"At what scale do figures become generic?" Topic

At 15mm you can some substitute a fair number of figures for each other but they are by no means generic. 10mm (which I don't paint so limited experience) appear to come in varieties, French this, Austrian that, again, not generic.

So at what point does the offering become:

Generic Infantry in shako
Generic Infantry in bicorne
Generic Infantry in helmet
Generic Lancers
Generic Hussars
Generic Cuirassiers in helmet type #1
Generic Cuirassiers in helmet type #2
etc…

Cheers,

The Bandit

Baccus 6mm WSS figures are fairly generic. At least the infantry are. But at 6mm, who can really see the fine details. I'd argue that up to 15mm, you really can't see the fine details. At least not on the table top from gaming range.

I'd say 6mm, too. While it's possible to sculpt the distinctions, it would be virtually pointless to do so.

What company would financially benefit from Perryesque distinctions in so small a scale? But I suppose that question could be posed to any sub-28mm scale.

6mm have many specific details.
2-3mm may be generic.

in my old eyes even 10mm just look blobs

Somewhere between 3 and 6mm.

3mm and below gets my vote

Before we get too many ill-informed and ignorant comments about 6mm, I'll get my retaliation in first by stating that it is perfectly possible and reasonable at this scale
for distinct uniform and headgear differences to be sculpted and represented. Both Adler and Baccus figures offer figures differentiated not only by nationality but also by variations within those ranges. For example we both provide British infantry with either stovepipe or belgic shako, or Russians with a cylindrical shako or kiwer.

Just because some wargamers either choose or claim not to be able to see such details does not mean that they have no importance or value to those of us who do appreciate them.

If someone wants to produce 3mm, 2mm or 1mm figures with a range of details and their customers appreciate them, then it is worth doing. It is no business of anyone else's to tell them that they are wrong or that their efforts are 'pointless', especially if they don't even bother to actually look at or understand what they are so blithely criticising.

I think this is a question best answered by bracketing:

In my opinion, some manufacturer's 15/18mm figures have just as much detail as 28mm, so definitely not generic, and I think that opinion is widely held. So 15mm definitely NOT generic at the upper end of the scale…

Conversely, again in my opinion but one I know I share with others, the otherwise marvellous and useful 1/600the scale figures are clearly generic…

So I guess the answer lies somewhere between the two…

I am surprised at the level of detail achieved with 10/12mm figures, both by Pendraken and Magister Militum. I would argue that they are not generic because you can distinctly make out the difference between a Belgic shako and a Stovepipe shako, let alone with a French or Prussian shako. As for collars and cuffs and waterbottle stoppers etc…hmm. But I accept that's a subjective view…

Are we talking about generic when we hold them up six inches from our eye, or when they are on the table top three to five feet away from us? On the table top, 10s and below for sure, as well as just about all 15s.

I would hasten to add that I have seen some gamers 'spoil' 15mm and 25mm (now 28mm) collections by simply applying a 'national' coat of paint.

Even at these larger scales you can produce a generic army in appearance if you have no interest in completing the details.

And while I don't have O8 or Boki figures the images I have seen show proof that there is detail even at 3mm.

But I think Bandit's question is still a valid one. It just may be better to set 'scale' aside and think of this in terms of what someone's personal tolerance may be for 'mixed' troops on a game table. For example, a colleague of mine who games using 25mm Minifigs regularly uses Austrians in shako as Westphalian, Italian and other white coated troops.

I regularly use 6mm 7yr Austrians in Tricorn to represent 1806 Saxons, even though – thanks to TMP – I have learned that the actual uniforms worn by saxon troops at that time were rather drab smocks and bicorns with oilskin covers. Not a particularly flashy army for a colourful period.

So, for what its worth, I don't think scale provides the outlet to settle the question of what is / is not generic. It is more a question of what you as an individual are prepared to accept as an abstract representation of an accurate fighting unit.

My humble opinion only!

Cheers!
Beeker

I'm with Beeker here – this is about personal preference more than anything. I have one Napoleonic French army and I use it for anything from 1790 to 1815. If that gets you panties in a twist, feel free to play elsewhere. Likewise my British are only in stovepipe. I'm not buying two armies.

I happily swap out anything remotely close. Others worry about straight vs. pointed cuffs in 10mm.

Horses for courses.

Setting up a variety of figs on my table, I will say 15s and below are generic (and 25s are pushing it), which is why I have been going to a lot of 54s (you can tell exactly what they are from across the table). I guess it depends on what you want.

A few years ago you could 15 mm would have been a fairly generic scale but as the skill of sculptors improves the spectacular details applied to previously blobby scales is amazing. Anything smaller than 1/72 -20mm makes me squint more than usual so I stay with bigger scales.

It will depend on your own view & on your own eyesight – or are they the same thing? I could accept that 6mm could be generic, but lately I've been finding in practice that my 15's are going the same way …..

A lot of it has to do with the manufacturer/sculpting. I can see the details on 6mm figures and so if you tried to pass British infantry off as French, I would be able to tell. Many gamers tend to have bad eyes and instead of wearing corrective lenses, they just move up in scale. Preference really.

Not to dispute anything anyone has said – because it all seems quite reasonable – I will clarify that what I was getting at was "at what scale are manufacturers not sculpting national details, i.e. all troops in shako are 'generic shako infantry'?"

And it seems like the consensus is, at this point in time, anything 6mm and larger are still going to be specific while under 6mm (maybe 1-4mm) are generic. Further more it sounds like that is an "at this point in time" thing as I'm willing to presume if a guy who makes and sells 6mm says that it is possible to sculpt detail into yet tinier things, he's probably right.

Thanks for the info guys!

Cheers,

The Bandit

I think the minitures and the painters ability decide what is generic. My Adler 6 mm can be painted to levels that some fail to achieve in 15 mm.

One thing I've had to remind myself of over the years is that there's also a subjective level of difference between the detail that you see and appreciate when you paint, and the detail that your players see and appreciate on the table …

For instance, I have dozens of ACW artillery pieces in 10mm, including: 12lb Napoleon's with USA barrel, 12lb Napoleon's with CSA barrel, m1841 12lb heavy field guns, 12lb howitzers, and 32lb howitzers; 3" Ordinance rifles, 10lb Parrot rifles, 20lb Parrot rifles, and Whitworths. I love to have all this variety on hand. However … when it's on the table, it usually boils down to "Okay, the bronze barrels are 12lb smoothbores, the black barrels are light rifles."

The same goes for a lot of the uniform detail that is so great to paint, but blends into the table. This isn't a bad thing, in fact so much time is spent painting that I think figures should cater to that aspect of the hobby, even if it doesn't always come out in practical play.

Cheers,

Christopher

6mm are easy to differentiate, my 2mm stuff is fairly generic however.

WARNING: THIS MESSAGE HAS NOT BEEN PREAPPORVED BY THE METHOD AND TONE POLICE. IT SHOULD NOT BE READ WITHOUT THE PRESCENCE OF AN ADULT!

There is something present in our games that I call "table blur". I first took notice of it back in the 70's. I spent almost an entire summer painting 25mm Napoleonic Prussian Grenadiers with the giant plumes. I think there were about a dozen of them of 12 figures each. I could not wait to show them off at the club. Well that day came, I got a couple of "nice figures" comments and then the game started.

I quickly noticed that my beautiful figures simply got lost in the sea of figures on the table. As the game went on my focus shifted from my figures to the essence of the game. All the figures seem to blend in together and became a blur. My eyes sharpened to where the formations were, not what was actually in them. It was one of those decisive moments when I realized that the scale of our figures was not really important.

A few months later a new fellow showed up at the club with a 25mm Napoleonic army that he had painted any color he liked. After the senior members of the club were revived with smelling salts the game got going. Sure enough it became even clearer that scale was not important. Even the yellow, purple and orange figures got lost in the sea of figures.

However, the actual post is about generic figures. I think that really only starts at 6mm. Although a paint job or some filing or adding some filler will allow you to create some different looking figures from Adler or Baccus. Their attention to detail really removes them from being generic.

Irregulars on the other hand has in their 6mm Napoleonic range a miscellaneous range of block infantry figures and cloaked cavalry. That range is clearly designed to be generic. So if your looking for generic in 6mm that's the place to go. I've painted a few thousand of them for different armies. Just paint the great coats, shako covers or cloaks different colors and your done.

Obviously the smaller you go the better your chances of finding generic figures. Irregulars 2mm line is pretty generic.

Glenn,

WARNING: THIS MESSAGE HAS NOT BEEN PREAPPORVED BY THE METHOD AND TONE POLICE. IT SHOULD NOT BE READ WITHOUT THE PRESCENCE OF AN ADULT!

I don't know if you are trying to make a joke or restart the disagreement we had in another thread ( TMP link ) but please don't, it is in poor taste and unnecessary.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Obviously a joke and obviously not approved!

Glenn,

After the way you responded in the previous thread it is not at all obvious, I hope we can move on now.

Cheers,

The Bandit

While I know that you CAN sculpt the details at 6mm (Baccus 6mm are gorgeous and well-detailed), I question the need to do so on the table. Not like I can paint all the details, even at 15mm.

While I can't seem to find it now, I read a book (may have been online) that gave examples for what details you could identify at what ranges. IIRC, the difference between shakos and bearskins was visible at something like 1200 yards, differences between various shakos at about 600 yards, and crossbelts were visible at ~800 yards. Does anyone else remember seeing a chart or table like that?

A 28mm figure at 3 feet distance is the same size visually as a 6 foot trooper 65 yards away. A 6mm figure 3 feet away is the same size as a 6 foot trooper 270yds away, so those 6mm minis 6 feet away are the same size as a 6ft trooper 540 yards away.

So I guess you should at least have the crossbelts painted at 6mm. 3mm, though, I think the only distinction necessary is headgear. All the uniform details would be nearly invisible at 3 feet (540 yards visual distance, and 3600 yards scale distance!).

Bandit

It is now painfully obvious as to exactly what is and what is not obvious to you.

Yes, I am moving on as well. I will however try and remember to include HUMOUR POLICE in my next joke.

Why must we
ask questions these
that so depend
on temperament
no facts nor truth
to find in these
and yet we ask
as if it were
some iron clad
rule of math

Another way to ask this is: if i showed you a unit of 15mm sans flag/standard, how lose would you have to be to be able to identify it?

Some might be easy – say British line. But how about cavalry in blue coats with black hats? How close would you need to be to identify them as French, British or Prussian?

Ask the same for any scale. How close versus how big?

Glenn,

I will however try and remember to include HUMOUR POLICE in my next joke.

Are you planning to follow me from thread to thread and post what you call "obvious jokes" making poorly veiled reference to you getting mad at me in a previous thread?

Mark & Lion in the Stars,

Interesting turn on the question. I remember Bruce Quarrie quoting distances for recognizing troops and units, way shorter than Lion in the Stars cites. Applying it to figures is an interesting thought.

Doing a real-life exercise of this is a bit hard. A friend of mine happens to have visited the flattest part of Minnesota rather regularly for work. It is an open field, no vegetation with a road on each side. I *think* he said it was 1 mile across though it is possible he said it was a half mile. He says at that distance, on the flattest land in the state (which was the main reason the field was being used by his company, hence him knowing that), you could not see a single individual standing on the opposite side of the field from you with the naked eye. You could see truck parked as roughly a dot and you could identify a truck driving as a vehicle due to the dust trail. He said that this was not so much a distance problem but a distance over ground problem in that even on the flatted plane in MN, it wasn't that flat when it came to trying to see objects that far away.

A mile is ~1760 yards, a half mile is 880 yards. Thus I would say that cross belts might be visible to a guy with a good scope standing on a hill or ridge but not to me standing in a field staring across it.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Interesting idea, just use generic units so any good troops are hidden in plain sight and the opposing player cannot so easily focus all the artillery on the premium targets.

No

Mike the Mug,

Becomes an interesting "hidden unit" variation right? There is something oddly nuanced about it. You can accomplish the same thing by putting down a colored paper card to represent a body of troops and no one knows what they are until X range or condition is met but "we want to see our figures on the table" right? So an alternative method becomes placing "generic" figures on the table in generic formations until the range or condition is met and then swapping them for the "real ones"?

Could get laborious but might be a neat experiment.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Well most of the generic units would be similar, only some elite troops and lower grade landwehr or militia would need to be swapped around.

I will however try and remember to include HUMOUR POLICE in my next joke.

LOL! Probably necessary on all posts on this board unfortunately!

Glenn, responding to your epiphany of noticing the detail had been lost on your lovely 25mm Prussian Grenadiers, thus leading you down the path to micro scales, I had a similar moment, but in exactly the opposite sense.

I was engrossed in a WW2 game using 12mm figures and AFV models, using a newly introduced 12mm range when before all we had used were 6mm-1/300th models. Engrossed in the action, I suddenly noticed and focussed in on a beautifully painted vehicle and wondered whose it was, then I realised it was one of mine!

I don't say this too brag – with 1/300th all my models were definitely at the lower end of the bragging rights when it came to painting – but this model was one I could be proud of!

So what I took from that is that miniatures wargaming is about, wait for it, miniatures, as opposed to some sort of kreigspeil using maps or boardgames, and therefore the logical thing to do is to use the largest possible scale that table size and scenario will allow you to get away with!

Bandit / Mike / Sparker

Another turn on this would be to use different scale models on the same table.

I realize that it is not immediately appealing as a player will tend to collect only one scale for a particular period, but when you think about the blur and then realize that multiple scales "may" have certain visual effects resulting in behaviour and decisions that model the fog and even 'certainty' of war.

Just some musing there!

Cheers!
Beeker

I remember seeing a 25mm Naps game (somewhere at a show …) where everything was in greatcoats, only the flags changed over, to simulate not being able to identify them. Easy painting too, but looked a tad colourless.

Depends on the period. I would argue that say 1618 – 1700 even 28mm are generic apart from a few specialists and personality figures.

Depends on the period. I would argue that say 1618 – 1700 even 28mm are generic apart from a few specialists and personality figures.

Very strong point.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Hello My Very Good Friend Sparker!

Glad I could make you smile, you deserve it.

"then I realised it was one of mine!"

You see that's a real problem for me as they are generally all mine!

Your post makes we wonder though. Where would we be today if we both started in 15mm? I actually started in board games so the move to "miniatures" was in its self amazing. At the time scale was not an issue, as there really was only one scale 25mm.

Beeker: I knew a fellow who did use 25mm as his front line figures and 6mm for all the troops behind. He tried it just to try and enhance the feeling or look of depth. Not to try and mask the actual figures. His conclusion was it didn't work. You could still tell what the 6mm figures were in part by their uniforms, hats, etc. but also their flags. Young eyes can generally tell the differences in 6mm from about 5-6 feet away. The real oddity though was his terrain was all 25mm. A 6mm unit beside a 25mm house didn't fit the distance image he was trying to achieve.

So it seems to me that if anyone is thinking of using generic figures to blend in, then staying in the same scale might be the best way to go.

Best regards,

Glenn

Glenn interesting that you came to wargaming from boardgames – and that, despite your initial flirtation with the One True Scale you are so passionate about 6mil – seems a natural fit. I wonder if that is a common path for ex boardgamers to default to 6mil.

A mate at the Uni club I frequent is still an active board gamer and is happiest with 6mil…

But I guess a sample of 2 is hardly conclusive!

Hello Sparker!

Interesting observation and I think your right in that it does seem to be a common path. I will take it one step further though. I think there really are only two basic types of miniature wargamers. Those who see the figures first and the game second and those who see the game first and figures second. The FF guys have a very hard time accepting smaller scales and actually see them as an abomination. The GF guys don't have a clue why the FF guys are even trying to game with such big figures.

Best regards,

Glenn

Agree with FF/GF separation..
but having FF, I cannot accept bigger scales than 18mm.

Yes, I think your right the FF guys do seem to lock themselves into a scale. At least more so then the GF guys do.

It is a good thing to accept these basic differences in aesthetics/opinion, instead of religiously trying to conform others to one idea of the true wargame. Ithink the FF/GF explanation should b a stickie.

With my painting, or my nephew's, you'd have to go less than 15mm. With number 2 son, 28mm is close to generic. Number 1 son…28mm would remain generic if it weren't for 'national' colours and pre-printed flags!

Yes I think you're onto something there Glenn – and I'd have to admit to being a complete FF er! Hence my addiction to 28mm!

Yes, I think your right the FF guys do seem to lock themselves into a scale. At least more so then the GF guys do.

I think I'd pretty much fall into the Figures First description, but aren't all gamers who use minis here for the spectacle of the game?

I mean, if we don't care about the spectacle at all, then cardboard counters will let us get on with the game!

I admit that I prefer figure ratios close to 1:1 (my colonial gaming is ~1:10 if you're talking paper strengths, more like 1:5 if you're talking field strengths), which is why I'm looking at 3mm. After all, I can lay out something very close to field strengths in 3mm and take up as much space as 15mm big battalions!

Yes, no question (I think), we are all in it for the spectacle.

I read an article in a magazine probably 25 years ago in which it was argued that by choosing figures in greatcoats and shako covers they would do for any army.

This seemed to me to be missing the point of Napoleonics.

One picture are better than thousand words..

boki.ee/Military_Uniforms/Uniforms_0017/Military.htm