Ok being an older fellow without unlimited income, I'm going to be running a 4e game for some of my buddies. I was looking around and there is a very limited amount of standees available on the market. What do you guys use for monsters other than just D&D minis?

I don't want to have to buy a whole bunch of minis every couple of weeks for running my games, but I don't really want to use a bunch of proxies for stuff (I have a large collection of fantasy armies, so proxies wouldn't be an issue). Do you guys just use a bunch of proxies?

Advice is greatly appreciated.

It depends on what you want to run. If you want lots of figures then plastics may be the way to go. (Yes, I know you have lots of fantasy armies - that will give you a great start!)

I buy a lot of unpainted plastic minis these days - often from . For undead I can buy 60 figures and some tombstones for $65 - but they sometimes have sales that drop that price. About 30 zombies and 30 ghouls, with interchangeable parts. I use them for games from Pathfinder to Fallout. I used these for my '300 zombies!' scenario. (I loved the looks in my players eyes when I put all those figures on the table.)

They also make sets of skeletons (armored ones are called 'revenants), orcs, dwarfs, and elves. Take a look at the dwarfs and elves before buying - some folks really do not like Mantic's spin on them. (Me, I rather like them.) Goblins are on the near horizon.

Look at the army packs - you can get a good mix of a given sort of critter for a reasonable price.

As a bonus - they have a free set of mass combat rules on their site as well. There is no reason not to use the same minis for both RPGs and wargaming.

Games Workshop also has a large line of unpainted plastics, but they tend to be a bit dearer in price.

Reaper has a new line called '' - unpainted soft plastic minis. I really did not want to like them, but they have grown on me. Six kobolds for $3.50, a purple worm for $3, trolls and ogres for $2.50.... What's not to love?

My suggestion is to use plastics for the bulk 'no name' critters, and metals for the special characters.

Reaper also has '' - a line of metals in lead - less expensive and more flexible than pewter (for good and ill), much better at taking paint, but don't go chewing them!

A final possibility is to look for PDF miniatures - One Monk used to have both a wide selection and a good working relationship with Denny.

I hope that this helps.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Use minis within a type - a zombie like undead is a zombie like undead. It may be a zombie, it may be a draugr - take a zombie mini and paint it to look waterlogged and the draugr is ready to go. Plastics are also great for cannibalizing and customizing. Reaper has packs of accessories that can be used to customize plastic minis easily - if a skeleton has a plumed cap and a mandolin, then odds are it is not your standard skellie. (Why, yes, I do have one of those - I did him up about six years ago for a Monkey God scenario.)

If you're after a range of monster standees, have a look at onemonk.com (for some reason the forum won't show this as a direct link).

For hordes, I found some really cheap plastic figures in blue and tan plastic that were clearly surplus from some board game. Sort-of a gargoyle, a fighter, a wolf-or-lion, a skeleton. They stand in (completely unpainted) as hordes. THey work well.

For a while we had a set of small plastic orange figure, maybe airsoft?, that were 15mm. Again, really useful for a horde.

Recent games we've been fighting hordes of zombies that invaded rome. The GM just sprinkles M&Ms on the table. We get to eat what we kill, so that's a nice plus.

We have nicely painted miniatures for the characters, and some for monsters, but for anything else we just use anything to-hand.

Steve

Just making sure you know...

WWG offers a number of standees as stand alone sets, in the four modules they sell and with some of the terrain sets. That's not a bad way to pick up both terrain and standees.

That said, beyond what has been said above:
If you are really on a budget and don't mind things being 2D, then the other option I've seen used is tokens.

You can print your own and attach them to a base, or WotC has some in the Monster Vault.

Paizo is releasing this, although you´d have to wait a bit.

http://paizo.com/products/btpy8qab?Path ... stiary-Box

it is a pretty interesting option.

Wow, it's exactly what I'm looking for, I can probably make due until then. Thanks!