Discount dungeon-stocking with 1/72 miniatures

In a fit of displacement activity when I should have been working on the kids' Halloween costumes, I painted up some Caesar 1/72 lizardmen over the weekend. I bought these two or three years ago, but did little with them other than paint up three as 15mm giant lizardmen and allow the kids to paint a few more. As the box contained 34 for £7, the rest had been merely cluttering my miniature boxes.

These are cast in soft plastic and have all the attendant problems: a lack of detail, rubbery flash and bendy weapons. But they're also nicely posed and varied, and a decent size too. They're meant to be hulking brutes in 1/72 scale, so come up just a little short of man-height in 28mm - but with a sinuous reptilian brawn to make up for it. So they're definitely "medium" creatures in D&D terms. As, of course, are D&D troglodytes. Given the coxcomb-like crests on these fellows, I decided that that's what they'll be. 

Roughly man-sized

Painting them was surprisingly enjoyable. You can't hope to treat them as you would "proper" miniatures: the surface is too rubbery and the detail too soft. On the other hand, you can rope in smaller helpers in the knowledge that there's nothing much for them to mess up; my seven-year-old daughter painted in the base colours on a few and did a perfectly good job.

I also have some of the Caesar ratmen, which I initially used as very small 28mm ratmen, but then rebased on pennies for use as large, gnoll-like creatures in 15mm. They still work in 28mm, of course: I don't mind my small vermin being closer to the ground:

Anyway, I managed to get 15 of the troglodytes done over the weekend, along with converting another five for painting later. I've run out of bases for now, but hope to have a good few more painted up this week - certainly enough to make PCs' lives uncomfortable underground. 

The troglodyte first XV

It strikes me that someone starting to run fantasy RPGs with miniatures could stock a dungeon very cheaply by buying some 1/72 monsters to use with 28mm PCs and 'specials'. The lack of detail and individuality has attractions of its own: they're much quicker to paint, and it means that your players are less prone to saying "Hang on - we killed this guy in the last fight!". Also, I suspect that players find it easier to accept generic miniatures as proxies - so that these troglodytes could stand in happily for kua-toa or sahuagin or other cold-blooded types. The slightly smaller scale may help with that too.

And it's hard to argue with the cost: you can get 45 Dark Alliance 1/72 orcs (i.e. D&D goblins - and there are mounted versions on hyena-things too) for a tenner (including postage), 40 Caesar ratmen (i.e. kobolds or similar) for the same or less, and 34 of these lizardmen (troglodytes, lizardmen, and other reptilian, amphibian or fishy types) for the same. Throw in some EM4 orcs, which are hard plastic but similarly priced, for larger humanoids, and you've got a huge amount of generic dungeon monsters very cheaply.

Individuals can be distinguished by paintwork (I'm going to experiment with a couple of albino or striped trogs) and by conversions; the Caesar plastic takes superglue very well, and hands can be drilled out quickly to take hard-plastic weapons. And you can always use 28mm types as chieftains or bodyguards.

The only downside is the temptation to go the whole hog and do everything in 1/72; with all the historicals available, town guards and the evil baron's retainers would be very quick to assemble ...