"Scenery scale/size" Topic

In general, given that the average height of a 2 storey house in the UK, is around 8 metres to the ridge.
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And if you say that the average male height in the UK, is 2 metres, rounded up.*
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Would it be safe to say, when making or buying buildings, that on average, a ratio of 4:1 for any scale of models, would look realistic?

i.e. 10mm figures/models would have buildings that are 40 mm high, and 28 mm rounded up to 30 mm,* would have buildings that are 120 mm high?

Personally I think that's too big, even for a 1:1 scale skirmish. As long as the doors are the right size you can go to about 2/3rds or even smaller and it looks fine, especially if you're playing anything bigger than 1:1 (1figure equals 1man).
But it's more about footprint than height. There are very few buildings represented at 1:1 for the footprint. They'd take up huge amounts of room.

Agreed. The footprint would be the killer. For example, my Dad's lot is roughly 85 by 115 feet. 1/60 scale for easy crunching makes the lot 17"x23". That's not really a playable size on the table.

I go down a scale so for 25mm I use 20mm buildings. Looks OK to me and you reduce the foot print a bit as well.

Agree with Timmo uk, always go down a size unless you are playing 1 figure = 1 man.

Tony,

I have always built to scale and proportional buildings and fortifications in the past. Whilst pleasing and very practical for wargaming within the buildings themselves I cannot help but concur with the above sentiments. Depending what you want the buildings to do, going for a minimal representation is often better, especially when building towns and city scapes whch you fight around rather than in. To-scale buildings are prehaps better used for skirmish based games. In future, I'll be looking to reduce the size of my buildings where possible.

Thanks, for the useful insights.

I find height with wargames buildings is no real problem it is the footprint.

I tend to make buildings especially modern and ww2 20mm at least, with a small foot print but at scale in height.

I round 28mm down 25mm not rounded up to 30 as multi storey.

It really depends on the unit sizes and figure ratio as mentioned above.

cheers
Matt

I tend to make buildings especially modern and ww2 20mm at least, with a small foot print but at scale in height.

I cinsidered doing that, but I just don't like the look of tall spindly buildings.

I suppose I've always done the same, using railway building models at HO (1:87) for 1:72 and 1:76.

Um … down a scale from 1/72 and 1/76 would be 15mm.

I tend to use the same scale for buildings and miniatures. Though I sometimes use HO scale railroad buildings with my 15mm WW2 stuff.
For TSATF, and WW2 games this is not a problem. But when I'm using Bundok and Bayonette for larger British Colonial games there is a scale problem. But it can be dealt with. Just don't use the larger buildings.

Table scale is rarely (if ever) true to model scale. Otherwise I wouldn't really be able to more than about 700-800 scale yards along an 8' table in 15mm…

But Margard, if 28mm is, say, 1:56, and 1:72 is "down a scale", that's 16 points. 1:72 to 1:87 is pretty close, 15 points, so I'm not sure what you mean?

Scales, or I should say, sizes of wargames figures are:

54mm
40mm
28/30mm
25mm
20mm
15mm
10mm
5/6mm

So, down a scale from 20mm (i.e 1/72 or 1/76) is 15mm.

Also, many building kits labelled as "HO" are actually 1/76 particularly if they are of British outline.

Funny how folk get sniffy about vehicles being spot on scale, yet houses can look lilliputian and that's okay.

28mm figures, should I be looking for O scale or OO scale buildings then?

Funny how folk get sniffy about vehicles being spot on scale, yet houses can look lilliputian and that's okay.

It's a by product of the difference between figure size and ground scale. Buildings should be smaller because the ground scale is smaller.

28mm figures, should I be looking for O scale or OO scale buildings then?

For skirmish games where 1 figure is 1 man then ideally you want 1/56 scale buildings (or thereabouts).

O scale in the UK is commonly 1:43.5, in continental Europe it is commonly 1:45 though 1:43.5 is also used particularly in France, and in the USA 1:48. All of which are too big.

OO scale is 1/76 which is too small.

Probably the best solution is to either build your own or buy purpose designed 28mm buildings from companies such as Warbases.
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For non-skirmish games then I'd suggest OO scale buildings.

Many thanks, old chap!