Do you use Miniatures in Champions?

[proditor]

So after looking at my growing (100+ or so?) Heroclix mods, and the vast array of old and new Superhero metals I have laying around, I was wondering if anyone else uses minis in Champs and if so, whose?

[Edsel]

I have a mixture of minies that we use. I have most of the old Champions figures from years ago. About half a dozen or so that I have built from scratch. Anytime we see a figure that has possibilities for champions or any of the games we play we grab it. I would guess that our group, in total, probably has around 500+ RPG miniatures of various sorts.

Only one Heroclix in the group (the Iron Man that I got for free).

[Killer Shrike]

We just proxy GW models.

[Fry Daddy]

I send the character artwork to one of my players who creates cardboard minis for us to use. Works great when you need 100+ VIPER agents.....

[Celt]

I can't vote twice but my group uses both Heroclix and paper stand-ups. One of our group is adapting a Flash figure, I used Hawkeye for my archer and am currently using Mr. Fantastic for Long John, my stretchy guy. We also have various versions of cardboard heroes, mini prints of HeroMachine art and of course past Champions cut-outs.

[McCoy]

Most characters, all PC's are drawn by my boy. Use a photocopier to srink them down to approximate 25mm scale, he colors them by hand, and we use metal clips for bases.

If I ever get a good scanner he can color the full size ones and I can print them out in color.

These are supplemented by monsters, aliens, robots &c collected out of gum ball machines over the decades, and a few heroclicks.

Were the boy interested in 3-D art, would probably use more customized heroclicks.

[Blue]

Superfigs, Reaper fantasy minis, Reaper Silver-Age Sentinels Minis, Superclix (modified), old ral partha, a few Dark Age, a few Confrontation, a few Ikore minis (modern), and anything else that I think I can bastardize to make look like a character from the game or potential character.

[Lord Mhoram]

We use nickles dimes and pennies with numbers on them. I will sometimes really shrink down a character portrait and glue it to a nickle. Half the time we don't even use maps. So minitures are pretty useless to me.

[Jhamin]

We abstract the whole thing and try to keep a more or less fluid map of the combat in our minds.

Our group still pays attention to things like movement and ranges, we just try to keep them fluid. It actually speeds combat immensely, and I don't have to keep making new maps.

[RevHooligan]

I have almost 100 Heroclix lopped of their clixy little bases, chopped up, reglued, painted, and glued to smaller Citadel bases that fit in a hex nicely.

A lot of my villians were a result of me doodling in 3D. I also love the look of horror from the Heroclix players at the game shop when I say "Oh, I don't play with them. I'm going to cut them up and paint them."

And I have an empty box of Band-aids next to my X-acto knife on my bookcase.

[Agent X]

Use Heroclix, Superfigs, SAS figs, the old V&V figs, lead FF and Teen Titans figs, Fantasy Figs, Shadowrun Figs, Cyberpunky Figs, Older Figs for Mercenary/Cop/Gangster Games, and the Champions figs of course

Also pick up cheap vehicles at the dollar stores that are about the right scale: military & commercial helicopters, big rigs, luxury cars, wrecker truck, firetruck, hum-v, etc.

Have a large number of the old Marvel Superheroes RPG paper figs from several of their products and old and new Champions paper figs but don't really use them because of all of the pewter available.

[DocMan]

We use caltrops (d4) for characters, d12's for height indicators for flyers, and a collection of odds and ends to represent objects of opportunity that can be used as weapons.

Oh, and M&M's as insolent stander-bys.

Doc

[Nuadha]

The group I play in these days doesn't use miniatures at all, but I used to play in a group that used a lot of paper figs. It worked really well and have tried to convice my current GM to start mapping things out and using figs or something but no luck. Playing with out figures has been OK but every once in a while there is something that I wish we had mapped teh combat out for because the GM pictured the setting a lot different than I did.

[Keneton]

You CANNOT effectively play Champions without tacticle movement. Anyone who has played with me would agree.

Keneton Has spoken!:D

[Celt]

Originally posted by DocMan
Oh, and M&M's as insolent stander-bys.

Ah, yes. The 'eat what you kill' rule :D

[DocMan]

Originally posted by Celt
Ah, yes. The 'eat what you kill' rule :D

Yup!

"My God! 400 foot giants have suddenly appeared and they're eating the crowd! Oh, the humanity!"

Doc

[Koshka]

Originally posted by Celt
Ah, yes. The 'eat what you kill' rule :D

I use small glass nuggets as markers for generic thugs/agents/random normals. The best thing I've found so far for carrying them is a plastic ranch dip container. I've had people reach idly for a nugget thinking they were edible :D .

(BTW, don't buy these at the game store. Go to a stained glass supply store and they're much cheaper.)

I've never gotten into HeroClix, but I just saw an article that included a picture of an Easy Company clix. I may have to start collecting those to repaint for WWII games. I've also used Sparks paper minis, paper minis that were basically a strip of cardstock folded in half with a name written on one half :) , and just before GenCon got a set of The Champions done on shrinky-dink plastic to use in the tournament.

[Tech]

I only use a hexmap once in awhile, when I feel like it. I've found that using a hexmap, moving the figures around, etc can take time away from roleplaying. Still, it's a blast. Naturally, the map must be prepared before the players get there. As for miniatures, I've got Champions miniatures (both box sets) from awhile ago, some old miscellaneous miniatures, cardboard figures and more recently, homemade paper figures my older brother came up with.

Ooo, I like the idea of M&M's for bystanders. Yum. Pencils work good on maps, too. I have a villain who can lift a 7 hex column of dirt (no, it doesn't fall apart) and swing it at a hero; in comes the pencil to dramatically demonstrate...

[Keneton]

Originally posted by Tech
I only use a hexmap once in awhile, when I feel like it. I've found that using a hexmap, moving the figures around, etc can take time away from roleplaying.

How is it that knowing where you are in relation to objects and others detracts from role-playing. If this was the case all stage plays would abolish scenery.

I've heard this argument before in other threads and can't grasp it. Please elaborate if you will. Thanks in advance.
:)

[Hermit]

I wish I could get my group to sit around a freaking table, instead I have to pray no fans are blowing so they can actually hear me across the room. *Grumble gripe*

There, I feel better now. :)

[Tech]

Originally posted by Keneton
How is it that knowing where you are in relation to objects and others detracts from role-playing. If this was the case all stage plays would abolish scenery.

I've heard this argument before in other threads and can't grasp it. Please elaborate if you will. Thanks in advance.
:)

No problem. Okay, the hexmap -about 4x5 feet- is on the table, leaving not a lot of room for the players to write down a scratchsheet for Stun, dice rolling or other misc stuff you do when the table's cleared for rping. The map sits there with miniatures on it, complete with buildings/lab/machines/ etc., written on it or environment stick-ons. (Ah, battlemap stick-ons, the GM's friend. Anyone know where to get any more of these?)

The players roleplay as the scenario unfolds - no problem. When the scene comes to the point where the map gets involved, rping slows down dramatically as all the players watch action by action (enthralled - yes, fun - you bet!), character by character as the minifigs get moved around, villains do their actions. Unless the GM doesn't use a screen, the GM has to keep getting up to see where the character minifig is to see if the villain even sees the hero or can get a shot off at him. For me, at least, all this getting up & down, as well as the players fascination with the actual battle in front of their eyes, slows things down. The player can't really move the villain minifig for the GM because the GM is doing all the thinking of where the villain is and who to attack.

All this battlemap stuff is not like a play. A play is written out ahead of time, practiced and the actors know what is where and what's going on. In a game, nothing is known by the 'actors' as to the action to occur, the scenery or where they'll be placed. I guess that's the difference IMO.

Now, despite what I said about slowing the game down, it is loads of fun. If you haven't tried a battlemap before, give it a shot, even if only on a cardboard battlemap with paper figurines.

[Klytus]

We use 4-sided & 12-sided dice. The 4-siders come in so many colors they are good for representations for the characters and bad-guys. We use the d12's as altitude indicators.Though there was one rather ammusing incident where a lady-brick in our party grew to full height, so we used a pair of d12 side-by side set to "4" to show how tall she was. But if you take a good look at a pair of adjacent d12 on a xex-map, you'll understand why it was doubly-appropriate for the large female brick :D

P.S. I posted this before I saw DocMan had done so sooner. It sould be obvious that we play in the same group :)

[Raven]

We use a mix a GW minis and now Hero Clix. In fact we are taken a bunch of the crappy Hero Clix, pulling the figs of the base, opening up the base and attaching new printed color dials to represent the PC's, NPC's, & major villians from our campaign. We have also found suitable minis for them to attach to the Clix dial bases.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Tech
No problem. Okay, the hexmap -about 4x5 feet- is on the table, leaving not a lot of room for the players to write down a scratchsheet for Stun, dice rolling or other misc stuff you do when the table's cleared for rping. The map sits there with miniatures on it, complete with buildings/lab/machines/ etc., written on it or environment stick-ons. (Ah, battlemap stick-ons, the GM's friend. Anyone know where to get any more of these?)

The players roleplay as the scenario unfolds - no problem. When the scene comes to the point where the map gets involved, rping slows down dramatically as all the players watch action by action (enthralled - yes, fun - you bet!), character by character as the minifigs get moved around, villains do their actions. Unless the GM doesn't use a screen, the GM has to keep getting up to see where the character minifig is to see if the villain even sees the hero or can get a shot off at him. For me, at least, all this getting up & down, as well as the players fascination with the actual battle in front of their eyes, slows things down. The player can't really move the villain minifig for the GM because the GM is doing all the thinking of where the villain is and who to attack.

All this battlemap stuff is not like a play. A play is written out ahead of time, practiced and the actors know what is where and what's going on. In a game, nothing is known by the 'actors' as to the action to occur, the scenery or where they'll be placed. I guess that's the difference IMO.

Now, despite what I said about slowing the game down, it is loads of fun. If you haven't tried a battlemap before, give it a shot, even if only on a cardboard battlemap with paper figurines. Nothing slows a game down like a disgruntled player after some miscommunication that leads to the old, "If you had said that I would never have done this" or something to that effect. It is most annoying when a harried ref forgets to say something very important about the environment and your character, who should have noticed something left out of a description, behaves in an idiotic manner because the player cannot appreciate the spatial arrangement.

[Keneton]

Tacticle movement is necessary for Champions. The game is built on it. I have yet to see a compelling argument to the contrary. Players distracted by mini that stop rolepalyeing sound like kids distracted by rattling keys.

Why does more mean less. I suppose actors are worse since color film and sound in movies is distracting.

I elicit emotion by using as many senses as I can. I use figs, battlemats, mondo mats, counters, background music, art, customized laminated maps. . .

You name it we use it for effect.

Thos of you that have seen me GM know that my games do have role-playing but they also have butt kicking action!
:D

[BNakagawa]

Oops. I voted before I read the bottom entry.

I shrink pictures of my characters down to an inch tall and print them out and make cardboard heros out of em.

Most of the time, if I'm playing a character for any length of time, I'll draw a back view of them, too. I also made a reversible version for a character who has desolidification.

I also tend to make characters who are woefully underrepresented by miniature manufacturers.

[Tasha]

I use HeroClix both unmodified and Highly modified, SAS minis (Some really goodones here), old Grenadier Supers stuff. Sword and Sorcery Champions minis, Games Workshop 40K minis (great for powered armored types and robots), Legions of Steel, Kryomek minis, RalPartha Modern minis, RalPartha BattleTech (great for robots and bigger battlesuits) Leading Edge Aliens minis, Assorted fantasy minis.

Oh, I believe that minis should always be painted. IMHO unpainted minis are just one minor step above fighting dice (which I really hate). Even a poorly executed paint job is better than Primer or plain metal.

For me I find that having a mini that represents my character grounds that character for me. I believe so much in having a mini for my character, I once painted a mini for an Amber Diceless RPG character. Amber Diceless NEVER uses minis.

Having a good game table really helps when using a battlemat or Megamat. If your table is too small you have a hard time making room for both the mat and the player's gaming supplies. Now a days I don't find that minis detract from my role playing. I sometime have to think about how my character would react to a certain combat situation (instead of what is the best way to win). Sometimes that isn't the most tactically advantageous. I have run and played Champions without using minis and I find that the combat just doesn't feel right. I have a harder time visualizing the terrain and my character's relationship to it.

Tasha

Miniatures Addict :D

[Redmenace]

Tasha pretty much said everything I would have but let me add anothe detail. Heroclix has also made some common everyday figures like Police, swat, army, agents, super agents and EMTs that no one else ever bothers with. These are very niceely detailed and can be bought for .50 cents and under, and in bulk, from many online vendors.

If however your on a tight budget, Steve Jackson Games is coming out with a Modern heroes paper miniature set that should cover supers, everday people, cops etc I''ve seen them and they are beautiful Dennis Loubet artwork. A good easy solution.

[proditor]

Wow, good response on this sucker. :)

So, is anyone putting up pics of their minis?

Also, I only noticed like 2 or so people mentioning Superfigs. Am I in the minority in thinking the Guard Hovertank would absolutely rule on the Table top? If you haven't seen their stuff yet, hop on over to http://www.superfigs.net/ since they have some nice stuff and it's (relatively) cheap.

And lastly, inferrable by my first post, I use Clix, Superfigs, DC Heroes, Marvel Superheroes, V&V, Lance and Laser, Grenadier, Castle Creations, and some combos of all the above to make minis for my games. Oh, if anyone can get me a line on Swords and Sorcery Champions line or the Heritage Paint and Play Superhero set, I would be in your eternal debt. ;)

So...anyone up for posting some links so we can all oooh and ahh over your creations? I'll throw up mine, but it's all mainstream comics stuff currently. Grond is in the works though!!

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/proditor

[lemming]

I have a large collection of V&V style 2D counters. Most done from the pictures made for each character.
Though what I really want to get around to is setting up the Lego Arena. I just need to get my hands on a lot of blank lego people and do some mods.... Though I'll want to go old school and make sure all figures are smiling. :D

[tiger]

I've started making my own tent style heros. Using images from the net and those I make with Heromachine

[Hugh Neilson]

Originally posted by Agent X
Nothing slows a game down like a disgruntled player after some miscommunication that leads to the old, "If you had said that I would never have done this" or something to that effect. It is most annoying when a harried ref forgets to say something very important about the environment and your character, who should have noticed something left out of a description, behaves in an idiotic manner because the player cannot appreciate the spatial arrangement.

Or "but that's not where my character was"!

[Lord Mhoram]

Originally posted by Keneton

I elicit emotion by using as many senses as I can. I use figs, battlemats, mondo mats, counters, background music, art, customized laminated maps. . .
:D

Interesting. I go for just the other effect. I use no music, no props and avoid maps in combat (our groups are small 3 - 4, so nonmapped combat has no hassles). I go for total immersion in words and character. Seeing something in the "real world" representing something we are trying to roleplay has a tendency to jerk our "disbelief bubble" and pull us out of the in-character world.

If I am running a Ninja hero game, or a combat heavy Champs game I'll haul out the map, but my most recent Champions game, a mystic master style, had only 2 combats in the first 8 sessions. The players kept coming up with things that negated any combat I had planned. The climax of the adventure was a debate about sentient robotic life, the purpose of power, and what they were responsible for doing or not doing. Everyone loved it.

[penemue]

For Christmas, I bought and chopped up a small army of heroclix, much to the horror of the people at the store! The results were heroclix (fully functional, with clicky bases and everything) of old (some 20+ years old) characters from my old Pac Rat Universe Champions campaign (1982-1997). The players thought they were getting a box of heroclix for Christmas, but I had re-glued the boxes and repackaged the figures and they got thier own characters! One figure was of them (the player).
I have made many more recently, but I have no time recently due to freelance work. Oh well. We use a mix of old miniatures and heroclix. I prefer Heroclix because of the scale and sheer number I have been given over the past year.
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/okum/heroclixmenu.html
I am itching to make some 19th century steampunk heroclix for my group, but time is a harsh mistress...

[Keneton]

Originally posted by Lord Mhoram
. The climax of the adventure was a debate about sentient robotic life, the purpose of power, and what they were responsible for doing or not doing. Everyone loved it.

Fun is what counts. I still believe that the argument that less is more is failing, but to each his own. I am glad to hear about the excellent role-playing. It sounds like a great campaign.
:)

[dbsousa]

I use minis extensively and don't think it detracts from our role playing.

Having said that, the best games I have ever played in were hero games at GenCon with the Infinite Imagination Inc. crew. They keep combat to a minimum, and encourage people to get up and act out their actions.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by lemming
I have a large collection of V&V style 2D counters. Most done from the pictures made for each character.


Yeah, that's what I use (I played V&V for years and years). The only time I've been to Gen Con (in, like '83?), I got to play with Jack Herman and Jeff Dee and they kept calling the counters "chippets", which is the term I use to this day.

[Grailknight]

I still use my original Steve Jackson paper figures. Now I feel old. :)

[aylwin13]

Cardboard minis are the way to go for supers games. Our group uses them exclusively. They are inexpensive, easily made (and replaced if necessary), and you can make them exactly like you want the character to look. They're also great for when you need oodles of agents, or normals. I still have all of the SJ minis I first bought decades ago, plus a ton of new ones that I've been making lately.

[CrosshairCollie]

I have a lot of cardboard counters (tent-shaped 4th Ed counters from the GM's screen, and some triangular-column shaped Marvel Superheroes counters from the original RPG), a few Heroclix, a couple of minis, and a few of the small Digimon figures (the ones that come in five-packs). We don't worry too much about having a figure that looks like the character (that's almost impossible), but we try to grab one that has some reference to the character, such as a common weapon (the party's archer gets Hawkeye), or color scheme (the Red-White-Blue patriotic brick grabs Captain America), or just personal preference (my wife consistantly takes Dagger, so we always know which one is her).

[GenreFiend]

I use Heoclix, Superfigs, minatures from other systems and genres, Mage Knights, pieces from certain board games, you name it. Action figures are great for guys that grow (in fact, I once took the size of an action figure and determined how many points of growth the villain he represented would need in order to reach that size), and there is a dazzling array of giant robots available now. Some of my friends, in their old group, printed out pictures of their characters from Heromachine, made shrinky-dinks out of them, and mounted them on bases.

[Brandi]

Originally posted by GenreFiend
Some of my friends, in their old group, printed out pictures of their characters from Heromachine, made shrinky-dinks out of them, and mounted them on bases.

Hey, now that's rather clever. Our main Champs GM favors paper figures and has well-used and laminated (and re-laminated) sets of the old Cardboard Heroes. Sometimes he'd print up a character portrait and use that as a new (if somewhat light) paper figure-- in fact, Irving was represented by a double-sized, greyscale copy of the CH male lion.

[BlackSword]

Originally posted by Tasha

Oh, I believe that minis should always be painted. IMHO unpainted minis are just one minor step above fighting dice (which I really hate). Even a poorly executed paint job is better than Primer or plain metal.

For me I find that having a mini that represents my character grounds that character for me. I believe so much in having a mini for my character, I once painted a mini for an Amber Diceless RPG character. Amber Diceless NEVER uses minis.

Have to agree with use of minis. I recently found a Heroclix that I think works well for my character and I am planning to modify said clix with some painting. I hate un-painted miniatures. I recently spent the weekend painting a 40k Space Marine Captain because I couldn't stand him half finished. That however tends to be my problem, I will spend many hours on one figure to make them as perfect as I can. Needless to say much of my army is unpainted. Due to this I plan on working on my Champions character first before I get distracted by any other model I have. I also spent weeks searching for just the right mini for a cleric character in a d20. The game ended up canceled, but I still have mini for future use.

In our Jadeclaw game we use dice to represent people. T he GM has loads of d10s from that other system which uses lots of d10s, and we can rotate the dice in order to count the number of wounds an NPC has taken. Recently someone brought some cardboard cutouts so several us chose representative cardboard minis.

[RevHooligan]

I was gonna slap up some pics of my PCs and villians, but I can't get a decent picture of the little bastards. Any advice on cheap photography on little bitty models?

[Brandi]

Lay them on the scanner. It's not great, but can produce adequate results, as http://webs.lanset.com/brandiweed/Ravenloft/ shows.

[penemue]

http://greywolf.critter.net/ironclaw/paper.htm

some ironclaw cut out minis here!

a good site overall..