Just wondering if anyone is using miniatures in their campaigns, and how does that effect your encounters.

If we haven't got the miniature, we don't encounter the creature!

Plus we stick to GW or Citadel models for some scale and stylistic symmetry (and misguided brand loyalty!?).

Makes things a bit tricky...

That's why the old miniatures that were released for specific campaigns were so good! I'd love to see GW do that again in support of FFG campaigns NPC's.

It would help link WFB and 40k players to WFRP, which the GW stores and site do not. Might send some more business FFG's way and support the IP? Also give sculptors some license to model things that are in the Old World, but don't have any use in a point based army...

We only use the supplied stand-ups

I often do not even use the stand ups. Often the fight works better to just run without wasting time setting up the stand ups and markers for something everyone already has an understanding of how looks.

I would probably never use miniatures , too much of a hassle and too limiting for something I consider a small part of the game.

I often do not even use the stand ups. Often the fight works better to just run without wasting time setting up the stand ups and markers for something everyone already has an understanding of how looks.

I would probably never use miniatures , too much of a hassle and too limiting for something I consider a small part of the game.

I totally agree.

I never use miniatures or stand-ups.

When I need to clarify positionning, I draw a quick map on a sheet of paper and just use a pen.

We use stand-ups for PC's and mix of stand-ups and minis for others (I have a horde of minis including some WFB ones from years of D&D gaming).

I like using my chaos horrors of tzeentch multi-colour minis for example (I painted them all pastels pinks and blues so they're a tastefully colourful jumble of madness). I have the Empire Militia box assembled and painted and that does for a wide variety of miscellanous thugs, officers, soldiers and sailors. Various old D&D minis can be mutants etc.

I just use a large 6-sided die beside one turned to "4/3/2/1" to show groups of henchmen.

We use the provided ones and sometimes dice for similar opponents (like valvorik). In the past we also used Playmobil (German toy-line - not sure if it is know outside Germany much...) or Lego. Both customizable. We only use em for basic logistics like who fights who or who walks where around a cart. We place em in a space of about 10 to 10 inches.

I use the cardboard standups, and find they work pretty well. Lighter and more transportable than most minis, which is good since the rest of the game isn't.

When I have a henchmen group, I sometimes mark it with a stance ring around the base, sometimes put a small die next to it like valvorik mentioned, and other times just narrate. If FFG ever does another boxed set and the punch-out sheet includes stance rings, it'd be cool if they made a ring that said "Henchmen" in big letters.

Only real problems I have with the standups is their distribution. They work well, but the quantity of each image is all wrong:

• Weaker tokens that you would want to use en masse are really rare. I've got at least 1 copy of every box set they've released, and it amounts to 1 zombie, 2 or 3 snotlings, and 3 ungor. I'd be happy with 6 of each.
• Super deadly monsters are really common. I more Trolls and Rat Ogres than just about anything else, it seems like there's one of each in every single boxed set. Whatever the plural is for "cockatrice", I've got 'em. Will I ever need more than 2 of these in a single encounter? Nope.
• There's very few spare mundane NPC tokens for when you introduce a new character to the story.

I'd be cool with it if FFG made a set or two of new NPC/monster standups.

• The easy one: a group with 2 to 4 each of all the low-threat potentially-henchmen monsters.
• A little more effort: I'd love a set that includes generic male and females of all PC races and social tiers, plus a couple of horseback standups. If there's extra space, throw in tokens for the generic Retainers (chef, valet, etc) and the generic NPCs that currently have cards but no standees (townsfolk, specialist, soldier, etc), and males and females of each Order and Faith.

I have used miniatures once, and that worked nicely. I think they can potentially add quite a bit of little extra something to the game if the group members are into it. Especially if the players have a background from the GW hobby, it makes a pretty sweet gimmick. For one, they may like to create and/or play with customised representations of their characters, and also, it means that the GM (or anyone else involved) can collect, build and paint a wide range of figures that both in terms of low numbers and differences in equipment wouldn't be usable in the tabletop wargame, but still be of utility once finished.

I've been planning on using some minis for special purposes, and might make a batch of them relating to various future campaigns. Presently, I am well underway in building and painting a gang of bandits based mostly on the Empire Militia set, but using a lot of bits I had lying around or ordered online. Beyond giving me an excuse to kit-bash and convert in minute detail, I have found two good reasons to do this:

1) As has been mentioned, the standups supplied by FF are quite lacking in some cases, mostly because the most common and basic enemy types are poorly represented in terms of number. Having some zombies, goblins or Skaven clanrats in your miniature collection takes care of this.

2) It makes it easier, both for the players and GM, to identify and keep track of what different kinds of equipment the NPCs might be carrying. The supplied standups typically only show the head, shoulders and chest, and do not designate what kind of weapons, armour or other stuff they might be carrying. If you have miniatures depicting this, you are less likely to mix these things up and thus make tactical play more simple and intuitive.

This last point becomes especially crucial with regards to the bandit gang I'm making, because they will have a host of different profiles, being composed of three different types with two ranks and several different equipment loadouts. If I were to use regular standups that do not properly represent this in my planned campaign, I imagine it could create a lot of confusion.

Try narrative combat scenes, it's extremely immersive and works great with the abstract distance system of WFRP3.

I prefer nice minis but will use standups, can scribble bare reference, or simply use Theater of the Mind. I rarely subscribe to one way over another. Use what makes sense and use what you have on hand.

I really like the standups, so we just use those.

In Sigmar's Hammer tavern, Altdorf.

The New Enemy Within Campaign book 3.

End of the battle. Fire and blood everywhere...

Emirikol,

That is some amazing stuff.

Do I see the Hero of Averheim in there? ;-)

I do like to use miniatures. Not to the degree where people are counting out squares, 5 foot steps, etc. But I do like to know relative positions of combatants. Especially something as epic as that battle!

I do like to use miniatures. Not to the degree where people are counting out squares, 5 foot steps, etc. But I do like to know relative positions of combatants. Especially something as epic as that battle!

+1

Having a tabletop full of minis and terrain is a blast!

Chalk up one more scorched building for Inept Team-Killing Adventutards!

You'll note that we have a mixture of all kinds of things out there:

Steve Jackson Games Cardboard Heroes

Cardboard stand-ups

Lead Mini's unpainted

Painted minis

Dwarven Forge Midieval building and furniature

Snickers

Pegasus games barrels

Plaster-mould boxes

Dungeons & Dragons tiles

The outhouse from World of Greyhawk Flames of the Falcon adventure series

Walls from pegasus games

In the background you can see the GW buildings as well as CONFLIX pre-painted building

..and of course the mini-recoeder that failed us last night during our absolute ribbing about the philosphy surrounding using mini's on the game table!

Emirikol those pictures are awesome! I remember this one time my GM put forest terrain down and had big green moss for the vegetation and he spent like 15 min setting up the scene only to have the priest cast Wall of Taal and block some kobolds from getting to us as we fled. Oh man good times.

HA! I totally would have run that encounter differently from your gm. Wall of taal can be a game-breaker. Just anothr reason to skip all the table content and use the theatre of the mind!

The outhouse from Flames of the Falcon!!!

LOL!!!

Geez, that takes me back (more than) a few years!!!

Normally we don't use mini's in any of our RPG's, if we wanted to play Warhammer quest we would

That's not to say using mini's is bad, far from it, but we just tend to keep our RPG's in the minds eye.

Yes, the outhouse. There would probably be more had my wife not thrown massive amounts of my paper 3d's in the trash one day (they were in a box next to the trash..so in the trash they went!). There are actually 2 on there (one in the upper right as well). I primarily use them for some of the bizarre combats

I don't use the stand-ups: too difficult to read in dim lighting. We have used some minis from any old system but again I can't always quickly see who is who so I have collected some nice old chess pieces, and turned some pieces of my own. These are larger: about the size of a traditional king in chess set and much less fiddly to move about. They are in clear wood dyed colours for the players and black for chaos cultists etc, I was inspired by the Viking Chess Set found in the Scottish islands in the 1920s or 30s. I much prefer a more symbolic depiction that allows for instant recognition of each player s piece and leaves the rest up to your imagination. I don't play chess but both appreciate the style dictated by wood turning or simple carving, the feel of quality hard wood, the aged patination hinting of ancient battles fought long into the evening, and the look when the two sides engage. For the same reason I have never really liked the artwork used by fantasy rpg games. I would rather see images that look like they were drawn or sculpted by an ancient culture, it just gives a more authentic feel for me. I even prefer the old black and white illustrations in the original DMG to the current garish 'realistic' vogue. I think I am alone on this though! But wouldn't it be cool to represent your warrior with a replica of a 1200 year old swordsman figurine from Gaul!

I even prefer the old black and white illustrations in the original DMG to the current garish 'realistic' vogue. I think I am alone on this though! But wouldn't it be cool to represent your warrior with a replica of a 1200 year old swordsman figurine from Gaul!

It is like a Transformers movie when they do do much with the "realism." There is so much going on in a scene that you have absolutely no idea what's going on. It's looking lying face up on a freeway - hard to tell if something is exciting or just a bunch of visual noise in front of our faces.

People sometimes complain about the old b/w artwork, but it gets the point across faster and more clearly than pix with too much going on sometimes. It is the Occam's Razor of artwork

jh

^{_{..another movie with yet even more mechanical monsters is called a cliche'..}}

I have posted some images on RPGeek in the creative gallery for WHFRPG of my home made/brew game pieces. When i have worked it out will try and create a link or post pictures here. Its not very simple to do so! As you will see they are very sculptural; like kind of mini stone henges and i often find the players just enjoying handling or arranging them. They are abstract so can be used to represent furniture, architecture or whatever works. My next project is to make an eaqually stylised board for them to stand on. It won't be as grand but think of thart fantastic map table in Game of Thrones. Enjoy.

Oh...just had a look and they have been rejected! I'll take some more pics again tomorrow when its light.

Right...a day late and etc etc and they are now pending authorisation. Should be up soon.

Still waiting...maybe they don 't like them?!

Here they are:

http://rpggeek.com/image/2084608/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-3rd-edition

We use the cardboard standups for the most part, though I have made my own for my characters. My players really like having some kind of visual representation of encounters, though I prefer more abstract aand narrative encounters. I established a system that allows for some grid use while keeping some of the abstract feel of 3rd. I just made some 3x3 tiles and designated that each tile was one movement unit (one basic move maneuver). No diagonal movement so you count tiles orthagonally even for determining range. In this case I was running Witch's Song and I added terrain with colored pencils for the major encounters for some extra immersion, but they liked it so I think we will keep it enen when we use the battle mat for more impromptu encounters.