Wargamers aren't the only ones with painted miniatures hidden in boxes. Roleplaying groups accumulate party miniatures, campaign villains and a dragon someone painted for the finale; board game collectors own boxes whose miniatures rival any army. These collections are some of the most sentimental in the hobby — that fighter has survived three campaigns — and they almost never get displayed. Time to fix that.
RPG miniatures: display the story, not just the models
An RPG collection's value is narrative, which changes how you display it:
The party lineup
The current party, side by side, in marching order — the single most charming display in tabletop gaming. Five to seven models on one small tiered stand fits a bookshelf or the games-room shelf, and doubles as the session-zero photo op. When a campaign ends, the lineup gets retired to a “hall of heroes” shelf and the new party takes the front tier.
The villain podium
Campaign villains earn isolation — a single elevated podium, slightly apart from the party, ideally lit ominously (our podium guide and lighting guide cover the theatre). Bonus: the reveal, when the painted villain moves from display shelf to table mid-session, is worth the whole setup.
The campaign shelf
One shelf per campaign: party, key NPCs, the villain, and the monster everyone still talks about. It's a yearbook in miniature form.
Board game miniatures: the horde problem
Big-box games can include dozens of miniatures across wildly mixed sizes — hero figures on 25–32mm-equivalent bases up to boss monsters that dwarf everything. Two honest options:
- Display the heroes, store the horde. Painted player characters and bosses go on tiered display; the forty identical minions stay in the box organiser. This is what most collectors actually want — the painted highlights visible, the plastic bulk stored.
- The full-game showcase — for the game you love most, everything on tiers, bosses at the back. One game per shelf, or it becomes soup.
The mixed-base-size reality
RPG and board game miniatures are anarchic about bases: round, square, hex, integrated, 25mm to 100mm+ in one collection. For reference, the common standard sizes cluster at 25mm, 28.5mm and 32mm for the rank and file, with 40mm, 50mm, 60mm, 80mm and 100mm (plus a range of ovals) for everything larger — so a stand rated for 25–100mm genuinely spans the lot. This is exactly where base-size-range matters more than for uniform armies — check the stand's supported range covers your extremes. WarSplay® stands support 25mm–100mm round and square bases, and are compatible with miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons®, Warhammer 40,000® and other popular tabletop systems — which in practice covers the party, the villain and most of the dragon shelf. For the truly huge stuff, the techniques in our large miniature guide apply unchanged.
Where these displays live
RPG displays belong where the game happens — the games room, beside the table, on the shelf above the DM's books. Practical notes: bookshelf displays need shallow tiers (bookcase guide), shared-space and small-room setups are solved in our small hobby room guide, and everything on open display follows the usual care rules — varnish, sun-safe placement, occasional dusting (storage dangers apply to dragons too).
Frequently asked questions
How do I display D&D® party miniatures?
A small tiered stand with the party in marching order — 5–7 models fit on one stand. Retire each campaign's lineup to a higher shelf and start the next on the front tier.
What about miniatures with integrated (non-standard) bases?
Most integrated bases fall within standard diameter ranges and sit fine on tiered stands. For odd shapes, place them as flank pieces with a little extra clearance.
Should I paint board game miniatures before displaying?
Display motivates painting more than painting motivates display — put the unpainted boss on the shelf and it will shame itself into the paint queue (see the backlog guide; the trick works on board gamers too).
WarSplay® is an independent UK brand of Blubbercove Ltd. Dungeons & Dragons® and Warhammer 40,000® are trademarks of their respective owners, used here only to describe product compatibility; see the disclaimer in our site footer.