DM Toolkit: Dungeons & Dragons Minis

Today I'm going to start discussing some of the other products I use regularly as a Dungeon Master. I'll start with Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures (DDM). I've probably spent more money on DDM than any other gaming product, and it sees use in my campaign almost every week.

Like a lot of gamers, I had a bunch of metal miniatures growing up, and I painted a few, but I generally felt that painting miniatures took more time than the finished result was worth. I love DDM because it's prepainted, portable, and diverse. The available figures include more than a thousand different Dungeons and Dragons characters and monsters.

My first exposure to DDM was in Japan, where my friend Rob used them in a campaign called Regents of Atlantis. I started collecting them in the summer of 2004 after returning to the States. The first three sets (Harbinger, Dragoneye, and Archfiends) were out and still available at that point, so I was able to get in relatively early. The 12th set (Unhallowed) will be released next month, and I'm still buying them.

My collecting strategy is fairly straightforward. I preorder one case (12 boosters) of each set from CCG Armory. That generally gives me 4 of each common and 2 of each uncommon and half of the rares. I trade away Medium rares to get the Large rares I want, and I trade old rares for recent resculpts (e.g. Ogre Ravager for Ogre War Hulk), often getting additional rares in the bargain. This gives me loads of good minis for RPG purposes. I do all my trading on maxminis.com.

My five-year old son Joshua also gets a kick out of the miniatures (aka "Daddy's Toys"). He uses them in combination with my Dwarven Forge scenery to create truly complex stories and battles. More about that in a future post!

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Now playing: Lord of the Rings Boardgame