D&D 4e combat encounters tend, in my experience, to feature a larger number of non-player combatants than D&D 3(.5) encounters. Often, such encounters will include multiple “copies” of a single creature, especially when minions get involved. Encounter 1–1 in Dungeon Delve, for example, pits the PCs against eight kobold minions and three kobold slingers. I love to use miniatures to stage D&D combat, and since I started collecting D&D Miniatures very early on (though not aggressively until Aberrations, much to my regret), I have plenty of kobolds, orcs, goblins, gnolls, and so on to populate my encounters.

As you multiply combatants, though, you also multiply bookkeeping. If you see three identical kobold slinger miniatures on the battlemat, you might start to lose track of which one remains at full hp, which one has suffered a few hp of damage, and which one hovers above death’s trap door. If you find that your brain, like mine, begins to lose track of which kobold is which, then you might also find that my tracking techniques work for you—if you have some preparation time to invest.

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Ultimately, in order to distinguish between identical miniatures, you have to make them non-identical. For a cheap, easy, and fast way to do this, simply buy a cheap pack of multicolored stickers, choose a different color for each copy of a particular miniature or monster, and affix the stickers to the miniatures’ bases. You’ll want small stickers so that you can put them on top of the minis’ bases, so that you don’t have to keep turning each mini over to identify it. In your initiative tracker—whether you use a software program, a stack of cards, a white board, a sheet of paper, or something else—you can identify the monsters as “Kobold Slinger (green),” “Kobold Slinger (blue),” and “Kobold Slinger (red),” for example.

I wanted a more permanent and attractive solution than stickers, though. If there’s enough room on the mini’s base, you can put on a spot of white correction fluid and write a number or letter on the white spot. Quite a few minis, however, won’t give you enough space on the top of the base, requiring you to pick up the minis and turn them over to distinguish them from each other.

Not altogether happy with the Liquid Paper strategy, I hit on a different plan. I decided to paint a colored ring around the base of each duplicate miniature. I chose dull, flat colors suitable for dungeon or wilderness surroundings—starting with beige, brown, slate gray, charcoal gray, and avocado green, then adding burnt orange, navy blue, cranberry, and hunter green when I needed more colors. Nowadays, for some flying creatures and water/ice/air elementals, I might also use a sky blue. It’s now very easy for me to tell “Orc Savage (beige)” from “Orc Savage (brown)” on the tabletop.

If you already own Citadel or Reaper paints for metal miniatures, they work just fine for this simpler purpose. Personally, I buy cheap water-based acrylic paints at Michael’s. Some of the brands cost as little as 59¢ per bottle and they work just fine on D&D Miniatures; I like the color range offered by the Americana brand ($1.19 per bottle), but that’s just pure aesthetic preference. If you want to spend more to buy into color ranges specifically tuned for fantasy miniatures, look into Citadel or Reaper paints. I give the bases two coats of paint, and then one coat of clear matte acrylic sealer. I’ve never had a problem with flaking or chipping,

Recently, however, I’ve gotten a little more ambitious, and have started repainting actual features of the miniatures. I still have “Orc Savage (lt brown),” “Orc Savage (dk brown),” “Orc Savage (green),” and “Orc Savage (blue)” in my initiative tracker, but now the colors refer to clothing features.

They still don’t have the kind of pizzazz that you get from a skilled painter working with Citadel or Reaper paints on finely-crafted metal miniatures, but they serve my purposes well—and with my modifications, I can tell them apart easily.