"What is the source of your scale prejudice?" Topic

I am generally prejudiced in favor of 25/28mm gaming, and that is for one particular reason.
When I started out in The Hobby™, all other scales were either too expensive, not readily available (in my ignorance), or were just plain awful figures.

15mm was represented by Peter Laing, God bless 'im. 'Nuff said.
I never heard of 30mm or 20mm, for some odd reason.
Airfix were "toys", no matter how many I painted up.

So, I started with Minifigs, hinchliffe and Garrison 25mm Ancients.

For colonials, I got into Minifigs, and then inot Ral Partha in a big way. Most other manufacturers matched them in size. So, I am prejudiced into thinking that "true 25mm" was the ideal scale for Colonials.

I liked the idea of 1:20 full AWI battles with 25mm figures, and the Hinchliffe figures were quite nice, bar the crapped out molds.

Only recently have I started doing 15mm, and that's because all the cool Kids are doing Flames of war in my 'hood. I actually like them.

So, I am curous how my gaming would have evolved, had decent 15mm figures been available in my earlies. Actually,they were, but in a period I had no actuall interest in, Napoleonics. I saw no point in doing Ancients in two scales.

So, what are YOUR scale prejudices, and how did you come by them?

All available miniatures when I got into the hobby were either true 25s or 20s. Nobody seriously wargamed in 30mm. I like the size of 25s and resent the scale creep that has created "large 25s", i.e. 28mm….

I went with one scale for Terrain (Trees, Houses) and a scale/size my friends could see. I ended up with 15/18mm as I can find nearly everything in that scale.

I like armies that look like armies, so when I found out that you could get things other than WWII and modern armor in 6mm, I was sold. That done, Saber6's argument came into play, and it just made sense to me to have one scale and therefore one set of terrain etc. I do use 28mm minis for gladiators, and whatever handwaving scale those starships are for space combat, but in general I've stuck to 6mm for everything.

edit – I suppose I should also note that I'm a cheapskate, and the fact that I could buy a handful of 6mm tanks for the cost of one larger scale model was not insignificant in my early interest in 6mm.

Doug

Because as soon as I saw the box art for the original beakie Space Marine plastic boxed set, it was all over. I started out as a (rather poor) painter and modeller and then was even more hooked when a friend showed me that you could play games with the models. From there, the transition into 25mm historicals was just natural. I've been all over the place: 15mm WWII for a little while, a few 20mm here and there, some 40mm which didn't last, and now getting into micro armor and other 6mm stuff…but I always will come back to 28mm.

I don't have one…..

I just like the look and feel of a 28mm fig.
15 is too small for my style of gaming…

28mm. I like the illusion of the individual making a difference and not just a cog in the army machine. Smaller scales rarely have enough individual figure variety for me and scales larger then 28s rarely have enough unique figures to do fairly large battles. Also there is very little terrain available for the 30+ larger figures.

I suppose my prejudices go way back. I think wargaming figures should have followed the most common model railroad scales. This happened to a small extent early on but then with the confusion introduced by using size-as-scale the focus and coherence was lost.

25mm is my painting preference, thus my goto scale of choice.

I have a very hard time envisioning 15mm figures being used for skirmish gaming.
And THAT is because I have so many 25/28mm skirmish figures. Or, maybe it is just that 15mm skirmish gaming is just plain WRONG, and that I am not prejudiced at all.

John, I used to feel that way about 15mm skirmishes, but the quality of the figures is now so high, and we have accumulated so much neat 15mm terrain, that I am won over.

But I do still have F&I and Wild West in 28mm . . . .

Nostalgia. I have always loved those 1/72 (20mm) figures since I was a kid. I would game everything in that scale if it weren't for the fact that this is impossible and painting 28mm is such a joy to do…

Started with 15mm, then discovered 25mm, and slid into 28-ish mm. As a painter, there was a satisfying level of detail. As a gamer, I could tell what a figure was across the table.

Al | ravenfeast.deviantart.com

I don't have one at all. I own large 6, 10, 15, 20, and 28mm collections. I guess I'm a scale !

Most of my collection is 28mm. However, I believe certain scales are better for certain kind of games. So I use 28mm for skirmishes and fantasy, 15mm in any game that will have more than a few vehicles per side, 1/285 for modern conflicts (where range and mobility are very important), and 1/2400 for naval warfare.

What is the source of your scale prejudice?

Good taste!

Mwuahahahaha

T Meier wrote:

I think wargaming figures should have followed the most common model railroad scales.

Quite right, too. Consequently I regard 1/76th as the One True Scale, and my toy tanks were Airfix, Fujimi, Nitto and Matchbox. 1/87th was OK -- Charles Grant used it, after all -- if you were happy to use a continental railway scale.

1/72nd is, as everybody knows, an aircraft scale.

28mm is a silly idea, for producers who can't make models the right size and wargamers too young to remember 30mm.

All the best,

John.

Most of my minis are 25mm/28mm, but I have armies/fleets in just about every scale. I even have a few 15mms: Brummbars, some Ratmen, some prehistorics.

I have so many 25mm/28mms because when I first began collecting those armies, they didn't come in any other scales.

15mm is my favorite size, although I have a ton of heroic 28mm GW stuff because that it what all the cool cats do locally and it is an uphill battle on a waterslide covered in Wesson oil to get them to try historical gaming! 15mm is the "just right" scale for me – you can do big battles with tons of figures, or you can do skirmish games in buildings with actual interiors on a smallish table.

Like many here I grew up with Airfix figures, and then later got into RPGs and their attendant figures. Mostly because of the latter, I favor 28s. The downside is the ground-scale problem: it's vexing when, let us say, pistol range, is the length of a vehicle.

I have 15mm late C.19 armies: U.S., Spanish, Japanese, Chinese. Recent 15mm figures are very nice-looking. The ground-scale problem is somewhat mitigated and you can field a lot of them.

My main prejudice, however, is against 20mm: it seems to me that they are not as good-looking as 28s, and have nearly as bad a ground-scale problem as 28s.

For horse and musket, Bruce Weigele's great Wars of German Unification games at H'Con have nearly sold me on 6mm.

OMG I have 6mm,10mm, 15mm,18mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, 54mm and more….right we need to melt them all down and have one scale.

It would save so much time stopping people saying is that 28mm etc…..ok what scale should we opt for 32.5mm?

I lost my first collection (15 and 25mm) to a fire and didn't get back into gaming till Copplestones Darkest Africa, I liked the look of the new 28mm and so started collecting them over 25mm.
Also it is difficult for me to do a good paint job on the smaller 20 and 15mm anymore.

My source of scale prejudice is middle age.

I started with airfix, available and affordable.

Later I started earning money and moved on to metal figures, 15mm for ancients and 6mm for some massed periods.

Then a few years ago middle age hit, disposable income increased (slightly and it went further due to 28mm hard plastics), available space for games increased but my eyesight started to slowly deteriorate. I switched to 28mm for skirmish, then Napoleonics, then ECW, then….

Now apart from a handful of 20mm WW2 the last two thousand figures I painted have been 28mm.

Ability to paint it, so I prefer 25mm.

most 15's when I started were just blobs . I started on 25's ( partha) . I am very reluctant to start up with yet another new mistress .

Started with Airfix plastics and scratch-built naval. Never had the money when 'true' 25mm came out – and very little interest in Napoleonics, which were mostly what seemed to be on offer. Got into 15mm with Peter Laing and 6mm WW2 briefly and then 6mm Heroics & Ros.

When I had the money for larger metal armies I was into early medieval and hadn't the space for 25mm – to be honest the 15's were more varied and sometimes better than the 25's on offer at the time, and a LOT cheaper.

To this day I have only ever finished one 28mm figure (he is a god for my 6mm HotT armies) and it took me almost as long to paint as a dozen 6mm.

I still have my 15mm (many still unpainted) but can't see me moving away from 6mm and smaller now. I don't do skirmish gaming so I suppose that influences scale choice – note CHOICE, not predjudice.

Age has nothing to do with it – I'm pushing 62 and paint 2/3mm regularly (to a reasonable standard) but still struggle to finish larger figures to a standard I'm happy with. To be honest I get bored before I'm finished – just start thinking that with the same investment of time I can do a whole unit in 6mm and then go and do just that.

I have no real prejudice with scale I have ministures in almost all sizes from 3mm to 28mm.
But I do have a prejudice about soft plastic so 1:72 (20mm)and 1:32 (54mm) are scales I do not use. I guess this prejudice against soft plastic started early in my Airfix days when paint chipped and fell off the little miniatures.

I started out in 15mm, both SYW and colonial skirmish using TSATF. I do use other scales, but my first love will always be 15mm.

I have war game figures in most scales/sizes from 2mm on up to 54mm.

Figures sizes were picked based on what the rest of the gang was using. No point in having figures smaller of bigger than everyone else is there?

If I had to choose an overall preferred figure size I'd have to pick 20mm -- No. I don't mean 1/72, as that is 25mm (we measure figures the old fashioned way sole to crown). Sadly there are not too many of us making figures in that size any more.

Another that I really like is 45mm. The reason being that they work near perfectly with 1:32 scaled buildings and terrain.

When I started wanting to game, 15mm was it (The Bunker in Copperas Cove, TX) and Empire II came out within a few months of my interest. Moved away to Delaware and zero gaming in Dover that I could see and I was too young to travel to MD, VA, PA or NJ. Moved back to Texas in 1982 and 25mm was king in Austin for ancients. Bought 6th edition but went off to college.

Moved to San Antonio and they mostly played 15mm. The pricing of heavy metals also made 28mm impractical. I disagree on seeing stuff from across the table. 15/18mm is probably the smallest I can see well.

Before Pendraken came out with their exquisite sculpts, I would have said that 15mm was the smallest I would go. Now I will probably have 10mm as Pendraken and other lines have some fine figures. Reasoning? I can get more figures on a table to do larger battles. You also have the option of having more figures per base to get a grander sense of scale.

6mm I happen to love too but have come to the conclusion that I prefer a bit more detail for Napoleonics and Lace War. Besides, I can't get my friends to paint any up or play them. Epic 40K and Microarmor are excluded though and I have some that will play in these scales.

25/28mm, I have lost too many gaming buddies to 15mm. I also don't play Warrior anymore so I don't this scale for a once a year sojourn to the NICT anymore. Having said this, plastics are really drawing me in. Plastics gets us past cost and weight. The only other existing problem is storage, logistics and gaming space. And frankly, I have less friends that play in this scale.

If logistics, cost and gaming buddies weren't the issue, I would be more drawn to the 30mm Minden & Fife and Drum scaling. Frankly, I think these are some of the best figures I have seen (thanks Fritz!) And I will probably do them at some point.

When it comes down to it, what scale do your buddies play? If I had moved to SA and they were predominately playing 25/28mm, I would be playing this scale. Let's face it, there are wonderful figures in just about any scale/size. I remember reading the Spanner and the Yank's website. This has influenced me on figure astectics, probably why I love the Minden and Fife and Drum lines, as well as AB 18/20mm figures.

I've never met a scale in any hobby that I didn't like, including 1:1, and want to model. Drives me nuts, really.

I sometimes wish I were a scale bigot--makes life easier!

I started in 15mm too, with the old Laing figures before moving on very swiftly to Minifigs.

I've had collections of 25's, 10mm, and 6mm too but sold the lot off and went exclusively to 15's for figure gaming.

I'm not prejudiced against 28mm except for the fact that for some reason I just can't paint them anywhere near as nicely as 15's. Plus the house just ain't big enough.

I'm not a fan of skirmish games either. I like tables with lots of scenery and space, and you need a much bigger table size for 28's. Storage of scenery for 28's would be difficult. Lets face it, its hard enough to store 400+ buildings and 500+ trees for my 15's along with 20,000 figures.

I stick with 6mm and 15mm but would play anything. If I did not limit to those two scales I would buy everything in site – never getting anything "done".

I think wargaming figures should have followed the most common model railroad scales.

That would have made too much sense. Besides, how could we have scale creep if we'd gone that way!?

Doug

I started with 25mm, as there was limited availability of anything else circa 1968, and have stayed with it. I don't enjoy painting 15's (tried it three times), so about10K figures or more later, it is still 25/28mm.

I have been moving to new scales for the past few years.

6mm for sci-fi, because they are easier to store and I can get a lot of vehicles on table. Plus, I can build a LOT of terrain quick.

10mm for FIW/AWI because I like being able to field armis that look like armies but the individuals still have a little detail.
10mm for Fantasy too, so I can do hordes of figures!

15mm for FIW/AWI and Fantasy skirmish. Blue Moon makes some amazing figs for the former, and I have piles of old Grenadier Warlord range for the latter!

I do have some warmachine figs, as that is predominant game being played 'round these parts that isn't GW!

I started with 1/72 and I stay with them, although I have gladly played with other scales and sizes of figures owned by others.

I've tried most scales but have drifted mainly into 1:72/6/20mm – partly because I like the more realistic proportions, partly for nostalgia, partly because I enjoy building model planes and armour for its own sake. I stick to it pretty much because I don't want to have to make terrain in multiple scales as others have also said.

I have so many different scales in my collection that I can hardly point to a prejudice. I have nothing in 15mm, but I do have:

1/2400
1/600
1/285 or 6mm
10mm
28mm
some 40mm

I never got the same urge on 15mm that so many have.

My first miniatures were bought without regard to using them in games… and scales other than 25mm were not very prominent in stores… and were mostly historicals. I liked monsters and dinosaurs.
Later I started playing RPGs and those focus on individuals, so again, 25mm was preferred over smaller (and still harder to find) scales. Larger stuff might have appealed but bigger stuff seemed to mostly be aimed at WWII modelers. 25mm grew into 28mm and I got drug along.
When I got into Traveller their ship plans seemed designed for 15mm figures and that is when I first considered that scale.
6mm got me when Space Marine came out… though it took a while.

3 scales is enough for me.

John I am somewhat surprized that no one has yet gone of the deep end about the whole scale vs size thing. Or the metal vs plastics etc.

For me I am capable of "getting it" that scale and size can be on the same table playing at the same time. Likewise the same for plastic and metal I haven't seen any hate crime by miniatures lately.

My parents were bigots.

Available space, and cost. I got into miniature wargaming, as a serious hobby, at age 18, and budget remained a major constraint all through my undergraduate, graduate and PhD studies over the following 15 years. Plus, I never had anything larger than a 6' by 4' table, and for long stretches of time nothing better than 2' by 2'. It was either 15mm, or 1-to-1 skirmish in larger scales, and I am not much of a skirmish player nor, visually, 6mm ever excited me.

A) Fell in love with Ral Partha figures in the late 70s – early 80s.

B) Too near-sighted to comfortably paint anything smaller!

Despite that, I started out in 25mm/28mm, but as those scales crept up the costs seemed to rise too far for me to justify. It also looked damn weird trying to put on a big battle on the tables I had available, and I can't stand the "tanks shoulder to shoulder and every soldiers base touching" look. So I was driven to smaller scales.

My professional background is in Architecture, so when it comes to making buildings and whatnot I find it hard to do the "that looks right" sort of slapping together of terrain and structures. I prefer to have a definite scale, and preferably one that is easily measurable. I have never seen a 28mm or 1/56 or 1/87 demarcated ruler, and railroad "scales" are all based upon track width, not measurable scales. But 1:100 IS an engineering scale, and is often associated with 15mm. So, 15mm was the right combination of cost effective, looked good en-mass, and was close to an actual measurable scale.

Likewise 1/300 and 1/600 are also engineering scales that are easily measurable, so those also work great for me (though for some reason at those scales I find it much easier to do the "looks right" approach. I am apparently mental…)

Whether all of the above is correct and true, or not, it is how I perceive the gaming world, and thus the sources of my preferences and biases.

I enjoy painting 18mm AB Napoleonics to anything else in any scale/size however, I have 25mm, 28mm, 1/144, 1/285 and 1/1200 in my collections.

I just tend to choose the figures I like the most for the period I want to do regardless of scale.

That written I agree with a couple of folks above and wish the wargaming hobby had fully embraced 1/76 as the standard.

I consistently lean towards the smaller scales in part because I like the mass look and in part due to the figure to table scale ratio.

My scales are 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.
Reasons are mainly my terrain and figure cost.

I use the same terrain for both 15mm and 20mm games.
15mm and 20mm are better for large battles which I prefer.

28mm figures cost more so I have fewer of them. So, they are used in smaller games.

I never trusted anything below 15mm.
Probably because of those beady little eyes.

It just makes sense to have compatible figures. There is enough potential for crossover between my various areas of interest to make them the same scale. So, I began collecting in one scale and it has very rarely made sense to collect something incompatible.