Post/Author/DateTime	Post
RMagruder 01-18-07, 11:34 AM	I'm sure this probably has been asked and answered any number of times before, but since thread search is disabled, I'll ask again ;). I would like to be able to purchase D&D minis ala carte for roleplaying. If I need a rare here or there I don't mind doing ebay. However, I would like to able to say "I need 4 kobolds, 3 dire wolfs, 2 Orc warriors and a partridge in a pear tree" and get them (okay not the partridge). I see that you can buy sets of commons/uncommons on ebay and what not, but is there a 'retail solution' where I can put together an order list and get what I need for my campaign? I wish Wizards would start selling the minis from older sets in 'roleplaying-oriented' packages, especially since Amazon is adding a booster with the Player's Kit and of course the Basic Set comes with D&D minis. I just feel that roleplayers are getting the short end of the stick here because Wizards isn't properly giving us the tools we need to run our campaigns the way that we need. So if anyone has advice for how I can get a list of minis I need and just buy them from a single location in one order without auctions or getting a bunch of junk I don't want and not enough of what I DO, I'd love to hear it. Thanks, Randy
Amaril 01-18-07, 12:15 PM	Don't purchase them at all. 1. Use MaptTool and TokenTool from RPTools.net (http://rptools.net/doku.php) for your tabletop RPG sessions. Either each player brings a laptop, or you can output the display to a large monitor or TV. 2. Copy images from WotC's Miniatures Gallery. 3. Use TokenTool to create tokens based on those images. 4. Import the new miniatures tokens into MapTool and duplicate as many as you need. This also works well with Fiery Dragon's Counter Collections Digital 2.0 as well as Reaper's miniatures gallery.
lastknightleft 01-18-07, 12:34 PM	Don't purchase them at all. 1. Use MaptTool and TokenTool from RPTools.net (http://rptools.net/doku.php) for your tabletop RPG sessions. Either each player brings a laptop, or you can output the display to a large monitor or TV. 2. Copy images from WotC's Miniatures Gallery. 3. Use TokenTool to create tokens based on those images. 4. Import the new miniatures tokens into MapTool and duplicate as many as you need. This also works well with Fiery Dragon's Counter Collections Digital 2.0 as well as Reaper's miniatures gallery. Yeah, and for those of us whom in our entire group not one owns a Laptop?
Amaril 01-18-07, 12:34 PM	Yeah, and for those of us whom in our entire group not one owns a Laptop? Do you have a desktop in your gaming room? If not, scale the images and print as many as you need. PS - Now that WotC is offering the cards for their minis online, I plan on playing D&D Minis with my friends just for fun.
lastknightleft 01-18-07, 12:37 PM	My gaming room in my house is too small to fit the comp desk and the office where i prefer to keep it is upstair, but i'll give that a try. I really would like minis like she is saying though
Edymnion 01-18-07, 12:40 PM	You can buy DDMs loose online on eBay. Some gaming stores also open them up and sell the minis individually, so you can see what you're getting. Other than that, screw WotC and their rip-off lotto. Just buy real metal minis from Reaper.
Grand Theft Otto 01-18-07, 12:40 PM	Auggies on ebay has very good prices, deals on lots of minis (10 orcs, 10 goblins, etc), fast and cheap flat rate shipping, and good service.
Draco Strang 01-18-07, 12:53 PM	I've had luck buying miniatures in bulk. My gaming group and I pool our money, and we can buy cases of different sets online for much less than it would cost to buy the individual boxes piecemeal. Also, as Edy said, many gaming shops sell them off one by one, and depending on whether it's common, uncommon, or rare then you'll be paying far more than the going rate for most of them. Of course, if you only want a select few for a session, then that's the best way to go.
dnddreamer 01-18-07, 01:13 PM	Just buy real metal minis from Reaper. Oh Yeah!!! Reaper Rocks!
Boraxe 01-18-07, 01:16 PM	I would like to be able to purchase D&D minis ala carte for roleplaying. If I need a rare here or there I don't mind doing ebay. Question asked, question answered: eBay is your friend. There are many, many sites that sell commons and uncommons for as little as 10-15 cents each and most will combine shipping on bulk orders. Depending on what you want, you can get minis-lots for cheap too. I have bought lots of common 25 common minis for as little as $3 (that's just ¢12/mini). A friend of mine went bat**** crazy one day and ordered something like 650 hundreds of minis off eBay from a single seller. The bulk of them were commons and uncommons but it also included many rares and were from all sets back to Harbinger. All told, with shipping, the average price was something like 45 cents a mini. I challenge anyone to find a metal minis company that sells for so cheap. Just buy real metal minis from Reaper. Yeah, cos I really want to hear "that'll be $300 please" every time I put an encounter together. Reaper are fine for individual models - as long as you don't mind all the pre-work and painting involved - but are absolutley of no use when building large and/or varied encounters. If you don't like the product then that is your perogative, Edy, but deriding it cos you don't like it is just petty. I expect better of you, man. I plan on playing D&D Minis with my friends just for fun. As opposed to what, playing it for a tedious day-job? ;)
Boraxe 01-18-07, 01:20 PM	dp
Neomonk21 01-18-07, 01:36 PM	I will also place my vote for eBay. I recently started a campaign and made a Druid. I found an auction for a Greenfang Druid with two Dire Bears for around $6. I thought this was a great deal because the Druid mini fit perfectly with what I wanted and it came with two large animals to use when shapeshifted. It was an even better deal when I realized that those minis were from a discontinued set and were uncommon (or rare, I forget which). I found another auction to buy some Winter Wolves to use for my Summon Nature Ally spells. Overall, prices are reasonable on eBay and you usually get the item within a week.
CyrusDuane 01-18-07, 01:48 PM	For the many unnamed and undeveloped NPCs the players will encounter over the course of their travels, a pleasing to look at grunt “bad Guy” plastic mini is just a way to “pretty up” the 5 hp of resistance that Orc has between the players and the Cherry Pie in the room. (Or 8 gold, magic potion, or whatever. Orcs are wonderful pie hoarders, though) With that in mind, if I have a reaper mini on hand (which is when we game at my house) we will use that. It justifies my wife’s desire to buy them by the truckload. When traveling, which I currently do with my regular group, we use plastic minis. They are easier to transport. However, nothing is easier to transport and represents a common orc better than a plastic chess pawn. Buy a 12-in-one game set with a ton of plastic pieces for $20 or less and use it for all your common creatures. You will find the Chess, Checkers, Sorry, Parcheesi, etc pieces to be VERY HANDY in your miniature battles. The D&D plastic mins are used for PCs and notable NPCS/Villans, while my players will hear me say “all the White pawns have spears, the Black pawns fight sword and board” Then spend your money on gaming books, the really cool minis that you just HAVE to own, (or you know you will use for a NPC over and over again) gaming snacks, or Beer (Soda as age appropriate).
SokenzanMarauder 01-18-07, 01:52 PM	coolstuffinc.com I buy most of my D&D minis there. They're relatively cheap compared to most places and have cheap shipping to boot. -Gene
Thought 01-18-07, 01:59 PM	If you are willing to... branch out a little, you might be able to find the perfect BBEG or some such by rading other miniature games. Depending on the market in your local area, you might be able to find a cool looking but common heroclix for cheaper than a comperable DDM. While I am not aware of any defunct mini games out there, I am sure there are some. If so, those are prime targets as there are more than a few "collectors" who would regret their investment.
Falln 01-18-07, 02:30 PM	I create my own mini's. I search a picture on the net I like. I import it in a picture-programm. Then I print it to the size I want it. These are 2d mini's and I know 3d's look better, but they are cheap and you can change them as often as you want to :D
Neomonk21 01-18-07, 02:33 PM	If you are willing to... branch out a little... Along this idea, my friend recently told me about his "mini" he created. He is in a campaign (I think he said level 17 or so) where his character, a monk, is able to reach Colossal size. He explained how he could do this for a maximum of 8 rounds a day, I forget the specifics. Anways, there aren't any Colossal sized Monk mini's out there. So, he went to Wal-mart or some such store and bought an action figure roughly the size of a Ken doll. This figure had a police uniform. With a little ingenuity and some supplies from the craft section, he was able to make his own Spiked Chain wielding Colossal Monk. The way he described the faces of the rest of his party when he plopped that thing down sounded priceless. :D So, you could always make your own!
RMagruder 01-18-07, 03:11 PM	Don't purchase them at all. 1. Use MaptTool and TokenTool from [rptools.net Would be great if I could see their site. My browser times out. Randy
RMagruder 01-18-07, 03:20 PM	thanks for all the advice guys. I will look at ebay again for lots as well as checking out some of the other retailers. But that does lead me to another question. Assuming I wanted to get booster boxes as well, what are the best sets to get for 'meat and potatoes' D&D? And by that which has the most figures that you'd find in most 1st-3rd level dungeon crawls, as well as stereotype PC's. In our group we have: 1. Male Elf Wizard 2. Human Monk (that would be me) 3. 2 Duskblades (one female , one male) 4. A halfling rogue (Lidda would work fine for this) 5. A human cleric (female) 6. A human ranger (female) I figure I'm going to need CR1-4 level creatures you'd find in 'typical' adventures. Your rats, kobolds, snakes, wolves, orcs, etc. All that having been said, is it better to buy a starter and some boosters from specific sets to fill this out? Or go for trying to buy lots of low CR minions? (I do appreciate the 'off-beat' advice -- metal minis, chess pieces, etc. Always good to have alternative ideas). Randy
Amaril 01-18-07, 03:27 PM	Would be great if I could see their site. My browser times out. Randy It was working when I posted the link. You guys must have broken it. :P j/k
RMagruder 01-18-07, 03:30 PM	I had to go to sourceforge.net to find it: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rptools/
Amaril 01-18-07, 03:32 PM	I had to go to sourceforge.net to find it: http://sourceforge.net/projects/rptools/ RPTools.net is working now.
Boraxe 01-18-07, 03:36 PM	thanks for all the advice guys. I will look at ebay again for lots as well as checking out some of the other retailers. But that does lead me to another question. Assuming I wanted to get booster boxes as well, what are the best sets to get for 'meat and potatoes' D&D? And by that which has the most figures that you'd find in most 1st-3rd level dungeon crawls, as well as stereotype PC's. My best advice is to go to the DDM page here on the wizards site. They have galleries of every mini from every set. Yo ucan see exactly what is in each and every set and from there decide for yourself which is your best set to get and also plan out your singles buying. I recommend the_original_gamer as a great eBay seller. He has breat prices, great shipping rate, and really went above and beyond to make sure the items arrived quickly and with no hassle. http://myworld.ebay.com/the_original_gamer
Can of the Cave Beer 01-19-07, 02:13 AM	When looking to stock up on minis, it's best to familiarize yourself with the DDM galleries and go from there. It's long been a goal of WotC to try and bring a nice spread of critters to each set, although the Starter sets tend to get a bit more of the lower level stuff (but not all of it, of course). Aramil, Adventurer would make a nice Elf Wizard (M) as would the Half-Elf Sorcerer or even Devis, Half-Elf Bard. The Elf Pyromancer is a shoo-in, but he'll cost you. There are a number of choices out there for a Human Monk: Sun Soul Initiate (M), Whirling Steel Monk (F), Young Master (M), Lion Falcon Monk (M), Dark Moon Monk (F), Scarlet Brotherhood Monk (M), Ember, Human Monk (F), and even the Earth Shugenja (F) could pass for a monk. I'm not quite sure what a Duskblade is, sorry. I know it's a class, but not what it does. The Earth Shugenja, Combat Medic, Healer, and Wizard Tactician would work nicely as a Human Cleric (F). But don't overlook the Arcanix Guard! She's a great figure, especially for a Common. Despite being officially Elves, the Greycloak Ranger and Deepshadow Elf would both fit the bill for a female Human Ranger, although the Greycloak might be a bit on the "butch" end of things. Things are a bit short (pardon the pun) for Halflings and Gnomes right now. But there are Halfling Slinger, Skullclan Hunter, Halfling Sneak, Halfling Wizard, Halfling Ranger and the Talenta Halfling that might fit the bill. We had a new Diseased Dire Rat in War of the Dragon Queen. The original Dire Rat from Giants of Legend is tough to get. There's a Fiendish Snake in Blood War and a Displacer Serpent in Giants of Legend. There was also an Iron Cobra in...Aberrations...I think. Harbinger Wolves are costly, but the Timber Wolf should still be comparitively easy to acquire. Kobolds see release pretty regularly (of special note are the Kobold Sorcerer and Champion from Aberrations) as do Orcs. War Drums had a plethora of Orcs, and there was a nice Orc Wizard in Blood War. Don't be afraid to pop on over to the minis section of the boards. There's lots of us to help over there. There's a lot of Skirmish talk, but we help out the RPGers, too!
Haida 01-19-07, 02:59 AM	I found miniaturemarket.com (http://www.miniaturemarket.com) to be reasonable, especially for commons and uncommons, which is all you need to get started. Sure a beholder would be cool, but not $23 worth of cool. Use a rubber ball instead. if you feel creative, paint a big eye on it. EDIT: fixed web address.
RMagruder 01-19-07, 08:10 AM	Thanks for the advice on the specific members of my party. I have clipped those and will be looking for those minis. I did look for Elf Pyromancer but of course it's a Harbinger and those are hard to find (and not cheap when you do). I do still think that Wizards needs to address the issue of RPG'ers and minis somehow. If someone had just picked up the RPG and wanted to start getting minis, several sets are already in the hard-to-find/expensive-to-collect category, and yet those are exactly the kind of figures that you need for D&D. (Exotic 8th level baddies don't work out too well for 1st level characters to run into). Obviously they can't re-issue the original sets without hosing the collectors, so I think they've kind of painted themselves into a bit of a corner. But I guess Minis, not RPG's, are where the money is... I will keep looking at these retailers to see if I can find one that has a substantial portion of what i need so I'm not getting hammered on shipping. *sigh*. Those chess pieces are starting to sound good. Randy
Chaos Theory 01-19-07, 08:39 AM	If you have the time to paint, look for these names - Reaper Miniatures - Ironwind metals - Citadel
Edymnion 01-19-07, 09:57 AM	Yeah, cos I really want to hear "that'll be $300 please" every time I put an encounter together. Reaper are fine for individual models - as long as you don't mind all the pre-work and painting involved - but are absolutley of no use when building large and/or varied encounters.Not true. Reaper makes multi-packs that end up having the individual minis in them come out at about the same price as the DDMs. It only gets pricey when you want to get a bunch of PC quality minis. If you don't like the product then that is your perogative, Edy, but deriding it cos you don't like it is just petty. I expect better of you, man.Its not the product so much as the way it is handled. Randomly packed luck of the draw works fine for card games where the game is the only thing you use the cards for. But the DDMs are also good for use in D&D (obviously), and the random packaging makes it useless for this purpose. You complain about the price of Reaper, but I guarentee you that if I picked out any random mini that each line had equivolent pieces for, I could buy it from Reaper cheaper than you could buy random packs until you got lucky on that one piece. Otherwise, you have to bypass the primary market entirely and go through resalers, at which point you could end up paying MORE for the DDM (if the sculpt you want happens to be particularly rare because some bean counter in a suit decided to make it that way) than you would for the metal Reaper mini. As is, DDMs are good for the DM without much time when they need a dozen ultra-common pieces, since the DDM players will tend to throw them away like a magic player tosses mana. If you want anything specific, you will usually end up going through a lot of hassle and money that you could have avoided by just getting a Reaper. Now, if WotC could avoid my ire if they would simply do something like putting square bases on the DDMs and selling them on demand, and just saying that square based figs aren't legal for DDM play. That way, the D&D players could still get the minis they want, and they wouldn't have to worry about unbalancing the DDM game by having easily available "rare" pieces floating around. But, they won't, because they know how much money they make by getting people to buy what they already own over and over again, trying to win the lotto for that one piece they actually want.
Boraxe 01-19-07, 10:45 AM	You complain about the price of Reaper, but I guarentee you that if I picked out any random mini that each line had equivolent pieces for, I could buy it from Reaper cheaper than you could buy random packs until you got lucky on that one piece. Anyone who is buting endless numbers of random packs in search of a single specific miniature desrves to get reamed for being so thick. Anyone with two functioning brain cells who wants a specific DDM buys it on the secondary market or trades for it, they don't hunt for it in endless random packs. If you really wanted to you could get it for free: buy a few cases, open up the packs, take out the mini you want, sell the rest to make you money back and voilà, free mini. :)
Edymnion 01-19-07, 11:30 AM	Anyone who is buting endless numbers of random packs in search of a single specific miniature desrves to get reamed for being so thick. Anyone with two functioning brain cells who wants a specific DDM buys it on the secondary market or trades for it, they don't hunt for it in endless random packs.Ah, but the same could be said for getting metal minis cheaper too. Go ask your buddy if you can have his old monk mini. The point though is that the secondary market is a FIX for the problems of the primary market. And, to use the Oberroni Falacy in a new context, just because there is a fix does not mean it wasn't broken to begin with. And still, just looking at some DDMs on eBay, the first one that jumps out at me is "Artemis Entreri" from Underdark. Its a Buy It Now for $35, and its a fairly standard looking TWF Rogue mini. And there's an ogre mage for $18. Now, I think I could get a rogue mini from Reaper that looks almost exactly the same for a lot less than $35, and an ogre mage is definately not going to cost me $18. The point here is that the prices on the secondary market are artificially inflated due to scarcity and power *IN THE DDM GAME*, which means the "perfect" mini you need will cost you a bloody arm and a leg on the secondary market, or require buying dozens of boxes of randoms hoping to get lucky. I dunno about you, but if I need a half dozen of something, and that something is going to cost me $20 a piece on the secondary DDM market because its rare, or $5 a piece from Reaper, I know which one I'm going to get.
Amaril 01-19-07, 11:35 AM	I'm telling you, forget minis, just use printable image files.
crowclub 01-19-07, 12:16 PM	I used to run a Magic the Gathering club and played MtG for about 6 years. When I got into D&D I started with the Skirmish game and bought many Minis for that. I basically turned £3500 worth of cardboard into a complete collection of all the D&D Minis and a load more that I have in 3 Boxes to use in-game. So I have a bunch of Skeleton, Ghouls, Mummies, Hobgoblins, Orcs , Goblins, Kobolds, owlbears, etc. etc. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is, although the Mini's can be expensive, they are all collectors items and their value will only rise, so I look at it as a kind of investment. Maybe about 18-24 months ago I got a bunch of Orc Champions for a Skirmish army and I asked around if anyone else wanted any as they are a very powerful game piece in the skirmish format. No one else wanted to get them at $18 as that seemed to much for the other players....they are now going for about $40. I'd say about 85% of my minis have come from E-bay (US) as the prices in the UK are a joke.
Dragon Snack 01-19-07, 12:31 PM	I thought that posting COMMERCIAL LINKS on the boards was a no-no... Point of Information - according to the demographics poll done in 1999 (copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast), RPG money spent with few/no minis used - $139, RPG spending with 'many' minis used - $4,413. Yes, minis make money (and that was before randomized minis). Anyone who is buting endless numbers of random packs in search of a single specific miniature desrves to get reamed for being so thick. Anyone with two functioning brain cells who wants a specific DDM buys it on the secondary market or trades for it, they don't hunt for it in endless random packs. If you really wanted to you could get it for free: buy a few cases, open up the packs, take out the mini you want, sell the rest to make you money back and voilà, free mini. :) Unless their LGS doesn't sell singles and they can't buy on the internet (no access or no CC). That doesn't even take into account people who have been burned by eBay or PayPal and don't feel like taking the chance again. No need to impugn someone for not buying on the secondary market... And your 'free mini' scenario isn't a done deal. With the 'undesirable' rares we have seen lately and the increase in production, sometimes you can't even sell all the minis in a pack and get your money back. And if the best place to sell them is eBay, they get their cut from you too. DDM is good for scrubs (no doubt about that), but for most of the monster rares you are better off buying metal. That's not getting into the desired rares ($45 Beholder or $10 Eye Beast, $75 Umber Hulk or $8 Hooked Hulk). It's not one or the other, it's take advantage of both... Anyway, the point I'm getting at is, although the Mini's can be expensive, they are all collectors items and their value will only rise, so I look at it as a kind of investment. Be careful. At least two, the Harbinger Troll and Archfiends Hill Giant have both dropped in price since other versions were released as uncommons...
Boraxe 01-19-07, 12:46 PM	I dunno about you, but if I need a half dozen of something, and that something is going to cost me $20 a piece on the secondary DDM market because its rare, or $5 a piece from Reaper, I know which one I'm going to get. I dunno about you, but if I need a half dozen of something, and that something is going to cost me ¢25 a piece on the secondary DDM market because its common, or $5 a piece from Reaper, I know which one I'm going to get, too. Don't labor under the misconception that I do not know of what I speak. I have used metal minis since I started playing D&D more than 20 yesars ago. Literally form day-one. I bought metal minis for years, including Reapers, and most of them languish unpainted in a series of boxes. In the 3 years since DDM release I have amased a massive minis collection far larger and more varied than my metal one and for a fraction of the cost. BTW, I just checked eBay myself. The highest BIN price for an Artemis minis is $35, the lowest is $15.77. On average it goes for $16, and that is artificially inflated cos of the Salvatore fanboy factor. Anyone paying $35 for an Artemis miniature is a frakking idiot. Doing my own random pic I went to the Reapermin store and saw a Achiah, Male Angel for $7.99. The most similar DDM figures - the Archons - go for $8 or less, and they come pre-painted. There are pros and cons to both metal and plastic minis. IMO price is certainly not a pro for metal and the pros massively outweigh the cons in favor of DDM. That does not meant that I have to run down metal minis or the companies that make them. Even if we feel differently on this topic there's no hard feelings, mate. Cheers. :)
Edymnion 01-19-07, 01:37 PM	I'm telling you, forget minis, just use printable image files.I prefer candy. Gummie bears make for great minis, and you can eat them when they die!
Grand Theft Otto 01-19-07, 01:55 PM	Ah, but the same could be said for getting metal minis cheaper too. Go ask your buddy if you can have his old monk mini. Show me where you can get some metal orcs for 30-40 cents each. Goblins, skeletons, etc? All doable with DDM on ebay. The point though is that the secondary market is a FIX for the problems of the primary market. Its actually a BENEFIT of the primary market. Reaper, WOTC etc cant sell individually packaged figures for less than a buck. Other sellers can. And still, just looking at some DDMs on eBay, the first one that jumps out at me is "Artemis Entreri" from Underdark. Its a Buy It Now for $35, and its a fairly standard looking TWF Rogue mini. Theres cheaper 2 weapon fighter rogues. Thats like claiming you want to buy a bunch of drizzt figures for use as a drow attack party, but doing so would cost several hundred dollars (all the while ignoring the mess of drow under a buck). Its a crappy comparison, and you know it. I dunno about you, but if I need a half dozen of something, and that something is going to cost me $20 a piece on the secondary DDM market because its rare, or $5 a piece from Reaper, I know which one I'm going to get. A hill giant barbarian costs under 3 dollars. Point to a metal hill giant in the same price range. You cant. Theres plenty of benefit to buying some minis in plastic. You're just intentionally ignoring them. I personally use both in my gaming, with metal figures from reaper, rackham etc as PC's and major bad guys, and cheap plastic mooks/monsters filling out the rest. Since the introduction of large uncommons, DDM has rose drastically in utility for your dollar compared to metal in certain areas.
Haida 01-19-07, 02:19 PM	At the link i posted earlier, you can find all kinds of commons and uncommons for .20 to 1.50, which is very affordable for roleplaying. Sure it might not be the most ideal figures, but then you can buy metal minis or pay for large uncommon plastic minis for a couple bucks for those other pieces. The more recent the set, the cheaper overall the pieces are. Sure I would like it if they re-released harbinger minis, but I can make do with war drums, dragon queen and blood war minis just fine.
crowclub 01-20-07, 10:19 AM	Be careful. At least two, the Harbinger Troll and Archfiends Hill Giant have both dropped in price since other versions were released as uncommons... Yes, this is true but it's only a short term drop. As time goes by those Harbinger and Archfiends Rare prices will continue to rise.
Can of the Cave Beer 01-21-07, 02:28 AM	First things first: Market prices are driven far more by collectors (Drizzt? Artemis?) than by the skirmish game. Most skirmishers won't even touch those figures. In fact, you often won't find a figure over $20 in a competitive skirmish warband. Sure, some things like the Orc Champion will continue to have a place, but the Large Red Dragon? At one time, sure. Anymore? Not so much. Displacer Beasts and Drow Clerics of Lolth? Hah! At one time "Displaced Aggression" was all the rage, but that was years ago and the DCoL has never really found much favor in the serious side of things. You'll see the Tiefling Captain far more often, and I think even she is on the way out. Second: Supply and Demand Lead to crazy things. Yeah, figures like the Troll, Ogre, Minotaur and several others have had some serious ups and downs in secondary market value. It's all supply and demand. When there's one official D&D Troll and hundreds of DMs want to collect a small army of them, the supply goes way down and the price goes way up. When a new version is released the demand for the original version goes down and so does the price as the folks with scores of Trolls acquire the Troll Slasher to beef up or replace their Trolls. This is especially true when there is a switch in rarity level like there was with newer Ogres and Trolls. I did an analysis (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=762492) over in the minis section about a maxed out Gnoll encounter which talks about this and a little about the next topic. Third: Reissues are Unlikely. This has been talked about a fair bit over in the miniatures forum, and we've generally agreed that reissues aren't going to happen and that it's OK that they don't. We've got all these templates, see? And there's dozens of ways to revise a creature before you start duplicating things. You can add class levels in some cases, too. Does it really matter in RPG what a figure is named if it looks close, or if it's class levels don't match? Not to me. And, again, as supply goes up demand goes down. The more options out there, the better the prices for the end consumer. It's also not possible as things currently stand to make reissues non-tourney legal--at least not totally. This issue sort of came up with the Basic Game (II)--when the figures from BG(II) were first released they were the same sculpt but named differently than the original releases. As the rules read, it was not possible to use those figures becuase of "confusion" that could be centered on whether or not the figure was actually a "Greycloak Ranger" or not. Completely silly and completely by the rules. However, if you had removed the BG(II) from its base and rebased it on a 1" wood disc, GW slotta-base, or even a Chainmail 1" base then the figure would be completely legal because it was now obviously a "Greycloak Ranger" as there was no information on the base to confuse the issue. So, Orc Champion on a square base? Sure, I'll take a couple and debase(?)/rebase them and then they're totally legal! No, I find it unlikely that there will be re-issues, and it's completely unnecessary for non-skirmishers and non-collectors. And although "Creature Packs" are often talked about, it's generally felt that the secondary market does a satisfactory job of meeting those needs and retail stores don't have to worry about more SKUs or shelf space being taken up by items that don't/won't sell. The policy of revisiting certain creatures (Owlbear to Owlbear Rager, Displacer Beast to Displacer Beast Manhunter, etc.) addresses the "but I want X-Creature that hasn't been available since Set N." It's not a perfect solution, but it works reasonably enough. And that leaves us with: But Metal is Better than Plastic! It sure is--if you've got the time, skills, and resources necessary to purchase, care for, paint, store and transport them. I really don't have that kind of time any more and I certainly don't have the cash: I've got a family and obligations outside of my hobby. I repaint some of the plastics from time to time for fun and still enjoy it, but I wouldn't want to try and paint/store the dozens of Dragons, Orcs, and hundreds of Undead that I have currently stashed in some storage drawers. Several folks have already mentioned what I consider to be the "proper" attitude for a RPG-centric view of DDM: use metal for PCs and Big-Bads and fill in the rest with DDM or metal based on cost. Metal and Plastic each have their proper place in a number of different outlooks. I can't find the old post on the WotC board anymore, but this (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=60949) is an amusing read that details both sides of the argument from a singular source. Skip down to Bleys' reposting (#15) of the argument and enjoy.
kelvinaw273 01-21-07, 03:14 AM	Use a pencil and paper. Sketch a map of the tarrain. Mark on the starting position of the characters. Amend as the combat proceeds. I've used this technique for years without having to buy expensive miniatures and spend hours painting them.
Korhal_IV 01-21-07, 03:29 AM	Auggies on ebay has very good prices, deals on lots of minis (10 orcs, 10 goblins, etc), fast and cheap flat rate shipping, and good service. Grand Theft Otto has an excellent suggestion. I both play minis and use 'em for RPG, so I need to meet both needs. Auggie's EBay store has excellent prices and selection. Usually he'll have sets of ten available to fill out an orc horde or hobgoblin regiment, and you can save on shipping quite efficiently. Unfortunately, I heard that Auggie's ran into some trouble recently - despite having a physical bricks'n mortar store, WotC was upset at the quantity he was selling online, or some such nonsense. That was a while ago, and probably got smoothed over, but for a while it looked like Auggie's was going to go under. If you can't find what you want there, there's also Hubb's Wholesale and Vesivus. I should put in a good word for your local store too. Most local stores that have a DDM scene or a strong roleplaying presence will probably have dozens of minis sitting in the bin for you to pick over. Prices might be slightly higher, but gratification is immediate (particularly if you're not looking to buy more than a dozen minis, the shipping costs do make a differenc).
Can of the Cave Beer 01-21-07, 03:51 AM	Auggie's been very good to me, but it looks like he's having some supply issues. His Blood War is really picked over right now with only a couple dozen listings (including his 10-packs). I hope he gets his situation straightened out, as he was always one of my favorite re-sellers. But there are other sellers equally as good. I find it's typically best to start looking for a couple minis I know I want and then look at other buy-it-nows offered by the same seller. It's generally pretty easy to find a seller with flat shipping or a modest handling fee.