Substitute miniatures

[ballth]

I recently posted a topic on Phoenix's discussion board about substituting for miniatures that you don't own from other games. Zepgodiria is working on a list over there to help out. In the meantime, I've been looking and here are some substitutes I've come up with so far that will work out fine for my needs. They are D&D Miniatures and I bought them off of eBay. They are all pre-painted, which some folks may not like. I for one can not paint miniatures, so I was OK with them being pre-painted. Except for the fact that my original Heroquest pieces are unpainted.

Free League Rangers(Blood War #16)http://www.theorderofinitiative.co.uk/acatalog/16Bloodwar.jpg = Elven Archers from Elf Quest Pack.

Wild Elf Raider (Angelfire #29)http://www.wizards.com/dnd/minigen/minis/Af/29.jpg = Elven Warriors from Elf Quest Pack.

Wand Expert (Angelfire #27)http://www.wizards.com/dnd/minigen/minis/Af/27.jpg = Elven Archmage from Elf Quest Pack. This one varies quite a bit in looks from the original, but seemed to be an OK substitute for me.

Timber Wolf (Deathknell #27)http://www.legendgames.co.uk/acatalog/Timber_wolf.jpg = to be used in place of the wolf tiles in the Elf Quest Pack for Heroes turned into werewolves.

Blood of Vol Cultist (Blood War #29)http://www.theorderofinitiative.co.uk/acatalog/29Bloodwar.jpg = High Mage from Wizards of Morcar/Zargon.

Grim Necromancer (Deathknell #36)http://www.legendgames.co.uk/acatalog/grim_necro.jpg = Necromancer from Wizards of Morcar/Zargon.

Renegade Warlock (Deathknell #23)http://www.legendgames.co.uk/acatalog/renegade_warlock.jpg = The Storm Master from Wizards of Morcar/Zargon.

Warforged Wizard (Deathknell #11)http://www.legendgames.co.uk/acatalog/warforged_wizard.jpg = Orc Shaman from Wizards of Morcar/Zargon. This is another one that is quite different from the original, but looked pretty cool to me!

I'm still on the lookout for some subs for Ogre Lord, Ogre Champion, Ogre Chieftain, Ogre Warriors and Giant Wolves that are going to be correct on their spacing. I found some cool looking pieces for Ogres, but so far they've all been too big. Another thing I keep in mind when I buy miniatures as subs is the cost. All of the above pieces were picked up for around a buck each or less (in fact, those Elf Warriors were 5 for $1).

[drathe]

I like the idea of the Timber Wolves instead of the Wolf Tiles. I always felt gypped when it came to the Wolf Tiles, Prospector Tile, and Princess Millandriell Tile. What happened to substituting the Chaos Warlock for miscellaneous characters?

That High Mage substitute looks really cool. I might try and pick some of these up. The paint doesn't look all that bad. How close are the sizes to HeroQuest?

[Phoenix]

Just a side-note... Some of us are totally inept in regards to miniature gaming and are only interested the the 3D play of them. It might also be wise to note not only which miniatures are pre-painted, but also which ones are pre-assembled.

A friend of mine (mulladar from my HQ Discussion Board) sold me some Warhammer 40K Elves. I figured that they would work fairly well as substitutes for the Elven Archers and Elven Warriors in the EQP. However, a lot of assembly was required . I do not posess the precission and/or attention to detail required when assembling my own miniatures. The concept seemed nice, in that I could make some of the poses different (crouching archer, for picking off Heroes, etc), but got frustrated quickly as the pieces wouldn't quite stick together, or would stick to each other (the wrong ones) or stick to the table/hands/everything...

So, as I said, it might be wise to give a little warning to how much work might be involved. Just a thought.

[drathe]

Excellent point Phoenix.

I too have been lured to the realm of Citadel Warhammer Miniatures. Luckily my purchase was a small box of plastic wood elves (no assembly). There were many other cool looking characters I've thought about using (like the Tomb King for the Witch Lord) but they require assembly I have no patience for. Much worse, many are metal instead of plastic which really requires painting to be used to cover up joints and tone down the over all shininess. I have very little miniature painting skill. I've tried to paint one Chaos Warlock and it took over two hours just for his outfit (I have yet to finish the 'finer details'). Model paints are also freakin' expensive in my opinion. They do look damn good once finished though (if you're good at it).

[ballth]

There are good and bad points to the D&D miniatures.
The good thing is they are all pre-assembled and pre-painted for us inepts.
The bad thing is it is hard to tell from just an internet picture their sizing. WOTC's website doesn't tell much about the size of them either. There is a site I use to get info on them called DDM Spoilers. I have found that the minis I've bought so far, you should stick with the "medium" size figures in order to fit in the HQ world. I purchased a few ogres, but they are way too big to use for anything in Heroquest. One of them may be usable in Heroscape if I wanted to take the time to make a custom card and all for it, but I doubt that will happen.

[drathe]

Medium D&D size, good to know. How is the paint job on them? Similar to HeroScape? Better, or worse?

[ballth]

Medium D&D size, good to know. How is the paint job on them? Similar to HeroScape? Better, or worse?

I would say as good if not better than Heroscape paint.

[zep]

Of the D&D miniatures I have seen the paint jobs were worse than the Heroscape figures, but I haven't seen any of the more recent D&D figures so they may have improved. I personally enjoy the assembly and painting aspect so I tend to prefer metal or plastic minis from Reaper, Heresy, or GW. I need to get back on that list on Phoenix's forum.

[AerynB]

Hello there.

I realize this is a pretty old post but my question is relevant so why not keep it all in the same thread.

Anyhoo, I've been looking around at the D&D miniatures to sub for the harder to find mercenaries, ogres, wizards and elves and they actually look pretty decent on the D&D gallery website and not too bad in real life, so I've been thinking of shelling out for a few more of them. The problem is, I can't really find a decent website that has the minis' sizes listed. One or two ebay sellers will say whether the mini being auctioned is tiny, small, medium, large or huge, but they don't have every single mini I'm looking for listed in their ebay stores so I have to search elsewhere to make sure it's the medium size and not large.

For instance, I found a really nice wolf figure on the D&D gallery page in one of the sets (Underdark #60 bottom of page) but when I looked it up on the ebay seller's site, he listed it as large. Now, I've looked at the entire gallery a couple of times now, and I think I can tell a medium from a huge, and even a medium from a large, but I didn't really see a place anywhere on the D&D site where it gave the size of its figures. I'm not even sure if the winter wolf is too big, since the giant wolves do take up two squares, maybe this dnd wolf figure could work. *shrugs* I've googled so many phrases with 'size list' or 'size chart' and I'm just not coming up with anything.

So.... I was just wondering if any of you kind people might be able to help me out a little.

Now that I think about it, there are letters after the minis' names - C, U, R - that stand for common, uncommon and rare (I think). Maybe uncommon figures are the large ones... *shrugs again* I don't know.

My next option is to try to find stores in my area that sell minis and go see the figures in person, but I think I'll run into the same trouble that the stores I go to won't have all the minis I'd like to buy.

Sorry for making this post so long. I just wanted to explain that I've done quite a bit of searching and I'm not just asking for help without having done any work myself. I'm just hoping someone out there knows of a list of sizes for me.

Thanks
~Erin

EDIT: *dances around room happily*
I found what I was looking for, and maybe for some of you too! The site is http://ddmdb.com/. The search feature is easy to use. It lists size (tiny, small, medium, large, etc.) right there in the database. The only thing missing is the Player's Handbook Heroes Series 2 and Legendary Evils series of minis, which I think are the two most recent so maybe that's why they're not in the database yet. But no worries, it's exactly what I need for my purposes so I'm going to continue to dance merrily!! hmm...maybe I need to lay off the caffeine.

Well, just wanted to let you know that you all don't have to go searching around too much anymore on my behalf. Maybe in a couple days I'll post my recommendations for nice-looking substitute minis, if people are interested. I know I've read around here that some people like to paint their figures themselves and that's awesome! Unfortunately I just don't have the talent or patience for it. My artistic talent lies in cross-stitching, mostly because the pattern is already laid out for me. ...and here I go rambling again.

later, everyone
~Erin

[drathe]

Heh, thanks for the info. I like looking through other compatible miniatures to be able to expand my game with. I also do not paint with "the skill". So nice minis that are already pre-painted, or pre-assembled plastics etc. are good finds in my book.