So which is better for a board game a standee or minis?

What Are The Different Options?

So, before we dive into maybe why one might be better or not, let’s talk about the different options. I am putting this as standees versus minis, but there are more options as well. There are the flat tokens that you could use, pawns, meeples, standees, acrylic standees, and minis and probably some things I’m not considering that can represent these different items on the board.

Each of them has some benefits and negatives to it. Those will come through as we talk about the different reasons you might want one. And I’m not going to talk about tokens, pawns, or meeples. They work well for some games, especially for tokens when you want a lot of information available to the players without it being on cards next to the game board.

What Are Their Purpose in the Board Games?

It’s probably the most obvious question to ask when thinking about standees or minis. How much do you use them in the game? The more you use them, the better it might be as a mini. If I manipulate it a lot or handle it a lot for whatever reason, it might be a bit trickier to deal with it as a standee if I’m rubbing off the color on it.

Now, that is a printing issue potentially as well. You can print nicer standees that will last longer. But their shelf life for color is going to be shorter than a mini. Granted, they do have color. But when I consider this debate, I like to think about how it is going to be used.

Do You Paint?

Another very important thing to consider is if you paint minis or not. Painting is a hobby that I keep on wanting to dabble into. But for a lot of gamers, painting the minis is almost as much of the hobby as playing the game. It is something that Henry Cavill even talked about on the Graham Norton show, you can see his quote here. But it is very much the case where painting is a lot of work.

So, if you do paint and you do like that side of the hobby, it likely will sway you towards the minis. If you don’t paint, now you need to decide, do you like the color of the standees? Or would you prefer the 3D nature of the minis even though they are going to be grey on the board?

Which Adds More to Immersion?

Really, this is probably the biggest deciding factor for me. Yes, there is a functionality element as well. But a lot of the time I am considering what it does to the immersion in the game. Often times, especially if there is 3D terrain, even if out of cardboard, it might feel odd or break immersion to mix mediums or mix types from 2D to 3D or vice-a-versa.

I think that the theme of the game really makes a difference from what I can tell. For example, standard fantasy, I generally am more interested in minis, at least for some things. Gloomhaven, the mixed medium doesn’t break immersion but I like the minis and I don’t care that I don’t have them painted. Same with Tainted Grail because the world is darker so it doesn’t feel out of place.

On the flip side, if something uses bright and vibrant colors, if I don’t play a character matching that, on the board, it can feel like the immersion breaks. It feel like my piece is not as good as the rest of the world. So a standee might be better there.

So Should Board Games have Minis or Standees?

Obviously, I just made my argument that it depends on the game. I do think that both are a lot of fun, and really good minis can make a game way more amazing. Instead of talking about which is better, both are good, let’s talk about some games that I think work better with minis or better with standees.

Marvel United (and X-Men)

This is one that you might think it wouldn’t matter if it were minis or not. But I think minis are fairly important for Marvel United. A standee or token could work, but you’d lose so much of the art and the dynamic poses that the miniatures bring to the game. The game is so light that it’d feel wrong if it were just little standees. And I think it’d be harder to find the heroes that you want if they were standees as well.

Super Fantasy Brawl

Another one that would be considerably worse with standees. Another lighter game that is probably bigger than it needs to be because of the minis, but the minis make it feel more like you are battling. Without the minis the game would feel very small and very simple. It would still offer the fun choices and good light skirmish game play, but it wouldn’t make for as epic a fight.

Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor

This is one where I’m glad that it has standees in it. The reason being is that you need a lot of standees on spaces on the board. If you build up troops in one area, you still want to be able to see that area. There is text on them, so until you know the game well, you’re going to want to see everything. Plus, this has not acrylic standees, but nicer standees.

Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1

This is one where I don’t think I’ll mind the mixed mediums of standees and minis, but because of the anime artwork, I might prefer minis. The game is vibrant because of that artwork, and my grey minis, unless I get better at painting and focus more on that hobby, is going to be a bit boring compared to what the rest of the game offers. Even the tiles in the game are crazy and awesome offering spot gloss on areas where there is water or other things that should shine.

Epic Seven Arise

This is one that I might have backed if I would get only standees. While the minis are very dynamic, it is again that anime art style. You put the characters in their dynamic poses on acrylic standees and the game would pop more on the table. But again, this falls into the category, for me, of being more interesting as standees because I don’t paint. And it would be more vibrant if I didn’t have to paint them.

Those are just some examples that I can think of. Obviously, I don’t even own one of them. But do you have a game you prefer with minis or a game without? And which do you prefer, a mini or a standees? If you were to really get down to it, I think I prefer acrylic standees, at least for a lot of games.

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Pros

• Epic fantasy game
• Theme
• Artwork
• Campaign
• Solo

Cons

• Artwork
• Price
• First time company

The Page

For a first time company, they really nail the look of the page, and for a game with minis, they don’t dwell too much on the minis. Now, over on their Facebook page they’ve been showing off the minis for weeks but that’s a solid spot to do it. I really like that the Kickstarter page is much more about the aesthetic of the game than the minis in the game.

Now, I will knock them a little bit, they don’t do a great job with the rules. I get some of an idea of what the game is about overall and kind of that it’s going to be a skirmish or dungeon crawl type game, but I don’t know the mechanics for that. Now they do have two How to Play videos which I’ll be checking out coming up here, plus more previews, but I’d love to instead see more on the page itself of how to play instead of the videos.

The Game

Now, I don’t have a ton to say on this, normally I like to focus on game play aspects in this section and I just said that I don’t know or get a ton of that from the page. I like the idea of a skirmish style game with a campaign to it, I like the aesthetic of the world and that is what got me to look at the game.

The one bit that I get from their game play highlight section that seems interesting to me is the dual attacks. If you’ve been reading my design diaries at all for the game idea that I’m working on, you’ll know that I want to kind of do some sort of dual or combo attacking, but in a different way, so this is an interesting mechanic in the game that I’m going to be curious to see how big a part of it, it is.

Back or Brick

So this one is interesting for me, right now I am in on the game, and I’m guessing I’ll stay in on it, so it’s a back. But I do want to checkout at least the five minute how to play video on the page to verify the mechanics. I was almost in on Bardsung until I watched some game play and saw that it wasn’t likely for me. This one, though, has a theme that is so much more interesting to me, but I could see dropping my pledge completely or to $1 if the game play looks only like a basic dice chucker. From what they do highlight, I’m hoping that’s not the case.

How about for you, is this game a back or a brick?

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The Runelords Board Game

This one has a launch on KS and then was taken down after it wasn’t funding well. It’s coming up again in January, this time with some tweaks to the game, and I believe some characters from the books, which the first one didn’t have. I have DrGloryHogg to blame for why I’m interested in this one, he was the one who was exited for it and talking about how it was books, so I checked out the first book of the series and really enjoyed it. I need to continue the series, but I like the idea of taking groups into battle and dealing with characters who are powered up with their endowments and how part of what you might be able to do is determine how to power up your character.

Marvel United: X-Men

Marvel United is coming back to Kickstarter from CMON. I love Marvel, I love the X-Men, and I got all the chibis coming from the first game, so of course I’m going to get the second one. I want my chibi Gambit and Jubilee! Plus this is such a nice family weight fast game that it’d be hard to pass on it, even though I know I’ll get everything again.

Epic Seven Arise

This is one that caught my attention because of the anime style again. The fact that it’s based off of an app is a bit weird, but I’m really curious about this game. I need to go checkout the coverage that Man vs Meeple has on it, because it seems interesting. I’m hoping that it’s a good game not just a game that looks good, but the minis definitely look cool.

Exile

This is a gaming coming from Ryan Laukat and Red Raven games, and it seems interesting because he’s made a lot of interesting looking games like Near & Far and Sleeping Gods. But this one seems a little bit different than some of his other games that are really story driven this one is going to be very strategic, competitive and not random. I like some randomness in my games as I’m more tactical than I am strategic, but I’m curious about anything Ryan Laukat puts out.

Quantum Shock

This is a campaign game, a cooperative game, and a horror sci-fi game, all things that I like. I’m worried that it’ll just be another minis fast, well, I’m not worried it will be, I know it will be. But that said, I’m sill curious. Looking at some stuff about it, being able to manipulate time and space seems fascinating and I’m curious to see how they could make that happen in a board game, mainly the time piece, how do you go back, or something like that.

Verrago: The Fantasy Globe Game

It’s a weird name, but what makes this one so interesting is that you play on a freaking globe. You have magnetic pieces and the whole thing can spin. I’m guessing that this game might be more gimmick than game, but the idea is so interesting that I’m going to have to check it out when it hit Kickstarter.

So, You’ve Been Eaten

This is a weird game because it’s technically 0 to 2 players. It says that because you can basically play the two different AI against each other. You’ve been eaten by a monster and you need to get out and survive, and come back with crystals that’ll meet your quota, or you can play as the thing that’s eaten you, or you can play with one or both as an AI. It’s a weird idea, and I just want to see some game play really, the artwork on it looks amazing. I believe it’s coming to Kickstarter as it’s sitting in Kickstarters upcoming projects.

Last Light

This one caught my eye when it was announced that Roy Cannaday, from the Dice Tower, had designed a 4x space game, but one that wasn’t supposed to take six hours like Twilight Imperium. He’s a big fan of 4x games, so I’m hoping that it’ll feel like that and be a way that I could get a 4x game to the table. I know he’s been doing a lot od demos of it, and I’m very curious about it.

Now there are more games coming out as well, CMON is also doing a He-Man game, but it’s a theme that I’m not as closely connected with. There’s season 3 of a Batman game coming out, but I’m not into that one yet nor do I have any plans to jump on it. I’m sure that there will be others coming out as well.

What Kickstarter coming in 2021, that is known, looks the most interesting?

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