"Best Manufacturers for Moderns?" Topic

Hi all,

I know this is going to be a very subjective question but I am hoping to get great input from the wide audience afforded by TMP.

A friend and I are looking to get into doing some modern gaming, specifically regulars vs. insurgents, most likely using Ambush Alley rules. We are trying to decide on a scale; currently we are pretty open to anything in the 15mm, 20mm or 28mm ranges. After looking around on some of the web sites that provide miniatures in these ranges, I've been somewhat disappointed in the _apparent_ quality of many of the ranges I have looked at. I say apparent because I recognize am only looking at picture on a web page, and not an actual model in hand; sometimes pictures just don't tell the real story.

We plan to cover a range of conflicts, Chechnya, Afghanistan (80's and today), and probably Iraq as well. We also expect to graduate to more modern regular force conflicts in the future, such as small Gulf War I engagements and such.

The question I want to pose to you is what manufacturers do you use/suggest? What scale are they, how you would rate their quality, and their ability to be intermingled with other models of the same scale. Obviously the ability to cover a wide variety of different nationalities forces is of great benefit (and is probably more of a which scale than a which manufacturer, question.)

HostileContact

If looking at 20mm – have a look at the forums for Ambush Alley and The Guild – lots of very nice pictures for 20mm and 15mm. I myself have gone with 20mm and think that liberation minis are quite good.

Liberation and Britannia in 20mm – Amazing choice and value with excellent quality and complete ranges.

As said above, check the Living Catalogues and galleries on guildwargamers.com in the members area.

In 15mm I quite like Rebel Minis myself, though I only play in 20mm.

Thanks, I'll do that.

As far as a range of vehicles are concerned QRF. But then again I would say that :-)

quickreactionforce.co.uk

I went with 15mm, but wish I had done 20mm. There are just too many great toys available out there in 1/72.

It would have made my trips to the store much more enjoyable if I could have bought toys for myself while I was there :)

How about the Caesar 1/72 figures? They look good. (I have their fantasy and Chinese sets and love them--no flash, great sculpts.) Plus Dragon pre-paint armor. I'm resisting getting sucked into this period, but 1/72 is just so cheap!

Personally I prefer 28mm and would check out Mongrel and MoFo Miniatures (Gripping Beast).

Ed G.

Definitely Britannia and Liberation if you go 20mm. An amazing variety of conflicts covered.

I see a lot of Britinnia and Liberation suggestions. Do these lines mix well with each other? For that matter do they mix well with other 20mm manufacturers? Are there any manufacturers I should look out for because the sculpts are are so 'off scale' as not to mix with other 20mm models.

Thanks so much for the information so far.

HostileContact

Brooks minis make the best in 28mm IMHO, and Glen is a great guy to deal with as well. He also knows his stuff as he served in the British army for 13 years.

Have a look…

ludeme.com/brooks/index.htm

A lot of it depends on things like how much table space do you have, how much storage (a 28mm town takes a lot of boxes), what size games do you envisage playing, are you likely to expand it into bigger games, are you likely to play with others and if so do they already have 15/20/28mm figures?

We work in 15mm, because we feel it gives the best 'feel', large enough to recognise the items (particularly when it comes down to individual weapons), small enough to give a good 'feel' to the ranges on table without needing a football pitch to play on. We offer a very extensive 15mm modern range, which we are continuing to expand, and are stil used by the British Army for training and recognition.

But at the end of the day it comes down to your own preference, cost and convenience :-)

Geoff
quickreactionforce.co.uk

28mm TAG and Mongrel is my choice…

I sold my 15mm and swapped over to 20mm for AA and FoF. I think 20mm is the way to go. Especially for the range of figs and the fact that you can purchase fully assembled and painted plastic and diecast vehicles all ready to go. Thats what I have done.

Plus I just received the new WarTime figs Aussies with steyrs and they are great. I have a few pics on my blog at wardepot.blogspot.com with more to come.

David
wardepot.blogspot.com
6to20painting.blogspot.com

28mm moderns releases appear to have dried up in recent years and some conflicts (like Chechnya) you just can't do in 28mm. As such, I'd put my money into 20mm if I were you or wait until someone reliable comes along who can see the potential in doing all those as yet uncovered conflicts in 28mm.

I'm on the 20mm train for moderns, the huge amount of 1/72 die cast and plastic kits is too good to resist. The only frustrating thing is that 20mm and 1/72 mean very different things to different manufacturers, so there is a hell of a lot of scale inconsistency within the scale.

I recently though picked up some TAG 28mm US Rangers. These are amongst the finest casts I've ever had – no flash, and next to no mould lines. Great sculpts too, these are well animated figures. But it's the clean cast that impresses me, I'm currently cleaning up 40 plus Foundry ACW figs of flash and mould lines and it's taking forever. The TAG stuff I can literally just undercoat right now and paint away. That counts for a lot.

@McWong73

Your point about scale inconsistency is one of the things I'm trying to get a handle on. I really don't want to spend my hard earned cash, then later find out a third of what I have only matches stuf from towe of the other ten manaufacturers I purchased things from. I know I could reduce the scale issues (but even a single line sometimes has scale issues) by only buying from a single range, but there is always bound to be something new by another manufacturer that *I've just got to have*.

All,

Thanks so much for all the great input. Now I'm going to get lost in the web for the next two days trying to figure out what to by ;)

HostileContact

I collect and game 20mm. Recommend Liberation and Britannia miniatures. Have had good service from both. Lots of models from different manufactures to compliment figures.

28mm Mongrel miniatures are beauties with Soviets, Brits, US, Afghans, East Germans, Israelis, Lebanese

they mix well also with Brookes and Eureka and to compliment them Sloppy Jalopy (who also have the Chieftain vehicles now too)

Yes, I have regularly used Britannia and Liberation together. While I prefer the style of the Britannia figures, they look just fine together.

Britannia and Liberation fit well together.

Britannia have a slight more 'bulk' to them, but not noticably, and the guns match in size well.

This means that the Britannia and Liberation Modern British work very well togther and give you a unit of different height blokes rather than looking like two different makes of figure… Sometimes with a consistent paintjob, its hard to tell them apart.

The same goes for the Afghans ranges, but I tend to use the Britannia range for earlier Mujehedin and use the Liberation for more Modern Taliban. Though both will work for either, its just a matter of personal taste.

With regards other ranges, you are a bit limited.

Platoon 20 will fit with both ranges, but some of their lines show a bit of age, but their Nam stuff and Cold War Soviets are still good ranges.

Combat Miniatures do a selection of Moderns and are of a thinner style than the others but will fit with Liberation. I find them a bit too 'gangly' looking and the amount of broken weapons in every pack put me off.

Stan Johansen does some nice 20mm bits and they fit well with both Britannia and Liberation.

The TQD Martello International stuff wont fit with anything, according to their forum, and is indeed taller and skinnier than most. They also have very limted selections and no full ranges for moderns.

As far as figures are concerned you cant go far wrong with Britannia and Liberation and both do great selections of vehicles in resin.

With kits you can of course use 1/72 or 1/76 scale stuff… I use both but I dont mix the same vehicle in both scales. I try to stick to 1/72 as this looks right for me and seems to fit well, but I do try and use as many resin vehicles as possible as I prefer them to kits.

HC, I'm currently looking at buying the figures from a single manufacturer (Liberation, having seen their figs in the flesh, difficult in AUS as no store carries them) and am prepared to risk the scale issues with vehicles as they tend to be quite cheap.

I second checking out the Guild forum's living catalogue, best place I've seen to get pictures of many of the ranges.

HostileContact
My recommendation is HLBS 1/48 or 40mm as they are known, these figures are awesome for skirmish games, the detail is unmatched. They make a fantastic range of figures in most if not all of the areas you are interested in. Almost any of the Western conflicts of the last 20 or so years right up to the wars of today. If you buy the best thats out there you will never be disappointed.

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic input. Looks like we have settled on Liberation & Britannia to start out. Dropping an order to SyrHobbs in the next few days for Liberation (starting with Afghanistan).

Big P – thanks for the detailed information, it really helps. I've been burned to many times in the past with different manufacturers models that were (supposedly) the same scale as other manufacturers models. In this economy (& knowing I am out of a job in two months) I'm trying to avoid that this time, as I simply don't have the cash to 'throw away'.

As far as Britannia, is there a US rep, or do I have to go the overseas route?

Thanks!!

HostileContact

If you want quality and selection… go with 6mm or 1/285 or 1/300. Highest quality across the board is GHQ at ghqmodels.com also PFC-CinC is very good. They have not added any vehicles/figures to modern in years. Scotia has wide selection of nationalities and vehicles, Heroics & Ros (lower quality, definitely cherry-pick, price very low) and some others. Check out the first three websites, forums and discussion boards. GHQ have photos posted with over 100 pages on some threads. Great insight into WW2, Modern and Naval.

@Chrisswim2,

I already do micro scale gaming (WWII @ Moderns) for company sized & larger battles. And while I couldn't agree more about the quality or selection, we are specifically looking to do small skirmish or maybe a couple platoon sized actions. Thus we were really looking a something a bit larger in scale, so that our 4 x 4 or 4x 6 tables were a few city blocks, not kilometers.

We have also settled on Ambush Alley Games systems (for not at least) and they don't seem geared to the 6mm scale stuff.

HostileContact

Again, thanks to everyone for there input, it has been very useful. And educational; I've learned about manufacturers I didn't even know existed. :)

Happy gaming,

HostileContact