10/22/2021

Miniatures make most tabletop roleplaying games better and nothing is better than finding cheap miniatures, especially when you are first starting out in the hobby. Here are some of the places where I have gotten miniatures:

eBay: eBay can be hit or miss, depending on the types of miniatures you are looking for. I have gotten fantasy miniatures, sci-fi miniatures, superhero miniatures, Star Wars miniatures, etc. from eBay. I usually look for lots (groups) of miniatures and I try to stay around $1 or less a miniature. Depending on the genre of the game, you can search for HeroClix miniatures and then rebase them. There was a game called Dreamblade that had a lot of unique-looking creatures that you could use for your game. You might need to strip and repaint them as some of the paint jobs are a little rough. Also, make sure to check out the shipping costs. Sometimes, those are more than the cost of the items.

Gaming Websites: Places like Toad and Troll and Miniature Market are often good places to look. You can search for individual HeroClix (new and used) as well as Booster packs and new Wizkids miniatures. I have gotten some HeroClix here that I needed for my Avengers solo play using Power Legion (see here). You can get new games cheaply from Amazon as well. Also, look for a discounted price then buy them. Even if you get stuff you might not be able to use directly, you can always save the parts for kit-bashing unique miniatures.

You can also other miniatures games that you can steal the miniatures out of (I have all of these)…

Dungeoncraft did a video about painting Massive Darkness miniatures. All of these games have plenty of miniatures for you to use. If you keep an eye out on message boards and Facebook, sometimes you can find these games going for 1/2 price which makes them a great deal.

Toy section of the local department store: You can usually find cheap tubes or barrels of animals and creatures like bugs in stores. These make great miniatures if you rebase them with a little touch-up on the paint like these. Those bugs work great in a D&D game as giant beetles but they were simple bug toys for young people. For a cheap 1-inch base you can add them to simple plastic counting chips. Glue the toy to the chip then prime. You can’t tell unless you flip it over.

For the painting, start out using cheap acrylic paints from Walmart and places like that. The better paints are great, but if you are just starting out and on a budget, these work just fine.

Keep on gaming!