When players discover a new board g💯ame, they look forward to the miniatures and how good they look. From small heroes to gigantic monsters, miniatures are the main attraction that fills you with various emotions as you face terrible foes or get immersed in the game world. They also allow you to express some of your creativity by adding your personal touch during the painting process.

High-quality tabletop figures pres♉ent a wide array of detail to mesmerize the eye. In some cases, the game might have a mechanic to affect the miniature ꦯphysically. This list will explore the best representations of models in board games that might pique your interest and impress your friends.

Updated March 13, 2024, by Vaspaan Dastoor: Miniatures are the tools that most tabletop games use to keep track of what's going on. They don't have to be pretty, but it's always great when they are. Whether it's wargaming, or just a regular RPG, or even Monopoly, well-made miniatures will always be appreciated. We've updated this list with a few more games that have put great detail into their miniatures.

Warhamm🙈er 40,000 miniatures have been around for a long time. With multiple factions and sub factions, each with their unique lineup of units, the number of miniatures available to collect is almost incalculable. This is the miniature tabletop game that acts as a flagship for the genre.

Of course, the creators of the Warhammer 40K miniature games would be the ones to bring LOTR miniatures to life. Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game gives you almost every unit you can think of from the movies, along with major and minor characters too. Imagine having one of cinema's best ever scenes on your tabletop.

Twilight Imperium allows you to amass huge armies as you fight for control of the galaxy, creating a force to be reckoned with. When filling the board with so many miniatures, you want them to look good and build a sense of hoarding the map as your fleet moves. The models can be customized with paint to the player's preference, creating a color scheme identity for the entire float.

These armies are similar to the Warhammer series of board games in that they fill every corner of the table as they hover over planets in hexagon tiles. You will move your troops as you battle, trade, and enact laws with fellow players, shaking ꦚthings up as turn pass by.

In Marvel United, players join forces to defeat villains as they seek to control the board and secure areas. As the game progresses, villains will power up and use their specific caveats to defeat the heroes. The villains all have spꦛecific traits that change how the game plays every match, giving this board game a lot of replayability and keeping it fresh after multiple sessions.

Marvel United miniatures might be smaller, but they don't let that hold them back. These figures pack a punch when it comes to personality. Among Marvel games, few tabletops come close to the amount of precision and expression that Marvel United does. They also give the heroes a chibi-cartoon touch.

Blood Rage is a player-versus-player game in which you guide your clan to victories using different strategies to adapt to your opponent's moves. The game focuses on armies and monsters, so building the optimal army will lead to victory.

Blood Rage monsters and units appear menacing due to how gritty and terrifying their miniatures look. Add to that the huge size of som🐼e of the models, and you can see the terror the warr♋iors will face on the board. The clans all have distinctive looks that set them apart visually, such as the Bear clan hoods from the animal or the Wolf clan shields.

Nemesis is a survival horror semi-cooperative game in which you will do your best to survive the terror of space and battle alien creatures. The unexpected can happen due to that not-so-fully cooperative nature, and situations can be played where you ru🌟n away from an alien into a room only to see ano🍃ther player blow you up along with the creature.

Moving away from heroes and fantasy for a bit, Nemesis makes for some of the most original and creepy-looking alien figures. The miniatures look like they are preparing to charge at humans while others are grabbing something with their claws or even flexing postures. Pair that with the human's small size holding their guns or preparing their tech, and it ends up in a visual that an ambush is imminent.

Rising Sun is a player-versus-player game in which alliances are forged, and personal agendas can lead ♒to betrayal. In this mind game, the most crafty will execute long-term strategies. The game uses honor as a mechanic, in which the more honorable you are, you get more advantages. Acts such as betrayal can drop your honor. On the other hand, having low honor allows you to immerse yourself in the darker elements of the game and exclusive perks.

Rising Sun's human warrior figures are a bit simple. They are solid, but where the game truly shines is in the monsters. These monsters are contested with Shinto, a unit players can have up to three. These can be placed on the battlefield as reinforcements or go pray at shrines; whoever has the most Shinto in a shrine will win it for the round, and in case of a tie, the honor system will make the highest honorable player win.

Dark Souls has been an iconic series since its inception as a video game, and the board game similarly delivers a world devoid of hope. It satisfactorily adds the game's mechanics into the board game, and it features high-risk gameplay where making choices will determine how brutal fights can get.

The figures are iconic and represent the characters with astounding details. Howev🔯er, the true enjoyment is in the expansions, such as 🎀Tomb of Giants, which adds Nito as a miniature to the game, a design that is easy to fall in love with. A god of the undeath shrouded in mystery is an imposing miniature that will make you proud to add to your collection. Other prominent figures, such as Artorias The Abysswalker, can also be added through other expansions.

Descent: Legends of the Dark is a board game with amazing figures and environments. It's easy to get immersed in the action as the world unfolds at the table, creating zones such as crypts or castles and the figures of creatures that inhabit these places: Reptiles, dragons, constructs, feral beasts, and more so full of style.

The miniature's aesthetics flawlessly mix with the world, resulting in a better experience when it comes to immersion. When everything comes together on the board, it creates a cryptid and spectacular 3D environment that your miniatures will need to move in to get across the game's different zones.

Noir style meets Lovecraft in Cthulhu: Death May Die. The miniatures are a love letter to any genre fan who will be fa🎃scinated by these models. The gallery of different Eldritch horrors is absurd and nails the aesthetic completely. Once painted, the figures will strike the presence of a powerhouse on every board they decide to present themselves upon.

Ankh: Gods of Egypt is a complex player versus player board game that will require learning the game's ins and outs to emerge as the victor. While it can be challenging for newcomers to get into it thanks to it's punishing nature, once you get the hang of it, it is a lot of fun to play as you make the best strategies and moves to ensure your success as an ancient God.

It shows that a board game can have a lot of huge and imposing miniatures. What makes them so good is not only the details in the model and how well-made they are but the fact that the gods can merge, thanks to the gameplay. While the figures themselves don't combine altogether, they add their bases into one another, making the god taller and more imposing on the board.

Marvel: Crisis Protocol takes ther dark and dreary out of most miniature games and adds Marvel superheroes to it. This makes🍷 it way more approachable than something like Warhammer 40K, which seems intimidating with its deep lore and countless troops and figure𒊎s.

Bloodborne, being one of the most popular video games of all time, has been long overdue for a remake. However, while fans still remain hopeful, you can always try out a different version of the game, a tabletop one. It's unique card-based combat system perfectly mirrors the video game's pathbreaking combat system, and the miniatures.

FAQ

Which game has the best miniatures?

Warhammer 40,000 is generally considered to be the flagship miniature wargame, with countless min👍iatures in al🦋l shapes and sizes.

What are miniature board games?

Miniature board games have miniatures as thei⭕r main feature. These are small models of units that are set up on a battlefield.