"25mm or 28mm?" Topic

This is kind of a Old Fart vs Young Whippersnapper question.

What do you call THAT "scale"?
I came into The Hobby™ in 1974, roughy. No Scrubys. No Airfix. I jumped into the deep end with Minifigs, Lamming, Hinchliffe, Garrison, etc.
We didn't have none of them fancy 28mm figures. We recognized that SOME ranges, like Essex, SKT, even some new Hinchliffe and so on were a leetle bit larger, but we still called them "25mm".
Then, in 1986 came my 10 year marital hiatus from wargaming.
When I came back, I was surprised to hear and see talk of "28mm" figures. To me, it meant that they did not fit on WRG Ancients bases, despite the sputtering denials on PB et al.
It also meant that if I wanted to buy the fancy new AWI figures, I would have to rethink my basing scheme, based on 1776 and The Complete Brigadier.

Now that everything is rebased (with a lot of scar tissue on my thumbs), I happily play withj 25mm and 28mm on the same table.
What? Ya gotta problem with that?

Anyway, to me THAT SCALE will always be 25mm. What do YOU call "that scale"?

1) 25mm
b) 28mm
iii) 25/28mm
D) It's a SIZE, ya big dummy, not a scale!
V) When are you going to ask about 15mm vs 18mm?
f) Obligatory boobies
6) Hey! HO or 20mm????

spoon

iii) 25/28mm
Tall blokes and short blokes.

b) 28mm
followed by:
VIII) 10mm

1/56th ;-)

1)

1

f)

25's

iii – all the same to me…

P.

It was 25's until AB's came out in the early 90's, than its been V(18mm) ever since.

Hafta go with D – since by definition a scale is described as a ratio. ;)

28's are now 32mm typically, anyways.

As long as I know what models represent what, and you aren't a jerk across the table – play with whatever. :)

iii

1 or iii

D) but I know that'll never happen, at least the train mob have a modicum of standardisation.

I'll stick to 1/56th scale Mindens

regards
dave

I never heard mention of 28mm until the 1990s, when Foundry suddenly decided that they were no longer 25mm, but were now 28mm. Everyone else then seemed to follw suit.

Re AB: They were always called 15mm in the UK. Eureka (which manufactured the same range in Oz) also called them 15mm, but eventually caved in to customer pressure to call them 18mm. When AB Figures sold their UK 15mm franchise to Eureka they were then marketed in the UK as 18mm.

They are two different sizes (not scales). 25mm figures look very small against 28mm figures – you can't really mix them so they are clearly different sizes.

1) in conversation with other war gamers, but sometimes I'll use 3) in posts here just to emphasize that I am talking about all castings of a general size range.

Like John, I have no problem mixing units with different sized castings on the tabletop. I never had a player refuse to accept his old guard reinforcements because they looked too small next to the line or militia! My only regret is that when I started, I mounted all my figures on bases that were scaled down from rules for 30mm castings. I wish I had had enough foresight not to do this.

(I have learned, when I start a new period now, I scale up the bases just in case.)

Rick

Actually, "". It's pretty much the scale of all my minis (including my Khurasan 15mm that are small aliens/monsters, and my 1:32 ancients that are ogres/giants), so I just leave mini scale implied most of the time.

The major time I mention scale is when I write a technical piece, and even then I am (I think) more likely to mention "left handed Welsh heavy metal guitarists by Gyrffyd Miniatures" as a reference than to name a scale.

3)

&) Zardoz…

And I call them 25mm. I'm a brick. Sue me.

Eric

1. OFM, being of your vintage I share your thoughts on this issue. I used to mix 25mm Hinchcliffe and Minifigs along with Garrison, Lamming, Warrior, Traditon, Essex and others. As you state, the Hinchliffe were just a bit larger, so they became the grenadiers of my battalions with exception of guards battalions, which were all Hinchliffe/Foremost. The 70s and early 80s was a great period for quality 25mm figures…nostalgia I know but there it is.

25mm all the way.
VR
James Mattes

Haven't we beat this dead horse of a poll to death already?
Since you missed it before… 28mm

Margard, while that might be true nowadays, it's also true that all the long-established companies now calling their figures '28mm' once upon a time called the exact-same figures '25mm'.

Back in t'old days, '28mm' figures were just large 25mm figures.

As for mixing them: I once had '25mm' figures that were mixed with Foundry '28mm' figures, yet the '25mm' figures were the larger of the two. Then the '25mm' figures were re-branded to become '28mm', even though they were actually about 30mm all along!

Got that? There'll be a test.

Mark, you got that right!

D

But as long as the weapons look OK I'm not to bothered if it's 25 or 28s.

Due to age I think in 25s but think GW figures are 28s!

Was it perhaps GW who originally started calling their figures 28mm in order to create the fantasy that nobody else's figures were compatible?

If not, who were the first to market their (formerly 25mm) figures as '28mm'?

I know exactly when '18mm' appeared: Dallas Gavan started describing AB Figures' large 15mm figures as '18mm' on his long-departed and much-lamented website, sometime around 1999. Eureka then eventually gave in and started marketing them as 18mm.

iii) 25/28mm

D) It's a SIZE, ya big dummy, not a scale!

Actually, this was settled in a previous poll. It's totally a scale.

What is this about

I came into The Hobby™ in 1974, roughy. No Scrubys. No Airfix.

somebody had macaroni for breakfast.