A recommendation for those looking to 3d print minis with a resin printer. Use resins that cure as "flexible", it makes a ton of difference. You can manhandle flexible minis way easier than hard, brittle ones.
This. A buddy sent me a resin printed object and it arrived broken in a half dozen pieces. Then I dropped part of it from about 2 feet and that piece broke.
@@jorgedasilva7665 im curious about this resin. I use regular old Anycubic or Elegoo and the minis are quite delicate. Def not up to the professors durability standards.
@@SinisterGamingTabletop I can't remember what resin it was that was used. Our engineer made it for me years back and he and his 3D printer are both gone. Of course the resin was tough enough that I had to chip away at the supports and such that were on it. So there are trade-offs.
@@SinisterGamingTabletop - Best bet would be asking around on 3D printing subreddits. I'm pretty sure there's one specifically about printing minis. Lots of people will mix standard resins with flex resins to get something with the right balance. I'm sure they'd be happy to give you an idea on where to start.
This video completely exceeded my expectations. I had no idea that so much was available. I learned a lot watching this, and I'm a bit of a miniature collector and figure painter, so I thought I knew most everything in the field.
Basic primer coat in the prevalent color the minifig will be, then wash with appropriate tones and add drybrushing highlights FTW. Anything beyond that will just be gravy lol.
I’ve literally bought all 3 games you e recommended and all I can say is how amazing the minis look and now have months of painting ahead due to an impossible work schedule thanks Professor
Resin printing is not that much of a hassle, i was worried first as well, smell, toxicity, curing, cleaning the printer - turned out that after a week, it was a non issue, couldn’t live without one now. Need a specific monster next weekend? Done in 3 hours, let’s paint it. I use elegoo mars “abs like resin”, great quality. Your favorite mini broken? 3 hours later it is there again. Shout out to mz4250 you mentioned in the video, this man is a saint and deserves all donations he can get.
Historical miniatures can be a good source, especially the newer plastic sets. Some are around 35$ or so for 30 minis like FireForge Games and Gripping Beast. Northstar does a lot of good plastic sets too, for Frostgrave and Oathmark that can be used with D&D. Lots of kit bashing and conversion potential if you are into creating your own figures. Going into a smaller scale like 15mm can save you a lot too. Lots of historical and fantasy ranges to choose from, and any scenery/terrain you make will also be smaller and easier to store/transport. Can fit a lot more minis on the table at one time too, if you are into bigger battles and stuff like that. Thank you Professor DungeonMaster for the great video. Keep up the good work man.
This is a good suggestion. Especially for low fantasy gritty realism. We sometimes joke in the minis community about fantasy tax. A unit of english longbowmen costs less than a unit of fantasy humans for no real reason at all. :D
I also recommend GnomishBazaar. I've ordered from them several times and it is shipped usually the next day and gets to my house within the week. Super freaky fast, much lower prices than MiniatureMarket or any game store. The customer support is helpful as well. I accidentally put a pre-order in one of my orders that I wanted as quick as possible and after one email he removed the pre-order and had the rest of the minis in the mail the next day.
Fantasy Flights Runewars the miniatures game has some pretty awesome miniatures. and they're cheap too. The game was discontinued, so grab it while you can!
You can get the basic set of human spearmen, human cavalry. Undead melee guys, undead archers, and some golems and undead work riders for under $40 for 48 minis. The add one are $20-30 a set. 👻
15mm miniatures are cheap, take up less space on the table and they’re quick to paint. The paint is less likely chip too, as the lesser mass and shorter height means less force involved when you knock over or drop them.
Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers is an excellent way to bulk up your collection. I got one of the box sets for $10. It came with 30 single colored miniatures and 5 painted "planeswalkers".
For low fantasy plastic minis I'll recommend the sets from North Star Miniatures; they do a bunch of different sets for Frost Grave, Ghost Archipelago, and Oathmark. They cover humans, dwarves, elves, and goblins, thus far. The best bit is that you can kitbash your own characters using bits from across the range. You generally get enough bits in a box to make around 20-30 minis (along with a load of options for weapons) for around £1 per mini. They also make metal "hero" minis too for those who like that sort of thing. That paint job on the HATE!!!!!!!!! mini is great. I really should dig out my copy and give it a go; all I need to do is wait until the end of the Lockdown, so I can filch someone's tooth brush.
This deserves more upvotes, their figures really are an incredible bargain and the more sprues you buy (and there are secondary sellers doing individual sprues now) the more assembly options you have due to everything being so modular. And if you wait a little bit, they'll have scifi humans and aliens coming for Stargrave as well, so even more options on the way.
Now there's STARGRAVE, it's the sci-fi version, and should be on their site for (hopefully) April, on the 'net there are some pictures of these plastic minis, seems good.
Great idea. Dress as a clown and wave to people passing by! It will really creep them out and it will be funny at the same time. Also, nobody will care if you take flowers at that point. I love the movie IT!
I 3D print nearly everything now, my Elegoo Mars is excellent! As for the brittleness of the minis, the type of resin used really matters, i use a mixture of Elegoo Fast(75%) and Siraya tech Tenacious(25%). This makes the minis very durable and flexible, if you're requisitioning some 3d prints i suggest this blend for your minis, you might have to pay a bit more, Siraya Tech Tenacious is pricey.
I apologize if this gets long. First great video, as always. As a once upon a time WH Fantasy/40k player I have been pretty uptight about detail and painting quality and I can compete with my painted work without being embarrassed. Anymore however I'm right with you. Hand picking minis out of shape cut foam using gloved hands is for the birds. Pretty enough and durable enough is the way to go. On the topic of 3D printing. I'm running an Ender 3 (pro) and not anything resin. This only really works if you are starting out but I find that upping the scale to anything where your miniature will be 45-50mm tall will give enough detail to keep me happy. If you go all the way to 56mm it simply doubles every measure in D&D however it creates a miniature that in hand feels pretty satisfying. I printed a couple dozen (files from Patreon) goblin, orc, ogre and adventurers for a friends son to simply play with at what would be 42mm scale and they were amazing. PLA+ is generally sturdy but not brittle. There are groups out there that do specifically sculpt mini's to be printed using this type of printer. Resin minis are beautiful but are also brittle and I have had the same issues with that same torch from Etsy sellers.Some Patreon's I would recommend but you did not mention www.patreon.com/ArtisanGuild/posts www.patreon.com/ArchvillainGames/posts www.patreon.com/vhminiatures/posts An interesting thing about AV is that along with the month's themed mini set you can back at a level where you get a premade that will use those monsters and terrain. All three of the above eventually move their monthly backer files to My Mini Factory so you can try a couple before supporting (although at $10 a month I would just back one month and get the files.) Even AV's module is available on MMF.
Thank you for all the great work! I set out a few months ago to become a better dnd player and to get the creative juices flowing for my own games (*cough* steal some ideas). Listening to podcasts and watching other youtube channels Dungeon Craft is hands down my favorite. Thanks again.
I do the same quick paint you do, basically. -Dark primer spray. -Light colored heavy dry brush (you spray, I'll try that next time, way quicker). -Then wash (same as you). -Then a few highlights. My last batch this was a very light grey, barely anything, dry brush, and things popped like crazy.
I need to start doing that with my horde of board games with unpainted minis. When I look at how many boxes are on my shelves, yet to be painted, I despair and go do something else. Knowing how much time it would take to paint even a few sets at my normal pace.
@@NefariousKoel I did a bunch using just a dark gray primer, a black wash and a light gray dry brush. They look cool and it's very fast. PDMs version with metallic and flesh tone looks way better. I'm going to try it on my next batch.
@@edwardromero3580 - Yeah, I'd probably do something similar to your method. Perhaps adding an extra off-color in just a few spots and/or a metallic on their weapon.
Great video and much needed. 😊 I personally got collection of a few hundred minis that I print and laminate. 250 minis can easily fit into a single binder. Size varies from rats to an ancient red dragon. Get some paper clips and you will be up and running in no time. I do adore plastic minis though, it's more a convenience thing.
Great tips. Also, an excellent point about waiting for kickstarters to fulfill. I am waiting on the Blacklist Games miniatures to come in. 200 minis for $65. But they are late due to the pandemic and shipping issues from China. Keep up the great tips, tricks, and creating videos Prof.!
@The Makeshop I stumbled upon this late pledge for Series 2 that is still active as of today. I'm on the fence: 1. I love getting a full working game with my pile of minis which is why I've purchased D&D boardgame and Massive Darkness 2 Kickstarter; 2. I do love how the Series 1 and Series 2 from Blacklist/Last Tales Game are more generic like spiders, mummy's, kobolds, orcs, etc. This is the reason I look at it every day and say to myself, "Is today the day I dump a couple hundred dollars to get 400 minis for ~50-cents each?
After 20+ years of using minis I've realized they are handcuffs to my creativity. I can never own enough minis to put what I want on the table. I end up trying to convince myself to fit in the minis I have or end up using them as proxies, which just means I could have used anything to represent what I wanted.
Buying any good game that comes with mini's is always a good choice. I tend to just reskin a lot of my enemy stat blocks to fit the image of the minis I am wanting to use for an encounter. Shadows of Brimstone and all its sets just adds a lot of minis and by itself is a nice fun game to run when you do not feel like DM'ing but everyone still wants to get together and play something.
Conventional filament, rather than resin, 3d printing works quite well for "low res" minis. It requires support, and struggles with some of the fine detail, but if you just want some mooks it works well. The key to minimize support and delamination issues with arms and weapons is to use a non-monotomic tool path, which can be a bit tricky to set up. For simple figures, you can often just print them on a bias, so that the protruding appendages are roughly horizontal. Personally, I use PLA, as it handles sanding and thermal forming (you can print it in one pose, then take a hot air station to soften it and re-pose the figure) post-printing reasonably well, and ones roughed with some sand paper, holds paint reasonably well too.
Thanks for the recommendations, these sets of minis look really good and at decent prices. Now all I have to do is order these and find some time off work to actually paint them. Thanks!
100% agree with your choice of the Hate board game. I have it and use it in my D and D campaign as well . Amazing miniatures! another great video professor , keep them coming.
I opened so many tabs while watching this trying to keep up XD Thanks for doing this, it's not super clear where to get minis especially on patreon or KS when you have no clue what you are looking for!
I really want to get into 3D printing, but the trouble is that it only becomes cheap in the very long run. The initial cost of the printer can be pretty high, and it's a case of the quality you get is what you pay for. But there are so many places now selling great scupts as STL files, and you can run off as many as you want. It's not fast though. So if you want or need a bunch of minis fast, this isn't the way.
@@nekoali2 my Ender 3 is about 210$ and has made at least WoTc quality minis for 2 years now, a single role of filament is about 20$; if you want better than GW minis you'll need a resin printer, also about 250$
It’s still a sizeable investment. Add in the need for a dedicated workspace, the learning curve involved as well as the fact that you need to be printing A LOT of minis before it gets to be economical. I also think resin is the only real option for decent minis.
Another source for cheap minis is RuneWars by Fantasy Flight Games. Starter box is $34 you get 48 models and a tabletop wargame. Some assembly and mold line removal is required. Everything is keyed so it's pretty easy to do.
What is that wash PDM mentions at the end? I got "gw wraithbone spray, wash with ??? oil, wash sepia (any particular one?), vallejo game color gory red & gw corvus black"... Just missing the... Gnome oil? Something oil?
I recall picking up the Folklore: The Affliction minis set a couple years ago on a sale from an online retailer. 77 minis of 44 different sculpts for less than 30 dollars (around $26 IIRC). Soft plastic but a little hot-then-cold water got the few with bent weapons back into shape, and they're quite resilient. Not the greatest quality sculpts but cheap and varied. Apparently other people had the same idea and quickly swept those boxes up. Gotta keep an eye out for such discounted sets and pounce.
In 1998 I took an old Milton Bradley "Battle Masters" board game and butchered it for its minis. I glued them all to little wooden squares, got over 60 awesome fantasy miniatures that way for like $10, goblins, archers, horsemen, soldiers, orcs, beastmen, etc. We still use them to this day. Of course the board game goes for like $150+ complete now...
about 6 years ago I bought over 100 World Of Warcraft minis for like $40. They are noticeablly larger than 25mm or 28mm scale but my players don't care. They are really bendy, but they were all painted and if ur players were never into WOW then they work really well. Not sure if there are still lots out there for sale
The super fast and easy guide to painting the miniatures at the end of the video - do you have a tutorial and links to paints? Starting out here and loved your video!
I got HATE and have been painting them, and the details are exquisite. There's a few big creatures that work for monsters or ogres. Chains, hooks, fur, and nipple rings on nearly every guy. Here's one thing I'll say - although the monotone colors work great for them, they are so detailed that I feel bad painting them in this way. Good news is it got me into painting.
Fantasy Series 1 by Blacklist Games is fantastic for someone just starting a collection. There are some nice PC/NPC sculpts and 5x of lots of the generic fantasy monsters. The Kickstarter version is over 200 minis for $65+shipping which for the US was about $20 so $85 for 200+ minis is unbeatable. Even the regular box would be less than $1 a mini. Series 2 is coming to Kickstarter on March 30.
before watching this I'm gonna say the DnD board games have been the best way I got way too many cheap minis . After buying two boxes I have more minis than I have time allocated to paint them.
A lot of the sources you mentioned were things I used in my tavern box terrain. (I also used some of your techniques for the floor and stone work.) I didn't know about Hate, and now I totally want to buy it and run a grim dark war campaign! Also, Nuln Oil is just... ...magic!
Thanks for the great info. I want to create my own UDT after seeing how well it works for you. The terrain packs, zombies and minis in general are where I struggled. I have none so I will keep this list in mind! Oh, and say hi to death-bringer for me.
I’ve backed two of them. It can have a high upfront cost, but the price per mini is hard to beat. And it’s a great way to get larger pieces for about half of normal retail.
Conan and Dark Souls both have gorgeous minis I really like. The Dungeons and Dragons Boardgames come with good chunks of generic minis. Zombicide has cool minis for undead.
The $5 below by my house last year had a ton of Magic the gathering board games I bought three and now have hordes of multi colored minis for mobs and a few minis prepainted I use for npc's.
Ollies Discount Outlet at Christmas always has chep, mini-intensive board games at Christmas. This year they sold for $15-25 up from last year's $10-20. You can sometimes find left overs during the year. But it is Ollies, so when it's gone, gone. ( "Ollies! Good stuffs cheap!!) (There are 3 within easy driving distance of me). 👻
If you can find it, you can get the Conan board game by Monolith for around that $100 mark as well. It has a large selection of monsters and heroes and could serve as a great starting point as well.
Can't find HATE boardgame for less than 150 USD on Ebay which goes usually for about 250 USD!! I agree it looks incredible, but not as affordable as you'd hope!
I've got Massive Darkness on my Amazon list now, so thanks for that. And this has probably been mentioned before, but I also got a ton a cheap, but awesome minis from getting the RuneWars board game and its expansions.
I would highly recommend getting the "Epic Encounters" sets from Steam Forged games. The cost around $45 for a set of about 20 minis. That is about $2.25/mini which is cheaper than most reaper bones minis. They come assembled with their own bases. They are fun to paint and are a very good sculpt. Maybe professor DM could do a review of these, but there are already plenty of videos on them for people who are interested.
I have gone the Resin Printer route. And I had trouble with breakage in the beginning. After switching to a more flexible resin it is much better. Hard to beat .15 to .25c a mini for the set up cost of about $250.00. I haven’t found the odor to be an issue either as resins have improved beyond this issue. However it is messy and fussy. On the upside though it’s also great for terrain pieces.
Awesome sourcing material for miniatures, almost wish I could start over. Thanks for the content. Always nice to see you Deathbringer, always worried I wont see the professor this week because, 'Something happened to him' when you are around. Cookie for the metric
I'm a big fan of the simplistic, "monochromatic" painting style you talk about at the end of the video. I'm wondering, though, if I chose to do one of these super-quick paintjobs, would I be able to repaint the mini at a later date with more detail? I remember a post on the facebook group recently where someone was showing off the minis that they simply prime (grey) before applying a dark wash. It looked fantastic! Would that be a better option if I wanted to have the option of improving the paintjob later?
I've bought 2 Epic Encounters boxes by Steam Forge games and really like them. I ordered the goblin and hydra boxes and await arrival of those. The orc & frost giant boxes are amazing and a lot of mini for the money.
So here is my argument FOR resin printing: You get what you pay for, in terms of what you make yourself. When you order off of ETSY or other pages, often these are people printing en mass for large amounts of customers, rather than quality for players. I own a relatively cheap resin printer (Photon), and I use a mixture of Elagoo Grey Water Washable resin with a small amount of flexible resin added (around 70% elagoo, 30% flexible). The result is that the resin has the sturdiness and density, but the slight flexibility prevents it from breaking, cracking, etc. It also seems to hold paint better, and usually doesn't get that "fingerprint" texture you mentioned. The downside is flexible resin is a little more expensive (70$ a bottle as opposed to 35$ for the regular grey resin), however you use FAR less of it overall with each print.
I have to say that if the printed minis are that brittle then they used the wrong resin for them. There are different types that provide different amounts of detail, flexibility, toughness, and strength. Sometimes the best resin for a specific job is a mix of different types. One that has high detail might be brittle, so mix with one with high flexibility and toughness. Now you have a mini that can be treated rough. The "fingerprint" pattern is one of two things. They either printed the layers too thick (to save time) which gives it an actual stair-step surface. Or it can be an issue of print orientation, this can leave visual banding which for the most part once primed is invisible. Resin printers have a learning curve, but once you have a good understanding you can produce miniatures that are as good as those that are casted or molded and bought in boxes.
Mixing a flexible resin into a non flexible resin is the way to go when printing minis. There are lots of different types of resin people use to do this so I won't get into specifics, but basically standard resin gives good detail but its brittle, and flexible resin is durable as it will flex, but the detail in the print isn't great. So mixing them 80/20 or 70/30 (the lower being the flexible stuff) can give a pretty durable and detailed mini.
I bought wizkids pools and pillars set and two bones reaper dragons. I pained the dragons and I gave one a top hat and the other a viel. I made a reception area from all the rocks and pillars. Boom, handcrafted wedding gift less than 45 bucks total.
I like playing with expensive Dwarven Forge resin, pre-painted terrain and with high quality metal miniatures like those from Otherworld. But then I’ve been collecting for decades. I can see how if you were starting from scratch it would be an intimidating cost to sink into the game.
I actually have tons of Dwarven Forge but prefer zoned terrain.DF is terrific quality, no doubt, but the set/up clean up is annoying once the novelty has worn off.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 yes you’re right - it is a pain to set up. I don’t DM very often though so when I do DM, I pre-set up all the dungeon or whatever on my wargaming table and cover each section with black cloths. It’s like - I’ve spent 5k on this stuff and I’m going to use it if it kills me! Lol
@@elizabethdefazio6065 :-) ! Referencing Seinfeld would seem to be an occupational hazard: I find myself using "Opposite George" frequently to encourage students in a humorous way to consider that some material may require new or uncomfortable modalities of study and approach.
The Hate board game doesn't seem to be hugely available in the UK. The cheapest I've found (after a brief search) is £320. Someone's selling a prepainted set for £1200.
if you can get your hands on Blacklist Games Fantasy series 1 (Fantasy series 2 is not out yet and got a lot of delivery problems) or even their Horror series, you pretty much get all the miniatures you need in one (or 2) boxes.
NOT CHEAP ENOUGH! XD Actually, I agree with many of your suggestions and love Reaper Bones and Mantic, in particular. Those are great options for PCs and terrain. But for mooks, you can go cheaper. If you have a store called 5 Below in your area, you can often get brand new, sealed copies of games with minis for $5. I grabbed a couple copies of Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers and it's spin off, Shadows over Innistrad to play Frostgrave: Ghost Archipeligo. The quality of the minis is probably about as good as D&D pre-painted minis, but without the awful paint job. These games are great for stocking dungeons with thematic opposition fast and cheap, though you might not want to use them for beloved PCs. Big Lots/Odd Lots, Dollar General, and Ollie's may also occasionally have treasure troves of cheap minis in new board games. Flea markets might also surprise you, if you're not in a hurry. That's obviously your first stop if you're getting into Gaslands ( a dollar might get you 10 cars you don't even have to distress), but collectible minis (D&D and Star Wars, in particular) show up from time to time. I even had the good fortune to find a Mantic game (Mars Attacks) WITH EXPANSIONS already painted by the previous owner once. Time can almost always work as a substitute for money, if you don't need something right away. If you don't find serviceable minis at a flea market, I guarantee you will at least find something that wants to be terrain in your game.
Thank you for the updated info, I love this channel! Painting minis is part of the hobby for me. If you get bored when painting then just turn on some Tom MacDonald music videos and grind it out.
Just as a major note, the WizKids Deep Cuts tend to be either more generic or Pathfinder in scale/appearance compared to Nolzur's which are their specifically D&D styled ones. If you're wanting your forces to blend, you may want to pay attention to that...things like the Pathfinder style Goblins are extremely distinct in appearance there Not a kickstarter (though there are rumors of the guy handling it to be doing a new one soon since the last one is done), but the Crocodile Games Wargods line is awesome. They're metal minis, and you've got what are largely either egyptian/middle eastern or Greco/Roman in appearance due to the minis being for their Wargods wargames. They're great ones to have there. If you don't mind a little bit more work, looking on eBay for the Fireforge Games or the Frostgrave/Oathmark sprues is a great way to get some for heavily customizable options that are relatively cheap. $2/$2.50 per mini with a massive pile of extra pieces and the ability to make your own custom is really good.
I would advice not to go for those. I thought they were thicker, but they are really thin and flimsy. Might as well print and laminate from Paper Forge or Printable Heroes.
I can't recommend Arena the Contest by Dragori Games enough. Their first kickstarter had minis that some complained weren't detailed enough (mine were fine) but they promised to fix that issue in the new expansion. PLUS they sent backers of the first kickstarter a new set of minis for FREE because of the concerns over quality. That and they were very responsive throughout the entire campaign and then some. I can't wait for the expansion to ship. They really are the gold standard in kickstarters to me. I also have CMONs Cthulhu: Death May Die and WOW what a beautiful set of minis!
I have backed the Bones 4 and 5 Kickstarters, and they are a great deal! I am still painting the Bones 4 pile of shame and Bones 5 is supposed to be delivered next month!😂
Thank you Professor! anyway i'd like to raccomend 2 other comapanies i really appreciate: 'Dark Sword miniatures' and 'Rackham Confrontation | Legendarion | Cadwallon miniatures'. They're very good! expensive sometimes but if you want a specific miniature (1 or 2) it's a pleasure :)
I think some of commenters aren't realizing some DnD RPG folks don't want to put together a Frostgrave kit, outside of maybe gluing to a base, hence the boardgame recommendations, add to those the Heroes of Land Air and Sea (if you catch a sale somewhere). Keeping the limited assembly idea in mind "Tehnolog" on Ebay has some stuff, EM4 has the dwarves and orcs, and if scale isn't an issue being off some some GW LotR plastic kits aren't bad and just glue to base like Dwarf Rangers. Eventually the Runewars and Wrath of Kings stuff is going to dry up. If I were to start all over, go to 1/72 scale and get those Dark Alliance Fantasy boxes cheap and to expand that if you find it on sale someday Time of Legends Joan of Arc and not sure of Tolkien Battle 5 armies is 1/72 but I thought it was. Not a fan of promoting Reaper as cheap, they are pricey for me, more for versatile sculpts for unique heroes.
One good source I found (for the moment) are Fantasy Flight Games RuneWars sets on Amazon. The core set is going for less that $40 and comes with over 40 minis (lots of skeletons and human soldiers armed with spears as well as some other units). The individual boxed sets can be pretty inexpensive as well, but no quite the same value as the core set.
@cheney moss Runewars core tends to go on sale for under $28 several times througout the year. Not to mention there are eBay sellers that have the core for under $28 all the time (new in shrink...hopefully they are legit).
Hope you are wearing your vest of protection cuz my wife is gonna be peeved now that I definitely have to go buy 200 more mini's. Thanks for this professor!
With 3d printing resin is for detail and FDM is for durability. as long as the figure is modeled to be durable. I have some FDM prints that are probably the most durable minis I own. Also FDM doesn't have a lot of the issues you mentioned with smells and clean up. And even with the limited detail of FDM prints I get minis at least on par with the D&D boardgames that are pennies a piece.
3D printing is a trap. Since opening that door, I print them faster than I can paint them... The addiction is real.
Welcome to the dark side.....
I can never seem to get quality prints for long enough. Glad most Patreons offer pre-supported these days.
I agree. I already had a huge pile of shame and it just keeps getting larger and larger...
Professor DM did a special on here on speed painting an entire army that may help.
I have an FDM and work from home so I will start a print in the morning and usually by the end of the day they are done
A recommendation for those looking to 3d print minis with a resin printer. Use resins that cure as "flexible", it makes a ton of difference. You can manhandle flexible minis way easier than hard, brittle ones.
This. A buddy sent me a resin printed object and it arrived broken in a half dozen pieces. Then I dropped part of it from about 2 feet and that piece broke.
Working with plastic, the type of plastic makes ALL the difference. I have a figure made with a harder resin and it won't bust.
@@jorgedasilva7665 im curious about this resin. I use regular old Anycubic or Elegoo and the minis are quite delicate. Def not up to the professors durability standards.
@@SinisterGamingTabletop I can't remember what resin it was that was used. Our engineer made it for me years back and he and his 3D printer are both gone. Of course the resin was tough enough that I had to chip away at the supports and such that were on it. So there are trade-offs.
@@SinisterGamingTabletop - Best bet would be asking around on 3D printing subreddits. I'm pretty sure there's one specifically about printing minis. Lots of people will mix standard resins with flex resins to get something with the right balance. I'm sure they'd be happy to give you an idea on where to start.
This video completely exceeded my expectations. I had no idea that so much was available. I learned a lot watching this, and I'm a bit of a miniature collector and figure painter, so I thought I knew most everything in the field.
Thank you. My patrons made lots of suggestions.
Never call yourself cheap, always say “frugal”...
Economic budget management
Competitive
"Financially aware."
Value-oriented
A rose by any other name, still smells the same.
Cheap, doesn't always mean poor quality.
"Can you believe I painted this mini in 5 minutes?"... yes, yes I can.
Basic primer coat in the prevalent color the minifig will be, then wash with appropriate tones and add drybrushing highlights FTW. Anything beyond that will just be gravy lol.
the painting tip toward the end makes this video easily one of the best mini tutorials i hve watched so far
I’ve literally bought all 3 games you e recommended and all I can say is how amazing the minis look and now have months of painting ahead due to an impossible work schedule thanks Professor
Resin printing is not that much of a hassle, i was worried first as well, smell, toxicity, curing, cleaning the printer - turned out that after a week, it was a non issue, couldn’t live without one now. Need a specific monster next weekend? Done in 3 hours, let’s paint it. I use elegoo mars “abs like resin”, great quality.
Your favorite mini broken? 3 hours later it is there again. Shout out to mz4250 you mentioned in the video, this man is a saint and deserves all donations he can get.
He finally reached his goal of making every monster in the WoTc catalog free and printable :3
Historical miniatures can be a good source, especially the newer plastic sets. Some are around 35$ or so for 30 minis like FireForge Games and Gripping Beast. Northstar does a lot of good plastic sets too, for Frostgrave and Oathmark that can be used with D&D. Lots of kit bashing and conversion potential if you are into creating your own figures.
Going into a smaller scale like 15mm can save you a lot too. Lots of historical and fantasy ranges to choose from, and any scenery/terrain you make will also be smaller and easier to store/transport. Can fit a lot more minis on the table at one time too, if you are into bigger battles and stuff like that.
Thank you Professor DungeonMaster for the great video. Keep up the good work man.
This is a good suggestion. Especially for low fantasy gritty realism. We sometimes joke in the minis community about fantasy tax. A unit of english longbowmen costs less than a unit of fantasy humans for no real reason at all. :D
use 15 mm for halflings and gnomes :) . paint their skin green for goblins maybe?
I second (and third!) the Reaper love. They’re cheaper on Gnomish Bazaar than anywhere else and their shipping is freaky fast.
I also recommend GnomishBazaar. I've ordered from them several times and it is shipped usually the next day and gets to my house within the week. Super freaky fast, much lower prices than MiniatureMarket or any game store. The customer support is helpful as well. I accidentally put a pre-order in one of my orders that I wanted as quick as possible and after one email he removed the pre-order and had the rest of the minis in the mail the next day.
Fantasy Flights Runewars the miniatures game has some pretty awesome miniatures. and they're cheap too. The game was discontinued, so grab it while you can!
I bought some of their Fleshripper and elf infantry minis.
You can get the basic set of human spearmen, human cavalry. Undead melee guys, undead archers, and some golems and undead work riders for under $40 for 48 minis. The add one are $20-30 a set. 👻
A game store by me has the base set, i may get it if they drop the price 5 or 10 bucks
15mm miniatures are cheap, take up less space on the table and they’re quick to paint. The paint is less likely chip too, as the lesser mass and shorter height means less force involved when you knock over or drop them.
Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers is an excellent way to bulk up your collection. I got one of the box sets for $10. It came with 30 single colored miniatures and 5 painted "planeswalkers".
For low fantasy plastic minis I'll recommend the sets from North Star Miniatures; they do a bunch of different sets for Frost Grave, Ghost Archipelago, and Oathmark. They cover humans, dwarves, elves, and goblins, thus far. The best bit is that you can kitbash your own characters using bits from across the range. You generally get enough bits in a box to make around 20-30 minis (along with a load of options for weapons) for around £1 per mini. They also make metal "hero" minis too for those who like that sort of thing.
That paint job on the HATE!!!!!!!!! mini is great. I really should dig out my copy and give it a go; all I need to do is wait until the end of the Lockdown, so I can filch someone's tooth brush.
Northstar is really great. Very easy to combine parts from many of their plastic kits as well.
Song of Ice and Fire minis are great for low fantasy too. They mix well with the HATE minis and other CMON figures.
@@catoblepasomega I have the Frostgrave Cultists, female warriors, gnolls, and snakemen. Looking forward to the Demons. These are a bargain!
This deserves more upvotes, their figures really are an incredible bargain and the more sprues you buy (and there are secondary sellers doing individual sprues now) the more assembly options you have due to everything being so modular. And if you wait a little bit, they'll have scifi humans and aliens coming for Stargrave as well, so even more options on the way.
Now there's STARGRAVE, it's the sci-fi version, and should be on their site for (hopefully) April, on the 'net there are some pictures of these plastic minis, seems good.
Oh! Great Idea! Next time I will also go to the cemetary to get flowers. :-D
You'll get no complaints
also Teddy bears
Bad Karma. 👻
Great idea. Dress as a clown and wave to people passing by! It will really creep them out and it will be funny at the same time. Also, nobody will care if you take flowers at that point. I love the movie IT!
I 3D print nearly everything now, my Elegoo Mars is excellent! As for the brittleness of the minis, the type of resin used really matters, i use a mixture of Elegoo Fast(75%) and Siraya tech Tenacious(25%). This makes the minis very durable and flexible, if you're requisitioning some 3d prints i suggest this blend for your minis, you might have to pay a bit more, Siraya Tech Tenacious is pricey.
Part of it is just flat-out overcuring the minis, as well. I know I've done that far too many times.
I apologize if this gets long. First great video, as always. As a once upon a time WH Fantasy/40k player I have been pretty uptight about detail and painting quality and I can compete with my painted work without being embarrassed. Anymore however I'm right with you. Hand picking minis out of shape cut foam using gloved hands is for the birds. Pretty enough and durable enough is the way to go.
On the topic of 3D printing. I'm running an Ender 3 (pro) and not anything resin. This only really works if you are starting out but I find that upping the scale to anything where your miniature will be 45-50mm tall will give enough detail to keep me happy. If you go all the way to 56mm it simply doubles every measure in D&D however it creates a miniature that in hand feels pretty satisfying. I printed a couple dozen (files from Patreon) goblin, orc, ogre and adventurers for a friends son to simply play with at what would be 42mm scale and they were amazing. PLA+ is generally sturdy but not brittle. There are groups out there that do specifically sculpt mini's to be printed using this type of printer. Resin minis are beautiful but are also brittle and I have had the same issues with that same torch from Etsy sellers.Some Patreon's I would recommend but you did not mention www.patreon.com/ArtisanGuild/posts
www.patreon.com/ArchvillainGames/posts
www.patreon.com/vhminiatures/posts
An interesting thing about AV is that along with the month's themed mini set you can back at a level where you get a premade that will use those monsters and terrain. All three of the above eventually move their monthly backer files to My Mini Factory so you can try a couple before supporting (although at $10 a month I would just back one month and get the files.) Even AV's module is available on MMF.
Thank you for all the great work! I set out a few months ago to become a better dnd player and to get the creative juices flowing for my own games (*cough* steal some ideas). Listening to podcasts and watching other youtube channels Dungeon Craft is hands down my favorite. Thanks again.
I do the same quick paint you do, basically.
-Dark primer spray.
-Light colored heavy dry brush (you spray, I'll try that next time, way quicker).
-Then wash (same as you).
-Then a few highlights. My last batch this was a very light grey, barely anything, dry brush, and things popped like crazy.
Love that monochromatic look. I’ve been leaning that way lately, with so many minis to paint and too little time.
I need to start doing that with my horde of board games with unpainted minis. When I look at how many boxes are on my shelves, yet to be painted, I despair and go do something else. Knowing how much time it would take to paint even a few sets at my normal pace.
@@NefariousKoel I did a bunch using just a dark gray primer, a black wash and a light gray dry brush. They look cool and it's very fast. PDMs version with metallic and flesh tone looks way better. I'm going to try it on my next batch.
@@edwardromero3580 - Yeah, I'd probably do something similar to your method. Perhaps adding an extra off-color in just a few spots and/or a metallic on their weapon.
Thanks for the tips! I'm buying minis for my 1st campaign in years. Pretty sure I'm buying Hate now.
Great video and much needed. 😊 I personally got collection of a few hundred minis that I print and laminate. 250 minis can easily fit into a single binder. Size varies from rats to an ancient red dragon. Get some paper clips and you will be up and running in no time. I do adore plastic minis though, it's more a convenience thing.
this guys charisma score is off the charts
Can’t wait for the 2022 version of this video!
The kids are watching and thinking “gee thanks Dad”
Yes, yes we are
Great tips. Also, an excellent point about waiting for kickstarters to fulfill. I am waiting on the Blacklist Games miniatures to come in. 200 minis for $65. But they are late due to the pandemic and shipping issues from China.
Keep up the great tips, tricks, and creating videos Prof.!
@The Makeshop I stumbled upon this late pledge for Series 2 that is still active as of today. I'm on the fence:
1. I love getting a full working game with my pile of minis which is why I've purchased D&D boardgame and Massive Darkness 2 Kickstarter;
2. I do love how the Series 1 and Series 2 from Blacklist/Last Tales Game are more generic like spiders, mummy's, kobolds, orcs, etc.
This is the reason I look at it every day and say to myself, "Is today the day I dump a couple hundred dollars to get 400 minis for ~50-cents each?
After 20+ years of using minis I've realized they are handcuffs to my creativity. I can never own enough minis to put what I want on the table. I end up trying to convince myself to fit in the minis I have or end up using them as proxies, which just means I could have used anything to represent what I wanted.
Buying any good game that comes with mini's is always a good choice. I tend to just reskin a lot of my enemy stat blocks to fit the image of the minis I am wanting to use for an encounter. Shadows of Brimstone and all its sets just adds a lot of minis and by itself is a nice fun game to run when you do not feel like DM'ing but everyone still wants to get together and play something.
Conventional filament, rather than resin, 3d printing works quite well for "low res" minis. It requires support, and struggles with some of the fine detail, but if you just want some mooks it works well. The key to minimize support and delamination issues with arms and weapons is to use a non-monotomic tool path, which can be a bit tricky to set up. For simple figures, you can often just print them on a bias, so that the protruding appendages are roughly horizontal.
Personally, I use PLA, as it handles sanding and thermal forming (you can print it in one pose, then take a hot air station to soften it and re-pose the figure) post-printing reasonably well, and ones roughed with some sand paper, holds paint reasonably well too.
Thanks for the recommendations, these sets of minis look really good and at decent prices. Now all I have to do is order these and find some time off work to actually paint them. Thanks!
Like Warhammer Player, i have thousands of minis and scenaries.
Professor DM gived a lots of good options for start collecting Rpg's miniatures.
I know resin is the way for minis, but being curious I printed an orc mini on my cr10s and it turned out pretty amazing. Good vid!
Awesome! This makes me want to pull out my Warhammer mini's and start painting them again. Still in a box in the attic after moving though.
LOL, Valentine's day flowers at the Cemetery, that was great!
Next Monday Deathbringer releases his new hit single. Stay tuned.
100% agree with your choice of the Hate board game. I have it and use it in my D and D campaign as well . Amazing miniatures! another great video professor , keep them coming.
I'm gonna have to check out Hate. Thanks PDM.
Runewars core set. currently like $35 on Amazon for 48 figures, with nice sculpts and good flexibility. Assembly required, but not too much.
This is a great deal. Found it for even less on ebay. Thanks for the suggestion!
I opened so many tabs while watching this trying to keep up XD
Thanks for doing this, it's not super clear where to get minis especially on patreon or KS when you have no clue what you are looking for!
3d Printer = everything you could ever want. Done.
Plus, you add to your skill set. I'm getting ready to dive into the 3D pool, been grabbing STL bundles from Kickstarter for a while now.
I really want to get into 3D printing, but the trouble is that it only becomes cheap in the very long run. The initial cost of the printer can be pretty high, and it's a case of the quality you get is what you pay for. But there are so many places now selling great scupts as STL files, and you can run off as many as you want. It's not fast though. So if you want or need a bunch of minis fast, this isn't the way.
@@nekoali2 my Ender 3 is about 210$ and has made at least WoTc quality minis for 2 years now, a single role of filament is about 20$; if you want better than GW minis you'll need a resin printer, also about 250$
It’s still a sizeable investment. Add in the need for a dedicated workspace, the learning curve involved as well as the fact that you need to be printing A LOT of minis before it gets to be economical. I also think resin is the only real option for decent minis.
@@irishthump73 not too high as most KS board games with all in and shipping are about $300 bucks or so.
Another source for cheap minis is RuneWars by Fantasy Flight Games. Starter box is $34 you get 48 models and a tabletop wargame. Some assembly and mold line removal is required. Everything is keyed so it's pretty easy to do.
Alternative title:
How to add EVEN MORE minis to your enormous pile of shame
What is that wash PDM mentions at the end? I got "gw wraithbone spray, wash with ??? oil, wash sepia (any particular one?), vallejo game color gory red & gw corvus black"... Just missing the... Gnome oil? Something oil?
Nuln Oil. It’s GW’s black wash
Army Painter Dark Tone works too. Not as great as Nuln oil but works great if you can't find Nuln Oil. Also cheaper,if that matters.
Love the energy, super informative, that's what we come for!
I recall picking up the Folklore: The Affliction minis set a couple years ago on a sale from an online retailer. 77 minis of 44 different sculpts for less than 30 dollars (around $26 IIRC). Soft plastic but a little hot-then-cold water got the few with bent weapons back into shape, and they're quite resilient. Not the greatest quality sculpts but cheap and varied. Apparently other people had the same idea and quickly swept those boxes up. Gotta keep an eye out for such discounted sets and pounce.
In 1998 I took an old Milton Bradley "Battle Masters" board game and butchered it for its minis. I glued them all to little wooden squares, got over 60 awesome fantasy miniatures that way for like $10, goblins, archers, horsemen, soldiers, orcs, beastmen, etc. We still use them to this day. Of course the board game goes for like $150+ complete now...
about 6 years ago I bought over 100 World Of Warcraft minis for like $40. They are noticeablly larger than 25mm or 28mm scale but my players don't care. They are really bendy, but they were all painted and if ur players were never into WOW then they work really well. Not sure if there are still lots out there for sale
The super fast and easy guide to painting the miniatures at the end of the video - do you have a tutorial and links to paints? Starting out here and loved your video!
Great recommendations, thanks! I especially love that monochromatic look - it smacks of Frank Miller!
I got HATE and have been painting them, and the details are exquisite. There's a few big creatures that work for monsters or ogres. Chains, hooks, fur, and nipple rings on nearly every guy. Here's one thing I'll say - although the monotone colors work great for them, they are so detailed that I feel bad painting them in this way. Good news is it got me into painting.
Favorite video so far, love what you do Professor.
Fantasy Series 1 by Blacklist Games is fantastic for someone just starting a collection. There are some nice PC/NPC sculpts and 5x of lots of the generic fantasy monsters.
The Kickstarter version is over 200 minis for $65+shipping which for the US was about $20 so $85 for 200+ minis is unbeatable. Even the regular box would be less than $1 a mini.
Series 2 is coming to Kickstarter on March 30.
before watching this I'm gonna say the DnD board games have been the best way I got way too many cheap minis . After buying two boxes I have more minis than I have time allocated to paint them.
A lot of the sources you mentioned were things I used in my tavern box terrain. (I also used some of your techniques for the floor and stone work.) I didn't know about Hate, and now I totally want to buy it and run a grim dark war campaign! Also, Nuln Oil is just... ...magic!
Awesome! Gonna have several paint partys comming up!
Thanks for the great info.
I want to create my own UDT after seeing how well it works for you.
The terrain packs, zombies and minis in general are where I struggled.
I have none so I will keep this list in mind!
Oh, and say hi to death-bringer for me.
Reaper has done a Kickstarter for the past 4 or 5 years it’s friggin great
I’ve backed two of them. It can have a high upfront cost, but the price per mini is hard to beat.
And it’s a great way to get larger pieces for about half of normal retail.
I usually like finding board games that come with lots of minis.
Can you recommend some?
Conan and Dark Souls both have gorgeous minis I really like. The Dungeons and Dragons Boardgames come with good chunks of generic minis. Zombicide has cool minis for undead.
The $5 below by my house last year had a ton of Magic the gathering board games I bought three and now have hordes of multi colored minis for mobs and a few minis prepainted I use for npc's.
Ollies Discount Outlet at Christmas always has chep, mini-intensive board games at Christmas. This year they sold for $15-25 up from last year's $10-20. You can sometimes find left overs during the year. But it is Ollies, so when it's gone, gone. ( "Ollies! Good stuffs cheap!!) (There are 3 within easy driving distance of me). 👻
If you can find it, you can get the Conan board game by Monolith for around that $100 mark as well. It has a large selection of monsters and heroes and could serve as a great starting point as well.
Where do you get that rotating base that you swept the minis off of?
Made it: ruclips.net/video/XfAKW5mNrTI/видео.html
Can't find HATE boardgame for less than 150 USD on Ebay which goes usually for about 250 USD!! I agree it looks incredible, but not as affordable as you'd hope!
$125 in California
Still $1.50 per mini which is pretty good.
Miniature Market has HATE for $100 right now.
I'm in Canada so add in shipping and change it's becoming quite expensive!
I'll check the shipping for miniature market thx
Mythic Battles Pantheon! Super awesome packs of miniatures!
I've got Massive Darkness on my Amazon list now, so thanks for that.
And this has probably been mentioned before, but I also got a ton a cheap, but awesome minis from getting the RuneWars board game and its expansions.
I would highly recommend getting the "Epic Encounters" sets from Steam Forged games. The cost around $45 for a set of about 20 minis. That is about $2.25/mini which is cheaper than most reaper bones minis. They come assembled with their own bases. They are fun to paint and are a very good sculpt. Maybe professor DM could do a review of these, but there are already plenty of videos on them for people who are interested.
I have gone the Resin Printer route. And I had trouble with breakage in the beginning. After switching to a more flexible resin it is much better. Hard to beat .15 to .25c a mini for the set up cost of about $250.00. I haven’t found the odor to be an issue either as resins have improved beyond this issue. However it is messy and fussy. On the upside though it’s also great for terrain pieces.
Awesome sourcing material for miniatures, almost wish I could start over. Thanks for the content. Always nice to see you Deathbringer, always worried I wont see the professor this week because, 'Something happened to him' when you are around. Cookie for the metric
I'm a big fan of the simplistic, "monochromatic" painting style you talk about at the end of the video. I'm wondering, though, if I chose to do one of these super-quick paintjobs, would I be able to repaint the mini at a later date with more detail? I remember a post on the facebook group recently where someone was showing off the minis that they simply prime (grey) before applying a dark wash. It looked fantastic! Would that be a better option if I wanted to have the option of improving the paintjob later?
Yes you can, with just priming and washes, adding more paint later will not obscure any details, which is the main concern when "repainting"
I've bought 2 Epic Encounters boxes by Steam Forge games and really like them. I ordered the goblin and hydra boxes and await arrival of those. The orc & frost giant boxes are amazing and a lot of mini for the money.
Plastic historicals (Victrix is amazing). Oathmark and Frostgrave kits (you can even buy them a sprue at a time on eBay). Old MageKnight minis.
Love Victrix and have many sets. Shame the mould lines are such a pain to clean
So here is my argument FOR resin printing: You get what you pay for, in terms of what you make yourself. When you order off of ETSY or other pages, often these are people printing en mass for large amounts of customers, rather than quality for players. I own a relatively cheap resin printer (Photon), and I use a mixture of Elagoo Grey Water Washable resin with a small amount of flexible resin added (around 70% elagoo, 30% flexible). The result is that the resin has the sturdiness and density, but the slight flexibility prevents it from breaking, cracking, etc. It also seems to hold paint better, and usually doesn't get that "fingerprint" texture you mentioned. The downside is flexible resin is a little more expensive (70$ a bottle as opposed to 35$ for the regular grey resin), however you use FAR less of it overall with each print.
That fast and easy paint job at 8:17 is the shit. I plan on painting my heroes to look cool, but making my bad guys with this style.
No mention of Epic Encounters?
Dungeon Craft - how can I get in touch with you to rectify this!
I have to say that if the printed minis are that brittle then they used the wrong resin for them. There are different types that provide different amounts of detail, flexibility, toughness, and strength.
Sometimes the best resin for a specific job is a mix of different types. One that has high detail might be brittle, so mix with one with high flexibility and toughness. Now you have a mini that can be treated rough.
The "fingerprint" pattern is one of two things. They either printed the layers too thick (to save time) which gives it an actual stair-step surface. Or it can be an issue of print orientation, this can leave visual banding which for the most part once primed is invisible.
Resin printers have a learning curve, but once you have a good understanding you can produce miniatures that are as good as those that are casted or molded and bought in boxes.
Mixing a flexible resin into a non flexible resin is the way to go when printing minis. There are lots of different types of resin people use to do this so I won't get into specifics, but basically standard resin gives good detail but its brittle, and flexible resin is durable as it will flex, but the detail in the print isn't great. So mixing them 80/20 or 70/30 (the lower being the flexible stuff) can give a pretty durable and detailed mini.
I bought wizkids pools and pillars set and two bones reaper dragons. I pained the dragons and I gave one a top hat and the other a viel. I made a reception area from all the rocks and pillars. Boom, handcrafted wedding gift less than 45 bucks total.
I like playing with expensive Dwarven Forge resin, pre-painted terrain and with high quality metal miniatures like those from Otherworld. But then I’ve been collecting for decades. I can see how if you were starting from scratch it would be an intimidating cost to sink into the game.
I actually have tons of Dwarven Forge but prefer zoned terrain.DF is terrific quality, no doubt, but the set/up clean up is annoying once the novelty has worn off.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 yes you’re right - it is a pain to set up. I don’t DM very often though so when I do DM, I pre-set up all the dungeon or whatever on my wargaming table and cover each section with black cloths. It’s like - I’ve spent 5k on this stuff and I’m going to use it if it kills me! Lol
Brilliant painting tips! Would you consider a separat painting video?
Prof, your energy in that video was sky high! Now I'm primed and want to split skulls!!
I thought I was playing this at 1.25X. I was wrong.
Great episode! Here’s to another couple hundred thousand watches!
With the "cheapness" theme, I thought surely Deathbringer was going to bring up low-cost wedding invitations (George Costanza Seinfeld reference).
the professor loves Seinfeld
This is an episode PDM references regularly
@@elizabethdefazio6065 :-) ! Referencing Seinfeld would seem to be an occupational hazard: I find myself using "Opposite George" frequently to encourage students in a humorous way to consider that some material may require new or uncomfortable modalities of study and approach.
The Hate board game doesn't seem to be hugely available in the UK. The cheapest I've found (after a brief search) is £320. Someone's selling a prepainted set for £1200.
Check this site: www.miniaturemarket.com/cmnhte001.html
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks. Just have to work out shipping and tax costs.
Woooooooop! Miniatures! Boosting that algorithm!
if you can get your hands on Blacklist Games Fantasy series 1 (Fantasy series 2 is not out yet and got a lot of delivery problems) or even their Horror series, you pretty much get all the miniatures you need in one (or 2) boxes.
Ok the last box set looks dope . Awesome suggestion
I really like your speed paint method. Dang!
NOT CHEAP ENOUGH! XD Actually, I agree with many of your suggestions and love Reaper Bones and Mantic, in particular. Those are great options for PCs and terrain. But for mooks, you can go cheaper. If you have a store called 5 Below in your area, you can often get brand new, sealed copies of games with minis for $5. I grabbed a couple copies of Magic: Arena of the Planeswalkers and it's spin off, Shadows over Innistrad to play Frostgrave: Ghost Archipeligo. The quality of the minis is probably about as good as D&D pre-painted minis, but without the awful paint job. These games are great for stocking dungeons with thematic opposition fast and cheap, though you might not want to use them for beloved PCs. Big Lots/Odd Lots, Dollar General, and Ollie's may also occasionally have treasure troves of cheap minis in new board games. Flea markets might also surprise you, if you're not in a hurry. That's obviously your first stop if you're getting into Gaslands ( a dollar might get you 10 cars you don't even have to distress), but collectible minis (D&D and Star Wars, in particular) show up from time to time. I even had the good fortune to find a Mantic game (Mars Attacks) WITH EXPANSIONS already painted by the previous owner once. Time can almost always work as a substitute for money, if you don't need something right away. If you don't find serviceable minis at a flea market, I guarantee you will at least find something that wants to be terrain in your game.
I've been looking for a good easy way to do grey scale with splashs of color. Little did I know that you already had it for me.
Thank you for the updated info, I love this channel!
Painting minis is part of the hobby for me. If you get bored when painting then just turn on some Tom MacDonald music videos and grind it out.
Just as a major note, the WizKids Deep Cuts tend to be either more generic or Pathfinder in scale/appearance compared to Nolzur's which are their specifically D&D styled ones. If you're wanting your forces to blend, you may want to pay attention to that...things like the Pathfinder style Goblins are extremely distinct in appearance there
Not a kickstarter (though there are rumors of the guy handling it to be doing a new one soon since the last one is done), but the Crocodile Games Wargods line is awesome. They're metal minis, and you've got what are largely either egyptian/middle eastern or Greco/Roman in appearance due to the minis being for their Wargods wargames. They're great ones to have there.
If you don't mind a little bit more work, looking on eBay for the Fireforge Games or the Frostgrave/Oathmark sprues is a great way to get some for heavily customizable options that are relatively cheap. $2/$2.50 per mini with a massive pile of extra pieces and the ability to make your own custom is really good.
I'll try painting minis one day. For now I have my eye on arcknight flat plastic minis, they look pretty good.
I would advice not to go for those. I thought they were thicker, but they are really thin and flimsy. Might as well print and laminate from Paper Forge or Printable Heroes.
I can't recommend Arena the Contest by Dragori Games enough. Their first kickstarter had minis that some complained weren't detailed enough (mine were fine) but they promised to fix that issue in the new expansion. PLUS they sent backers of the first kickstarter a new set of minis for FREE because of the concerns over quality. That and they were very responsive throughout the entire campaign and then some. I can't wait for the expansion to ship. They really are the gold standard in kickstarters to me. I also have CMONs Cthulhu: Death May Die and WOW what a beautiful set of minis!
Damn, thank you so much for these sources.
I have backed the Bones 4 and 5 Kickstarters, and they are a great deal! I am still painting the Bones 4 pile of shame and Bones 5 is supposed to be delivered next month!😂
The real deal was Bones 1 with even more minis and very cheap shipping ;)
@@netflame0 I wasn’t aware of Kickstarter back then.
@@bryanswift6301 One-upmanship is quite common on the internets. Ignore him. Glad you're able to secure Bones 5!
Awesome content as usual!
I love the reaper bones miniatures. They have definitely gotten better too. I think they moved their production. Mantic is great too.
Thank you Professor! anyway i'd like to raccomend 2 other comapanies i really appreciate: 'Dark Sword miniatures' and 'Rackham Confrontation | Legendarion | Cadwallon miniatures'. They're very good! expensive sometimes but if you want a specific miniature (1 or 2) it's a pleasure :)
I think some of commenters aren't realizing some DnD RPG folks don't want to put together a Frostgrave kit, outside of maybe gluing to a base, hence the boardgame recommendations, add to those the Heroes of Land Air and Sea (if you catch a sale somewhere). Keeping the limited assembly idea in mind "Tehnolog" on Ebay has some stuff, EM4 has the dwarves and orcs, and if scale isn't an issue being off some some GW LotR plastic kits aren't bad and just glue to base like Dwarf Rangers. Eventually the Runewars and Wrath of Kings stuff is going to dry up. If I were to start all over, go to 1/72 scale and get those Dark Alliance Fantasy boxes cheap and to expand that if you find it on sale someday Time of Legends Joan of Arc and not sure of Tolkien Battle 5 armies is 1/72 but I thought it was. Not a fan of promoting Reaper as cheap, they are pricey for me, more for versatile sculpts for unique heroes.
One good source I found (for the moment) are Fantasy Flight Games RuneWars sets on Amazon. The core set is going for less that $40 and comes with over 40 minis (lots of skeletons and human soldiers armed with spears as well as some other units). The individual boxed sets can be pretty inexpensive as well, but no quite the same value as the core set.
@cheney moss Runewars core tends to go on sale for under $28 several times througout the year. Not to mention there are eBay sellers that have the core for under $28 all the time (new in shrink...hopefully they are legit).
Hope you are wearing your vest of protection cuz my wife is gonna be peeved now that I definitely have to go buy 200 more mini's. Thanks for this professor!
With 3d printing resin is for detail and FDM is for durability. as long as the figure is modeled to be durable. I have some FDM prints that are probably the most durable minis I own. Also FDM doesn't have a lot of the issues you mentioned with smells and clean up. And even with the limited detail of FDM prints I get minis at least on par with the D&D boardgames that are pennies a piece.
I got the hate game for 100$ got it in three days and they minis are bad ass for sure worth it :)