Exactly, as Fimm says. I used to play (as player or GM'ing) in 80's with painted or unpainted minis for RPG 'forensic' setting scenes , to position player characters in order and for dealing with oncoming threat. Whether in dungeon, open field, camp, at sea, or woods, whatever that particular setting. Soon cleared away once fight or interaction was over. Never affected our imagination even with proxies. We also used to have a brilliant GM-a young lad of 12- who could switch from rough sketch reveal on his hex sheet dungeon plan to using old ral partha metal minis to tokens /dice to represent anything. Ad lib stuff. Kept the game flowing as we used to know we often had limited time to play.
