them with Sculpey, did some basic arms, legs and faces, cooked the clay and then painted them. I got a couple dozen kobold and goblin miniatures that way and my gaming group loved them. Next I made some NPC miniatures, some dragons and a few other things. In all I probably got fifty usable miniatures from that original block of Sculpey.
That just got me started. I decided that the Sculpey clay was not as easy to sculpt as I wanted, so I purchased some "green stuff" and started making my own original miniatures. Then I purchased some silicon mold materials and some resin and started making miniatures, making a mold and then casting copies of the original. This was not nearly as cheap as the Sculpey clay, but the results were much more satisfying because once I created something halfway decent, I could make as many copies as I wanted. I used both opaque and clear resin and so was able to make ghosts, gelatinous cubes, dragons, trolls, etc. In the end I probably ended up with most of these costing me in the range of a dollar or so per miniature, but that's pretty cheap for a dozen huge dragons of various colors.
But that still wasn't enough. It was very gratifying and I love the miniatures, but it was slow, slow slow. I had some need to explode my collection, not slowly grow it. So I found a place that sells 24mm miniature sets of ancient armies, elves, orcs, undead and other completely usable RPG designs. So I bought their entire collection, which ended up being almost 400 individual miniatures at a cost of about $70 (including shipping). They all needed to be painted though, so I had to purchase some new paints and sealant. I spent about ten days painting them using an assembly line approach. When I was done my miniature collection had grown from about 120 minis to over 500 minis.
But that still wasn't enough. I wanted more. So I started cruising Craigslist and eBay. I found a huge collection of MageKnight miniatures. So many the seller didn't even bother to count them, he was selling them by the pound. I bought his entire collection, which ended up being over 800 MageKnight miniatures, and almost every one of them is completely suitable for RPG games. But they were on these crazy MageKnight bases, so I purchased a box of wooden disks and spent a weekend rebasing them. In the end I spent an average of less than a quarter apiece for the entire collection.
But I still wasn't satisfied. Not enough dragons, and I had these ideas for custom monsters that I wanted to do. So I started buying plastic miniature animals in bulk from toy stores. Dinosaurs, birds, horses, safari animals, sea creatures, Halloween spiders and bats. Then I got the scissors and exacto knife out and started playing Frankenstein. The result was another hundred or so miniatures at pennies per mini.
Now I've got a dozen 12"x24" foam trays packed with miniatures, plus a few plastic containers full of dragons and overflow. Last time I counted I had just over 2,000 miniatures and I probably spent a total of about $500 for everything. And I've still got buckets and tubs full of materials to make more miniatures whenever I feel the need again.
It's all a matter of how badly and how cheaply you want them. Peruse my site to see what I mean. Many of my miniatures are playable quality only, but I have quite a few that I think came out pretty nice too. The vast majority are professionally sculpted miniatures that I've either rebased or painted to make them usable.
|
I mod old mage knight miniatures. They are super cheap and they usually snap off their bases fairly easy. I glue them to standard size bases and I am good to go. You can grab big lots of them on ebay for pretty cheap. Some of them look like crap but many of them are pretty cool. You can also buy very cheap 1" bases to replace the mage knight ones on ebay.
I also buy from mega miniatures.
I will drop cash on miniatures that I want to paint. Usually these come from Reaper.
Edit: Here is a video done by Bensrpgpile about it:
Going to say it because no one else did: the defunct Rackham Confrontation line still available at miniaturemarket.com. Simply the best prepainted minis ever produced, and some of those sets are DIRT CHEAP, though not the bargains they were before the supply started running low.
Get a box of Lion Guards or Paladins or a box of 8 Griffin Spearmen or Witchhunters. Even the Ram box set for $60 gives you a TON of armored skeleton and undead minis for really cheap, and all with different weapons/poses. Sold for only $30 at one point!!! Crazy awesome quality, but the supply is drying up, so score while you can.
|
|
Going to say it because no one else did: the defunct Rackham Confrontation line still available at miniaturemarket.com. Simply the best prepainted minis ever produced, and some of those sets are DIRT CHEAP, though not the bargains they were before the supply started running low.
Get a box of Lion Guards or Paladins or a box of 8 Griffin Spearmen or Witchhunters. Even the Ram box set for $60 gives you a TON of armored skeleton and undead minis for really cheap, and all with different weapons/poses. Sold for only $30 at one point!!! Crazy awesome quality, but the supply is drying up, so score while you can.
Are you sure these are plastic pre-painted minis? I just did a search on Ebay for Rackham Confrontation and only came up with unpainted metal figures ... ?
I think the prepainted ones might be under the title "Age of the Rag'narok". I know I've purchased a couple of sets here at Paizo.
Confrontation—Age of the Rag'narok: Hunters Unit Box
Confrontation—Age of the Rag'narok: Clones Unit Box
|
|
Rackham did produce sets of painted plastic minis. In fact, they happen to sell a few right here on Paizo.
Here are some I found on Minis Market.
*Uh...what pres_man said, that too.*
I have some of the werewolf types I purchased from paizo when they were selling them super cheap (some kind of sale a few years back). Very nice minis. They are on large bases though.
Yeah, I got them on the same deal I think. I have used them for werewolf lords or gnoll unchosen.
One thing to realize about the smaller minis in this line is that the base is a little bigger than 1". Not horribly bigger, but enough that you wouldn't want to put a lot of them shoulder to shoulder on a 1" grid.
I think the Reaper Bones is going to be the way to go, but there isn't much yet so that's why I threw in a couple other ideas.
Reaper probably is the way to go, biggest bang for your buck. Plus the minitures look super cool, and you get a good many same themed minis.
pretty awesome. i bet there is going to be such a back log on them though.