Can't remember if I've asked this on here before or not....


 Anybody ever use cheap toy soldiers as the miniatures in your role-playing games?  You know those cheap $1.99 bags of plastic soldiers , one side is green, the other side is tan or biege.

I'd love to run a scenario where those are the figures that I use.  Take permanent markers to designate which 4 or 5 are the player characters - and the rest are mooks and NPCs in one massive battle.

 Also thought about doing a Quick designer challenge at a convention : Each designer taking the callenge gets a clear plastic bag of either cowboys & Indians, Army men, Dinosaurs, police figures, or knights in a bag. (Most places have 304 4 of those choices) They also get those $1.49 5-pack of six sided dice that KROGERS, WAL-MART and Terget sell...and one notebook with click pens that 4 different colors. They get 1 hour to 90 minuites to come up with either a quick minis game OR a simple RPG.

- Ed C.

Jon Tweet does this.

Or he used to. He had like this big plastic jug full of dinosaurs and soldiers and whatnot and he used those as miniatures for some of the early demos for D&D 3.

Sandbox Hill half way down the page:

QuoteSandbox Hill: By Kyle Jones

I remember that day. The sun was bright and the grass grew high. But in under an hour we lost half of our men. The bullets were flying faster than we could follow them. The casualties were overwhelming. But we showed those bastards that the boys of the third infantry could bring forth the fires of hell as good as anyone. For every one of us that survived, three died. They tell us all that matters is that we won, but somehow I can't stop thinking about my boys that didn't make it back. I think about them, and wonder if the guys in charge even know what the cost of winning was. Yeah, I was there. I was there the day we won the Battle for Timmy's Sandbox.

Sandbox Hill is an 18 page simulation/wargame of the simplest variety. Get your army men, get your rubber bands and be prepared for a fall-down drag-out war that may take the whole weekend.

I've used Lego men a lot, but they actually have a fair amount of personality ... the green and tan army men, that'd be hard-core anonymity.  "Look, I'm the one with the radio" really doesn't give me much of a hook to attach to the character through that marker ... which would be the point, of course!

See, now I really want someone to have done this, so they can tell us how it felt.

I've not used green army dudes for rpgs, but I ran Tom Moldvay's DINO WARS! at a con once.  That was a minis game published in Dragon for army men to fight plastic dinosaurs.  I painted cereal boxes and such to vaguely resemble buildings.  I have a few pics on this old webpage.  Good times.

Oooh!  Dino Wars was awesome.  I have to dig that issue of Dragon out of my boxes.

I've used plastic army men and Britain's Deetail figures in games, mostly as antagonists; my players always liked something a little more distinct for their characters.

My friends EJ, Matt and I used to create elaborate sets of rules for doing miniatures battles with our Lego men and plastic army guys back in high school.  Some involved using rulers and such for range and LOS, others were simpler and involved using disc guns and slingshots to fire at our adversaries.

Quote from: jrientsI've not used green army dudes for rpgs, but I ran Tom Moldvay's DINO WARS! at a con once.  That was a minis game published in Dragon for army men to fight plastic dinosaurs.  I painted cereal boxes and such to vaguely resemble buildings.  I have a few pics on this old webpage.  Good times.

That was Moldvay's game?  Neat.

I used cowboys and indians to illustrate some points about the indian wars to my students this summer. We called it the Battle of Felt Mesa. It was very cute.

I haven't used army men, but I've used the zombies from the board game ZOMBIES!!! They're a little more expensive, but only because they come with a kickass board game about trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Well I havent used normal plastic army men. But for the Vietnam campaign. Ive been using some 1/72 scale marine infantry and NVA/VC troops a friend of mine painted. Along with some big maps I've made.

Quote from: stu2000I used cowboys and indians to illustrate some points about the indian wars to my students this summer. We called it the Battle of Felt Mesa. It was very cute.

That is fucking cool.  Makes me want to run a western game big time.