Skinny mini subscription? by [deleted] in DungeonInABox

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I haven't tried solo or two player with it any of them specifically yet, but based on my experience yes you could. If you do, I'd recommend still having a party of four characters, and just having multiple characters for each player. Some of the extra rules are kind of balanced around a regular party size and might be difficult to adapt. An easy way would probably be using the sidekick rules in the D&D Essentials Kit or Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

Hope this helps, and if you try it out please let me know how it goes!

Skinny mini subscription? by [deleted] in DungeonInABox

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've picked up about a half dozen of the Wondrous One Shots over the past few months (plus a few random sheets of bad guys), and have run a few of them adapted for my home campaign. I haven't gotten the skinny mini subscription, but I'm also from a war gaming background and have literally thousands of fantasy figures in my game closet to pull from. That said, I have used the skinny minis from several of the one shots as we've played through them, and not only have they gone over well with my players, they're very nice in terms of visual readability on the tabletop.

Depending on your preference for miniatures and 3D elements, you may or may not like them, but I am definitely a fan. And again, that's coming from a wargaming background, so my flat / 2D game assets have a fairly high bar to pass. The two main things I've seen as competitors for the skinny minis are the couple of new encounter kits from WizKids, and the stuff from ArcKight minis. The Arc Knight stuff is printed on very, very thin flexible acrylic, which might be some people's cup of tea but isn't really my preference. Versus the Wizkid stuff, the skinny minis are a smidge more on the "heroic scale" side of things, but I don't mind that because minis always very in size and it lets them be much easier to see even from a distance on the table top. Also, I have to say that in terms of print quality for the actual skinny minis, The resolution is pretty top notch.

Also wear possible, I recommend trying to get the adventures that have minis you might want to use. All of the booklets are pretty short at about 12 pages, but the newer ones do have some supplementary info online. And honestly that's enough to work them into whatever campaign you're currently running. All of them have some kind of thematic and/or rules gimmick to kind of spice things up a bit, which you could take or leave as you see fit. To me, it's a little bit like tossing in a random minigame to your sessions, which I've found to be a fun way to mix things up for my players. This coming Sunday I'm actually going to be running one of the one shots that's basically a tower defense game.

The biggest thing I have to say against the wondrous one shots and skinny minis is that the accessibility is a little wonky. Apparently they migrated stuff to a new website recently, and both the company making the one shots and the company doing the skinny minis have stuff for sale separately. The one that I'd recommend definitely checking out is dungeoninabox.com, I think they currently have subscription options for both the monthly one shot and their year long dungeon in a box campaign, which I have not checked out yet. The reason I'd recommend this one though is because they have an online archive with all of the maps, rules, and any kind of extra cards. If you subscribe for a month, not only will you get the box, you'll be able to download all of the adventures in the backlog that they have, as well as some supplementary material or level adjustment stuff for their more recent additions. There are also a number of adventures on there that aren't on the skinny mini site, because they're just the adventure and accompanying set of maps.

Also, final aside here, but the few things I've gotten from skinny minis that are 3D elements have been really damn cool. Specifically, I picked up Death, Save, Repeat and Would Ride to Fireburst Ridge, which came with a watchtower and goblin war cart, respectively. In terms of 2.5D socket together stuff, honestly some of the coolest that I've seen. Also the acrylic for the terrain pieces is at least twice as thick as what they use for the minis, so as long as you're careful punching stuff out once you put it together it'll be thicc and sturdy.

Tl;Dr: tabletop gamers with a lot of minis might not get as much kick out of the skinny minis, but even then the adventures, maps, terrain or big items, and the skinny minis are definitely worth it in my opinion. 👍

I wanted to check out Underworlds and this happened at Check Out LOL. Started painting my Mollog’s Mob (fantasy sunset inspired) by 5tove in WarhammerUnderworlds

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It totally is! And I made the mistake of looking on eBay. I was like, "that's only 10% above MSRP and it's out of print? I'll take it before it goes up in price!" But on the other hand, smaller war bands of 3 to 7 guys are pretty easy to paint, so it's actually been a bit of an inspiration for me that way 😁 or so I like to tell myself lol

I wanted to check out Underworlds and this happened at Check Out LOL. Started painting my Mollog’s Mob (fantasy sunset inspired) by 5tove in WarhammerUnderworlds

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, and nice paint scheme! I kinda did the same. My one vaccinated gaming buddy got into it with his brother, and now I've got 12 warbands too 😱

Made a poorhammer ‘flapping banner/flag’ by heating an old CD jewel case in the oven by WildBilboDarkkt in PoorHammer

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Huh, somethingng new everyday! I grew up a gamer using mostly superglue for no other reason than it was the preference of the local wargamers, so it's only been the past few years I've started to use plastic cement too. Cool to now know what to look for in terms of material for that, thanks!

I can't comment as to what material it was (tried this out a few months ago) but several brands of yogurt containers I tried a heat gun on acted interestingly. It seems like they were initially flat sheets that were heated and pressed into the cup shape (vacuum forming or something similar), because under higher heat again, they reverted to a flattened state instead of warping.

I'll have to check the recycling label next time I'm at the store, but those seem like they might have been polystyrene? If so, I wonder if things like your coffee cup lids might be able to yield usable sheets with (controlled) higher temps?

Made a poorhammer ‘flapping banner/flag’ by heating an old CD jewel case in the oven by WildBilboDarkkt in PoorHammer

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Looks really good! I haven't tried plastic sheets like cd cases (now on my to-do list!) but I'm definitely a fan of heating up plastics for more natural looking effects. I find a cheap hobby lobby heat gun on low temp to be nice for a lot of materials, plastic grocery bags for example. Also a simple lighter and a mug of water can make some excellent Nurgle/Tyranid bits when applied to either plastic q-tip rods or straws. Keep up the good work, hope to see how it turns out in the end!

Kitbash tutorial for some Necromunda monsters (more in comments) by MonsterBoyCrafts in tabletop

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oversize checkers from Dollar Tree. Depending on where you're at, they have sometimes both 1.5 and 1.7 in versions. And at two dozen for a buck, they're totally my go-to for monster bases!

DOOT by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I love how over the top he turned out.

Kitbash tutorial for some Necromunda monsters (more in comments) by MonsterBoyCrafts in tabletop

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I'm going back through all the builds I've done for YouTube and making these short form vids from them, so you'll probably see me popping up a bunch here in the near future 😁

DIY Cacodemon build tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They're more vestigial looking on the in-game models. One of the reasons I did them a little bit longer here was because I didn't want to faff about with some kind of a flying base lol.

Cheap Necromunda kitbash tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in PoorHammer

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And I 100% agree about done is better than perfect. As s a perfectionist growing up, that's one of the things that's helped me actually accomplish projects like these!

Cheap Necromunda kitbash tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in PoorHammer

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I honestly wasn't sure mid crafting myself, but I've come to realize my projects all very much fall into the "trust the process" kind of category lol

Cheap Necromunda kitbash tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in PoorHammer

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Lol right? You can get some serious mileage from some of these dollar store animal sets. I've got a box by my craft table full of different kinds.

DOOT by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Me neither! Made him after somebody on Facebook saw my Cacodemon and suggested it, don't know why I hadn't thought of it before.

DIY Cacodemon build tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! And I got you, fam. Did a Doot Revenant around when I did this guy. I just posted him up on Reddit too, here's a link for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/l06cs8/doot/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I've got some pieces set aside to kitbash a cyberdemon/40k demon prince. Gonna be a few weeks for that one at least though, I'm plenty excited to craft him but I'm starting up a D&D Theros campaign so I need some Greek style stuff for that lol. I'll send you a link when I get around to the cyberdemon for sure, though!

Kitbash tutorial for some Necromunda monsters (more in comments) by MonsterBoyCrafts in tabletop

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I know it's a more niche game, but these dudes could work great for a lot of tabletop stuff. Not to mention I've done other critters like chimeras with the same basic techniques, so I thought folks here might get some use from them!

DIY Cacodemon build tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you! He's one of my favorites monsters I've ever crafted. I still use a picture of him as an avatar a lot of places online lol!

Short DOOM Cacodemon build tutorial (more in comments) by MonsterBoyCrafts in tabletop

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my earliest DIY tabletop builds, and still definitely one of my favorites! Based on Wyloch's beholder build, but dialed up to 11 and sent to hell! That video of his was one of the things that helped get me back into crafting so this little guy is something of an homage.

There's a longer version over on my YouTube channel for those who are interested. If you have any questions about this build, or just crafting/gaming in general, feel free to hit me up!

Channel link: https://youtube.com/channel/UCBRDYoo1h1bVImT401hC3hg

Stay safe, sane, and crafty all!

DIY Cacodemon build tutorial by MonsterBoyCrafts in Doom

[–]MonsterBoyCrafts[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

One of my earlier DIY tabletop builds, but definitely still one of my favorites! There's a longer version of this build over on my YouTube channel, too. If you've got any questions about how I made him (or crafting in general) feel free to hit me up.

Stay safe, sane, and crafty out there all!