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Monster Mini Action Figure Playset- 100 Horror Toy Miniatures w 13 Unique Sculpts - Dracula, Frankenstein, Giant Spiders and More- XL 1/32nd Scale Halloween Character Accessories?
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My FLGS has bins of heroclix minis and other random crap for between 10 for a dollar and a couple bucks a piece. You could keep an eye on eBay and occasionally find decent things there, but you're probably going to be spending $100 plus (but you can get a great deal of hundreds of minis).
If you don't really care about size, quality, or color, this tube on Amazon (along with several others like it) are great deals. Drop down some nail polish so you can say "I attack the green one!" and you're golden. My group is still working off a lot of these guys.
I wanted to mention the figure is from the Monster Action Figure Bucket I purchase on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00W5WSN5A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) for the sole purpose of having figures I could practice on cheaply. They are extremely cheap with mold lines all over but perfect for getting back into painting. If anyone has any tips on inexpensive minis which are perfect for practice, please let me know.
I just remembered Amazon also has bucket o' minis like this. Are they to 28mm scale? Usually not, but the kids can paint them to their hearts desire and after you seal the paint in they can take them home with them. Don't have to face wee little tykes running off with a 5$ mini or losing them in couch cushions.
Personally I found a giant auction of old heroclix minis that I use for the majority of mine. This is not a foolproof system though as most heroclix lots have tons of superheroes and shit- I got lucky with mine being 95% fantasy.
Square base Warhammer Fantasy minis used to be dirt cheap on ebay but now that they announced a reboot they've gone up a ton. (I use a few types of chaos for various daemons and then some dark elf minis for elves/generic guards)
CHEAPEST OPTION: Around Halloween the dollar stores sell basically green army men but zombies, wearwolves, vampires etc in a sleeve. Essentially this link from amazon but for a dollar
As mentioned, thin your paints.
I vastly prefer paints in droppers, and thin with distilled water, but that's all just personal preference.
Cheap minis. I painted monsters from a giant tube with my kids. 100 for $25. Any cheap toys can be primed and painted. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W5WSN5A/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_0EPHGVDK6TEA4K8RAD5E?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
If you want to practice painting and not 'ruin' more expensive minis I bought a tube of "minis" off Amazon to see if I'd remotely decent/interested in the hobby.
They're larger than normal and gave me the ability to freely experiment with techniques and styles. It gave me a lot more confidence before jumping into real minis.
Amazon has a few bulk cheap options, like this:
It isn't great and doesnt have NPCs, characters, or stranger enemies, but they make decent enough proxies for standard baddies. IMO if you have one of these, pick up a couple decent minis from Reaper for bosses, and have PCs buy and use their own figs for their characters, you can definitely scrape by.
You also might want to look out for reaper bones kickstarters. It's a really good way to get a ton of bulk by getting their base sets. It's still pricey, but you shell out a couple hundred and get enough variety in models to handle most encounters and plenty of characters for PCs to pick for playing. Totally worth it if you are trying to get a decent collection of 3d minis.
for super cheap - anything lying around
if you got access to a printer - binder clips and random pictures you find on google
This and the few others like it. if you got some money. https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Action-Figure-Bucket-Frankenstein/dp/B00W5WSN5A/ref=br_lf_m_za9uwymsy2m8j2a_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&s=toys-and-games
Not OP, but a quick search shows his tombstone matches the ones in this set:
It also indicates they’re 70mm figures.
I own the Amazon link miniatures. I will say those are not standard D&D scale which is ~28 mm scale, those miniatures are probably closer to 35 mm in scale. They're very noticeably bigger than D&D miniatures.
Well unfortunately not many places sell bulk generic minis like that but there is this.
I don't believe that it is what you're looking for though but they have various other versions of these but i doubt they have a goblin version.
Reaper Miniatures does sell 6 goblins miniatures for about 3.50 so you could get 10 sets of those and have 60 goblins. All unpainted.
imho standard FDM 3d printers are pretty shite at printing minis. I have a Wanhao i3 v2. I've printed some minis, but it's not worth it to me to deal with it. Gotta cut supports and clean it up and it will never be anywhere close to store bought in quality. I'd rather use paper. For most of our campaign we used the amazon tube of monsters. Just throw a glob of paint or nail polish on the base to differentiate between the guys on the board and done.
3d printing dungeon tiles is a whole different story, though. I moved over to full time dungeon tile printing about eight months ago and it's drastically increased the look and feel of my battles.
These are ridiculous and slightly too big for the "regulation" size mini's. But you get a ton of them and some nice variety...and they definitely work for portraying big scary monsters.
Edit: I should clarify that they're more than slightly too big. The base just barely overextends the standard 1x1 Hex/square, but they definitely look at least 2x bigger than any of the figures my players use for their characters. Doesn't bother us but your mileage may vary!
For my game I use lego people for players and paper minis for other baddies. But I've seen lots of other options. I had bought an old copy of Hero Quest at goodwill and that came with some good minis and some furniture. I had also found a large bucket of monsters on amazon, which was pretty handy.
There's lots of tutorials on how to make your paper minis look cool and professional. Photoshop's your friend there, and a nice printer. The paper minis are nice because now the players can easily see what the creature looks like, rather than me try to describe without using its race, thus giving away info.
The lego minifigures are easily customizable and I can make them hold books and swords, etc. They're slightly larger than 1 inch squares though, which can get a bit annoying in smaller spaces when they're all together. I'm considering just making the players in hero forge and getting them printed. It's a bit expensive, but considering they're the minis you see the most and I'm running a longer campaign, it's probably worth it if you can swing that.
Use anything. wanna know what i fought when i fought a medium sized bear? A coin. All it takes is imagination.
But if you're set on minis, then check amazon. I just found 36 knight minies for 9 bucks. Here is my reccomendation:
I've been thinking about this myself, and my plan thus far has been to order buckets of figures from Amazon. They've got sets with movie monsters, or just skeletons and zombies. Then we'll get specific minis for the players from the FLGS.
Mini's as the people have said, Coolstuffinc, Miniature Mart isn't bad, you can get a lot of mini type figure's off amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Action-Figure-Bucket-Frankenstein/dp/B00W5WSN5A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460995123&sr=8-1&keywords=Plastic+monsters
They have tons of other options on there if you look for them. Others threads have suggested the starter kits to Pathfinder and D&D as they come with a bunch of basic ones
As for maps: You can get a wet/dry erase map for 30ish bucks on various sites, that have a 1x1 grid on it. This way the only limit is your imagination. If you are looking for pre-made maps, you're going to have to pay more for them...$5 + shipping off ebay, not sure of other sites for them
https://www.amazon.com/SCS-Direct-Monster-Action-Figure/dp/B00W5WSN5A?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_6
I got these two sets and don’t regret it. Multiples of each in two colors, they can be painted but it’s not the best material for it.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
- "Bones" line miniatures look great and are rather cheap compared to metal but need painting.
- Toy stores - there are usually tubs of various animals and fantasy creatures/people that work well and come painted. Example from amazon
- Meeples - Buddy of mine started using them and really likes it. Despite the lack of exact replication of a critter you do have easily distinguishable characters
- Pathfinder Paws - lots of colored cardboard tokens with stands. Look decent, easy to carry, good price and though they may be for pathfinder they are just slightly different named/interpreted D&D monsters.
- bottle tops or cardboard tokens work fine. Lots of things online that let you print tokens and you can glue them to bits of cardboard or coins.
I have crap tons of minis. TOO MANY to be honest, a couple hundred easily from the kickstarters I've backed. I also DM and really...they aren't helpful for anything other than tracking locations. When I'm really excited about one I just finished painting the biggest reaction I get is "ooo, nice job. Do I get to kill it?" so don't think that well made and painted minis are necessary. I paint them for my own enjoyment and to relax, not to make my games "better" because that doesn't happen.
I got a few buckets of plastic toys off amazon that are cheap, are the right sized for a 1 inch grid and can cover a lot of ground.
Monsters:
Knights, solders, guards
Zombies, skeletons
Minis just aren't a cheap thing to get into, but there are some options.
You could get one of the D&D board games, they run about $50 which is expensive, but come with a ton of minis. They come with around 40 minis I think, though they are based on the game so will tend to be related to whichever game you get. But that's like $1.25 a mini when you break it down, which is the best price as single minis from reaper or whatever tend to be $5 or so and up, give or take.
One option is to go to walmart or amazon and get something like this. It's a bulk container of just cheap "monster" toys. They can be a good cost effective alternative to "real" miniatures.
Another option is to make standees. Find pictures online you like, print them out in a small size, cut them out, glue them to cardboard or poster board, and either buy or build bases for them.
You could also try ebay to see if anyone is selling their collections.
There is also Etsy, there are some people that just make round disks with pictures of monsters on them. Something like this. Or you could try and make your own, just cut out round disks from cardboard or foam board and glue pictures on them.
I took all the figurines out of my Descent board game, so if you have anything similar laying around like Hero Quest or something, pillage the box.
I also have bought some cheap miniatures off amazon, like this Monster Action Figure Bucket, these goblins, and even a bucket of dinosaurs similar to "little green army men" I found at Wal-Mart.
Normally I don't buy proper figurines unless it's for a significant encounter I have coming up in game, so an ettin here, and a beholder there.
I also made gelatinous cubes out of plastic laminate and a hot glue gun:
I bought these sets from Amazon:
They're definitely bigger compared to the normal 25mm miniatures, but at around $0.25 per figure, they're good for the price.
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for under $30 USD
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for under $30 USD
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
You have lots of options!
You can check dollar stores, craft stores, walmart, etc for packages of monster/animal miniatures, or little army men. You can get a lot of miniatures that way, the only downside is you may end up using something like green army men to represent goblins or cultists or whathaveyou. Here's a good one on amazon https://smile.amazon.com/SCS-Direct-Monster-Action-Figure/dp/B00W5WSN5A for monsters and here's another for fantasy creatures https://smile.amazon.com/SCS-Direct-Fantasy-Creatures-Playset/dp/B0746TKNSL/
You could find images online of various creatures you need and print them out and cut them up and put them on card board to make tokens. You can just make them flat circles, or make them stand with a little bit of cardboard on the back to hold it up.
What I use is I purchased some plastic mini bases off amazon, you can get 100 for about $10. I split them into 10 and painted each 10 a different color and put numbers 1 thru 10 on the top. I use close pins on my DM screen as an initiative tracker, so I've got pins for all my players, and then I've got a pin for each of the 10 colors. So for example if I've got 5 cultists and 3 skeletons I'll use one color for the cultists, and one for the skeletons. It makes it easy for my players to say they attack cultist (green) #3, and that helps me easily track their health.
Another cheap and easy option is to just use dice. Use colors and numbers on the dice to keep track of the enemies.
Amazon sells tubes of mini-figures, I don't have personal experience with them but that's the link for 100 monsters for $25
allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for under $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
I always recommend allThingsHeroscape.com has a set of 4 warriors already painted for $5 USD and a Red/Copper Dragon for $6 USD and a set of 30 figures for under $30 USD but some of those are robots and army guys, so they'll need some modifications and repainted.
Ok, don't laugh too hard at me, but I got this "bucket of monsters" really cheap, and you'd be surprised at how many will work for D&D, especially if you paint them. It's 100 monsters for, like $18 bucks American.
Edit: This is a "fantasy creatures" bucket for $23.
Most of the battle mats I've seen are wet erase, and dry erase markers tend to stain them. If you want to use dry erase, I'd just get a basic whiteboard (which I did).
Figures can be kinda expensive, especially if you're looking for a lot of them. Back in the old days, we used to play with spare dice and coins. Each player tosses in a die they aren't using to represent themselves (easier to recognize the d12 that looks like the d20 you're rolling) and the DM either uses a bunch of random spare dice or pennies or something for the baddies.
If you really want to get into minis though, I'd suggest picking up things like this. They aren't "regulation" size or whatever. But they are cheaper than the real things. Considering you can buy this tube of 100 for the price of a single Reaper mini.
Or there are kits for some of the other games like Pathfinder, which is really just a generic store brand of 3.5e and the tokens work just fine.
There are several mixed sets on Amazon. Just a few:
Monsters https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W5WSN5A/
Fantasy https://www.amazon.com/TimMee-Legendary-BATTLE-Fantasy-Figures/dp/B00FQIJEO4/
Skeletons https://www.amazon.com/B00IDBZPIU/
Mythical Warriors https://www.amazon.com/True-Heroes-Mythical-Warriors-Bucket/dp/B00MW7JH0I/
eBay has a lot too. Search for plastic toy knights, ninjas, monsters, etc. Dollar Stores also carry baggies of cheap toys.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W5WSN5A?psc=1 is a solid pack of monsters.
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