You do realise you CAN use World of Warcraft miniatures in 'other' games.... In fact, the larger size (30mm scale I think) and oversized armor and weapons makes them ideal to use as your bad guys in RPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons. We've got a load of WoW figures in the stock room just waiting to be sorted and put on the www.rpgminiatures.com website.

There are some great Elemental type minis such as this Void Walker - doubles up as an air or water Elemental, or perhaps some giant Astral Stalker.... 

And if you need his opposite? try the Fire Spirit!

Two great figures your DnD players will be amazed by. And your Cthulhu players will be driven insane by, of course. Not sure what your MERP players will make of these though, as elementals just don't really come into the Middle Earth setting really. Ah well, spice it up anyway!

Spiders.... the Stuff of Nightmare... especially in your Cthulhu games.....

I've been looking at the figures from other ranges such as the Dreamblade miniatures game from Wizards of the Coast and the HorrorClix ranges from WizKids, along with Star Wars and D&D Miniatures too. Specifically I've looked at finding some spidery type oddities that would fit really well into the Cthulhu genre.

The Dreamblade figures are fully painted plastic miniatures in a scale slightly larger than 25-28mm - I'd guess they were about 32mm-35mm scale - though how you check the scale of a Hulking Brute against the real thing.... I just don't know! There are some really good figures here, and my favourite is the Caged Grawlth from the Crysotic Plague range, but not really any spidery - the nearest being the Hiveling Overlord or the Chrysota Queen.

If you want proper spidery monsters, then the daddy is the Knobby White Spider from the Star Wars Range from Wizards of the Coast. Its a 5 or 6 inch tall miniature laying its eggs a bit like the Alien Queen - but its really spidery. Couple that with any number of Kruthik figures from the D&D Ranges, pehaps a few Demonweb Swarms and you have a nice arachnid horde at your disposal.

I'm guessing you don't want to go out any buy a real tarantula, they are not that easy to position on the battle mat...

Carrying on our discussion about using crossover miniatures for different games, I've been looking at some of the DreamBlade miniatures and how they could be included in a D&D campaign. You can find some on the www.rpgminiatures.com site.

I've got an idea for an encounter in a campaign that requires a sort of bound up demon. I couldnt find a decent figure and then I came across the Caged Grawlth from the Chrysotic Plague set. It's not exactly what I had in mind, but it gave me a better idea as it happens. Now I've got this unnamed horror from the Far Realm all bound up in an iron cage, squished and squeezed up into a mass of pulsing flesh, clawing through the bars with countless adamantine talons.... What the players don't realise is that this creature is much bigger than its confinement suggests, and will almost engulf the room (and them) if it gets out... whcih it most likely will!

Several things of importance in this encounter come about because of the use of a 'crossover' figure. Firstly it gave me a new seed of an idea and provided me with a better encounter for the players. Secondly, they have no idea what it is, even the seasoned Rules Lawyers have never seen it before.

I've got to get it painted up now, as its a bit drab straight out of the box!

Shock News! you don't have to use official D&D miniatures in your D&D game! Its true you know. And even more amazing is you can use your offical D&D miniatures in other games too.

This realisation opens up a whole range of miniatures for you to use, and best of all, if you are using a miniature that your players are not familiar with, then they really don't know whats about to hit them. Often Literally!

Great games like Call of Cthulhu are limited by the lack of 'official' miniatures for them. Oh how wonderful it would be to easily source a Deep One, a Fire Vampire, or a Llygor to add that feeling of fear and menace. Sadly unless you know a good store that sells them and you can paint relatively well, you are at a bit of a loss. Thats where other miniature ranges come to the fore. 

Deep Ones, for example, can be replaced with Sahuagin or Kua Toans from the Dungeons and Dragons range. Fire Vampires with Fire Bats. OK, the Llygor is a problem here - perhaps a plastic dinosaur from any number of ranges - just a quick paint job and a pair of wings from some other model and there you are. (oh, do Llygor have wings - I cant remember!)

If you want to bring some strangeness to your D&D adventure, take a look at the Dreamblade figures for something special. Therre are some really interesting ones out there. There is a Raven Queen figure that would be ideal in a D&D adventure that strays into the Shadowfell.

For those of you in Eberron, the range of machinations and warforged, though growing, is still limited. The Star Wars range has a few brilliant figures that could easily stand in for Eberron monsters.

The list is pretty much endless - experiment with crossover miniatures and bring something new to your games in the new year.