"Preferred Way of Buying Miniatures?" Topic

I am a firm believer in Bob Cordery's advice on keeping one's armies small. So I don't need big bags/boxes of figures. I would rather pay $4 USD to 8 dollars for a few models that will come to good use with very few left over than pay $20 USD for a bag with many unused figures.

I don't often find too many vendors that sell models my preferred way. A few that I have found are: Rebel Minis, Splintered Light and Khurasan.

So I started thinking about what others prefer. How do you prefer to shop for your miniatures? Thanks. Oh and yes I know one can simply try to sell the unwanted extras or divert to other projects.

A. Small Bags of 10 or less?
B. Large Bags of 50 or more?
C. Other (Please state.)

Several of the rules that I use call for units of 4, 8, 12, or 24 men (e.g. SAGA, Tactica).

So I like buying figures in units of 4.

What I really hate are command packs that contain only 3 figures. That means that I have to buy an extra set of 4 just to round out a unit of 12.

A

C. Just the number I need.

C Individual if 28MM when possible.

B. Mass conscription is needed.

This is NOT a "one size fits all" thing. If I'm building a 5mm SYW Prussian army, I need close to a thousand figures, and the bigger the buy the better. Full-bore 15mm horse & musket armies need to come in bags or 50 or 100. LR/DR "armies" are only about 50 28mm castings, and my 28mm SF might be only one Big Man and a dozen minions. I'll buy those by individual blister pack if I can.

B – I like to play large battles

B – I also prefer large battles

Yes.

100+ in kickstarters or Warhammer boxed games.

C. I prefer packs of 12 to 24 figures, all in one identical pose, or else sale by individual figures.

For 15mm A

For 5/6mm C up to 50ish figures (but for WW2 and modern I need a decent mix of weapons in the bag – I don't want to have to buy five or six bags to build a platoon)

For 25/28mm C – single figures.

A

Depends on which army/rules I'm working on.

This sort of depends on the rules and era. For Horse and Musket 12-30 figures would be fine with me but I would like to have the option of buying individual figures. If the single figure is a little higher priced that would be OK.

For WWII squad or platoon packs would be OK again with single the figure option.

Lon at Brigade Games sells his 1812 line in packs of 6 but you can add additional figures when you order the pack. This seems like a good work around.

Cheaply…

C. A friend buys figures, decides not to paint them and either gives them to me or sells at a ridiculously low price. This worked out, back in the day, because our taste in figures matched well. During that "era" of rejuvenation in my painting (prior to this phenomenon my painting had virtually ceased), I hardly bought a thing from any business. Didn't need to!

C what I need but I am not against B if it more or less lines up – i.e. a lot of plastic sets end up with a couple of leftovers so I am good.

I purchase the miniatures I want being stuck with the way the manufacturer decides to package them. I would like to pick and choose individually whether 28mm or 15mm.

Only real miniature / hobby store like the old days here on LI gets my business to keep him going.
If James of Men At Arms can't get it then I use the Internet

Actually, A mix of all three methods works for me.

Take Old Glory 30 figure bag – great for building units, but I would love to buy individual figures as an option.

This is especially true of their officer figures.

Next up Eureka USA Modern in a mix of big bags. I really like the ZANLA Super Set (one each of every figure).

On the other hand Eureka Australia sells individual figures,

C. Generally, I prefer plastic, but I hate that either:
Csub1 the figures are not sold by sprue or
Csub2 the sprues are so expensive relative to the box sets that purchasing them is not reasonable (Warlord Games, I'm looking at you…)

I also agree 100% with VCarter's comments about Old Glory.

In particular it would be a nice option if OG offered more mixed pack options. As a case in point, OG's 25mm Zulu War range had 7 packs fighting Zulus of figures and 5 packs of British infantry. Each pack has about 6 figures per pack. I prefer to keep my armies small so buy all 7 packs is a waste, but I dislike having 5 of every pose. I would much rather have a bag with a mixture of 30 or so poses.

My understanding is that OG figures are cast in molds with the same number of figures as they sell per bag (i.e. 30 figures in the mold & 30 figures in the bag, 1 mold per bag). However, I don't understand why they can't take (for example) 5 figures from from each of 6 molds and mix them into 6 different bags.

I like to be able to chose individual castings rather than buying packs or blisters. Fortunately most of what I collect can be bought as single castings. For 25/28mm I buy 20 – 30 castings at a time and 18mm 50 – 100.

A

D by the box in the "one true scale" 1:72.

A