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Post by thorswulf on Aug 22, 2007 22:02:26 GMT -6
Love them or hate painting them, miniatures are a definate part of the D&D experience for me! I started playing D&D because of miniatures. Every game I DM I use my figs. Most of the time this has been a very positive thing for the players. They really get into the game a little more with something representing them. To that end I have been collecting "Dungeon Dressings" for years to make the dungeon come alive in three dimensions.
There is one small problem with scale in OD&D however. One inch underground equalling 10 feet works great with 15mm figures, but not 25-30mm figures visually. Outdoors this is less of a problem with 1"=10 yards scale. I just double the indoor scale at 2"=10 feet for convenience and get on with gaming.
So what do the rest of you do with miniatures? Or do you use miniatures or cardboard fold ups?
Thorswulf
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Post by coffee on Aug 23, 2007 1:39:48 GMT -6
There is one small problem with scale in OD&D however. One inch underground equalling 10 feet works great with 15mm figures, but not 25-30mm figures visually. Outdoors this is less of a problem with 1"=10 yards scale. I just double the indoor scale at 2"=10 feet for convenience and get on with gaming. This is an artifact of the rules' origin in miniatures wargaming. For what it's worth, every game I've ever been in has used 1" = 5' (and that's going back 25 years, so it's not something we cribbed from 3E). I've also played a lot without miniatures. Sure, sometimes it takes a 30 second sketch, but I find it easier to stay in character without miniatures; otherwise I get bogged down in hyper-tactical minutia (one of my many gripes with 3E).
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Post by philotomy on Aug 23, 2007 10:47:46 GMT -6
I like the 1E DMG's suggestion of 3.33 ft. per inch for ground scale. That gives you three abreast in a 10 foot wide passage.
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 23, 2007 21:14:29 GMT -6
One of the groups I used to game with used a battle board made out of an old window with permanent marker squares of 2" on one side. They flipped it over and used a a non permanent pen to mark out the room and so forth.
I thought about using a grid of 2 1/4" to equal 10 scale feet. Most of my miniatures are based on 3/4" washers, metal square bases or die cut counters. I thought I might draw it out on a piece of foam core, and use some walls made out of foam core painted with stone fleck paint. Maybe this all more work than I need to do. Then again I don't happen to have enough money for Dwarven Forge either!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2007 10:24:25 GMT -6
Ever since I observed my 1st D & D game years & years ago, the practice of using miniatures has always been a staple of my campaigns. I bought a Chessex hex-grid map around 10 years ago (1"=5'), & it's served us well (still in really good condition, too). I tried to get into painting miniatures, but I was never very good at it. My best friend's dad (a non-gamer), liked to paint them, though. I'd by a couple for myself, &, as long as I bought a couple for him, he'd paint mine for free (& he was pretty freakin' good at it, too). I have a couple of shoe boxes filled with Ral Partha miniatures, plus I've been buying the new plastic ones as well (just to have more miniatures). Their certianly not the same by a long shot, however...D***it, I wan't my lead content back!!! ;D
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Post by Finarvyn on Aug 24, 2007 12:59:59 GMT -6
For a long time we didn't have nice miniatures, so we used RISK pieces for generic orcs or guards and colors of dice for the characters and such. When I finally got some, I found that I wasn't that good at painting so I gave them up for a while. Now my son plays Warhammer and paints figures, so I started painting again and have learned new patience. My little guys are still poorly painted, but I'm having more fun with the process. :-)
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serendipity
Level 4 Theurgist
Member #00-00-02
Bunny Master
Posts: 140
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Post by serendipity on Aug 24, 2007 17:19:00 GMT -6
I look forward to hearing how your players react when the orcs they encounter are suddenly all outfitted on motorbikes....
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Post by grodog on Aug 24, 2007 20:38:31 GMT -6
When I first learned to play, we used stratomatic football players as minis, until I started to buy Heritage and Grenadier sets I definitely like the scale for the old Grenadier figures for PCs vs. the newer Reaper figures, which are too big IMO (for monsters they're fine, just too big for PCs).
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Post by Rhuvein on Aug 24, 2007 21:12:13 GMT -6
We didn't use them way back when, but I did want to.
Oddly, I never got into painting them until last year and I like the Reaper big ones!!! Haha, 'cause I can see them better than my Ral Partha and other little ones!! ;D
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Post by thorswulf on Aug 26, 2007 21:36:08 GMT -6
Well a year ago I had my eyes checked for the first time in, um, well it was the first time ever I think. The up shot is I now wear reading glasses to paint my figs. It sure helps when you are painting eyes!
By the way, there is no such thing as a badly painted miniature. You can reprime them and paint the older ones later! Seriously though, with all the information out there available for new painters, or seasoned ones, anybody with a little patience can paint decently. I admit freely that my figures will NEVER win competitions, but that isn't really the point of the hobby!
I played a western wargame yeasterday with John McEwan. My banditos had a great time robbing the bank! John was sorting through some of his old stuff and had a small box of old stuff he gave me. Imagine my surprise at getting an old Dragontooth Dwarf Giant! There were lots of his old Masterpiece Miniatures and McEwan medievals too! I spent last night rebasing and repainting some of them. I like salvaging old figs, it makes me feel a little bit better about missing out on these miniatures when I was a kid. I guess I'm an accidental collector that way.
As far as scale goes, who cares? An orc is an orc. Granted some are 5' tall and some may be 8'6" tall in scale.... Yes I like the old Grenadiers and Ral Parthas. I have a smattering of Reaper too, as well as some of the plastics. But my favorite to paint are the old Heritage and Der Kriegspielers lines. They paint up super easy!
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Sept 6, 2007 18:28:36 GMT -6
We generally don't use miniatures, but only do so for special events. I am kind of fond of them, but they do slow things down a bit.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 6, 2007 19:24:36 GMT -6
I've never used miniatures. I wouldn't even really have any idea how to use them in a D&D game!
Incidentally, I've always had three abreast in marching order for 10' wide passageways. But I played briefly with Frank Mentzer at LGGC, and if I recall correctly, he said it could only be two abreast. *shrug* I still think three abreast is fine, especially since you don't stay exactly in formation when combat breaks out. Regards.
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Post by philotomy on Sept 6, 2007 22:02:51 GMT -6
Incidentally, I've always had three abreast in marching order for 10' wide passageways. But I played briefly with Frank Mentzer at LGGC, and if I recall correctly, he said it could only be two abreast. *shrug* I still think three abreast is fine, especially since you don't stay exactly in formation when combat breaks out. Regards. If you take space required for weapons into account, it's probably 2 abreast for melee (depending on weapons), but 3 abreast would be fine for general movement.
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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Sept 7, 2007 19:32:15 GMT -6
Incidentally, I've always had three abreast in marching order for 10' wide passageways. But I played briefly with Frank Mentzer at LGGC, and if I recall correctly, he said it could only be two abreast. *shrug* I still think three abreast is fine, especially since you don't stay exactly in formation when combat breaks out. Regards. If you take space required for weapons into account, it's probably 2 abreast for melee (depending on weapons), but 3 abreast would be fine for general movement. Don't mind me I am grabbing this and starting a new thread, please continue.
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oldgeezer
Level 3 Conjurer
Original Blackmoor Participant
Posts: 70
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Post by oldgeezer on Oct 4, 2007 12:15:47 GMT -6
One inch underground equalling 10 feet works great with 15mm figures, but not 25-30mm figures visually. So what do the rest of you do with miniatures? We ignored it. But we were all wargamers, so the idea of ground scale not being the same as figure scale didn't bother us.
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Post by thorswulf on Oct 4, 2007 21:03:00 GMT -6
Yeah, I know what you mean. Funny how space is compressed and all that. i had another one of those gaming inspirations at work today. Take some of those 20"x30" precut sheets of foam core, paint them with a layer of chalkboard paint, layout a grid of 1" or 2" squares and you can draw layouts with chalk. Simple, and not too expensive.
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Post by dwayanu on Oct 5, 2007 1:08:24 GMT -6
There's some nostalgia. I bought my first minis for D&D: an armored samurai, and a fellow with a glaive-type weapon probably from the Empire of the Petal Throne line.
However, I was already (and remain) most comfortable playing D&D with a verbal emphasis. I don't use miniatures much.
I have quite a bit of unpainted lead. I once thought I might unload a few pounds of Citadel Orks, but instead got sweet-talked into parting with a select bunch of Mithril Miniatures tavern habitues and furnishings.
If I could develop the moxie to turn the tables, I might have cash and space for some of the cool monsters from Reaper.
Some old "25s" such as Ral Partha's mix pretty well with 1/72 scale. Over the past few years, I've found a lot I like (especially for the price!) in historical lines in soft plastic.
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Post by thorswulf on Oct 5, 2007 20:53:10 GMT -6
I'll second the 1/72 plastics! Over the last five years this scale has exploded with all sorts of goodies being imported from Russia, and Hat Industrie. I really like the Hat Dark Ages lines. These blend in real well with the 100+ Stan Johansen Warlord Line figs I purchased a few years ago. These guys also pull double duty as a Dwarf army!
I hear good things about Emhar plastics too. apparently they are made of a different kind of plastic that is posable, and takes paint well! My tip for painting plastic figures is to undercoat them with a spray adhesive, and while it is still tacky prime it in whatever primer you like. I paint most of my WW2 stuff that way.
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 6, 2007 9:33:09 GMT -6
I decided to move the topic into the CHAINMAIL section just because this puts all miniatures type discussion in the same place. I can move it back if anyone objects... :-)
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Post by thorswulf on Oct 6, 2007 21:13:43 GMT -6
No worries!
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Post by philotomy on Oct 6, 2007 21:57:24 GMT -6
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