"Monster Stand-Ins (Paper Minis) Review" Topic

link

I bit the bullet and paid the $15. USD The ad copy is very misleading: they included multiple copies of several pages, to pad their image count, so the 250 creatures is exaggerated, unfortunately. However, what you get is decent, though not as good as I would expect for that kind of cash.

If you visit the producer's web site, you will be able to see everything that is included within this set: link

Everything on that page is included, the dragons, giants, PC figures, as well as the animals. It has a lot in it, but not as much as I was hoping. I would really have preferred more monsters, especially the less common types, as I can print as many copies of any given page, as I like -- I don't need multiple copies of any page included in the PDF…

I applied clear contact paper to my printed 110# cardstock sheets, cut them out, scored them on the fold lines, and then I scored them 2/16" above the bottom edges, to make small, paper bases that fold perpendicular to the standing figures (makes the figures upside-down, T-shaped). A small amount of white glue smeared on the back, just like you would do with a paper model's tabs, press together, and then mount on a properly sized piece of peel-n-stick floor tile (~$0.58/sq. ft.), and you have monster/PC counters, durable enough to last for many years.

There are some nice, additional figures included within the set: multiple types of dogs, including a Basset Hound; a hawk, a fox, opossum (works as a Giant Rat), and other animal types. Unfortunately, some of the animal figures have mistakes: the bat swarm is upside-down, on one side, when folded, as is the rat swarm, and spider swarm. The Rottweiler, German Shepard, and Doberman counters are very handy for War Dog counters, giving some variety of choice in breeds, but Irish Wolfhounds would have been good, too. (Every wizard should at least start out with two War Dogs at his side -- they soak up at least two attacks/hits, before the enemy can attack the spell caster…)

For an RPG, I cannot afford to buy mini's for every monster I might use in a game. I will never use all 350+ monsters within the original Monster Manual, but it would really be nice to have a paper stand-in for all of them, just in case…

To its credit, there are three different sizes of Elementals of each type. They represent the 8/16/24 HD versions rather nicely. The Dragons are way too small for an accurate counter representation, but they can easily be scanned, and up-scaled, as needed. Same thing for the Giants: too small, but easy to up-scale (I have most of the Giant figures I will ever need, but these are a nice back-up, should I run short…). Many of the other, larger creatures, are really too small, as presented, but they can be sized to what you need/prefer, with a little extra work.

The groupings on the pages leave something to be desired, as well. Again, I may make up my own 'pages' of figures to scan and print more of what I need, to maximize my output. there is quite a bit of white space on the borders of the pages, which likely could be eliminated, to maximize output per page of cardstock, but that is not too big of an issue.

Overall, not a terrible set, but the price is very steep for what you get: 250 figures, with way too many duplicates, and not enough variety (Will-O-Wisps, strangely enough, were included, but many other things were not -- too bad). Still, they are very affordable compared to buying/painting figures for every monster you may need during the course of your gaming life. Even though no painting is required, the cutting, gluing, and mounting, takes effort, and time. It is pretty mindless, though, so if you organize, and do it assembly-line style, you will churn out counters pretty quickly. Of course, mounting them is not required, you can simply cut, and fold in half, and use them as tent figures; laminating them is not required, either, but it will make them last likely until you retire, or die. ;-)

Maybe with some feedback, the publisher will improve the content, adding the less common monster types, and eliminating the duplicates. Again, a very useful set, just not as good as it could be. Perhaps they will produce a second set, containing the missing monster types? Time will tell. Cheers!

Thanks for the review. The art is quite good for most of the monsters, I might be getting this just for the art, but from what I understand there are no backside images and 15 USD might be a stretch to what is essentially a collection of creature artwork.

You are correct: the backsides are black silhouttes only, on most of the creatures, while a few (the swarms of bat, rats, and spiders) have the same artwork on both sides. It's decent quality, for what you get, but it is a bit high in price. Cheers!

Better to make my own with Photoshop and art available on the net :)

link

Pubisher/creator here. I do want to make improvements to the set and appreciate the feedback.

-I'll see what I can do to find more artwork that I can use. Getting another couple of pages of animals will be easy. I'll see if there are other stock art collections from which I can pull monsters. What's your top 10 or 20 of creatures to add?

-Sorry you felt there were too many duplicates. To a degree that was planned so one could have a goblin shaman vs. a goblin archer vs. a goblin with a sword vs. a goblin with an axe. Then to make the pages focused we put 2 or sometimes 3 of each.

-More on that: Putting multiples on one page also made it less likely you would print creatures you don't need. The feeling was you'd be more likely to want 8 hobgoblins and 8 goblins when you print one page than 4 hobgoblins, 4 goblins, 2 bugbears, 4 kobolds, 2 vegepygmies, 2 gnolls, and 2 troglodytes. I think if I had fewer duplicates on a page people would critique the set saying "I only wanted 2 creatures on that page but had to waste ink on 14 others." Even though there are duplicates, you still have 250 different images spanning about 150 creatures.

-We tried to group which miniatures were on each page in as likely a scenario as possible. (Goblins and hobgoblins all on one page for example.) But this is a next to impossible task as everyone is going to have different encounters with different creatures. Again, it seemed more likely people would want a page that was just 4 to 8 each of two or three different creatures than 2 each of 8 different creatures. Tell me I'm wrong though. (And that's usually with low-level creatures where you're likely fighting gangs of them. Higher level creatures (say a vampire) do only have 1 or 2 on a sheet.)

-There shouldn't be multiple copies of any pages, except that each page is repeated in a second section where the second section's pages have labels on each mini. (So print the first set of pages if you don't want labels or the second if you do.)

-The mistakes for the animals that you mention were intentional, but not communicated. These creatures were meant to be flat minis (just lay them on the tabletop/map) not inserted into a stand.)

-I did try to use the D&D SRD for sizing, which is how the elementals, giants, and dragons were sized. I thought I had them correct. Can you be more specific about what dragons & giants need to be resized and why?

-I think if we update the file, existing buyers will be able to re-download the new version for free.