*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 09:37:52 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: Ideas for cheap giants? (first converted hill giant finished)  (Read 10139 times)

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Ideas for cheap giants? (first converted hill giant finished)
« on: November 24, 2020, 03:10:35 PM »
I'm thinking of running the Against the Giants AD&D modules for our ongoing lockdown D&D campaign (now around 200 sessions in). The characters are mostly about sixth level now and are armed to the teeth with magic items, so I think they'll be ready for the module within the next month or so. We've been using miniatures a lot, because they show up well enough over a phone camera through Zoom and they keep things simple for me (also, two of the party are in the room with me).

Now, those modules contain lots of giants. In the first one, there's a single room that contains 29 giants plus 8 ogres. So, to run it with miniatures, I need lots and lots of giants.

The first thing I thought of was 54mm soft-plastic cavemen. Some companies seem to have produced these in the past, but they don't seem to be available now. I'm also looking at Tehnolog orcs (I have the armoured ones, but there are some goofier ones too that would make decent giants). But are there any better (cheaper!) options?

Hill giants are only 10.5' tall in D&D, so I don't need huge figures. I'll be using old Citadel ogres for the ogres - the ones that fit comfortably on a 25mm base - so the giants need only be a little bigger than that. I'm not too bothered about accurate scale or detials - anything that allows me to 30 giants on the table at once would be great.

So, if anyone has any ideas for cheap, rough-looking giants, I'd be very grateful!
« Last Edit: December 16, 2020, 02:55:10 PM by Hobgoblin »

Offline meninobesta

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 706
  • Bastard Saint, Scorn of the Earth
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2020, 03:17:06 PM »
why not change the scale for these action scenes?
go full 6mm (or something smaller), then the giants can be made from 20mm or 28mm miniatures
Cheers,
Pedro

Offline pancakeonions

  • Librarian
  • Posts: 103
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2020, 03:34:49 PM »
I know DnD minis has tons of ~10' tall giants, so maybe checking ebay for the odd cheapish one.  The older ones aren't the best quality, so they'll probably be reasonably priced.  Reaper Bones is also a relatively inexpensive way to go, and those giants are nicer (plus, you get to paint 'em yourself!).  I know this isn't likely these days, but back when flea markets existed...  I would often see old DnD minis at rock bottom prices - but that doesn't help you now, does it?  :(

Good luck, post a picture of the room with all the giants if you get a chance!   :)

Offline Sir_Theo

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1266
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2020, 03:45:05 PM »
The board game Assault of the Giants has 12 giant models, you can sometimes pick it up at fairly reasonable prices if you shop about. 

Or the old Heroquest/Battlemasters ogres maybe?

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2020, 04:33:23 PM »
why not change the scale for these action scenes?
go full 6mm (or something smaller), then the giants can be made from 20mm or 28mm miniatures

That's a great idea, and I have been thinking about doing it in 15mm, as I'd then only need to paint up the party; I have umpteen 28mm orcs, ogres and vikings that would work well as giants, and I have plenty of 15mm and 1/72 orcs for the giants' smaller servants. My only reservation is that it might not work so well over Zoom. With 28mm, everyone can see who's who remotely. But I will test it out and see what the image quality is like - and I could always switch between .

I know DnD minis has tons of ~10' tall giants, so maybe checking ebay for the odd cheapish one.  The older ones aren't the best quality, so they'll probably be reasonably priced.  Reaper Bones is also a relatively inexpensive way to go, and those giants are nicer (plus, you get to paint 'em yourself!).  I know this isn't likely these days, but back when flea markets existed...  I would often see old DnD minis at rock bottom prices - but that doesn't help you now, does it?  :(

Good luck, post a picture of the room with all the giants if you get a chance!   :)

Thanks - and I certainly shall!

I'm almost certainly going to buy a few Reaper ogres for 'character' hill giants - including the chief and his wife. And I have a female frost giant to paint up already. The Reaper ogres look nicely scaled as large hill giants, especially against my old Citadel and Chronicle ogres - and there's a 'nice' ogre matriarch that will work really well.

I'm not sure if there's been size inflation since the original Monster Manual, but the official D&D giant miniatures now look a bit too big. But my son does have a big prepainted giant that someone gave him; I can perhaps accelerate its painting and use it as a chief.

The board game Assault of the Giants has 12 giant models, you can sometimes pick it up at fairly reasonable prices if you shop about. 

Or the old Heroquest/Battlemasters ogres maybe?

Thanks! That looks like it might be handy for covering some of the niches: various leaders and the occasional stone giants that turn up in the modules. I'll keep an eye on eBay.

I've been looking at 1/32 ancients and medievals, and I think I may have struck gold with the Emhar 1/32 vikings. I've ordered a box of 12, so just a quid a figure including postage. I reckon they'll cover either fire giants or frost giants - or perhaps both, if I get another lot.



In order to get this project done, I think I'll have to avoid getting too hung up on the respective sizes of the various giant races and just assume that they're all 54-60mm, barring exceptionally large leaders. That will allow me to concentrate on 'converting by paint' (TM: Jagannath) - so that frost giants are ivory-skinned and blue-haired, and fire giants black-skinned and red-haired. At 54-60mm, they'll be a little small for frost giants (15'), but fine for fire-giants (12'). But if the party are surrounded by giant albino vikings with blue hair, I doubt they'll notice a few feet!

Any other ideas welcome, though. I'm looking at various ancients for hill giants; HaT seem to do some topless Gauls and the like, which might do for hill giants - though something more primitive would be preferable.

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2020, 04:50:53 PM »
On meninobesta's point: a scale drop to 1:72 might allow me to enhance the size of the frost giants in that module while using the same 1:32 figures. 1:72 will probably show up OK over Zoom, and I can easily do the whole party in that scale.

Offline BZ

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 929
  • https://oathgrave.blogspot.com/
    • Oathgrave
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2020, 04:58:46 PM »
I woukd also suggest scale change. 29 giants cant be cheap in 28mm...

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2020, 05:09:37 PM »
I woukd also suggest scale change. 29 giants cant be cheap in 28mm...

I'm on 12 for £12 so far, though; I'm happy to pay that sort of price!

The HaT Gallic warband is - so far - the best bet for hill giants, although the Gauls are really a bit too civilised. But given that the hill giants live in a large, multi-room longhouse, recasting them as rowdy barbarians rather than larger ogres might work. They are 16 for £8, which is pretty reasonable. But cavemen in that scale would be the real deal ...

Offline Eric the Shed

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4200
    • The Shed Wars Experience
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2020, 05:30:46 PM »
The toy company Papo do a range of cavemen but they might be too big


Offline Elbows

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9451
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2020, 05:39:33 PM »
Maybe get as many as you can reasonably field and then have markers for the rest - replacing the markers with miniatures as they're killed off?  29 giants seems..a bit insane (unless that's spread out over an entire adventure).  I've got zero idea how you'd reasonably field that :D
2024 Painted Miniatures: 166
('23: 159, '22: 214, '21: 148, '20: 207, '19: 123, '18: 98, '17: 226, '16: 233, '15: 32, '14: 116)

https://myminiaturemischief.blogspot.com
Find us at TurnStyle Games on Facebook!

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2020, 05:51:18 PM »
The toy company Papo do a range of cavemen but they might be too big

Thanks! Those look perfect as hill giants, although I suspect they won't be much cheaper than miniatures. I'll keep an eye out, though.
Maybe get as many as you can reasonably field and then have markers for the rest - replacing the markers with miniatures as they're killed off?  29 giants seems..a bit insane (unless that's spread out over an entire adventure).  I've got zero idea how you'd reasonably field that :D

Oh, yes, it's  totally insane - and those 29 giants are in one room of the scenario, along with eight ogres and a cave bear. But I suspect it would make for an unforgettable tabletop experience. And the PCs are now at the stage where some of them have fireball and lightning-bolt spells, so they can deal out giant-killing amounts of damage in short order.

My default option at the moment is to get a couple of boxes of these guys (32) and paint them up very quickly. I think the HaT plastic is quite easily glued and reposed, so I'll probably undertake some rudimentary conversions to make them a bit more brutish. If I keep them on their integral bases, they should be easy enough to pack into the room. But I'll have a scour around and see what else is available at this scale.

There is, after all, nothing more authentically D&D than using models in different scales for non-humans! It was the recommended option back in 1974.

Offline King of Umbar

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 32
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #11 on: November 24, 2020, 07:03:44 PM »
This may be a very off-topic suggestion, but why not switch to a virtual tabletop environment? A lot of the Judges I know have been using FoundryVTT.

Online manic _miner

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3320
    • Four A miniatures
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #12 on: November 24, 2020, 07:33:42 PM »
 A few action figure types might work well.
 I think it is harder to do in 28mm scale with the price of the Giants.
 Putting coloured rings or some such marker on players characters would help with knowing who is where.

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2020, 09:01:06 PM »
This may be a very off-topic suggestion, but why not switch to a virtual tabletop environment? A lot of the Judges I know have been using FoundryVTT.

Well, the main reason is because it wouldn't involve painting miniatures - and where's the fun in that?  ;)

Another thing, though, is it isn't just me in the room at our end; two of the players are too. So having a real tabletop set up works better, even if it's just to show me the party's marching order. I'm always off screen while GMIng, and I don't touch the computer at all during the session. To run a virtual tabletop, I think we'd need to have two or three computers in the room, which would feel a lot less like a 'real' game.

Most of our sessions are 'theatre of the mind'. But we connect a phone camera on a tripod when things get messy.

A few action figure types might work well.
 I think it is harder to do in 28mm scale with the price of the Giants.
 Putting coloured rings or some such marker on players characters would help with knowing who is where.

That's a good suggestion - but I think that 1/32 might solve the price problem entirely. I see that Drum & Flag carries 1/32 Beja and Zulus, which might work as hill giants if painted appropriately. They're extremely cheap - 16 or 20 for a fiver or so - and the Zulus' shields are separate, so they could be replaced or just left off. I'll see how I get on with the vikings, but I might gamble on a box of Zulus or Beja and a box of Gauls, then paint them all up in the same scheme (ruddy skin, woad and warpaint, etc.) and see how they look.

The sole 1/32 figure in my possession - an Airfix man-at-arms about to hurl a rock - looks pretty good as a giant next to 28mm figures. I might paint him up as a cloud giant and see how he looks.

I also found this blog, which describes someone else's efforts in precisely the same direction. Alas, the cavemen he used don't seem to be available any more.

If I can crack some way of speed-painting the 'giants', the three-module campaign should provide plenty of use for them, as different types of giants crop up in all of the scenarios.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2020, 09:02:42 PM by Hobgoblin »

Offline BZ

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 929
  • https://oathgrave.blogspot.com/
    • Oathgrave
Re: Ideas for cheap giants?
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2020, 09:37:49 PM »
They're extremely cheap - 16 or 20 for a fiver or so
Plastic Reaper ogres are for 3,5 euros.

 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
9 Replies
4250 Views
Last post September 21, 2007, 04:08:15 PM
by Gluteus Maximus
3 Replies
2106 Views
Last post July 27, 2008, 01:16:01 AM
by twrchtrwyth
11 Replies
2925 Views
Last post August 21, 2011, 08:18:21 PM
by Alxbates
14 Replies
4160 Views
Last post October 09, 2012, 12:00:34 AM
by Thantsants
11 Replies
1963 Views
Last post April 16, 2013, 04:40:52 PM
by bandit86