Collectible
Many war games such as Heroclix, Mage Knight, Warmachine and others use miniature figurines which are also called miniatures or mini for short.american rare collectibles association In some cases, miniatures can be used to enact role-playing games, because they can assist in understanding the workings of combat, such as the orientation of characters, hand-to-hand combat pairings, verifying lines of sight, etc. Many miniatures which are well crafted are collectibles worth quite a bit of money.
The toy soldier hobby may develop into the hobby of collecting, painting, and gaming with miniatures. The difference between “toy soldiers” and miniatures is that toy soldiers are traditonally painted, while miniatures come “bare,” i.e., unpainted, and must be painted by the purchaser. This distinction is unclear with the recent inception of pre-painted platic figures like the ones used in Clix games.
Materials: Miniatures have most commonly been cast in white metal, which is an alloy of lead and tin, with a small amount of antimony, which improves the alloy’s ability to take fine detail. Minis are sometimes referred to as lead figures because they have a high lead content.
In 1993, the New York legislature nearly passed a bill outlawing lead in miniatures, citing public health concerns. Many miniatures manufacturers, anticipating that other states would follow with more bans, immediately began making miniatures with lead-free alloys, which often resulted in price increases.
Following almost a year of public discussion, including complaints from miniature makers and devotees, Governor Mario Cuomo signed the bill which declared that miniatures were not subject to the state’s Public Health Law. Still, most American manufacturers continued to use non-lead alloys.
Manufacturers have them available in a variety of types of plastics.
Many war games require the use of what are called box miniatures, or cubes made of card stock. Each side features artwork on the outside.
Painting: When playing role playing games and war games, gamers often paint their mini-figurines so that they are able to tell the difference between the characters on whatever surface they are playing on.
Some gamers believe the skillful painting of minis is a hobby on par with the “more serious” modeling of historical and military figures while many others care little about the quality of the paint job. In order to paint a mini you will need to be very patient and precise, but the rewards will pay off for sure.
In Internet painting competitions like Games Workshop’s Golden Demon Contest, sometimes one can see the featured painted minis of fantasy, role playing miniatures war gaming conventions.
You can hire a company to paint your pieces for you.
