I love miniatures. As a child, I played with miniature figures and it was a blast! Who says you can’t keep playing with them as an adult?
Obviously, this is part of my attraction for tabletop RPGs. You get to tell stories while playing with miniatures. Miniatures are becoming increasingly common in board games too, and I couldn’t be happier.
Love of Miniatures
In Bitzy’s dreams at night, there are visions of miniatures that dance in her games.
I am drawn to games that have miniatures. Many games do a great job of incorporating those minis we love. Games like Scythe, and Defenders of the Realm score high marks with me because of their use of miniatures.
Miniatures can be more than just 25mm scale humanoids. I classify other plastic figures and meeples in this category. When you have a game with miniatures, you can play with it and tell stories in your head, It helps you get immersed in the theme of the game and the whole gaming experience. Think of the popularity of the weapon tokens in Clue or the movers in Monopoly.
I applaud some game makers for recognizing this in their games. For example, it is such a treat to get a new rubber ducky to use with the game duck, duck, GO!
Wouldn’t it be great to have more robot options for RoboRally? Six is just not enough! (Note to self: really need to paint my robots before they get rusted working on that factory floor!)
Although some games are classified explicitly as miniature games, many games that have tokens moving on the board would benefit from having miniatures. I do understand why a game like Letters from Whitechapel would use plain pawns for the Wretcheds. When tokens represent murder victims you do NOT want to personalize them! But for almost every other game, having miniatures would be a great addition.
Customize with Minis
It is easy to bling up a game by adding your own miniatures. You can easily add cars or people miniatures to board games. I painted mico-machine cars from my son’s youth to look like police cars for Police Precinct. I’ve also added my own minis to Star Wars Risk and Agents of Smersh.
Sources of humanoid figures include RPG minis and miniature games like HeroClix or Heroscape. Remember you can cut figures off their original bases and glue them on new bases to match others in your game. Plastic figures can be easily repainted to match any character you want.
However, it’s a bit harder for games with monsters. Oh, King of Tokyo when will you come out with miniatures to replace the cardboard standees? Cardboard miniatures just don’t cut it. King of Tokyo SCREAMS for real miniatures of the monsters.
Even games without moving tokens or a board might benefit from miniatures. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a miniature Godfather desk for Cash N’ Guns?!
Think about replacing those boring first person tokens in your favorite game with a miniature. They did precisely that in Evolution. Their inclusion of a dinosaur meeple makes the game!
So thank you to the manufacturers that give us our minis in games. But let’s not wait for overpriced expansions or deluxe editions. Let’s add our own and enjoy the show!
Bitzy the Bard
“Life is an adventure story and you are the star. Choose to play a hero!”
What minis would like to see? Have you added your own? Tell us in the comments field below.
