Lately I have been buying and painting miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically I have been painting them for future use in my campaign. So far none have ever been used by me in my own games. Certainly I have played with minis before in other peoples games at conventions and at gaming tables.
Miniatures are an expensive hobby. Yes. Sure. You can buy a 3D printer and make your own right? Well that is the subject for another article. But using a 3D printer is not exactly as easy as it is all made out to be. Nor is acquisition of the data files which make such 3D minis. And it is certainly not all free either.
And official Dungeons and Dragons, pathfinder and other such minis are a terrible rip off. You get maybe two minis (if lucky) for about $4 or $5. Does that sound like a good deal? How often do you use just two orcs? Or goblins? Or whatever? Obviously big monsters might be encountered singly but humanoids, undead and other such things are often encountered in numbers.
So what are the alternatives other than not using them at all? Surprisingly I have found a few which are good alternatives and are far cheaper to use. Some examples that I have personally bought include:
- SCS Direct Fantasy Creatures – These guys sell a pack of creatures which include many different D&D and fantasy monsters. Most of these come with 10 of each creature in the pack for a total of 98 pieces for $25. They come in two colors (gray and white). Apparently the maker considered them similar to plastic army men and decided to make two armies. They are still easily painted. A similar set is available from the same company which includes most of the favorite monster horror film creatures like mummies, vampires, werewolves and frankensteins (flesh golem). The scales are not perfect however. But the price is right. You get multiples of a lot of creatures that you would use in a DnD game for a hell of a lot less than you would pay for an official to scale version.
- Drunk n Dragon DnD minis – This set includes ogres, goblins, archers, wizards or cultists or priests depending on how you see them, something that looks kind of like a jackalwere to me and other pieces. Currently it says this is unavailable but I bought it a year or so ago. Perhaps the big bad WOTC shut them down. I don’t know. I will link it anyway just in case they become available again.
- Wildspire Minis – This is a very interesting set. It comes with some pretty cool pieces. It is not cheap but is still probably better than buying traditional D&D or Pathfinder Minis. It comes with one massive dragon which is reading from a book. A spell book perhaps. It has some baby dragons, a barrel which seems to be a mimic or something, a massive demon or devil, a weird shark bear creature and many more interesting figures. It cost $42 but has like 28 pieces to it.
- Another Interesting Set – This one has big yetis, treasure chest shaped mimics, stone men (golems perhaps), gnolls, were-rats and even cockatrice. 40 figures for $32. Not too bad a price and these are close to scale for D&D.
- An all Green Set – Ok this one has some weird pieces but some fit perfectly for D&D. The set is printed in all green but can easily be painted. It has lizard men, witches or hags, various blobs and oozes and some other pieces which I am not exactly sure what they are intended to be. 40 pieces for $10. For that price you can just ignore the ones that you do not intend to use.
- Path Gaming 40 Set – Ok this set is made for D&D and is set to scale. This one includes some fan favorites including: Mind Flayers, Dwarves, Goblin Shamans, were-boars, rakshasa, bards, little goblins or kobolds riding lizards as mounts and other pieces. Forty pieces for $25.
These are just some of the options out there. You may have noticed that all of these links go to Amazon. FYI I am not getting affiliate income from that. I do get some affiliate income on this site but not from Amazon. Amazon just had an excellent selection of these types of miniatures available. I suspect that if I delved deeper I would find them on other sites as well and perhaps other and better variations. The point is this. You do not have to buy official D&D or pathfinder minis. There are lots of cheaper options out there. And many of those options include more than a couple of each piece.
I have painted some out of each of those sets I listed above. The paint sticks better to some than others but you can prime them with spray paint first and then paint sticks pretty well to all of them afterwards. I will put up another article later with pictures of some my painting. I am no Picasso but even I can paint minis at least half ass. My (much younger) sister painted many for me as well. She probably did a better job on some.
