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Heya guys.
So I am just beginning to understand how awesome minis are. I ordered from eBay a Myth Captains pledge, and I would love to add more to my collection. I don’t really have much interest in the hobbyist level yet – that is a bit too time consuming for me.
I am wondering what you guys would recommend in terms of board games with decent quality fantasy themed miniatures. The stuff on my horizon are:
• Conan
• Journey: Wrath of Demons
• Arena Rex

Descent has a lot of fantasy figures, but they are not really top tier quality. Confrontation plastics can be found on Miniature Market, which usually has a good deal on the starter. Mantic's Dwarf King's Hold series has some of their plastics that require assembly, and Dwarf King'd Quest will come out soon with pre-assembled plastics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and Arcane Legions is very cheap on Miniature Market, but it is 1/72 scale as opposed to 28mm/ 1/56th scale.


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And Reaper's Bones line has some pretty good sort-of-boardgame-style plastic fantasy minis for not much money.

Descent: Journey into Darkness 2nd edition (39 Unpainted PVC figures)
Claustrophobia (original version, 17 prepainted figures)
D&D Adventures: Castle Ravenloft (42 unpainted vinyl figures)
D&D Adventures: Legend of Drizzt (40 unpainted vinyl figures)
D&D Adventures: Wrath of Ashardalon (42 unpainted vinyl figures)
D&D Adventures: Temple of Elemental Evil (Upcoming, 40 vinyl figures)
Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth (12 prepainted vinyl figures)
Dungeon Command: Heart of Cormyr (12 prepainted vinyl figures)
Dungeon Command: Tyranny of Goblins (12 prepainted vinyl figures)
Dungeon Command: Blood of Gruumsh (12 prepainted vinyl figures)
Dungeon Command: Curse of Undeath (12 prepainted vinyl figures)
Dwarf King's Hold: Dead Rising (32 plastic figures require assembly and painting)
Dwarf King's Hold 2:Green Menace (29 plastic figures require assembly and painting)
Dwarf King's Hold 3: Ancient Grudge (1 metal unpainted figure and 11 plastic figures require assembly and painting)
Dungeon Saga: Dwarf King's Quest (Upcoming, 30 vinyl figures assembled but unpainted)
Super Dungeon Explore:Caverns of Roxor (31 chibi style plastic figures, requie assembly and painting)
Super Dungeon Explore: Von drak Manor (34 chibi style plastic figures require assembly and painting)
Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King (52 chibi style assembled plastic minis unpainted)
Arcadia Quest (32 chibi style figures)
Arcadia Quest Beyond the Grave Expansion (24 chibi style figures)

You might also look into Blood Rage from Guillotine games (the Zombicide people) which will have a kickstarter later this month.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blood-Rage/639521432791231

In the 90s boardgames were a great way to start a miniature collection. Battle Masters, and Hero Quest had loads of plastic fantasy minis.

If you are not too particular about sculpts or painting, then you may consider the oop D&D minis game from the 00s. Another option are pathfinder minis.

Doublehex wrote:
Heya guys.
So I am just beginning to understand how awesome minis are. I ordered from eBay a Myth Captains pledge, and I would love to add more to my collection. I don’t really have much interest in the hobbyist level yet – that is a bit too time consuming for me.

Are you planning on painting the minis? If not, ignore what I write below.

If so, I'd recommend looking at wargames minis. Often the cheaper materials and lower quality of molding on boardgame minis mean that they are actually more time consuming to cleanup (remove the mold lines and flash) than wargames minis that are made of metal, resin or better-quality plastic.

Arena Rex is a big big jump. I'd hold off on it until you're ready and comfortable with the hobby side.

Star Wars Imperial Assault - Star Wars
Super Dungeon Explore - Chibi fantasy
Arcadia Quest - Chibi fantasy
Rivet Wars - Chibi WW2
Sentinels Tactics - super hero sci fi
Gears of War - sci fi
Descent 2e - fantasy

What do you mean by big jump? Pricewise it doesn't seem too bad - not as many miniatures as say Myth, or Conan, but they are higher quality so they would be great for heroes in DnD.

Doublehex wrote:
What do you mean by big jump? Pricewise it doesn't seem too bad - not as many miniatures as say Myth, or Conan, but they are higher quality so they would be great for heroes in DnD.

They require assembly (some of which was fairly difficult), they're considerably more fragile (as they're resin) and they're probably doing to run $20-$25 a model. Now, while that's reasonable for may hobbyists for a high quality resin model, you indicated you weren't quite ready to be a hobbyist and were really looking for model volume more than anything.

With that in mind, I think you'd be better off starting with Reaper Bones.

Lord of the Ice Garden?

Doublehex wrote:
I am wondering what you guys would recommend in terms of board games with decent quality fantasy themed miniatures.

I ordered from eBay a Myth Captains pledge

The stuff on my horizon are:
• Conan
• Journey: Wrath of Demons
• Arena Rex

You cover 3 very different types of things there.

Myth is kinda cutesy "chibi" style fantasy gaming. If that's the style you like, you should look into
* Super Dungeon Explore (2nd Edition "Forgotten King" is coming out sometime Q2, with loads of expansions over the rest of the year)

Conan and Journey are both similar, being fantasy games with loads of "realistic" Fantasy minis:
* D&D miniatures board games (there are 4 or 5 differently-themed versions that all mix and match together), or

Arena Rex is really about beautiful resin sculptures, more than a game per se. If you're going that route:
* Kingdom Death : Monster (should release sometime Q3 or Q4 this year).

Of all the games above, I am most highly invested into
1. Kingdom Death : Monster
2. Super Dungeon Explore
3. Journey: Wrath of Demons
4. Conan

I did not back Myth, nor start D&D nor Descent -- all largely duplicate SDE, which I already own (it's a great game). I am splitting Conan at Barbarian, because a split pledge is cheap and has massive replay even without expansions.

Arena Rex is resin, so those are very expensive, very fragile, but very beautiful. I don't want to fear breaking them, so I passed on it. If I were a painter working on display pieces, I would have ordered a full set.
____

I do not like the look of Arcadia Quest so that gets a pass from me.

I have some Bones, but they do a horrible job with managing undercuts, and the material is a very "rubbery" vinyl.


Finally, for Kickstarters, economically, it makes the best sense to pledge at the $100-150 "sweet spot" giving best "bang for your buck" value. You can always buy more expansions via an online discounter, later. If you paid $250 for Captain, you could have backed 2 Kickstarters at their sweet spot and would have come out ahead; had one crashed and burned, you'd simply have waited for whichever ultimately delivered. That said, I have a silly amount of money locked up in various KS campaigns, but they are starting to look like they will deliver.

Hey Hwang, thanks for the post!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:


Myth is kinda cutesy "chibi" style fantasy gaming. If that's the style you like, you should look into
* Super Dungeon Explore (2nd Edition "Forgotten King" is coming out sometime Q2, with loads of expansions over the rest of the year)

I really wouldn't have considered Myth chibi - it has more in common with Warcraft than it does with something like Super Dungeon Explore.

Conan and Journey are both similar, being fantasy games with loads of "realistic" Fantasy minis:
* D&D miniatures board games (there are 4 or 5 differently-themed versions that all mix and match together), or

The people over at Board Game Geek recommended the DnD Board Games, and I have already added them to my wishlist.

Arena Rex is really about beautiful resin sculptures, more than a game per se. If you're going that route:
* Kingdom Death : Monster (should release sometime Q3 or Q4 this year).

I took a look at Kingdom Death, and would frankly rather not give money to something that just seems to encourage the misogynistic attitude of the industry. Conan at the very least has its source material to fall back on, and at least doesn't go on full on nude. Kingdom Death is sexplotation for no reason.

Arena Rex is resin, so those are very expensive, very fragile, but very beautiful. I don't want to fear breaking them, so I passed on it. If I were a painter working on display pieces, I would have ordered a full set.

Ah okay, that makes sense. I found it through Mikh's blog, and fell in love with the art and the miniatures. I didn't realize they would be so fragile though. I would be using them for gaming - I'd probably keep them in a box that would be bounced around in my car or backpack.

What's the point of resin, if you can't even game with it?
____

I have some Bones, but they do a horrible job with managing undercuts, and the material is a very "rubbery" vinyl.

Vinyl? I thought vinyl was some sort of clothing material.

Finally, for Kickstarters, economically, it makes the best sense to pledge at the $100-150 "sweet spot" giving best "bang for your buck" value. You can always buy more expansions via an online discounter, later. If you paid $250 for Captain, you could have backed 2 Kickstarters at their sweet spot and would have come out ahead; had one crashed and burned, you'd simply have waited for whichever ultimately delivered. That said, I have a silly amount of money locked up in various KS campaigns, but they are starting to look like they will deliver.

That seems smart, but then again I also try to be somewhat selective with my Kickstarters. Megacon had produced games before, and so had Monolith when you consider their employees individually. So I felt safe in throwing money at them.

Thats good advice though.

Vinyl = Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

You can absolutely game with resin pieces. I do all of the time. But you can't handle them as roughly as you might handle a board game token.

You really shouldn't put a bunch of cleaned, assembled, and painted resin miniatures loose into a baggie or a box and expect them to come out of it pristine. But that goes for metal miniatures as well.

Resin tends to be hard but brittle, though it doesn't mean that resin miniatures are 'fragile'. They are simply more fragile (typically) than the average pewter or PVC miniature.

Resin is a labor intensive casting process for miniatures that allows for deeper undercuts and which tends to produce higher fidelity castings. As such, the material tends to be used by boutique miniatures companies producing finely detailed miniatures. Finer detail can mean smaller/thinner pieces, which means more fragile when it comes to any material.

I'll pick up finished resin miniatures by the handful when I am gaming with them, but I don't let my 4 y/o handle them.

I typically let my 4 y/o handle most metal miniatures under reasonably careful supervision (depending on how much I care about the miniatures).

When I am playing Zombicide, my 4 y/o gets to play with the survivors and zombies that aren't on the board. And I let him pretty much do what he pleases with them.

@Doublehex - It's totally OK - what you like vs what I like don't have to match.

I am a bit surprised that you consider Myth more Warcraft than SDE, at least based on things like this:

That is a *very* cutesey monster. Adorable, really. But as above, YMMV.

I get that not everybody likes Kingdom Death, fair enough. I do believe that KD is far more even-handed in its treatment of beefcake and cheesecake compared to Conan, and that Conan is *vastly* more sexist than KD has ever been. I agree that KD is far more controversial than Conan.

You can game with resin, but you'll wantneed to get protective hardcases. KR Multicase, for example. The thing is, at some point, nearly every everyone experiences a fall, a drop of a mini. You really don't want that with a resin mini, because they invariably break something really delicate and super hard to repair.

Vinyl is just a kind of plastic; soft and pliable compared to hard styrene (or nylon), but not as soft and slippery compared to urethane. Most boardgaming minis are made of some sort of polyvinyl because they can be cast with easier all-around detail for fewer parts.

I agree it's important to be selected with KS. Even then, things can go slow or badly. So far, I've been pretty lucky.

Anyhow, hope this helped. PM me anytime if you like.