So since I’ve got minis on the brain today, let’s talk a bit about them, and how you use them in your game. I’m the type of DM that doesn’t need to have a mini for every single enemy on the table. I think that’s insane (in a good way), although there certainly are many of you that play your game that way. Nothing wrong with that, I commend your dedication, and I wish I could do the same! 4e design, in particular, makes the number of enemies in any given encounter quite plentiful, with minions alone sometimes numbering in the double digits. I know at least I’ve thrown that many at my players anyway. Plus, the amount of rare (collecting-wise) creatures in the game make it a very expensive way to game.
So what do you do? Are you the type that uses the appropriate mini for every single encounter? Do you re-sell them once you’re done, or trade them? Here’s what I do. I buy minis. I don’t think I buy a crazy amount of minis. For example, if my party is fighting 2 Hook Horrors, I’ll have a mini for one of them, but for the second one I’ll use a bottle cap from the milk gallons at Costco. They are white, they fit the 2×2 area perfectly, and you can write on them with a dry erase and wipe it right off. They are perfect, and I highly recommend them to use as additional large creatures.
For minions, I rarely use minis. I use round alphabet wooden tokens that are available at Michael’s. If you are familiar with my token making tutorial, you know what I’m talking about. These are good because they are cheap, they are light weight, and they are labeled with a letter which helps out at the table. (“Kobold Minion A is down, C is still up though”) Yes, once the players see the tokens, they know they are facing minions, but I think that them knowing so is part of the intent of the minion rules in the game.
So what about the packaging scheme that Wizard’s has implemented for their line of pre-plastic minis… Do you like the random model, or do you like seeing at least one of the minis you are going to get? I’m personally a fan of seeing what’s in the box, even if only one of the minis. I still think that there is enough demand to create and package packs of specific monsters, (orcs, skeletons, kobolds) but it seems doubtful we’d ever see that. I for one would jump all over that, and I suspect many others would. How do you feel about the Player’s Handbook Series? You know what I would have done? I would have packaged a visible Monster, and visible PC type, and random monsters all in one box. But what do I know.
Here’s another interesting question… are you so anal that you refuse to mix mini types? Will you only play with metal minis, and not mix in the plastics, or the other way around? I know some who are like that. They like their table to be consistent.
Well, that’s a lot of mini talk from me, let’s see what you guys think. And don’t forget the packs of minis I’m giving away!
www. Newbie DM .com 
Illusive Dreams
January 11, 2010
Ive only been DM’g for about 6 months. However, I have amassed over 300 minis for my game. I try to have whats in the encounter represented on the game table. Sometimes that doesnt happen and it does get expensive as well. Ive played the first 4 modules of the Scales of War that way. Not sure if I will continue that right now, since I am buying a house in a few months. But I will keep you posted.
Jesse
January 11, 2010
I don’t have the budget to buy a lot of minis, so I re-use the few dozen I have as often as possible. A lot of times, I’ll pull out a mini for reference, but describe it as something else (“this zombie-looking guy is actually a big orc”). Other times (particularly for minions), I’ll find an image of them in print, then print it on a fold-up card and glue it together to make a paper mini. These are great because I can print a legion of them w/out costing me much – or anything if I do it at work 😉
Mike Shea
January 11, 2010
I think I fit your definition of crazy. I use minis in every battle and only occasionally does a mini not fit the monster I’m using. They aren’t EXACT but they’re pretty close. I’ll actually alter the monsters I use in an adventure to fit the minis I have. It probably doesn’t make a huge difference, but I like the figure on the table to represent the creature.
If I didn’t do this, I’d likely use your monster token trick, printing monster images from the WOTC website onto round stickers and sticking them on a washer. I think that’s a great way to have four Balors and two liches.
Steve
January 11, 2010
I have a couple dozen minis, so I usually have something close at least for the big guys. I also have some metal minis that I’ve painted, but I mix them freely with my plastics.
I also bought a bag of pawns from an educational supply store. I think I got 48 pawns in 6 colors for around $6. I then wrote numbers on them. So I’ll say the green ones are orcs, and the white ones are skeletons.
Charles
January 11, 2010
I’m using tokens for all but the biggest baddest opponents (so the players know this is a ‘special’ encounter).
Generally when buying a mini I get it from the loose stock at my FLGS where other gamers have sold back what they didn’t want or need anymore.
I used your idea and started making quick tokens by colour printing rectangles folded & taped closed around a penny. I now have a 1″ round die cutter for quickly cutting out round images, and about 100 1″ thin wooden disks to glue them to. I made up some paint.net templates to get the size right and print two copies with black/red rings around them for normal/bloodied (one on each side of the disk).
Arcade
January 11, 2010
I have a bunch of minis because I picked up a lot of random packs when the D&D miniatures line first started. So I have a nice range of zombies, orcs, kobolds, goblins, etc. I try to make my encounters so they use minis I already have, but I’ll do whatever substitution I need to. (use an ogre for a large zombie or a small red dragon on a large base for a large black dragon)
Swordgleam
January 11, 2010
I bought a couple dozen of cheap minis online for around $30 before the campaign started, and my players each picked the mini that looked most like their PC. For anything that’s not a PC, I use tokens similar to the ones you make. My tokens are all numbered, so it’s easier than using minis – instead of “the hyena to the left of the fighter” it’s “hyena #3,” which just makes everyone’s life simpler.
I have no idea what I’m going to do with the six celestial dire badger minis I bought. But I just couldn’t help myself.
Patrick
January 11, 2010
I almost always use miniatures for my encounters, mostly because I love the visual aspects of the game, like maps, mini’s, etc. I don’t have a big enough collection to use the exact mini for each monster, so I usually have to make a couple of substitutions, but my players don’t mind. Recently there was an encounter featuring 4 hyenas, so I used the 1 hyena mini I had, plus a wolf, a kruthik, and a drake. It worked out well because each mini was a different colour, making it easy for us to tell them apart.
Radiating Gnome
January 11, 2010
I’ve used a wide variety of solutions — and continue to have a very eclectic tabletop. I have a pretty good collection of the Wizards plastic minis that form the core of what I use, but I have a bunch of gumball machine figures (Homies, and others), some other assorted stuff like devil ducks, etc. The only thing that seems truly important to me is that if I have multiple of the same sort of opponent (goblin sharpshooter), I prefer to have matching figures.
Dave
January 11, 2010
Most of the games I run involve my kids who are very visually-oriented. I tried an old-school encounter drawing it out on graph paper and using coins for the monster and they didn’t like it as much. I’m lucky there’s a store close by with loose minis, so I can pick and choose. Mini collecting is a nice side hobby (read: obsession), so I try to get most of the critters at least in the right species. One frustrating part of the otherwise excellent Chaos Scar adventures Wizards has been publishing is the lack of minis for taints and other critters unique to that setting. I need more squishy, tentacled thingys!
Galen
January 11, 2010
I love your idea of using the lettered tokens for minions. That seems perfect for me, it lets the players know who the minions are without any fuss, cuts down on the number of minis needed and has the added advantage of making the minis you do use really stand out. Seems like a great idea to me.
In the two games I play in we regularly use minis that are not accurate representations of the creatures they represent. That has, once or twice, caused a bit of confusion as to ‘what that goblin with the crossbow really is’.
Jim
January 11, 2010
Personally, I try to use miniatures for all non-minion enemies. This is probably due to my entire group being new players with 4th edition and not being used to the abstract nature that was more prevalent in previous editions. I do use the wooden letter tokens for minions though and for the same reason, sometimes there are just too many. I usually use WoTC plastic minis for monsters, but the players use metal ones. They all get their minis from Reaper.
I like building a miniature collection. It’s a very tactile thing, and it’s nice to amass minis and look at it as a physical representation of your hobby. The more minis I collect, the further it feels like my group has progressed. They’re like little trophies.
Kameron
January 11, 2010
I prefer to use minis, and ones that look like the monsters in the encounters. I spent too much time sifting through the WotC mini galleries to create a spreadsheet for all the minis needed to run Keep on the Shadowfell, and I spent more money than I should buying them.
I’m not sure I will continue that practice for the next adventure. I’ve found some inexpensive token artwork sets online and will likely go that path for monsters (PCs all have their own minis).
While my main reason for the switch is financial, another reason is how WotC has decided to manage their minis line. Like you, I would like to see sets grouped by type. I also think they need to do a better job of representing what’s in the MMs and PHBs.
Jim
January 11, 2010
You would think WoTC would go for more synergy with their minis and published adventures wouldn’t you? Release a full mini set with everything you’d need to run Keep on the Shadowfell for example (maybe even with dungeon tiles included?) Seems like a major missed opportunity – I’d be much more inclined to purchase full published adventures if they came with everything I needed.
xerosided
January 11, 2010
Though my group’s still on hiatus, we switched to tokens when you first posted about them and haven’t looked back. Tokens give us the same “look and see” quality that minis brought to our table, and then some, because it’s much easier to make all the tokens match the monsters they represent than it is to do the same with minis. On top of that, with tokens every unique NPC can truly be unique, finally. On top of that, tokens are much cheaper, easier to acquire, and incredibly easy to make. The only real downside to ditching minis in favor of custom tokens is that minis are three-dimensional and tokens are flat. But none of us particularly mind that.
Now I just need to sell off my modest mini collection, since I won’t be using them any more.
Totte
January 12, 2010
As an oldtimer, with loads of metal figures, carefully painted in my younger days, and a son with a large collection of assorted plastic minis from 3.5 and 4e, I try to use plastic minis for those monsters that are non minions, trying to find something similar if I cannot find the correct one. I also have what we have been calling “mass-monsters” from the good old days of AD&D, goblins, humans and skeletons, all painted. I bought casts and casting tin back in the early 80s (I think the company was prince august), and casted my own monsters, about 50-60 of each. They serve often as minions as you never have to HP track minions.
For normal monsters, I really try to use different minis so I can track who is who, but sometimes, just stick a little yellow, pink or green piece of post-it into the mini is enough to separate them.
When Players attack “the orc archer”, I as which, and they can say “the pink one”, and I can track HP.
Yigal
January 12, 2010
I didn’t care for de WotC mini’s, so my GF and I spent some money on the Warhammer starter’s kit. They fit perfectly on the battlemaps, and now we can also spend a lot of time painting them 🙂
Of course, this does mean the mini’s hardly correspond to the actual monsters, but mentally substituting a skeleton for a goblin seems easier than using markers tokens.
For those interested: the starter’s kit I’m referring to is http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1300172&prodId=prod830856
Rob Leduc
January 12, 2010
I use dice for the monsters and proper minis for the players. They are just kids with no prior gaming experience, so haven’t yet caught on to the concept of ‘minion’. Eventually I suppose they will figure out that the d12 is the ogre lord, the d20s are his Orc henchmen and the d6s are a bunch of kobald minions. But it has worked well so far. The die face helps me tell one monster of a given type from another.
Downside – you have to be careful where players roll to avoid mixing real monsters up with thrown dice and the other way round.
by_the_sword
January 13, 2010
I have a lot of minis. All plastic and bought out of the box because I hated playing Russian Roulette with the minis the way Wizards of the Coast makes you do. I use plastic minis because they are durable and because i can’t paint a mini to save my life.
In addition to numerous WOC minis I also have some unpainted Warhammer and hero Quest pieces that I use for minions So far my players haven’t figured out that the un-painted plastic goblins and orcs are minions..I am not going to tell them either.
I started using Minis for combat in 3rd ed and I have used them ever since. When I don’t have access to the figurines I’ll use anything, coins, dice, markers, whatever.
I also have quite a few Star Wars minis too that I plan on using in an upcoming Science Fiction game that i will one day run, just as soon as I can figure out what ruleset to use.
Tobz
January 13, 2010
Similarly to many above I have a bunch of plastic 4E figures (about 50) which I mix and match so the same ones tend to get trotted out repeatedly to represent all sorts of different monstsers. I do try and keep similar ones to represent similar monsters in each encounter and put small coloured plastic tokens under them to differentiate them.
Saragon
January 13, 2010
By and large we use dice for minis as well, simply because we’ve already shelled out for dice and don’t want to shell out for minis. 😛 However, a coworker of mine often uses small candies (those bite-size candy bars, Peeps, jellybeans, etc.) for monsters, with a “you kill it, you eat it” rule…
Jeremy Sisson
January 13, 2010
I crafted a set of tokens that I use for my monsters that are basically wooden disks, painted and then finished to be glossy. I then stuck a letter or number on each to identify it. The colours represent the different types of monsters. My concern was that I wanted a set of tokens I could reuse, rather than needing to keep buying minis, or having to make a set of kobold tokens or something (for each kind of monster).
These coloured tokens are reusable, and they’re working great. We use the hero minis for the actual players.
Here’s a pic:
The Oswald
January 13, 2010
I try to swing by our local gaming store to pick up some minis before every session. This way there are always fresh new minis for the players to see. Worst case I use them as proxies (I used some worms as proxies for Bloodthorn Vines last session).
Also, I have a running “DnD Mats fund” that people will occasionally throw a few bucks in so I’m not the one eating all the expenses. The players like seeing new minis, and I like being able to buy whatever looks good.
The Oswald
January 13, 2010
Also, we play Warhammer Fantasy, so we use those minis a lot. They’re already painted and look great, and fit perfectly. I support the Warhammer crossover!
Kevin Asher
January 13, 2010
I am the anal type that likes to have all the same kind of mini at the table. I prefer to have the mini that was designed for the purpose of the monster, but I am well aware that a boatload of monsters, and even more player minis are simply put, not available, and that makes me sad. But what I do like is that there has been a fair effort to make dragon minis available whenever dragons are added. Sure, there are a bunch of holes now with both Draconomicons, but every set after Harbinger has had at least one dragon, no matter how small. Many have have at least two, and though a number of them have been updated with new sculpts, they are very nice. But the other things that you will use more often than dragons, be they ogres, orcs, giants, trolls, vampires or a bunch of other things, you just had to wait months for…
Ryuuma
January 13, 2010
I’ve always bipassed this problem in games I’ve run. Usually I just used imagination, with the players asking where things are in relation to their move actions, i.e. “Can I move to this orc and attack in the same round.” But when 4th ed. came out, and especially when we started playing serious battles, it wasn’t working. What we came up with was using dice (I’ve been gaming for a long time, and have about eight sets of dice). So, everyone took their d20s and their weapon dice, pooled the rest with mine, and then we used them. For big things, like the tree the ranger climbed or the orge/giant, we use dice boxes or my large d20, and for grand battles (Tolkien orcs) we draw maps with white board.
Mimi
January 13, 2010
For PCs, we’ve been using the metal figurines from Monopoly Disney. They’re actually a really good size. And for monster? The plastic figures that come with the game risk… Because I’m way too cheap to buy minis. Much rather spend my money on books!
Kevinicus
January 14, 2010
I use a wide range of minis for my game. All of the players have hero miniatures (some Warhammer, some Reaper), from my small collection gathered as a player over the previous 2 editions. I was gifted a full Skaven army, and those work well for large hordes of similar monsters, but I honestly don’t use those very often. The most common monster miniature I use? Lego people. It is actually quite entertaining. “And this week, Marian Ravenwood in a barrel will be filling in for the ogre. Her frying pan gives her reach 2.” Lots of Stormtroopers, Nazis, skeletons, orcs, pirates, etc have taken bit parts in my game. The Castle series was very handy, as it had orcs, big trolls (Huge size on the game map), dwarves, and various sundry “guys in armor with swords” I could use. I’m a collector, so I already have them lying around, and they are the proper size for a 1″ square base! Besides, using Darth Vader as Kalarel at the end of Keep on the Shadowfell gave the players the proper amount of awe they should have.
d20plusmodifier
January 14, 2010
I can’t even TELL you how badly I wish that they made packs of skeletons, kobolds, goblins, orcs, or any standard monster. I think having the right mini for the situation is great.
Minis are to supplement the imagination, and too often, having the wrong mini is fighting your players’ imaginations.
Why don’t you think we’ll see any packages like this soon?
newbiedm
January 14, 2010
Because them they’d have too many unpopular monsters sitting on the shelf, while the popular ones are always scooped up.
I would divided it up in groups, Set 1: Orcs/Skeletons, Set 2: Goblins/Lizardmen so you get variety and groups at the same time.
by_the_sword
January 15, 2010
@ d20plusmodifier:
I don’t get WOTC sometimes. I mean we can all clearly see that sets of monsters works for Warhammer so haveing a “toop” of hobgoblins or a horde of orcs isn’t such a terrible idea, even if they seel the figures six in a pack, they will still make lots of money.
As for me, i buy minis that I can see. I often buy Hero Scape minis because I know exactly what i am getting (and they look better than many of the D&D Minis). WOTC needs to open their eyes, otherwise they will miss out on what 3rd party merchants are making money on, i.e. minis that people want.
newbiedm
January 15, 2010
Well, the latest rumor has it that the Player’s Handbook Series will be cancelled this year, as they aren’t selling well. There is speculation thatthey are going back to the random model, so we’ll see… this is all on good sources….
Totte Alm
January 15, 2010
I think the problem is that WotC made their fortune on selling random items in closed packs (magic cards), and they will always compare miniature sales to the magic sales.
The reason I bought some of the new minis was just that you can see the content. I do not need anymore “farmer with pig”, I promise!! My son is picking at least one of each set to get a good mix. We also bought a bunch of reaper minis, orcs, goblins to have more.
For us, minis are important to the game as I’ve used minis since the first metal figures back in 1979 or so.
MatthewJ
January 19, 2010
For some reason, many moons ago, I was really into the idea of collecting Star Wars minis — so when I got into play D&D4E last summer I was happy to discover that I had about 10 or so stormtrooper minis.
Which is to say, when I have a need for minions in an encounter (which is often) I just bust out the stormtroopers. The players get it, it doesn’t break my wallet, and it’s fun watching those little guys fall after one hit.
Icosahedrophilia
January 23, 2010
I fit your definition of “insane (in a good way).” I have about a bajllion WotC D&D Minis from all sets going back to Harbinger (though my early sets are not complete, to my chagrin). I carefully pick the minis for each encounter. I am willing to use “stand-ins” when necessary, but prefer not to, and would rather drop a few more dollars at Auggie’s or somewhere to pick up exactly the minis I need. When the players see a whole bunch of similar-looking minis, they suspect minions, but I never tell them they’re facing minions. They have to figure it out when one goes down on one hit. Thus the “tokens as minions” approach would not fit my DMing style, and anyway, I might as well use the minis I’ve got, right? I often repaint the plastic minis to be able to tell them apart on the table. See my gold, silver, and copper hoard scarab larva swarms or orc Power Rangers squad for samples. I’ve done the same for a Reaper Legendary Encounters minotaur, but I don’t seem to have posted the pictures. I freely mix prepainted plastic and home-painted metal minis, and freely mix WotC and Reaper prepainted minis. Whatever works! But I definitely populate my tabletop with as many minis as I can.
dungeon master
April 6, 2011
personally, minis suck unless you are playing a war game, as a 10 year old dungeon master who doesn’t have the allowance for minis i use the tokens that wotc put with there books
dungeon master
April 6, 2011
and yes i am a10 yearold