Superhero Miniatures with Champions

[borbetomagnus]

I enjoy painting miniatures, mostly Glorantha figures, but I also have a few superhero miniatures. But...

 

I've never used them in any superhero RPGs. I'm interested in how you've used miniatures with Champions games. Have they worked well or did their use in-game impede or interrupt the shared theater of the mind feeling of the gaming group?

 

 

[Greywind]

A tactical map/fleshed out battlefield may lend itself to tactics that one may not come up with just going off what is in their mind.

[Sketchpad]

Pre-COVID, I always found minis useful in a Champions game. In the recent past, I mainly used Heroclix for my minis fix, though I would love to see more generic minis come out. Or Champions Heroclix.

 

[Scott Ruggels]

I found these at the local Comic store. They are metal,  about 40mm tall, and these are two of the three boxes. They cost me about $12 per box, so they weren't a painful expense.  IF one feels ambitions you could drop them in paint remover, clean, re-prime, and paint to your own heroes."

 

 

As to their use, for any sort of tactical combat game, which Champions is one of them, I find Maps and miniatures mandatory, because it allows everyone to agree on the same  terrain, and can plan their moves. It also keeps people more involved, planning out their next moves.  We didn't build a lot of terrain features, but drew the terrain out on 25mm Hex Chessex Maps, using  Stadtler Wasserlosich pens to  line out what the terrain was for the night, and using matchbox cars and 1/72 scale model kits of vehicles if available (because supers toss cars).   Now granted, I came into this hobby, from tabletop war games, so I am used to reading the maps and boards, because "Theater of The Mind", doesn't always do it for me. But having the maps helps in my experience, to give people more tactical  options. Hope this helps.

 

[Duke Bushido]

Yep.

 

Got a bunch of those a year or so back and use them here with the youth group.  (my adult groups have been doing paper dolls for so long that it just seems "more right" at this point     )

 

I let the kids paint them ones they used, and keep then at the conclusion of the campaign.

 

Made a huge impression with them.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

We’ve always played with miniatures in some form of another. However when it comes to Tactics, I know someone in our group who can take a little longer than I feel it should cause he’s trying to eek out every advantage. That’s not wrong per we but unless your character is really tactical in concept, I don’t think you should wasting  all that time to get in perfect position. This isn’t Warhammer 40k! 😂 

[borbetomagnus]

My approach with miniatures is to not go into a tactical boardgame, but to use them to represent facing, proximity and distance, and surrounding terrain and features (buildings, vehicles, trees, etc.) appropriate to the scene. 

 

As for figures that I've used:

 

Marvel Hero Squad, though these are larger than typical 25-30mm figures.

Silver Age Sentinels official figures from some years ago.

Paper printout cardboard heroes from Autoduel Champions.

 

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

This isn’t Warhammer 40k! 😂 

 No, it's a lot better. 😁

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 No, it's a lot better. 😁

And a lot cheaper!

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, borbetomagnus said:

 

Paper printout cardboard heroes from Autoduel Champions.

 

 

This is what I refer to as "paper dolls."

 

We've been using them since stumbling across Steve Jacksons.....  Ah!  What did he call those things?  Anyway, he may about a bajillion fantasy-themed ones way back when; I assume for TFT, but they work with about anything.

 

We started making our own using "library technology" way back when-- when you could go to the library, drop a dime in the xerox and select a percentage of reduction; remember that?  Oooh, but that was high-tech!      Scale down your character portrait from the character sheet-- boom!  Paper doll!  Now we just scan them into image software and shrink them until they fit a prebuilt template, and-- well, I'm sure you have all done it at one time or other.

 

It's just nice to have minis that you don't have to paint (no talent) or invest a lot of money in.  You always have an army on tap, and sometimes, if the boss has been frustrating enough, it's just nice to crush him under a hammer fist when the battle is over. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 No, it's a lot better. 😁

 

 

I rather liked Blood Bowl.  I was given to understand that Blood Bowl sort of just "fell out of" the original Warhammer rules set.   Is this not the case?

 

 

[borbetomagnus]

Does anyone know of any lines of superhero miniature figures produced currently or in the past? I've love to get more 25-28mm figures to paint.

[Duke Bushido]

I thi k most people anymore use hero clickers (?) - pieces for some kind of collectable war game, I believe. 

[Greywind]

Reaper has some.
HeroClix

Lance and Laser, although they may be defunct

Ral Partha/Grenadier, might be difficult to get a hold of

[pawsplay]

I used to make my own paper standies, usually by glueing a drawing to a cut-up notecard. I bought some Silver Age Sentinels a while back but there really aren't a lot of supers minis. Reaper's Chronoscope offers a nice variety of minis for supers games, though not a lot in the underwear-on-the-outside classic spandex look. Still, there's military, criminals, futuristic armor, ninjas, dark champions, and so forth. They do have a Shadow Talon, a Russian sniper, a warrior nun, a bow-wielding marksman, and some others.

[Lee]

Marvel: Crisis Protocol has some good looking minis. But, you need to be careful when assembling. While the sprues have the parts numbered, the assembly instructions don't reference them. I have more than once assembled a right forearm to a left upper arm.

 

They're approximately 32mm plus or minus a bit. They also have terrain pieces like cars, lamp posts and a Daily Bugle news stand.

 

They are a bit expensive, though, unless you're also interested in the game (I'm not--just the minis).

[borbetomagnus]

I can't find any links to the Marvel Heroclix unpainted Deep Cuts miniatures, but I did see some at a FLGS and they look pretty cool. I don't care about the Heroclix part or the accompanying stats cards for each character, but they could be fun to paint and use in Champions games.

[steriaca]

I would love to see some Champions HeroClix figures myself. I mean who doesn't want to have Doctor Destroyer fight Doctor Doom and Darkseid?

 

Speaking of Heroclix...I found these pics online.

 

 

[Greywind]

Mechanon isn't a Clix. Got one somewhere. Along with a few other figures from Champions.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

I would love to see some Champions HeroClix figures myself. I mean who doesn't want to have Doctor Destroyer fight Doctor Doom and Darkseid?

 

Speaking of Heroclix...I found these pics online.

 

 

Along while ago, some people converted Hero Clix into Champions characters.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, borbetomagnus said:

I can't find any links to the Marvel Heroclix unpainted Deep Cuts miniatures, but I did see some at a FLGS and they look pretty cool. I don't care about the Heroclix part or the accompanying stats cards for each character, but they could be fun to paint and use in Champions games.

I’ll have to check this out. 

Is the 5th Ed Resource kit still available? Cause it has 3 double sided maps and several different Standies (although B&W) for $5 when I bought it last.

[Sketchpad]

On 10/15/2020 at 6:19 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

Is the 5th Ed Resource kit still available? Cause it has 3 double sided maps and several different Standies (although B&W) for $5 when I bought it last.

 

On the concept of Standies. I kind of wish more companies would make affordable cardboard minis like the Pathfinder Pawns. Having a slew of Champions Pawns would be awesome to use in a game, and having some generic heroes would be wicked.

[BoloOfEarth]

15 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

On the concept of Standies. I kind of wish more companies would make affordable cardboard minis like the Pathfinder Pawns. Having a slew of Champions Pawns would be awesome to use in a game, and having some generic heroes would be wicked.

 

It's not that hard to do it yourself.  I created a Word document (Blank one attached) with spaces for me to drop in pictures, resize them to fit, then rotate them 180 degrees, to make the front of the cardboard mini.  On the back, I put the character name (in place of the "ddd" text placeholders on the document).  If I need larger minis, I merge cells as needed.  I then print them on light cardstock, cut them apart, and when I'm ready to use them I put them into plastic card stands (originally the ones sold by Steve Jackson Games for their Cardboard Heroes when I could still get them, but I've also added ones like these to my collection). Since I've accumulated a fairly large collection of character art over the years, it's generally not too hard to come up with pictures to fit most any group.  I can generally put 2-3 superteams into a given Word document.  And there's no reason you can't just leave the name side blank if you want to create a bunch of generic cardboard minis.

 

I also included an example document here, with the members for the Heavy Metals as well as Secession Squad.  (The former was a team from the Villain Theme Team thread, while the latter is a homebrew team.)

 

I also picked up a double-sided plastic fishing lure/tackle box with removable spacers (something like this, but not exactly) to keep the minis semi-organized - when you're done with them, remove them from the plastic stands, pile the cardboard characters up, fold them all together, and use a small binder clip to keep them separate from other groups.  I'd say I currently have minis for about 3-4 dozen superteams, in addition to agents / supers for groups like VIPER, DEMON, PRIMUS, etc.  That's not counting the ones we have from various of SJG's Cardboard Heroes collections, which work for generic heroes / villains / cops / bystanders.

 

 

CardboardFigures Blanks.doc CardboardFigures SecessionSquad HeavyMetals.doc

[Ninja-Bear]

17 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

On the concept of Standies. I kind of wish more companies would make affordable cardboard minis like the Pathfinder Pawns. Having a slew of Champions Pawns would be awesome to use in a game, and having some generic heroes would be wicked.

Have checked Drive Thru RPG? They had an assortment last I checked.

[Greywind]

I'm surprised Sketch isn't making them to sell, him being an artist and all.

[Tech]

Duke, we always use paper minis. Bolo has his minis with the name of the villain on the back. What I do with mine is I copy the character for the back but color it in black. When someone sees the black image, the hero is looking at the villains back. I make the majority of the paper minis. For the paper, I print them on vellum paper, 67 lb.

 

We have two large hex battlemaps from years ago and we added a smaller battlemap about a year ago for those times when the larger battlemap isn't needed.  This year, though, I started using colored battlemaps on occasion and adding hex grids on it, then printing them out. However, it uses alot of ink so I figured out a way to make the maps so they can be reused.