Shadowrun...Miniatures?, What do you use? Options

[khirareq]

So I was reading the application for running some Missions Events, and one of the requirements is that we send painted pictures of the miniatures that we use. I've been using generic miniatures up until now, which weren't very representative (but were cheap!) Do you other GM's use miniatures, and if so which ones?

[Critias]

I've never used miniatures in SR, or even seen them used, outside of convention-style "demo games" type stuff (and mostly that was just the wicked little "Ares Warehouse" thing they had at GenCon last year).

Off the top of my head? I'd probably grab some mish-mash of Warmachine and Warhammer 40k miniatures, and make do. Lots of the Necromunda line would work for gangers, too.

[Bigity]

When I use em for SR, I use the old minis. The weird toxic spirit with the spider for a head is awesome.

But since I only have a couple dozen, it doesn't really work out.

[EKBT81]

I've never seen the need for miniatures. If I were to use them, I'd probably turn to paper flats rather than true metal miniatures. Paper flats would be cheaper, lighter (important since games aren't usually at my place), and, besides the commercially available flats you could make your own based on character drawings and such.

[snowRaven]

Rarely use them nowadays, but I have almost every old shadowrun mini ever made. Got a huge lot dirt cheap on ebay many years ago -- I have yet to paint them all though, LoL.

[Psikerlord]

I am about to try using coloured plastic counters that you can write on with a marker pen. So just mark up who's who and move them around on a rough map. I tried just scribbling on a map the last two fights and it got too confusing. I don't want to go down the mini path - too many to get, and I can't write their wounds straight onto them!

[Warlordtheft]

Someone is still selling the old SR line (they probably have the molds):

http://ironwindmetals.com/store/index.php?cPath=15

I think another good set is Reaper's Chronoscope line, though I have found the lack of meta humans a problem.

I agree, 90% of the time the miniatures are not needed. The duration of a gunfight and the movement quirks means that combat takes usually less than 10 seconds and position changes are minimal.

[Runeblood]

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en

Infinity miniatures currently show off many aspects of the current SR vision of the future. They're good sculpts and the game as a whole (to my research) looks good. They have drones, hackers, and obviously gun toting miniatures of all shapes and sizes.

[khirareq]

I've looked at Infinity miniatures (online at least) and they are pretty awesome. Got some hackers and mages, good representatives of spec ops and drones. The scale is a little off, but what are you gonna do? No gangers though, and no metahumans. The best dwarves I've found are these Sturmgrenadiers and the officers on that same page. Gangers I figure I'll use Necromunda models. The cheapest way to get police and corpsec I figure will be a Cadian box set. For Orcs I'll probably have to use a Ork Boyz box set. The "feel" of them is off though, wish I had a better option. I saw some nice conversions turning Mage Knight trolls into Shadowrun trolls, and I happen to have a few Mage Knight trolls so I'll probably try that. Still looking for some good spirit models - I need a couple of fire spirits and guardian spirits at the least. And elves - well they'll just have to have their ears rounded.

[Psikerlord]

yeah I love the infinity mini's

[tete]

Heroscape has some futuristic stuff if you dont want to paint.

[silva]

Interesting. The old Shadowrun minis line has a style really reminiscent of 1st edition art.

And I know its not exactly minis, but some shadowrun duels figures are fraggin cool. (I have the samurai, dwarf rigger, infiltrator and the shaman here in my shelf. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

[Aristotle]

I have a frack-ton of the pre-painted D&D minis which, unfortunately, don't get me very far in Shadowrun (or other non-fantasy RPGs). For shadowrun I've always liked to use d10s. I have five or six matched color sets (from my WoD days), which lets me put fifty or sixty NPCs on the table if needed. The color and face value of each allows me to identify individuals, and makes for good short-hand in record keeping (i.e. Green 1 and Red 2 are both dead). It's low tech, but it ensures everyone is seeing the same character positions.

[Speed Wraith]

The guy that hosts our games has a bunch of the D&D, Star Wars, and Hero Clix minis just laying around. You'd be amazed how useful Imperial Storm Troopers are at representing a throw-away group of corporate goons. The D&D minis are best used for critters, but some are great for adepts and mages or even the occasional ork ganger. Other than occasionally re-basing them, we don't really modify or repaint them. The advantage of using them is that they're ready-to-run as is.

[Paul]

Woodcraft Spools. They come in eight sizes, are easily stored and vastly cheaper than buying actual minis. We paint one side red, and one side green-friend and foes.

[Psikerlord]

hmmm wooden spools. not bad.

[KarmaInferno]

I used to use candy or chocolates for NPCs.

If you killed one, you could eat it.

These days everyone's so worried about healthy eating, or food allergies, though.




-k

[mraston]

I just started using a relatively big pin up board. In the middle will be the map for wherever the runners currently are and then all around the sides is maps of they cities/areas they are in or have been to as well as a couple of pictures for good measure. The "miniatures" I use with the pin up boards are just colored drawing pins that I mark with a permentant marker to keep track of who's who. Seems to work really well because the pins stay put into you move them and they are a decent size.