[2-20-2014] Welcome all! My stats show that a ton of visitors are coming to this post via Facebook, but I can't tell who sent you all. If it wouldn't be violating anyone's expectation of privacy, I'd like to know who it was; I'd like to shake his hand, as the song says. Anyway, there's more to this site than comparison shots of Tim Mee cavemen, so again, welcome, and please look around!
Part of finding cheap fantasy minis is keeping an eye out for things that were never meant for gaming but which are readily adaptable. I've found that many hobby-shop-style toys are perfect for my purposes. They aren't marketed for gamers and so aren't premium-priced, but can be as good or better than miniatures made specifically for gaming. Here are a few such toys I recently purchased.
These are new cavemen models from TimMee Toys. They make fantastic hill giants versus 1/72 minis. There are four sculpts and twelve models of each sculpt, which is probably more hill giants than I'll ever need. I may try to sell some of my extras.
Half the toys in the bag are in tan plastic. One thing I like about these minis is that on the tabletop they look like they're looking down at a 1/72 scale human-sized figure.
By the way, shortly after buying these, I saw that Sgt. Slag has used both the cavemen and skeletons for the very purpose I intended. Obviously he stole the idea directly from my brain somehow. Actually, I'm glad for the proof-of-concept, as they look great!
For the last set of figures we go from large to small. These are Lucky Minis from Safari Ltd. You can get them from counter displays at some hobby shops and many museum and zoo gift shops for 59 cents a piece. They are made of some sort of rubbery material, so I'm not sure how they'll paint up, but they look terrific.
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So what are some other toy products you've adopted for gaming miniatures?
I´ve got the skellies, a bit too big for using along side 1/72nd IMHO but those Cavemen look well suited for giants.
ReplyDeleteI actually remember the flumph from D&D!! :-D
Well, they are meant to be giant skeletons (here are the human-sized ones http://cheapfantasyminis.blogspot.com/2013/05/skeletons.html ), but I agree that they are a little bigger than I'd like. Still quite useable, though.
DeleteI'm too young to remember the original flumph, but its reputation persists as one of the more sublimely ridiculous DnD monsters :P.
I have found a ton of toys and craft items make good gaming minis. I painted 4 of those skeletons too (not sure if I'll ever use the rest). The cavemen are classic. I'm pretty sure I some of those a good 30+ years ago as a kid. I understand Gygax used them for ogres back in the day too.
ReplyDeleteI have some dollar store knights & medieval peasants that i've been thinking sbout using for cloud giants, but so far have only painted a couple as statues and another as an iron golem. I've found small xmas decorations are useful too-- angels can be painted as angels, or statues. Some have funny shaped melon heads and could make good Styx Devils from the fiend folio.
I have occasionally found 1/72 or close figures in dollar stores of knights, cowboys & indians, and zoo animals which can go into conversions. Actually any cheap plastic animal can be useful as monsters, no matter how deformed or out of scale.
Also some rubbery ants, about 1" long, that serve as giant ants, and halloween spiders and bats. Craft stores at halloween and xmas are your friend when it comes to super-cheap minis.
You mean Gygax stole my idea too, through the mists of time no less :). Since I heard about them, I've wanted to try to find the weird Hong Kong-manufactured kaiju toys that Gygax used and that eventually became classic DnD monsters (some of these, for example http://www.flickr.com/photos/jemtoy/5956108033/in/photostream/ ), but they're apparently very expensive these days.
DeleteGreat suggestions! I bought a bag of bugs last Halloween for gaming purposes, as you suggest. I hadn't thought of checking out Christmas decorations; I'll have to keep an eye out for them.
Great idea about Caveman (but i think that may be very difficult to find it in Italy) But What do you think to use some mini from Gormiti or Dino Froz ??? I think that you 'll be find some interesting thing!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of Dino Froz until just now. From looking at them just now they look pretty cool, though I don't think I like the big heads!
DeleteI have checked out Gormiti figures before. Some of them have a lot of potential. Men in Boxes has a post about converting one particular Gormiti figure into ent-like treemen, which got me to looking into other Gormiti figures.
I've used a lot of Mage Knight figures for my AD&D games, as well as my 2nd Ed. BattleSystem (AD&D mass combat) games. I love the idea of Giant Skeletons, and the MK figures, along with the 54mm toy skellies, work well.
ReplyDeleteIn my RPG campaign, there is a Lich, who has been amassing an undead army, for centuries... He has an artifact, which will allow him to single-handedly control hundreds of undead land-torpedoes (skeletons/zombies). He was quietly continuing to build his army, when the PC's happened to stumble along into his army warehouse, where his skellies had been standing, awaiting orders, for centuries. They forced the Lich's hand, and he had to attack the city above, much sooner than he had been planning... A perfect battle scenario for a BattleSystem game.
If you buy the Cave Men set, or the pirate Skeletons, you will have enough figures to make an army (for 25-30mm figures). If not, you will certainly have enough "Hill Giants" to run a group through the classic Gygax module, "Against the Steading of the Hill Giants". I'm building terrain for just that purpose. ;-) Cheers!
By the way, I love your figure scale, which is very much like what Plastic Soldier Review does. It looks very professional, and it is extremely helpful. I may have to 'steal' that idea from you! Cheers@!
ReplyDeleteSteal away! I stole the idea myself from 1-72 Multiverse and from the One 72nd Fantasy Figures blog. Check out the links in the sidebar: both are a big inspiration for this project.
Deletehttp://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=19789896&cp=&parentPage=search is a good one, a bucket of fantasy figures in the "Green army men" style
ReplyDeleteYep, it's a pretty cool line. They also have a set of knights and a pirates and skeletons set (with the same skellies as shown above). The fantasy figures are about the size of the skeletons, while the knights are maybe the size of the cavemen. So they're giants in 1/72, my preferred scale, or you could build a pretty great 1/32 scale fantasy collection using these and figures like them.
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/TimMee-Legendary-Battle-Fantasy-Figures/dp/B00FQIJEO4/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1392908659&sr=1-2&keywords=tim+mee
DeleteI remember years ago my dad painted up some of these to use as Cloud/Fire/Frost giants, as they're double the size of the standard 'army men' scale like the Skeletons.
Your blog is amazing, by the way! I'd been experimenting with using 1/72 Barbarians and Knights for low-fantasy campaigns, but this helps incredibly. Thanks!
http://diterlizzi.com/home/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/
ReplyDeleteThis blog post is really interesting to me. You can still get this set on Amazon! Would you have happened to have seen any other dollar store critters that make decent tabletop miniatures?
Yep, those old "dinosaur"/kaiju toys are fascinating, especially as they relate to the history of fantasy gaming. I hadn't had any luck finding them at a reasonable price, so thanks for pointing out that they're on Amazon.
DeleteThanks also for your kind words in the other post!
PS, if you're interested in Dollar Store finds, you may like this post.
DeleteYou were correct, I do like that post. I've kind of been wondering if an accomplished mini-modder could turn some dollar store dinos into something along the lines of the 4th edition Basilisk? They look pretty prehistoric already.
Deletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JvfIERSNlDQ/UBwBG-nVl_I/AAAAAAAAA-w/4eB02Zasn-o/s1600/MM35_PG23.jpg
Just found your blog and love it. Im always trying to find ways to stretch my gaming money as my wife thinks paying the Mortgage and feeding the kids is more important then my toys( I dont understand women)
DeleteI found your site cause I just ordered the Tim mee cavemen and was looking for a way to paint them. Anyone have any luck painting them and similar plastic figures
Thanks Tony! I haven't painted the cavemen yet, but Sgt. Slag has. Here's the post that pic appears in: You can ask him what he did, but I think if you just scrub, prime, and paint like any other plastic figure, they'll turn out fine. Let us know how they look!
DeleteThe skeletons are available by themselves, and are dirt cheap! Check:
ReplyDeleteout:https://www.toyessentials.net/eShop/home/184-20-piece-toy-skeletons.html
You can't beat 20 for $2.50!!!
Chris Johnson