Fixing Bent Miniatures

Collecting an out-of-print game has its challenges. High (sometimes outrageous) prices, locating hard to find pieces, and ensuring the state/quality of your collection – to name a few.

Lately, I have been trying to complete my Heroscape collection. My goal is to have every single piece that was released for the game.

Heroscape is a 2+ player, skirmish-style, strategy game that has been out-of-print since around 2011. Throughout its life there have been a ton of releases and most of the releases contain miniatures – and good quality miniatures at that. The miniatures ranged from small to pretty massive, and they were pre-painted. It’s been rumored that the death of Heroscape was directly attributed to its high cost of production. Quality terrain, quality pre-painted miniatures – yup it adds up. My firm belief is that they were not charging near enough for what they were providing, but I digress.

Finding good quality used pieces for your collection can be tricky. One common hurdle is finding good condition miniatures. Miniatures can last practically forever under the right storage condition. Unfortunately, before the golden age of boardgames that I believe we are in today, people did not store their pieces to last. They were largely considered toys, and the collectors that saw the value of keeping these pieces in good condition were few and far between. So it is a pretty common to find pieces that are less than mint. If not stored correctly miniatures can break, bend, discolor, or all of the above.

A bent miniature can really take away from the gaming experience. No one wants to use the Knight of the Flaccid Sword. There has been a well known solution for bending your miniatures back in to their…um…erect position. One such solution is using very hot water to make the plastic more pliable. You heat up some water, dip your miniature, bend the miniature back into place, and then dip your miniature into cold water to “lock in” its position. It works fairly well, but it has its problems. It takes time to heat up water, there is a possibility of scalding your self, and to me it is a bit aggressive. Its using a baseball bat to swat a fly.

I came across a more elegant solution, and it is quicker.

I have been using a hairdryer. The idea is the same. Heat the miniature, bend it back to its upright position, dunk in cold water. But I think it is quicker and a bit less aggressive.

This is what I do:

• Put some water in an appropriate sized bowl with some ice and set it aside.
• Using a hairdryer, heat up a miniature until you see it start to get “bendy”. You will start to see the miniature flex under the pressure of the oncoming hot air. It usually takes about 15-20 seconds of direct exposure. I use the hairdryer set to high. If you elect to hold the miniature, you will want to protect your hand a bit. It can get hot. Using a piece of cloth in your fingers to hold the miniatures is usually enough.
• Once the miniature starts to sway, bend, or look bendy, turn off the hairdryer. Bend the miniature into the correct position, if need be. I have found that holding the miniature at the correct angle while heating it is enough to get it into the correct position.
• Once the miniature is to your liking, dunk it in cold water for a few seconds.
• Done!

That’s it. It’s simple and it works.