Dungeons and Dragons miniatures?

[YoungOnce]

Some of us who used to play back in the day are trying to get together a D and D game to see if we can recapture some of the fun. I'd like to play the game with miniatures on a grid so the couple of "newbies" in the party can better visualize the action.

Does anyone know a good place to get some sort of starter set on the cheap? Every place I've looked seems to be selling these boxes with five or six miniatures... and they are expensive! I need ogres and zombies, rats and wolves, not to mention some heroes male and female.

We've been out of it for a long time and I remember how much fun it was when we painted our lead figures for the next big game. Looks like they are all pre-painted plastic these days. I need a five for ten dollars bin somewhere!

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

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[Godzilla]

I have a huge box of original minitures from back in the 80s. Is there any value in them?

[TheDoLittle]

Sadly the price of "lead" has skyrocketed along with everything else and plastic pre-painted figs are just cheaper to manufacture and easy to pluck off the peg when we need a squad of orcs. Outside of the Warhammer crowd, there just isn't the market for us hardcore tabletop gamers like there used to be... and I go back to the early 80's when "lead" was actually made of lead.

I have to admit to being a Reaper shill (I play a lot of CAV and Warlord, and try to head up to ReaperCon and ArtistCon when I can), but I do like Team Frog and Black Tree and have several of their figs. As you probably know, Wizards of the Coast do manufacture figures (I mean, c'mon...A "BEHOLDER SET"!?! I used dream of being able to afford more than one! Much less all of them pre-painted) and they have at least done the right thing and sold packs of the same character type instead of only random figure boxes, but they no longer produce blank metal figures for the hobbyist to paint on their own.

Another way to get figs is to look into "Heroscape" (Official Site of the Heroscape Game System by Milton Bradley). I love the game, play is semi-regularly, and own all the core game and expansions. There's even a "D&D" set. Great figures with nice sculpts and pretty-good paint jobs.

Aside from that, you might want to hit TheMiniaturesPage.com. There's an active group of miniature enthusiasts posting and there's always someone selling off their figs in the marketplace. You might be able to find the ones you're looking for.

[YoungOnce]

I have to admit that I am not knowledgable about the value of older miniatures but I would not be surprised to find that there are collectors out there. A quick ebay search revealed some figures that seemed to be going for quite a bit of moolah. Not Mego-like prices, but still too expensive to amass a bunch for game tokens (in my opinion).

I wish I had kept some of our lead figures from the 80's... argghh...

If you research and find that they are not rare, I'd be willing to make an offer. I just need figures to use in the game. But maybe you have the rare flat-headed Frankenstein dragon or the removable-cowl wizard that some D and D guy dreams about owning...

I've got a ton of Mego stuff that I'm thinking about thinning out... maybe a trade?

D and D miniatures are a new world to me. I just need me some zombies and rats to surround my heroes!

[TheDoLittle]

I have a huge box of original minitures from back in the 80s. Is there any value in them?

Depends on the set and how bad the lead rot has gotten them. A common occurance has been gamers finding old sets and resurrecting them by making molds and recasting the figure. You may have a figure in that set which someone is looking for.

[Sideshow Spock]

I wish I had kept some of our lead figures from the 80's... argghh...

I still have a couple of the TSR 12-miniature box sets from 1983, seen here:

Back in '81: Gonna paint me some old lead minis...pig-faced Orcs to be exact.

I remember I didn't have the $$ to pick up all the sets (from my trusty mall Walden books, which had a nice D&D section), but I wish I had. Brings back some fun memories..

[TheDoLittle]

D and D miniatures are a new world to me. I just need me some zombies and rats to surround my heroes!

http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/rats

http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/zombies

[TheDoLittle]

I remember I didn't have the $$ to pick up all the sets (from my trusty mall Walden books, which had a nice D&D section), but I wish I had. Brings back some fun memories..

Oh yes! Had a few of those. I too couldn't afford the sets so I stuck with buying them individually, usually at a con and complete with a shoddy paint job which took a week of soaking in turpentine and a good scrubbing with an old toothbrush to get them into a paintable condition again. And you had to be real careful because if the lead was too soft (and it usually was) you'd snap something off.

[Janson]

I should still have extra cheapys, pm my if interested in buying or trading.

[sprytel]

I like the idea of miniatures to help visualize things spatially... but if all you want is a sense of things, you can always cannibalize pieces from board games, action figures, dice, pennies, what have you... Sure, it is kind of cheesy, but the "cheesiness" becomes part of the fun.

[Random Axe]

Cool topic.

My best friend worked as a caster for Ralph Partha and I painted some minis for their catalogs. I have no idea whatever became of my figures. The proposed game sounds like fun.

[Godzilla]

Thanks for the info guys. I've never heard of lead rot. I bet it's been 15 years since I looked at most of them. I'll have to dig them out of my basement.

[ZICA]

Cool topic.

My best friend worked as a caster for Ralph Partha and I painted some minis for their catalogs. I have no idea whatever became of my figures. The proposed game sounds like fun.

Back in the 80's I actually got to visit their factory in Cincinnati. Looks like the company now goes by the name Ironwind Metals. I never played the D&D game but I liked painting the miniatures.

[Random Axe]

I can't believe my mobile replaced Ral with Ralph. Yeah I used to go in there and buy in bulk till I got a limitless supply for a year or so. Reaper makes some badass stuff now. I thought about picking a few up to see if I still had any skills left.