Does anyone else use painted miniatures! I love these things. It's an added incentive to bring back villains when you already have their painted miniature on hand. We have a little shrine with the miniatures of characters who've fallen in battle.

We use building blocks and some of the old action figure playsets that my dad used as a kid. It sounds like kidstuff but it's a big help. Things aren't exactly to scale with the miniatures, but it helps us tell when two heroes are fighting on a rooftop and everyone else is on the street.

Sometimes combat gets slow, but having the heroes and villains facing off keeps everything more real. You can tell facing directions better that way too. We've had to take out rulers sometimes to see if someone is out of range when they're firing a ray downward/diagnally at an angle.

My high school geometry teacher has no idea how much his class helps me when gaming.