Since I've noticed that many of us on these boards share similar qualities, in particular wanting to have an incredible looking game while not spending $1000 to do so, I just wanted to bring up the new Dungeons and Dragons Harbinger miniature line that's just been mentioned in another post.  I picked up a couple of packs of them yesterday now that i'm starting to have a good collection of worldworks models, and am quite impressed.  You get 8 minis for $8-$10 USD and they come prepainted much like the mageknight minis.  They are on standard mini scale, however, and dont look half bad.  In addition, it's a collectable game, so here soon after the newness wears off you'll have people dumping off their "common" models like skeletons and kobolds for pocket change.  The bad thing is the minis are random, but you can go on ebay right now and get groups of 4-5 specific minis for about $5. I plan on hitting up the local comic shops and trying to trade a couple of the rare models I've gotten for handfulls of commons, so I dont think it will be a problem to come up with a collection that has all the minis i'd need for my game.  I've only got a couple of packs, but if anyone is interested I'll post up some pics of them tromping through my WorldWorks setups   ;D

Here's a link to the Wizards site:  http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/minis

Arris,

I have bought a couple of starters and several boosters and have about 50 or so figures...

These are exactly what i have been after, cheap and pre-painted (I have no interest in painting minis) only downside is the random packs....

Avon

Not to seem too hell bent on getting as many of these minis as I can, but I bought 4 Starter packs and 10 expansion packs as well as getting the 3 preview minis.  I still don't have all of them!  But I've used them with the Pubs an Inns set and the battle was totally awesome!  After the inn was set up, we had Orcs breaking through windows, PC minis jumping on tables, all sorts of mayhem!  We even were able to use the High ground/low ground modifiers a whole lot easier since we could see who was higher than the other!  I can't wait until I get enough of the Gothic Realms built to see what we do with that!

I also play the D&D Mini's game.  And now that I've swung back by and seen the new Gothic Works, I know exactly what I need to play it correctly.  RPGNow will see me this weekend  ;D
Wow, Denny, first Gothic Works and now Arena Works... man I'm gonna go broke on this stuff.

Brian

I think it's great that folks are enjoying the new WOTC mini game & figs. I can't bring myself to buy them however. I have two main reasons for this:

1) I paint and enjoy painting minis. I'm no Golden Demon winner, but to me, all prepainted minis look terrible and these are no exception.

2) I have no interest in "Click" games or wargames. My minis are for RPGs, so I want to know what I'm buying. "Collectible"? feh.

All this is just IMO. If they work for you & you have fun, that's what counts.

I enjoy painting minis too.  But I do not have time to paint an army of minis.  That's why I use both painted minis and the new plastic minis (which really do not look that awful and easily return to their original shape if bent.)  The painted ones are my PCs and the plastic ones are the critters they have to overcome.  Having the ability to answer the question "So how many do we see?" with grabbng a handful of orcs you know won't break on impact and throwing them out is just too good to miss!  You should see the looks on your player's faces!  To die for!