"Clix and Prepaints- A poor man's answer to high prices?" Topic

I have a very small miniature budget, practically non-existant. I've been toying with the idea of running a D&D campaign again after years of not playing, but would love to have all the minis I need to run just about any scenario. I've been looking at the D&D prepaints, found a handful with some good prices, but then I started looking at all the Clix. Heroclix for my comic Fix, Horrorclix for my horror fix, you get the idea. Of course, they would all need new paintjobs.

Are they even worth it? Should I even bother? Would I be wasting my limited budget? I can buy bulks of alot of diffing sets. Lots of conversion fodder. Am I just convincing myself of another way to increase my plastic and lead pile?

What sets would you recommend? Although I started on a D&D trip, I'm down for whatever, give me some suggestions.

Are Clix and Prepaints the answer to a limited budget?

Sounds reasonable to me.

The Star Wars CMG figs are still pretty inexpensive too.

No. Clix are almost as expensive as some 28mm figures for half the quality and you're never assured to get the figures you need, even if you try to hit ebay for them.

Clix are indeed a good way of making your budget stretch a bit longer. With quite a little re-paint effort you can really make them stand out.
There are tons of cheap commons floating the ebay. But do please take note that some of the more popular characters can be hard to get or more expensive to buy. So do not plan on collectig the complete x-men team or all of the avengers without blowing your budget on the last 2 or 3 rare-to-find characters.
There is though some variations in regards to the quality of the sculpts, which you also might want to take into consideration. As to what set you should go for I would not know. Go to ebay or some of the online retailers who sells them in bulk and/or singles and choose the ones that you like.

Wolfprophet,

Maybe you misunderstood my initial post. I don't plan on buying lots of boosters. I would most likely target individual figures for cheap prices. On the Super front, there are a ton of Heroclix that run well under a dollar and some of the sculpts look quite nice for $.50 USD. In terms of D&D style, I haven't found quite as many that are below the $1 mark but there are alot around the $1 mark. Some of teh larger creatures run quite a bit more. The Star Wars clix look pretty good as well and run fairly low, lots of options under $1.

tjantzen: I probably wouldn't shoot for whole teams, just the main guys I like. There are alot of repeats of the same hero in different sets making it easier to get one that is Rare in another set as a common. Since I plan to repaint and possibly not even use them as clix, their strength/experience level doesn't matter much either.

I guess the better question than which set should I look for is Which set has the worst sculpts? Some of the pics can be misleading.

Mage knight 2.0 sculpts/paint are better than the early sets in the series. I have a box full of the old series and the human figures seem small to me.

Overall, I've found the prices of clix figures rising steadily as sets go out of print. Don't forget ebay, you can sometimes find lots of figures that are pretty affordable on a per figure basis.

Check the sale forum at hcrealms.com. if you want the new 45 figure Superman set, some fellows are selling it for $30 post paid. That's how I bought my set. Older figs sell for .10 to .50 depending. Check rwint1968's thread for great deals, for example. Hcrealms forum has the best deals. Of course, the super rare figures can sell for big money.

Why repaint? Just have fun with them. It's what I do. A nice break. The new sets look great, unlike the first sets.

NEG, I would suggest you check your local game stores (if you have any locals). I've been able to get commons for $.25 – $.50 each. You have to pick and choose, but there can be some good deals to be had.

Early Mage Knight figs are usually the worst for sculpting, but some of the later figs are actually very good. Some even don't need repainting, especially the non-humans. Dreamblade figures are also good for larger non-humans, but you may find that much of that line is really not usable.

I've done pretty well with Horrorclix getting a case of the first set and a case of The Lab for use with Mutants and Death Ray Guns. I can rebase, mix and match, and repaint as I need to (usually on 1" metal fender washers).

I've also scooped up some non-well known character star wars CMG figures from miniatures-market.com.

I just cruise through looking for figures that cost 50 cents or less, and about 20 bucks later I have teams of storm troopers, wookies, jawas, ewoks, rodians, ugnaughts, and a cantina full of scum and villiany. Of course, I like my Star wars with 3 jedi and 2 sith and a lot of aliens, so that suits me fine.

As far as fantasy… D&D prepaints are okay… but I'd cruise ebay for a while and find some old ral partha/grenadier/reaper figures to soak in pine sol and repaint. You can amass a pretty good stable of figures inexpensively that way.

Look for "lots" ob eBay. You can sometimes pick up a lot of plastic figures cheap from the collectible games, whether click or not. Depending on how important the figure is to the campaign you can repaint and rebase or just touch them up a little.

Clix are a great source of wargaming figures. Also, since they're vinyl, they're really easy to convert. Just remember to use superglue.

For repainting, I've found that either painting right over the figs, or basecoating with gesso (it has a bit of flex to it) are great. Oftentimes, I'll just keep the stock paintjob and dip the fig.

For Fantasy, as well as D&D figs, I recommend checking out:

Mage Knight. Not as nice as the D&D line, and some figs are downright terrible, but there's alot of good stuff in this massive range and often really cheap. Batches of cheap Mage Knight show up on Ebay and Bartertown quite often.
Here's a batch of Khamsin I repainted and modded a bit.
TMP link

Demonblade
A short lived fantasy line. The overall scale is a bit larger than 28mm, but for monsters, elementals, etc, the line is excelelnt!

The Lord of The rings collectible game is slightly larger that 28mm, but occasionally it shows up for cheap.

For modern..
you've already found that Heroclix and Horroclix(a bit larger in scale) are great sources for civilans, cops, survialists, etc. Don't discount heroclix for fantasy either as there are a number of monsters, heroes (like thor) as well as a fair number of asian-type figs like ninja's, samurai, and monks.

Here's a pic showing how Heroclix scale with WH40k

It also shows my ultra-fast-cheap rebasing method of circles cut from vinyl christmas village brick road mats.

As many have said, Star Wars is a good source for generic Sci-fi figs and even some that would work well in fantasy.

Lastly, if you want D@D figs for less than a buck each and are willing to wait a bit, I've got a large batch that I'm going to get rid of. My buddy has first dibs for a trade we're working out next week, but he's not taking most and in about 10 days they'll be available.
Contact me at
karl (underscore) e (underscore) paulsen athotmail
if you're interested

Agent 13: How are the sculpts and paints on that Superman set. The promotional images look great, but they're promotional images. Is the real product as nice as the promo shots? Oh and I'd repaint because I enjoy painting. My budget for new unpainted models is very small, but as some have pointed out, I can pick up quite a few clix or prepaints and have a stock of models to paint and convert for the whole year.

Thanks to everyone else for the suggestions. My ADD drives me nuts when these situations cause it's so hard to pick from all the choices.

Damned whipper snappers and their new-fangled prepainted plastics. When I was your age – we had beans…and we liked it.

On a slightly more serious note – I would do what I did all over again. Buy a few bags of cheap counters (beans, poker chips, glass counters…) and then carefully buy good figures as my budget allowed for it. Over time, your budget will expand – and even just picking up one or two miniatures a month, at the end of a year – you start to have a little pile of miniatures. After a few decades have passed, you end up with a room full of miniatures.

There are a few things that the plastics have done a pretty good job on though IMO. The Horror clix Cthulhu…the McFarlane Dragons…various dinosaurs. Figures though seem to leave a good bit to be desired.

Just wanted to add. Here's a pic of a wargame where I used a warband made almost exclusivley from rebased (stock paint jobs) D&D figs.

All the figs with white rocks on their bases are prepainted D&D figs.

The most cost-effective way to build armies of miniatures, is to cast them using molds like what Prince August sells. The PA molds are true 25mm scale, but the figures will cost very little.

I sold my molds around 8 years ago, but back then, I was buying the more expensive Model Metal for casting. My figures averaged around $0.40 per casting! And that was for metal, not plastic. If you scrounge up lead tire weights, from local autmotive/motorcycle shops, you can get your metal for free. Lead will not give as much detail, but it works.

After the investment in the molds and melting pot, all you need is metal. The molds will yield around 500 castings, before they start to degrade. Granted, not every pour will turn out, but 500 pours is a lot of chances to get good figures!

If you want inexpensive plastic figures, try the purple-boxed, Russian stuff (can't think of their name…). It is true 25mm scale, but very nice: Goblins, Orcs, Humans, Dwarves, and Elves. Each boxed set contains around 33-36 figures, for approximately $12 per set. Cheers!

Another trick with clix… mix up some magic wash and wash them all before you re-base them

I'll probably go with the strip and repaint option vice washing or painting over. Some have horrible prime jobs to begin with and have decent sculpts underneath.

SGT Slag: The sam folks who make Robogear or the Hexagon/Platformer set?

Caesar Miniatures -- went upstairs and looked. ;-) I bought their set of Adventurers (16 figures), Goblins (36 figures), and Elves (36 figures). Very nice sculpts, decent variety, and fantastic prices. Cheers!

SGT Slag: How do they scale up with other lines? YOu mention them being true 25mm. The details look very sharp and you get quite a few for the price. Thanks for the heads up.

The Elves are 25mm tall, soles of their feet to the tops of their heads; the Goblins are around 5/8", or 16mm tall, soles of feet, to tops of their heads. The Human figures from the Adventurers set, run around 23mm-24mm, soles of feet, to tops of their heads.

As far as other lines, most are 28+mm tall, with some even as tall as 30+mm! Only you can decide what works for you, in your armies. I have a mixture of sizes, and that works for me. I prefer my Elves to be shorter than my Humans, with my Goblins even shorter. But that is me. Only you can decide -- it IS fantasy. ;-)

They repaint fine, and the "quality" is every bit the same as metal minis.
Some are great, some are awful, most are good.

The only thing Metal minis have going for them is they are heavy and they cost more.

Go to troll & toad and just buy the ones you want.
And enjoy your game!

I think it's a great way to do a force on the cheap…downside is poses are limited. Check out my Blog for my prepaint RE-paints…

link