I want to buy some roleplaying figurines for my latest AD+D campaign.
I prefer resin / plastic to lead, at a scale of 25mm for a basic human.
Painted would be good!
In particular I’m looking for:
Elementals (i.e. Earth / Air / Fire / Water)
Golems (i.e. Clay / Flesh / Stone / Iron)
an Efreeti (or similar)
a Troll
a Psionic monster
various Demonic / Devilish types
I found some excellent examples of the latter type here, but the company phone number doesn’t work (and they haven’t replied to an e-mail either.)
I found it hard to locate a shop that shows me clear pictures, so I hope you lot can come through.
Please let me know about a reliable mail-order shop!
If you can solve the mystery of the company mentioned above (have they gone out of business?), that would be good too.
I live in the UK, but don’t mind ordering abroad.
WizKids has been making pre-painted D&D minis for over a decade, and they are widely available. Pathfinder (which is a D&D clone) also has a huge line of pre-painted minis.
They come in randomized packs, so you can’t buy a specific monster new that way. However, there is a robust secondary market. Miniature Market and Troll & Toad are the two main second-hand sites that I’m aware of. You can also search E-Bay and Amazon for re-sellers.
Also, if you want plastic but don’t mind painting them yourself or using unpainted minis, there are a number of options, which unlike the pre-painted minis are usually sold as specific monsters, either as individuals or small groups.
The Reaper minis “Bones” line has been well-received, and is relatively cheap. WizKids also makes unpainted minis, which are of fairly high quality, albeit usually a bit pricier than Bones. “Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures” is the licensed D&D 5E line, and “Pathfinder Battles Deep Cuts” is the licensed Pathfinder line; both should work well for AD&D.
This is my usual method of getting one-off pieces these days. Especially for the official D&D licensed ones that come in random packs.
Though lately I’ve been investing in stand-up pawns just because I can get a ton of critters for the cost of a couple minis and don’t have to try and track down an $8 Froghemoth mini for a single adventure encounter. Or put a Froghemoth into every adventure to get my money’s worth
“You enter the tavern, a warmly lit place that still provides cheer despite the recent events in town. From behind the bar, a Froghemoth waves you over for a drink…”
I’ve also used, and had no issue with, RPG Locker on the ‘used mini’ front although they’re not going to be shipping orders for a while as they move locations. Might be worth keeping a bookmark for next time though.
Most of the painted plastic figures are 28mm scale instead of the old 25mm scale lead figures use. I’ve done well in the past with the 2 mentioned. Miniature Market and Troll & Toad and I will add in CoolStuffInc
This is truth, though many of the current manufactures of metal minis for RPGs, like Reaper, are also primarily working in 28mm scale (or even bigger; there’s definitely been “scale creep” over the past few decades).
We old grognards still like to refer to “25mm” for minis, but, IME, most of the modern stuff, be it pewter or plastic, towers over vintage minis from the 1970s and 1980s.
I found the figurines I wanted on Wizkids, but (as gdave warned) they were in random ‘booster’ packs. So you never know if you’ll get the specific figures you want - nor a load of duplicates.
I tried some other sites, but couldn’t get the hang of them :smack: (I’m getting on a bit!)
Also they didn’t have easy contact (phone or questions via e-mail.)
Finally I noticed a reference to this site.
Not only were they answering the phone at 19.00, but they sell specific individual figures.
The guy I spoke to even recommended not using a particular browser to access their site (as some clients had reported problems.)
So I bought £160 ($193) worth of monsters from them.
