What do you use for opponents?

[Dragon Snack]

We use the plastic D&D minis, plus some old GW figs one of the players had. If you buy lots of the commons and uncommons on eBay the D&D ones are cheap.

 

...I rendered a set of Hero and Villain pogs.

Remember Alf?

 

He's back! In POG FORM...

 

The scary thing is, I've used that line twice in the past couple of days.

[Mourningcloud]

for years used coins, large erasers, anything household that would work (many a disposable lighter was slain as a giant, and most of our dragons said "Marlboro" on them). Often i would make specific baddies out of tin-foil (you should see my silver dragon and giant scorpion), and many bottle caps (Mickey's Big Mouth for the size large ) were also drafted for the war effort.

 

but that was then.

 

now I have over 20 years of minis, both old and new, most painted (although i try to shy away from using the old lead) and upwards of 60 or 70 of the Wizards plastics-crappy detail and paint jobs (however the monsters are pretty darn good !!) but better than coins, cigarette packs, and bottle caps.

In fact last weekend at a living greyhawk game in San Diego i saw the "dice glued to plastic bases" monsters for the first time ever. i quickly pre-empted that nonsense when i took out my double sided plano mini tackle box full of D&D plastics and handed it to the DM. After 20+ years gaming and collecting, fighting "gray 12 sided showing a 3" just doesn't work for me anymore. Blame it on my lack of imagination.

[Frankthedm]

Also, we used to have a very ecitable chap who used to flick minis across the room after defeating an opponent and would chip nicely painted minis. He got banned for some reason.

banned? He was lucky to leave uninjured.

 

 

I have almost switched completly over to plastic figs for RPGs. I still paint a few, but i have thousands of figs, getting them to the table is my main priority. plus prepainted plastic are a lot more durable and can be safely stored by tossing into a cardboard box.

 

 

Reaper has also priced itself out of what i will willingly pay for a mini. I can get at 6 to 20 prepainted commons for the price of a single reaper fig. Some of the higher costs might be explained by materials increases, but nowhere near all of it. Couple that with reaper's toon bodied PCs w/ gouge workshop sized weapons and this means i might buy a metal monster now and then and thats it.

[Erion]

Heroscape

 

Non-collectible (meaning non-random) packages with fully-painted minis from a bunch of genres.

 

Plus, the terrain is the cat's meow.

[Frankthedm]

The randomness with heroscape is whether or not any of the expainsion packs are in stock. Those things sell fast.

[Shin Okada]

In most cases, painted minis (mostly from Reaper) for PCs and some important Villains/Boss Monsters, plastic D&D Miniatures for most enemies and monsters.

 

Painted minis are beautiful. I (and my friends) love to use them for PCs. I often paint some impressive monsters such as Dragons or Giants. Or "boss" humanoids. But for grants, I prefer to use light and durable plastic minis. I am not young anymore. Dozens of metallic orcs may break my back.

[Erion]

The randomness with heroscape is whether or not any of the expainsion packs are in stock. Those things sell fast.

That's why I get my FLGS to order them for me.

[Frankthedm]

I almost forgot- Clear glass beads are great to use for carnivous slimes, oozes, puddings and jellies. Use large pools of beads for slimes that split, when they get split, just seperate into 2 or more piles.

[haldir]

speakin of Heroscape, anyone see the terrain packs yet?? Kinda of interesting peices.

 

Seen one the other day that had a huge troll like mini in it that would be neat to repaint, thou it does look kinda like the big troll mini that Reaper put out a few months ago thou.

 

Randy M

[Erion]

I need to get two or three of those bridge sets. Not only do I actually play heroscape, but they're great for building outdoor encounter sets for roleplaying.

 

If you're implying the heroscape bridge troll is a knockoff, the preview pieces for those terrain sets were shown off last year at gen Con SoCal. They've been getting stuff for heroscape together for quite a while.

[Rastl]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'd love to have some inexpensive resin figures I could pull out when needed, but the 'inexpensive' part is difficult to find. Our encounters generally have 10 or so opponents and many times more. Any thoughts on where I could find figs?

[haldir]

if you want cheap then yes the WOTC plastics are cheap, qualitywise, they are gettin better then what they started out with (ie the chinese can paint eyes!!) but you'll encouner soft bent swords, spears etc etc, the limits of soft plastic figures.

 

ebay is pretty good for cheap common & uncommon figs, the rares in the sets aren't worth the price people put on them, I might add. Also do a single search on the net, there are stores that sell figs pretty cheap, just gotta shop around.

 

there is also printed fold em type enounters, draw whatever or name the peice, cut fold & tahdah, a male orc, not as nice as a metal fig but if want them for your game.

[Shin Okada]

ie the chinese can paint eyes!!

Actually, they are not painting, but using "eye stamp" I guess. I own a Gnoll Sergeant with 3 eyes.

 

But anyway, if a DM want cheap opponents en-masse, e-bay (or single shops) will be the way to go. Common and uncommons are cheap. You can get several Orcs for a dollar.

 

Large monsters are usually to expensive. But it is becoming better as WotC start to make large uncommons. For example, the new troll mini in Angelfire set (Troll Slasher) is usually $2-4. Not bad for a large painted monster.

 

But if you tend to make adventures by yourself, buying several packs per set is not a bad idea indeed. You can make your adventure based on minis which you have pulled. Also, that way, you will eventually get 1-2 each of different minis for most common evil race. That will add nice flavor.

[haldir]

surprisingly the box basic D&D set isn't bad, for what you get + it does do one thing, it teaches total newbies the basics of the game, kinda nice if you've got younger players & such, to be honest I wish I had something like that when I first started, then again I would have got the feel I guess of 1st ed D&D

 

comes with the black dragon mini, wich to be honest with you I was kinda disspointed in, as I said RARES are ok, but htey don't warrant the single prices you see for them. the beholder is impressive but not for 30 bucks or so, heck for the price I can find that seller on here that makes teh one out of resin, & help him out a bit.

 

but then again there are some monster that wotc branded & if you want accurate minis then yah the prepaints are gonna be the way to go if you want them, (the nothiic is one & it's a pretty cool mini)

 

 

 

btw Shin, you got a CHAOS GNOLL, ha ha, but yah the detail paint still lacks thou, I have a dwarf with 2 black eyes

 

Randy M

[Rastl]

I struck gold and found a Stratego game at the thrift store on Friday. The game pieces stand up, come in two colors, and have different symbols/numbers on one side.

 

Worked really well for the combats our DM put us through yesterday.

 

Actually had to use two battle mats. One had the Stratego pieces for the army and the other used various colors of Hershey's Kisses. We added in some dollar store cowboy and Indian figures as well as figures from a lame 'adventure' game I scored and we had more than enough pieces for opponents.

 

Haldir, where can I find the printed opponents? Are they online somewhere so I can make a bunch? The DM doesn't let on with what will be needed so I'd like to work on building up enough she can put out what's what.