Tomb Thursday P17: Just Passing Through

Let’s add some more miniatures to our Egyptian desert tomb theme, but rather than 3D-printing ’em, we’ll recycle some oldies but goodies. Come on, wander this way!

Longtime readers certainly know our affinity for NPCs and townsfolk. To us, that’s one of the best parts of owning a 3D printer. You can just continuously print new versions of these charming miniatures in perpetuity. It’s heavenly. At least a third of all our wall display cases feature a variety of different townsfolk in various settings. We clearly have a problem.

So, as we perused our overflowing DnD minis library for this week’s posts, we saw some various desert miniatures that could be used in a variety of one-shot encounters. DM Ben often lets a particular miniature or piece of scatter terrain be his thought starter for an upcoming scenario. Some of our best homebrewed encounter ideas come from simply staring at our DnD collection.

What’s especially cool about our featured desert miniatures today is that we saved them from the Island of Misfit Toys. Plenty of ya will remember good ol’ Mage Knight from 2,000 and their quirky miniatures game. They had all sorts of cool sculpts, but alas, they were all mounted on these oversized, cumbersome bases. There was no way they would fit in a traditional d20 square, and those bases were also quite distracting.

So, DM Ben had a coworker who told him about people on eBay selling boxes of these MK minis and how easy it was to rebase them. After buying a large lot on eBay on the cheap and showing him firsthand how cool these were, DM Ben instantly grabbed a batch for himself. The timing was absolutely perfect because WotC, which had been consistently releasing new booster box sets, all of a sudden went dark in 2010. This sudden turn of events was gutwrenching as we were huge collectors at the time.

We became so immersed in the rebasing process that we created a two-part video series on YouTube, which was very well received. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 to learn more. They were well-received and have nearly 130,000 views. 🙂

Fast forward to the present day, and here we are featuring a mere drop in the bucket of our overall rebased MageKnight collection. This particular group would make a perfect rival gang, a set of robbers, a mix of individual NPCs, or even a main character! The dude with the book is one of our favs.

Now, are these guys perfect? Of course, not. Still, you could grab a batch and rebase ’em yourself if your hobby budget is a bit tight or if you simply need a break from the brew-ha that is 3D printing. We adore our toy-making replicators, but let’s be honest, they’re a commitment. You need to have a fatter wallet, exhibit a ton of patience periodically, and have the free time to turn a bottle of liquid resin into your favorite DnD miniatures and scatter terrain. Or, if you’re like us, you simply love collecting a wide variety of DnD makers.

Now, many people have since purchased these large lots on eBay, so the prices are much higher than when we created those original videos back in 2010. However, there are still plenty of “best offer” lots available. DM Ben bought 650 random MageKnight miniatures for $20.50 (no, seriously, it’s in the video), so while you can’t get that sort of crazy deal, there are still some finds to be had here and there.

Keep those DnD options open, y’all. You’ll never know what you’ll find next!

Until next time!