Cross-posted from Colony of Gamers:  

I like miniatures games.  A lot.  Unfortunately, miniatures games tend to cost lots of money.  Well, some of them do anyway.  So I'm always looking at cheaper ways to get the gameplay I want without dealing with the insane cost involved.

One of the ways in which I've recently set about doing so, is just making paper minis.  I've designed a custom template for making paper miniatures over at my website, and have been engaged in slowly assembling some 40K armies in paper form.  So far all I've got is a Space Marine Tactical Squad sheet designed, but they came out looking quite nice.

One of the other things I've considered recently is 15mm minis.  Put simply, they're cheap, dirt cheap, even the Epic 40k ones you can buy in fairly impressive bulk by GW standards.  Flames of War is a great source for WWII looking sorts as well.  Normally of course they're designed for stand style games, with several minis glued to a single base.  But I thought, why not just base them individually instead, for single man scale games?  I mean, most games the movement isn't to scale with the model anyway, so you could even use the same measurement scale and get kind of a greater feeling of scope to the battles, or you could scale down measurements to match, maybe go cm instead of inches, and be able to game in 1/3 the table space, for those of us with cramped apartments and tiny tables.

I'm also thinking it'd be cool to get ahold of some more of those 1/72 scale WWII figs like I used to have.  It's kind of hard to argue with getting a whole box of 24 soldiers for like $5.  The Tamiya figs I got did come with a few in each box that weren't exactly well posed for normal basing, but most of them served quite well as a Stargrunt II army once glued onto some 25mm bases.  

There's also that bit of instructions I got off 4chan on how to cast your own resin models with some fairly cheap materials you can find in most hardware stores.  It'd be a great way to mass produce that DQ Slime army I was always wanting to do for Aetherverse.  

Two of the best games for this kind of thing too, I've found, are Stargrunt II, and Aetherverse.  Both are great, fun games, the former being the most accurate yet easy-to-learn simulation of modern fire combat I've ever seen, and the latter being awesome in it's incredible flexibility.  Both are generic systems, which means you can assemble an army from pretty much whatever you've got laying around, which makes them prime games for getting good minis fun without the monetary outlay.  

Age of Battles was also a pretty nifty one I played once, a Russian developed game focused on historical combat, which was quite nice because each boxed set came with all you needed to play a full battle, bases minis and all, for like $40-$50.  Just make sure to wash the sprues before assembling, as they coat the soft plastic with some kind of weird wax or something that seems to repel all known glues.  Russia in fact seems to produce an unusual number of very cheap miniatures and games, there was another one called Robogear I never got into that one of the stores in Vancouver sold.  

This sort of talk is, of course, total heresy to the attitudes of a lot of the mainstream players I used to deal with back in the day, who seemed to view how much they spent on their army as an extension of their penis, and anyone else beneath them, but for the rest of us who can't afford to mortgage their house for a game, it's always interesting the kind of creative tricks and things you can come up with to get the game without making your wallet cry in the process.

Dark Age is also pretty cheap for starter armies and such. It was up for my interest but I actually like a more expensive game: Rezolution. (Which compared to some games is about average price, but far cheaper than the more wildly popular Warhammer.)

Quote from: Silverlion;254740Dark Age is also pretty cheap for starter armies and such. It was up for my interest but I actually like a more expensive game: Rezolution. (Which compared to some games is about average price, but far cheaper than the more wildly popular Warhammer.)

I tried to refrain from direct commentary in the original post, but jesus fuck GW has gotten stupid expensive these days.  It's absolutely absurd what they charge these days, and it just seems to get worse and worse with time.  It's to the point now where their unpainted, unassembled models are of comparable price to expensive pre-painted stuff like Rackham's.

RAFM has excellent lines that are still inexpensive.  Most of their old catelogue is back, but sadly, the excellent human mercenaries are not.  They're even bringing back the old citadel Traveller figures as generic 15mm sf.

EM-4 produces plastic orcs, dwarves, street gangers, soldiers, powered armour, mecha and fighters at the lowest prices you'll ever find.

I did up some 40mm and 60mm templates today and printed out some Terminators and Dreadnoughts for matching 1000-point paper SM and Chaos SM armies, as well as doing up some hastily sketched terrain bits from scraps of left over cardstock.

Haven't had a chance to actually play it yet, roomie was to wrapped up in WAR to be pulled away to actually give it a go.  Really need to brush up on my rules anyway, as I was only ever really aware of the barebones of the rules even when I used to play.

I echo the sentiments of the prohibitive expense of GW games.

One thing you can do is use the actual artwork or pictures of the minis, and print out artwork/photo to use as a mini. You can photocopy cool pictures from the codices, or find lots online.

Of course, people will look at you funny, real miniatures are cooler, but, eh, I love the artwork for WH and WH40K. A lot. So, it's an okay solution in some ways.

[Actually, I paint all my miniatures to look grey-scale anyway. I do a black undercoat, followed by bolt gun metal dry brush, and use silver paint colour for highlights. I try to replicate the artistic expression of the art in the codices. Yeah, I'm weird.]

Another option are there are rules for using Lego's for minis and also Army Men based mini games.  Check out Brickquest just to blow your mind.

Unfortunately, I lost my webhost through no fault of my own, and I'm not sure how many of the original template files I still have, or where.  I do still have two fully assembled complete armies of SM and Thousand Sons though.

You also might consider virtual table top programs like Maptool. While it can get a little cramped on a laptop, they can look nice on a big monitor. Most programs allow you to turn off all the extra boxes (like chat or dice rollers etc.) and only view the map. It's extremely easy to make your own tokens from digital images. Many programs let you use grids, hexes or free form movement and do the distance measuring easily.

Quote from: J Arcane;254743I tried to refrain from direct commentary in the original post, but jesus fuck GW has gotten stupid expensive these days.  It's absolutely absurd what they charge these days, and it just seems to get worse and worse with time.  It's to the point now where their unpainted, unassembled models are of comparable price to expensive pre-painted stuff like Rackham's.

Ditto to that. I was reading through Dark Heresy and just decided to have a look at GW's prices for some Space Marines, Genestealers and such.

And the verdict is? HOLY FUCK! THAT IS FUCKING EXPENSIVE! :eek:

There's no school like the old school!

I have went back the last couple of years and have purchased more 20mm (1/72) minis than 25mm, 28mm, or 30mm. In plastic.

The old Airfix, Hatti, and Esci, miniatures and the newer Imex and Zvezda minis Rock! a Box of 40 or 50 costs like $9-10 U.S. With smaller minis you need less table space, and scratchbuilding terrain and models takes less material and resources.

For example, check out my newest Roman Legion, Valeria Victrix, Legio XX (Well, actually not a legion, there's only 150 minis or so, however I'll be adding to that soon!)



(Click for slideshow)

Then there's the wild west of Aces & Eights... Could also be used for Colonial Gothic! 25mm and 28mm Monsters are scary big!



(click for slideshow)

Available dirt cheap (compared to other minis) via mail order from these fine stores!

Michigan Toy Soldier Co.
http://www.michtoy.com/MTSCnewSite/newplastic_folder/new_plastic_1-72Scale.html

Plastic Soldier Review
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx


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I think you me Zvezda, but yeah, they freakin' rock, just because they're stupid cheap.  Age of Battles is their in house game, and you can get a complete battle set for some famous battle for like $40.  I had the Alexander set, and the Shogun set that I sadly sold before I ever got it assembled.

Thank you for posting these references, GameDaddy.
I skimmed through the Plastic Minis Review yesterday... and man, this site's awesome!

Plastic Soldier Review is full of good stuff - there's a really broad range of figures now between the various manufacturers. With the increasing popularity of Flames of War in 15mm it's meant that in the UK at least EBay and wargames shows have been very good for picking up 20mm figures that people are selling to fund new purchases. At the school club I run WWII is still the favourite period by a mile and for about £150 I have about a dozen drawers of British, American and German models and figures, although I'm re-basing the infantry to try some new rulesets. It's mainly 42-45 but I'm getting there with 1940 as that's of interest to me. There's some really good quick build models now too - Armourfast, Hat, Pegasus and Italeri give you plenty of cheap, useful options.

In 28mm there's increasing options for plastic too - check out

http://www.wargamesfactory.co.uk (their Colonial Brits could make good WH40k Praetorians, plus Ancients)
http://www.warlordgames.co.uk (historicals, but some good metals to complement the plastic rank and file and the ancients are coming on nicely)
http://www.victrixlimited.com and http://www.perry-miniatures.com - both historicals, but Napoleonics, ACW and ECW

J Arcane - what periods/genres do you really want to play? From the sounds of it you're quite into GW games, if not the minis' prices.

For Sci-Fi in 28mm you've a number of options - I can't remember the last time I picked up GW figures at full price - again EBay, shows and stripping figures has provided more than I'll need. I picked up the VOID boxed set for about £15 which has about 60 multi-pose minis. I have some of the EM-4 minis - Combat Zone stuff - plus Space Rangers and Mechs that double as droids in 28mm, some Grenadier Future Wars/Copplestone figures, plus assorted randoms. We tend to play either Fast and Dirty by Weaselfierce from rpg.net or Stargrunt from Ground Zero Games. Both are free downloads.
GZG also produce their own 25mm and 15mm SF ranges - they're 25mm are noticeably smaller than the 30mm stuff out their and very near future rather than spiky bits, but clean and easy to paint up. The 15mm minis are good or company level games and I'm mixed in some modern 20mm plastic vehicles - e.g. West German Marders converted into hover-APCs.

EDIT: I see you've already got Stargrunt. Ignore that bit...

Whilst I'm mentioning GZG I've also got the Dirtside II rules (again, free) and use those with Epic minis (dirt cheap on EBay) and assorted 1/285 and 1/300 minis I've acquired, including modern AFVs.

is that enough to be going on with?

I'd love to have some modern 20mm US infantry, as well as Russians, for my Twilight:2000 games.  Any sources on those?