"Why has "true 25mm" scale been thrown under the bus?" Topic

In my mind, "true 25mm" is the ideal scale for TSATF gaming. That is probably because I started with Ral Partha and Minifigs. And what you start with is the True Scale.

Anyway, at one time we had a veritable plethora of Ral Partha compatible ranges, including Hinchliffe, Falcon, Frontier, Pass of the North, Iron Brigade, Armoury, etc. And a few more I can't remember.
Now, half of these or more areout of production, the molds are owned by people who have no intention of putting them back in production, etc.

All the new figures in "not 15mm but not 40mm either" scale are Heroic 28mm. That annoys me, since my friend Jim and I have invested in literally thousands of our old things. we don't get any New Figures, since Perry and Crusader etc only make behemoths that tower over our brave lads.

Occasionally, some old stuff shows up at flea markets or "a" new figure gets commissioned. But no new ranges in obscure periods.

I dare say that this deserves a very large "Harrrrrumph!"
YouTube link

BTW, I do not care if YOU prefer 28mm.
This is MY rant, and your wishes are irrelevant!

Perhaps if you got your abacus out and gave us a more exact tally on the "literally thousands" you would generate more sympathy.

So if you have literally thousands, what is the problem?

There is a thriving secondhand market in proper 25mm figures as the new market is dominated by 28/30/32mm behemoths.

One of my pals has accumulated hundreds and hundreds of second hand figures.

Sadly it is the preserve of us old fogies.

The Perrys and other lack the skill to scult a 25mm figurewith the detail of something the size of 40mm.

there I've said it.

Just wait John, with scale creep 15mm will be 25mm if we can live long enough.

Someone please hire Tom Meier to make more colonials. There problem solved.
I would do it myself if I were more financially sound.

Have you tried 1st Corps, many of the ranges are 25mm.

luckily for me 15mm have stayed 15mm for 3 decades. (eyes rolling).

For heaven's sake. It's old school to mix Airfix 20mm plastics with Willie's 30mm leads, because nothing else was available. Mix 1/100 Roskopf ('German HO') vehicles with 1/72 Hasegawa kits, soft plastic Giant brand piracies from Hong Kong and horse-drawn limbers scavanged from Airfix ACW cannon.

No school could possibly be older.

What about these link

The Colonial Range from Ral Partha are still available from Dale Kemper.

I find it interesting that folks jump on OFM becuase he didn't state thousands of what and that he does have thousands. Have thousands doesn't mean he has everything he needs to complete his units or have the units he wants. This is a hobby of excess. Who doesn't have thousands or whatever?

I as well miss true 25mm figs since those are what I first painted under my father's tutelage. He bought me a pack of Hinchliffe British Napoleonic Infantry and taught me how to paint miniatures. My ancient's and fantasy armies are all true 25mm.

True 25mm forever!

John

I assume the answers are same as when you brought this up 18 months ago…..

TMP link

Easier to sculpt and easier to paint.

It might be because some makers want you to buy only their products so make up a new size? Could be they cannot measure very well? Could be they don't care?

I expect most makers will just roll over and go with the flow. Overnight the makers of 25mm did suddenly find that their figures were 28mm…a miracle?

martin

I also hate to see old favorite ranges disappear.

It's a little sad that even though the molds might be out there somewhere, ranges like 25mm Der Kriegspieler Continentals or 15mm Yucca WWII figures will never again see the light of day.

At the last Millennium Con flea market in Round Rock, Texas, I had to exercise some self-control. Two guys were selling some old 25mm S Range Minifigs Napoleonic French infantry. The figures looked great, and still had a panache that was all their own. Unfortunately, I knew that if I bought them, I'd never be able to complete even a small French army or any of their opponents. So I had to pass.

I can still get 25 mm Minifigs. The ranges are fairly complete with artillery and wagons that fit the scale. I think the detail is fairly light which makes painting them straight forward. I don't see a problem.

Threads like this are a reminder that I must not let my old miniature collections own me, but rather, I must go with the flow as the hobby evolves. If 35mm is the new standard 20 years from now, then 35mm is what I must be collecting at that point in time.

At the same time, threads like this are a source of angst to me because I know my miniature collections ARE going to own me. They already do, and I'm still young.

I suppose one solution is to go for small, self-contained projects. Spend a year or two building and painting one project, finish that to a state where it's essentially "complete" (remembering that you must keep it self-contained and limited in scope), then move on to the next thing, knowing the finished project is now ready to game with for the rest of your life. Sure, ten years down the line it may be too late to find some Incas that are compatible with those 28mm Conquistadors you had painted for your "Fall of the Aztecs" skirmish project, but as a consolation, you now get to paint 10mm Middle Imperial Romans and Palmyrans for that "Zenobia's Folly" project you'd always been wanting to do. I actually think that miniature gamers (and manufacturers) in general seem to be increasingly catching onto this idea, perhaps as a reaction to a crystallising insight that old miniatures often do not mix easily with new ones. We're seeing more and more "boutique games", miniature-board game hybrids and self-contained ranges like those from Copplestone Castings and Eureka Miniatures. Maybe that's where the hobby is going to be 20 years from now, with the old-school fogeys being those who don't subscribe to the vision of the wargaming hobby as hundreds of insular boutique game projects and rather aim to own giant ever-growing internally compatible collections of figures from dozens of manufacturers.

Maybe, anyway. Or maybe someone reading this post 20 years from now will have a good laugh. They're welcome to it.

When will we start calling 28mm figures what they really are: 30mm?

When will we start calling 28mm figures what they really are: 30mm?

You radical rabblerouser.

..or it could be the return to the real, historically rooted, and original scale of 30mm ? I compared several lines of old Hinchliffe, Stadden, Scruby, SAE, Erickson, and classic 30 mm flats to today's big 28s and, whaddya know, they are nearly a perfect match.

Perhaps the nearly perfect fit of scale, detail, and suitability to the 4-6 foot by 8-12 foot table that the 30s provided , in essence, re-asserted itself and drove out the parvenus with their undersized, Johnny-come-lately 25s? Could this be a higher Justice and/ or a very strong evolutionary force demanding a return to the 30 mm figure?

You could call it the Featherstone Effect, or Scrubinian Motion.

Rhoderic III makes a good point about self-contained projects. After struggling for years with never seeming to get projects finished, I made the decision to build "games" rather than "collections." The latter are open-ended and, by definition, never finished. So now, for example, I'm finishing up the last few items on a 1,200 figure Brandy Station ACW cavalry game. I started on it last September and it will be done by next month. My completed projects include a Battle of Raphia Classical Ancients game, Agincourt for the Hundred Years War, Guilford Courthouse for my AWI game, and Midway for WWII. My next project will be a "Lace Wars" game of the Battle of Mollwitz (War of the Austrian Succession). I'm starting with a basic painted army I bought from a friend, and finishing it out mostly with some I'm painting myself and a few odds and ends from Ebay. It will take about 2-3 months to finish out. These are self-contained games in which there is a set order of battle, rules, basing system, etc. Once finished, they are kept in boxes, along with the needed terrain, and ready to get out with very little preparation for a quick solo game at home, or a trip to the shop for a game with my wargaming friends. This is not to say that I can't use parts of a game for smaller, pick-up games (although most of them are fairly small to begin with). But it does save time and I tend to play with them more. Best of all, I'm able to actually get projects completed, which is very satisfying, and when one is finished, I'm ready to start on another and don't have to worry if the next will use a different figure scale, basing system, rules system, &c. Since most are finished in a 6-12 month period, there is not the problem of figure manufacturers going out of production.

I made the decision to build "games" rather than "collections."

This is a very good way of putting it. A well-condensed rephrasing of what I was rambling on about.

Thats what I do too.

Knowing what "enough" means helps too.

I'd venture the view that while 25mm may have fallen by the side of the road, the scale creep seems to have stalled in most cases, with perhaps the most glaring exception being the fantasy genre. Most cases of recent scale creep tend to be straight jumps into 1/48th. I do remember that some ranges of the larger 30mm+ didn't go too well in recent years.

I attribute the whole 28mm+ craze to factors such as fantasy taking a preponderant role in miniature sculpting and people wanted to cram more skullz onto their models. The search for a certain level of exclusivity by making figures larger and incompatible with others and the limitations some early companies faced in making their masters and had to scale up to give their minis more human proportions rather than look like an obese hobbit.

I even noticed a reverse trend such as the Perry WWII range being distinctively smaller than earlier models.

I think that the answer to you question is easy, John: consumer demand. There are not enough consumers of "true 25mm" to justify a new range or to comission new figures for existing ranges.

Kickstarter can be your friend, though. Maybe you can try to find some company willing to start a Kickstarter campaign to finance a range…

Warrior miniatures and Parkfield still have decent 25mm ranges. Many of Irregulars figures are 25mm's simply re-badged as 28mm.

link

Agree with most of the above – why don't they call 28mm 30mm? Though most of them are bigger than 30mm?

With regard to Irregular; most (though not all) of the ranges were re-sculpted when the whole "28mm" thing started but Mr Kay took the unorthodox position that if you call your figures "28mm" that's how tall they should be.Therefore the figures are 28mm tall from sole of foot to top of head rather than the 32/35mm you get from other manufacturers…

I have a bunch of 25mm Naps that I am looking to unload. is anyone interested?

Mr Kay took the unorthodox position that if you call your figures "28mm" that's how tall they should be.

Hardly "unorthodox".
This all started with the highly flawed and illogical "Barrett" scale in the Courier.
When we say that Rob Gronkowski is 6'7" tall, do we measure to his eyes or the top of his head?
The whole concept of "to the eyeball" is as logical as "from the kneecap to the tip of the nose".

In my mind, "true 25mm" is the ideal scale for TSATF gaming.

I don't understand the rant. How does the presence of 28mm figures ruin your enjoyment of TSATF? Or any other game? Enjoy your 25mm figures.

This all started with the highly flawed and illogical "Barrett" scale in the Courier.
When we say that Rob Gronkowski is 6'7" tall, do we measure to his eyes or the top of his head?

Dumb analogy. Gronk is not an immobile figurine and sometimes takes his helmet off. Measuring to the perceived top of the head in wargames figures is more arbitrary due to the variety of obscuring head gear worn. Is this really a problem?

What does perceived limitations of the Barrett scale have to do with your rant anyway?

I assume the answers are same as when you brought this up 18 months ago…..

LOL!

You have to admit its a nice rant never the less. Rants by their very nature do not have to follow any logic. Not even their own.

In the final analysis, is it the companies compromising with the skill of sculptors, or pandering to the painters needing ever larger canvases?

Doug

I, too, have the majority of my colonial collection in true 25mm figures. I tried selling four well painted Ral Partha Zulu War twenty figure units on eBay last week for $2.50 USD per figure and didn't get one bid. So it looks like the consumers are voting with their wallets.

The bus was 1:18 scale, so it passed over your 25s without mussing their hair.

I am having a similar dilemma with 28mm stuff.

I prefer 28mm to the eye, because of different hat sizes.

I'm another that wonders why manufactorers can't call their figures 30mm if they actually are 30mm (or 35mm)? Are they afraid nobody will buy them?

Seems like a variant on the age old complaint of why can't someone make the specific figures I'm looking for.

Instead of the figure description in this case it is a scale.

Like a couple of the responders above I tend to buy and build based on battles. I always do both sides so I am not reliant upon an opponent having their own army. I also tend to buy things when I see them so that if they go out of production I don't miss out on them.

My problem is that my "project"/"battle"/game requires thousands of Pathans (1897 NWF)…

And I'm doing a lot of other stuff in 15mm to allow for terrain recycling.

No real issues with mixing different height miniatures if they are about the same bulk. Humans come in all kinds of sizes, but the jacked up 28mm figures are nearly always heavy stocky figures that don't match well with their slightly shorter 25mm cousins.

Not just taller, but really overfed.
Dan

"…but really overfed…"

Cannibals in jungle say, "Yum."

Couldn't resist…

I have always found that style was the bigger issue for mixing than "scale" in the 28mm+/- neighbourhood. Even within the same named "scale", manufacturer to manufacturer and line to line, they are usually off by a mm or two anyway. Also, mixing only two lines together tends to make it easier to separate them in your mind, which I think, adds to the disunity. With three or four different sizes of figure together, it just looks like people, who are different sizes and shapes.

The main obstacle to mixing brands isn't so much figure size as incompatibility in the depiction of the same weapon type. Rarely do two manufacturers depict a particular model of rifle similarly enough that the difference isn't noticeable.

Agreed. I mostly play irregular armies, scifi, fantasy, pulp, and historicals just about ending at the introduction of the Martini-Henry rifle, so weapon inconsistency isn't as big a deal on my table.

I also do a lot of conversions, so I can arm up a force of different bodies from different manufacturers with identical weapons.

Pith helmets are another thing I've noticed can vary a lot between manufacturers. Like rifles, they draw the eye and make variations in size and shape very glaring.

+ 2 to Black Hat

15mm is already hitting 20mm. In a few years, they will be 25mm.

:)

While we are at it we may as well complain about the bulk of the figures. There are, and were, lots of figures in any height which are incompatible because the are too fat or too skinny.

I seem to recall that the measuring from the heal to the level of the eyes predates the Courier by a wide margin, perhaps even by decades. I will have to go back to my ancient roots but it was done specifically because the wide range of hats made anything else really difficult to sort out. It isn't illogical it is actually a very logical way to measure figure height

I think "scale creep" is an attempt by figure manufacturers to keep you coming to them for figures. I've seen enough figure compatibility questions on these boards to think it works to a certain extent. Unfortunate for painters because your figures become obsolete either when you run out of new units to paint from that line, the line goes out of production or your friends start buying a different size of the same scale. I've been painting 15mm Napoleonics since 1978 or so and have everything from Minifigs stick figures to recent old glory, 3rd gen Minifigs and other companies. I just can't bring myself to paint the same unit over again when I already have it.