Let me set the record straight: I strongly dislike using miniatures in role playing games. I'd much rather see the action in my head and ask the DM, "Am I able to..." than move my six squares trying not to give combat advantage and take any opportunity attacks. In my opinion, miniatures slow combat down to a crawl and are no fun.
All of this is to say that I am happy about several developments: Wizards has been packaging double sided token in with some of their recent releases (Gamma World, DnD4e), Printable PDF markers have been increasing in number and quality, and cardboard stand-up miniatures are making a comeback.
Want a legion of durable, 3D, full color miniatures on the cheap? Cardboard Heroes are for you. I still have my complete class Marvel RPG cardboard miniature collection. Those were triangular prisms that were fairly easy to knock over. The new line of cardboard miniatures is flat (showing the front and the back of the character) and is affixed to a plastic base or glued onto a penny. This makes for a much more stable miniature.
They make them for every genre you can imagine AND they make cool prop scenery as well. Need a dungeon? How about a castle? Cardboard miniatures are the way to go. If you're lucky, Comic Store West still should have some of these bad boys in stock.
While I dont think miniatures are a "must" for gaming, there certainly is a place for them. Whether it's a game like D&D which is designed with miniature game-play in mind, or a WOD game which relies on imagination, visual representation is sometimes needed.
ReplyDeleteI know S. John Ross's Blue Room site sells miniatures in the form of a font. You buy a set, and can type it into a word-processing program (usually on a very high font size) and print it out on cardstock. It's nice because you can print out single heroes or hordes of orcs, or change the size, or whatever.
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