Miniatures

I know this isn't exactly computer or video games, but it is gaming.

I was just wondering if anyone else here is into Heroclix or the new D&D Miniatures collectible games?

A good friend of mine finally got me to try Heroclix about a month ago, and I must admit that I am sadly addicted now. I have that collectible mentality, and it didn't take much for him and his buddies to lure me in like a kid trying Viagrasty and then I was hooked.

As for the D&D Mini's, I started by buying a starter and booster to have extra pre-painted miniatures to use with my pen&paper DnD game I run, but just for kicks tried out the actual skirmish game with the friend who got me into Heroclix. Well, it was so much fun that now we're both addicted to the D&D Mini's game, too. 8)

Anyway, I was just curious if any of you diversified from the pc/console gaming into some of the collectible games. This is the first time I've gotten into it since I quit playing Magic about six or seven years ago.

Link?

I tried MechWarrior: Dark Age, but it''s so far removed (and dumbed down) from the BattleTech board games that I couldn''t stand it. I haven''t gone anywhere near WizKids'' combat dial stuff since.

I could see the D&D minis being interesting though, because at least you''re more or less playing the same game.

I too tried the MechWarrior clicks with my BattleTech buddie since we thought it would be faster because it was dumbed down. It wasn''t. If anything it took longer to play, and that was even after becoming familiar with the rules. Still, the little figures are cool, and they do have some neat ideas.
HeroClix was awesome stuff, and I trounced everyone soundly with my horde of Mandroid warriors in a mixed DC/Marvel setting.

I''ve always liked miniatures. As a matter of fact, a friend and I are writing our own generic sci-fi miniatures game.

I played Mage Knight, and then got into MechWarrior. I got rid of all my Mage Knight and MechWarrior uniques just recently. I liked it for awhile, but started to hate some of the rules. One of the things I hate is when your opponent makes you come to you. It''s annoying.

I recently became interested in the Crimson Skies clix game. Two cool things about it: the packs are all the same and clear plastic. You know exactly what you''re gonna get when you buy the pack, so it doesn''t have that ''collectible'' hook to it. Secondly, you can''t stand still, because you''re in a plane. You always have to keep moving, and you move by picking a card out of your hand that has the move on it and then doing it. Since everybody picks a card and plays them at the same time, mid-air collisions are possible. It''s pretty neat. Plus, it''s Crimson Skies. Give it a try.

I''m pretty hooked on Magic still. I got back into it about 3 years ago (after a 5 year break) and met up with a couple of good guys - now I get twitchy if I don''t draft once a week...

It''s my secret geek shame. I wish it didn''t have quite such a bad reputation, but I can''t seem to help myself...

I love the artwork for Magic, amazing stuff. I just don''t have anyone to play. I guess I could try online but I would have to hide in my own geekdom as well

I look at the poster for Mechwarrior Dark Age and I think, ""Man only about half of these are cool.""

The I ask the sales clerk if there is any way to tell what you are going to get. Since the answer is no, Ive stayed away. They are {ableist slur} if they are going to completely ignore the toy collector aspect of this. I dont want to play the game. The Zeus I got for purchasing MW:Mercs is really cool. I''d buy a ton more if I knew what I was getting.

Since I dont, no sale.

*walks off in a huff until he turns his head and notices the awesome new 10"" Jupiter mech sitting on his desk*

I''d only buy DA if I knew I was getting a Mad Cat (Timberwolf to you high-strung Clanners) out of it.

Do tell us more about the whole D&D minnies thing.

I mean, come on, doesn''t ""gamers with jobs"" translate to ""geeks with disposable incomes?""

D&D Minis is WotC''s second attempt at a D&D Skirmish-style game like the Wizkids ""Clix"" lines. Chainmail was their first attempt a couple of years ago, and I bought some of those simply to have miniatures to use while playing pen and paper D&D.

D&D Miniatures is a collectible miniature skirmish game. That means that when you buy a starter box or booster pack, you don''t know what you''re going to get. It''s like with Magic cards, how you have commons, uncommons, and rares, which makes them not just a game but a collectible type of thing.

Fortunately, a lot of gaming shops will purchase individual pieces from players and resell them at a slightly higher price. So let''s say you''re trying to collect a complete set, but you''ve got most of the pieces and don''t want to buy booster after booster. Well, either shop online or go to a gaming shop that sells individual units. You may be paying more per piece, but if your luck is really crappy (like mine) you''d end up spending more buying packs until you found what you were looking for.

I only have one friend who''s really into collectible skirmish-style games like Clix, Minis, and the like. We''re kind of collecting the D&D ones together, since he wants bands of evil characters and I''m more interested in the good aligned ones.

The game is based around constructing a warband out of miniatures. The standard game is 100-point warbands; each mini has a point cost associated with it based on how powerful or influential it is in combat. You play on a somewhat randomized map, where the goal is to route or eliminate the other team.

It''s actually quite fun; I was afraid the rules would be too dumbed down from standard pen and paper D&D combat, but in some ways it''s more intricate since the focus is *entirely* on combat and strategy. In particular, your warband is very dependent upon commander pieces to keep them effective, and part of the strategy involves either keeping your commander units safe, or taking out your opponents'' commander(s).

Here is the link to the official website

The worst thing right now is the scarcity in my area of boosters for sale; there are only a few places carrying them, and they''re pretty much sold out.

I kept quite a close eye on D&D Chainmail when it was being released. It looked like a lot of fun.

I''m still quite partial to Games Workshop''s line of miniatures and table-top games though. Just a pity that they''re prohibitively expensive over here and there isn''t really a large player base to speak of.

The collectable aspect of D&D Miniatures sounds quite interesting. First time I''ve heard of something like that. Do the miniatures come pre-painted or do you have to do that youself?

Fang:

Check out the Crimson Skies miniatures from WizKids. They come in clear plastic blister packs, so you know exactly what you''re getting. Also, I think the game mechanics are more fun than MW:DA or Mage Knight.

Yah, Ive come close several times to picking up the Crimson Skies sets. Even more so now that I''ve gotten into the Xbox game.

From a collector standpoint I would have prefered to have one bigger plane than 3 small ones.

A local mall store has a ton of the Marvel characters sold as single units.

If MW:DA wasnt the Dark Age universe and say used mechs from 3055 or so I would buy them. The mech designs were so much better earlier in the MW universe. Actually the best MW designs were in Mech Commander 2.

Sha Yu, Blood Asp, Bushwhacker, Highlander, Mad Cat, Vulture, Thor, Razorback, Hunchback, Zeus, Cougar, Raven, Uller, Ryoken, Shadowcat, Lao Hu, and Shootist.

They are pre-painted, Lord_Xan, and surprisingly the paint jobs are mostly quite good. I typically prefer to paint my own, going so far as to re-paint pre-painted miniatures that I don''t like.

But so far, I''m satisfied with the ones I''ve gotten, and only intend to put a few additional highlights on a couple of the minis.

This thread is starting to scare me....

This thread is starting to scare me....

Why?

Thanks for in the info, Farscry. Looks a little limited on the human side, since I would be half interested for the reason you describe above, pen and paper D&D. We''re mostly playing Oriental Adventures mixed with some Rokugan stuff right now, and it''s difficult to find good...I still call them ""lead figures"" for NPCs and PCs.

On the surface this looks like they all went into a room to brainstorm, ""how can we milk more money out of this crap we bought?"" when WoTC bought TSR. ""I know, let''s make buying figures into a ''collectible'' thing so they''ll have to keep buying, and buying, and buying....""

Sigh. And sadly, if I wasn''t so damned busy with going back to college, etc., I could see wasting a bunch of money fulfilling yet another cycle of geekdom...

That''s all Wizards of the Coast knows how to do, make money by making every product they put out collectible. What else have they ever done?

If you want to play miniatures based squad games, play Warhammer. Fantasy or 40k (the S/F version). It even has the prerequisite ""spend far to much on stupid plastic models"" bonus.

Miniatures are evil. Plain and simple. Pure, unadulterated, undiluted, unmitigated evil. I have a closet full of painted, half painted, and half assembled Warhammer and Warhammer 40k miniatures to attest to that. They are very cool . . . which is how you get sucked in . . . but they require all your income and all your free time to do right

"Paladin" wrote:

Miniatures are evil. Plain and simple. Pure, unadulterated, undiluted, unmitigated evil. I have a closet full of painted, half painted, and half assembled Warhammer and Warhammer 40k miniatures to attest to that. They are very cool . . . which is how you get sucked in . . . but they require all your income and all your free time to do right :twisted:

I agree. Watching my friends looks of anger when my tanks blow apart their troops is priceless though.
It is addicting. I''m sitting in a hotel room right now on a business trip, wishing I had brough my stuff along so I could do some painting.

The man who wins at miniatures wargaming is the man who lives in his parent''s basement.

"RumbleFish" wrote:

The man who wins at miniatures wargaming is the man who lives in his parent''s basement.

:Nooooooo We are usually professionals with good jobs who are not attached. My painting table and my gaming tables used to be set up in the living room. Watching sports/history channel and painting figs is nirvana. My wife is not a gamer so those days are long gone. I used to play way to much miniatures, went to conventions, and built/painted armies, now it is all in boxes, on the highest shelves in my garage. Young children and gaming are to separate phases of life. wink:

There was a guy I ""knew"" in college who could have been ""The Comic Book Guy"" in real life. He lived at home with his mother and had been going to college for like 12 years.

Anyway, he dominated the Warhammer 40k games they held on Thursday nights at the student union. Mainly due to the fact that all his income went to those things. I never played, cause I couldn''t ""pay.""

It''s just one of those things that sticks with in your head. So whenever I hear or read some comment about miniature gaming, I just picture that guy sitting in a chair two sizes too small, wearing a shirt five sizes too small, and stroking his pizza-crusted beard while playing Warhammer 40k.

"RumbleFish" wrote:

The man who wins at miniatures wargaming is the man who lives in his parent''s basement.

You lost a lot when you played didn''t you?

See post above.

And no, I didn''t play because of the smell (j/k).

That''s why we''re writing a generic miniatures game: so you can use the miniatures you already have, or use cheap close-out minis in the bargain bin at your local shop, or whatever. Also, we want to make something that is a little quicker than Warhammer 40k and doesn''t have any stupid ""morale"" rules.

It''s fun, but slow going. We have another game we''re working on right now, and it''s putting the miniatures game on the back burner.

Sounds cool atom!

Can we get any kind of inside scoop?

I actually don''t think 40k is a bad system, it''s just not very coherent. The rules as written allow for quite a bit of interpretation. What they really need are concrete definitions for their terms.

Well, a friend of mine and I started a small hobby-press game company back in 1993 called Snarling Badger Games. Our first game was a small tabletop game of robotic gladiatorial combat called BattleBots. Yes, you read that right.

We sold our game on our web site and through some smaller game distributors, and then the company was sort of put on hold due to a family crisis. While this was happening, Comedy Central started playing a show called BattleBots. There was no trademark conflict, because we had a game, they had a TV show. They''re separate classes of trademark, according to trademark law.

In 2001 or so, we got a letter telling us we were infringing on their trademark. They were shopping the license around at Hasbro, trying to get them to make a game based off of the show, from what I''ve heard. We set them straight about when our game was first published, things happened which I can''t talk about, and now they get the name, but we''re just fine, thank you very much. Also, we may not have use of the name anymore, but we still get to keep the game text and copyright on the text, so we''re working on changing the game and re-releasing it.

In the past, we had the games printed and had to store them and ship them to distributors and ship them to customers who bought it through the web site. Now, we''re releasing all of our games in PDF format and selling them through www.rpgnow.com and it''s a lot easier than it was. The PDF game industry is really starting to take off.

Anyway, once we get this game out (soon) then we''ll finish up our generic sci-fi miniatures game engine. I''ll keep you guys informed, if you like.