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It's not a quick fix, but pinning metal figures at weak spots and joins can really make a lot of difference if you have the time.
A brief example of how to Pin
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Depending on how much room you have to work with, one solution for areas too thin to drill is to glue them like usual then wrap a small piece of damp cigarette paper (high quality 'roll your own' papers) around the joint and when it's tightly covering it all, put another layer of super glue over it, if there's room it's possible to repeat this a couple of times and it can greatly increase the strength of the joint.
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Two things - how solidly based are they, and are they getting damaged in play or in transit to games?
Most of the damage I have seen to minatures is either due to the ankles etc snapping because the base is wobbly (in which case plenty of glue and flocking seems to help), or getting bashed around in an unsuitable carrying case.
Maybe you could set each figurine in a clear molding gel, using a cylindrical cast that would encompass the entire figurine except for the base. I'm thinking something like an insect suspended in amber.
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There are a lot of options to protect miniatures when traveling.
An expensive option: plastic travel case with foam trays that isolate each mini and allow you to store tons of them. A lot of hobby/miniature places sell these.
A medium-fancy option: go to your nearest big box store and get a small fishing tackle box. Many of them have openings that are almost exactly the size of your average tabletop gaming miniature.
A cheap option: use the small plastic containers that dice come in. I wrap mine in a small bit of paper towel and they don't ever get messed up in there.
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For transit, at least, I like to use a steel husky toolbox, and glue a hobby magnet under the mini's base. Does a pretty good job of keeping things from bumping about.
For a few figurines I wrap them in a plastic bag (not in contact), and slip that into a hard plastic tube. For larger numbers I have a fishing tackle case. Figurines are a lot of work. Don't take their safety for granted!
They do not fit perfectly well, and I do not typically glue them to there bases or anything, does that help? also, they tend to get bent/damaged in travel, I have dedicated places for the more valuable ones, sections of a small tackle box that are just for them, but it doesn't seem to help.Two things - how solidly based are they, and are they getting damaged in play or in transit to games?
Most of the damage I have seen to miniatures is either due to the ankles etc snapping because the base is wobbly (in which case plenty of glue and flocking seems to help), or getting bashed around in an unsuitable carrying case.
Solid bases do make a difference, as we've lost a couple of figures where they weren't glued, and this meant they moved, putting stress on the ankles until they snapped. In extremis you could build some extra rocks onto the base to reinforce the figure and add terrain details.
There is a company called KR multicase who make good carry cases if you want to invest in them. For a small number of figures I have a plastic screw / oddments box from a hardware store filled with foam - it's perfect for conventions.
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There are a lot of options to protect miniatures when traveling.
An expensive option: plastic travel case with foam trays that isolate each mini and allow you to store tons of them. A lot of hobby/miniature places sell these.
A medium-fancy option: go to your nearest big box store and get a small fishing tackle box. Many of them have openings that are almost exactly the size of your average tabletop gaming miniature.
A cheap option: use the small plastic containers that dice come in. I wrap mine in a small bit of paper towel and they don't ever get messed up in there.
This. Simple solution us old timers use (who cut our teeth on RPGs back in ancient times prior to the internet called the '80s) is a fishing tackle box lined with foam. The more precious the miniture, the more care in creating the foam compartment. I.E. using a heat gun to melt a somewhat conforming chamber in a foam block, insert custom foam block into adequately sized compartment of the tackle box.
Plastic minis were typically the disposable sort, such as the Warhammer armies that one would have mass quantities of and so didn't get nearly the care. So most of the tackle boxes gamers used back then had lower trays that while still lined with foam, had "communal compartments". But the metal ones almost always had their own compartment (unless of course they were as valued as the plastic ones) and the size of the box was often a WIP. One guy I knew had a snap on like box that he could just keep adding layers to, his box was if I recall correctly, 11 layers deep.
All that said, with no disrespect intended towards your interest of minis, allow my story below to serve as a cautionary tale with a cherished solution at the end.
By '96 I had spent a near fortune on metal figs/paint/brushes/travel cases/etc, and at the store we almost always played at, I often had metal minis on display as examples of airbrush painting. I had shifted hobbies from miniature wargaming and had a fairly good skill set at creating landscapes and textured 3d terrain and had gone "all in" into RPGs bringing my minis with me. Also, partly due to being fairly good friends with the store owner (I generated a lot of business for her) and because I freely shared my landscape accessories/tiles with others, I had storage privileges for my terrain tiles and accessories in the back game area. My minis however, were all transported by tacklebox as was the norm back then.
This store had a large back room with two rentable gaming bays I typically rented 2-3x a week and after doing this roughly 5 years I was quite well known, and the gamers of the area tended to respect each others possessions and gaming area enough to look and not touch. The store had a no food in the back policy, and since it sat right in the middle of several restaurants a 5 minute walk away, sometimes we would take a break to grab a bite to eat, leaving our minis and tiles out because we never ran into any issues with anyone messing with our stuff.
Friday, June 14th 1996 changed all that. This was a night where doing a climatic end to a 8 month long campaign and we had rented our bay for a 10 hour session. We broke for dinner at 7ish and hit the mongolian BBQ across the street. I'm sure that the clarity with which I remember all this is already making some of you cringe in dread anticipation.
I don't know how things are these days as it seems like the internet pretty much killed RPG stores, but back then such places usually had a lurking troll or two of either gender who due to A) being a troll with typical troll social skills and B) thinking the word "hygene" is a rare Witch Curse, was largely avoided but because they were adept at survival they would usually just lurk and rarely interact. Sometimes, these trolls for whatever mysterious reason, manage to have offspring, and in particular, the female variety had this strange notion that others grimacing and backing away was a form of sign language to encourage them to tell us intimate details about their caves, fungus farms, and their latest attempts at recreating renn fest fashion wear.
Our store's local troll maiden was miserable at A) having offspring and B) breaking every mirror she walked by, had as usual allowed her snot trailing crawling tumor familiar like offspring to wander into the back gaming area. At this point I have to apologize as I used to be far more acidic and colorful of my description of the troll maid and her mucus shedding offspring, but time heals all wounds no? Anyway, said tumor familiar found our gaming table, and while it couldn't reach the gaming table's height it could reach the side table that sat much lower and on which I put my 3 tackleboxes of all airbrushed minis.
We were gone roughly a hour, and upon our return I find my entire collection of 250ish "elite" grade airbrushed minis was wrecked (admittedly, half of them were plastic and thus quite fragile in the pincers of such a creature). Of course there was no reimbursement (troll mothers are notoriously low on loot), and being a mother troll she couldn't fathom why I would leave my possessions out where her offspring could wreck them since obviously, it wasn't her role in life to monitor her creation, it was everyone else's. Naturally, I had the urge to flay the skin off this troll and her child using a dull spoon dipped in salt. While most insist it was my friends restraining me that prevented such a flaying from happening, I clearly recall that I (barely) made my will save and I'm equally certain my barbarian like howls of rage was only heard by the surrounding 3 counties, not states as my friends at the time insisted was the case (they were prone to being a bit melodramatic).
After a roughly two week mourning period, I invested in cardboard minis.
Turned out to be the best thing ever. The amount of artistry that one can bring to custom cardboard minis puts plastic/metal to shame IMO, and their travel is in comparison, stunningly simple. And if a snottling happens to chew on one, I just print up a replacement, slip it into the slotted base, and carry on. Though to be perfectly honest, my Circle of Protection vs Vermin has been made permanent and so I no longer encounter such aberrations.
And yes, I still wish I could flay that troll and her offspring. But since I live 3 states away now, and buy all my gaming products via the internet, I manage to avoid encountering such creatures anymore.
Sans reading the story, short version: invest in cardboard minis good sir, trust me when I say, the convenience is unsurpassed, and just as worthy of your artistic efforts to customize.