"Ah the problem of scale in 28 mm" Topic

If you have been following some of my recent threads I have gone kind of gonzo for Lion Rampant as a fun rules systems and what is not cool about Knights running amok? Anyway I have set my sights on collecting figures for the 13th Century more or less using the setting of either the Baron's Wars or the Later Crusades.

I have already run a number of Lion Rampant games just using my Dark Age Vikings and Normans and those have been a blast. But I really want to do these early Middle Ages games. Anyway no problem says I. I pull out a bunch of old Citadel/GW Bretonnian Knights I have had for ages and been waiting for paint. These are the old Perry sculpts back when the Bretonnians for Warhammer looked historical. Great figures with wonderful clean detail. These would be the start of one of the factions Mounted Men at Arms. I also was painting up the Mounted Bretonnian Squires as Mounted Yeoman, again, wonderful historical looking Perry sculpts. I had ordered a bunch of the Crusader Late Crusades figures to start rounding out the first Retinue.

Now here is the problem, I have ordered and bought some Gripping Beast and Crusader mounted knights for the same period and should have realized my error going with the old Citadel figures. While the size difference for the riders is not so much an issue the GW horses are monster beasts compared to the more downsized mounts that come with Gripping Beast and Crusader. And no I am not going to pop the riders off the GW horses as I have already spent a lot of time in painting heraldic devices and such.

Sigh! I am awaiting an order of the Fireforge plastic box sets and I have seen in photo comparisons online that the Mounted Men at Arms/Knights might be more in scale with the GW mounted figures. Lesson learned and what I plan to do over time is I will slowing scale down the mounted figures in the collection with the smaller Gripping Beast/Crusader etc. The foot figures all work fine together but those GW horses are freaking mutant Clydesdale.

Conversely, Foundry horses are Shetland ponies next to most other ranges – that was a disagreeable surprise.

Hi there Peachy rex, yes I am thinking of ordering some of the Foundry foot figures from their Baron Wars line. Again those are old Citadel/GW Bretonnians that were sculpted by the Perry's in their early days. They are still great looking figures but yes the Foundry horses are way small.

I remember reading an article in WD when GW first introduced placcy horses.
Their talking head du jour hailed it as the first time wargamers had been able to buy realistically-proportioned mounts, as the cost and weight of white metal sculpts had forced manufacturers to tend towards unrealistically small 'ponies' (as he described them).

Here's an idea, though: Wargames Factory sell their 'ancient cavalry' horse sprues separately.
link
Very cheap, and certainly a closer size match than any metal mounts I know of.

OTH, 'knightly' chargers should n't be especially large anyway, certainly not cart-horse types. What we used to call (and maybe still do) a 'slab-side hunter' is much more like it.

I'm not sure about exact size comparisons but you could go with horses from Conquest or look at Perry's "Wars of the Roses" horse sprues.

Anne Curry, Andrew Ayton, Andy king, Anne Hyland have all published seriously reputable work on medieval warhorses…maybe worth checking them out.

WOW, Norman D, twelve horses in the bundle for only $6 USD usd !! Amazing value !

Remounting everyone on Perry/Fireforge is certainly an option.

Here is a trick--BTD's Helsinian line's boarded horses are a near-match for the GW Empire boarded horses, but slightly thinner at the saddle so better-accommodating non-GW riders. The Averaign horses with cloth barding are slightly smaller than Bretonnians, and a hair more noticeable as such, but still likewise work. The HYW and WOTR horses from BTD are a bit smaller still but within usability. I bought a ton in this last BTD sale to just use the horses.

Thanks for the info on those horses Norman D . Need those ancients horses for my spare Apache riders.

Does anyone know if there is someone in the UK that sells those Wargames Factory ancient horses? The postage is a bit steep ($20 plus $1.50 USD per sprue) to order them direct from the USA…

Does anyone else find the newer popular sculps like Perry extremely thin and lacking heft? Are they supposed to be lithe Victoria's secret models? Also I obtained some sample Foundry also sculpted by the Perries and found the same problem. Compared to OG and Front Rank they just seem so slender to me as to be compared to a large 20mm figure even though they seem to be actually 28mm. Now in photographs they look just great painted. But when I hold them in my hand, I don't want to try to paint those tiny details which is why I gave up 15s. Am I the only one who sees this in our newer figure ranges? Not just Perry and Foundry I'm afraid. My wargaming goes back a long time so maybe I'm just blind.

"Boarded" horses? They come in crates? ;)

Any discussion of horse sizes pushes my buttons. It is almost impossible to make horses from one manufacturer go well with those of another, because of this widely diverse opinion on what the size of a "warhorse" should be.

The notion that "now we can make horses the correct size" because plastic is cheaper than metal is silly. The first game a friend of mine laid down his GW knights, and it looked like my knights could almost ride under his horses, I knew that the scale creep thing had permanently gone south….

Great War Ace, for me it comes down to I am going to try and match the heft and look of what I have. Therefore since I have started one retinue using the 3rd generation of plastic GW horses I am looking to at least match that or in the longer term switch out with other manufactures that have smaller horses. By the way the 3rd generation I am speaking of are the ones that started with the 5th edition box set of WFB that introduced the first plastic Bretonnins with knight and archers and first run of the plastic Lizardmen. It is not the current set of mutant gargantuan hourse with the silly molded on heater shield design to make it easier for people to add heraldry tripe. The horses I am talking about have historical looking camparison barding. But yes they are big. I think they will however work with the Fireforge models if that order will ever show up.

Anyway I am trying to do for now two different retinues so that I can demo games of Lion Rampant and I may even expand to have multiple retinues to reflect different areas of the 13th Century. So at some point I will want Eastern European looking forces and perhaps some Mongols.

@ vonLoudon,the Perry 28 mm are more like true 28 mm figures. Yes they are slight but in my mind if you want figures that are historically accurate and more in proportion then Perry is the way to go and they have extensive coverage of the periods they manufacture. But yes they are not going to mix well with other manufacturer lines and that you have to know going into collecting their figures. I am collecting and using Perry's War of the Roses figures almost exclusively for games I am going to run for that period of the Later Middle Ages. I have some figures that are old Grenadier now Mirlaton(sp) minis that are WOTR and will be in a unit all their own as they are bit heftier. Interestingly enough the Crusader Miniature line of WOTR figures are an excellent match with Perry WOTR, at least as far as the infantry figures. The cavalry not so much.

@ Stonty Girl, wow that is steep and prohibitive. Sorry I do not of any UK distributor. Perhaps someone in the know will see this thread and can help out.

Great War Ace, for me it comes down to I am going to try and match the heft and look of what I have. Therefore since I have started one retinue using the 3rd generation of plastic GW horses I am looking to at least match that or in the longer term switch out with other manufactures that have smaller horses. By the way the 3rd generation I am speaking of are the ones that started with the 5th edition box set of WFB that introduced the first plastic Bretonnins with knight and archers and first run of the plastic Lizardmen. It is not the current set of mutant gargantuan hourse with the silly molded on heater shield design to make it easier for people to add heraldry tripe. The horses I am talking about have historical looking camparison barding. But yes they are big. I think they will however work with the Fireforge models if that order will ever show up.

Anyway I am trying to do for now two different retinues so that I can demo games of Lion Rampant and I may even expand to have multiple retinues to reflect different areas of the 13th Century. So at some point I will want Eastern European looking forces and perhaps some Mongols.

@ vonLoudon,the Perry 28 mm are more like true 28 mm figures. Yes they are slight but in my mind if you want figures that are historically accurate and more in proportion then Perry is the way to go and they have extensive coverage of the periods they manufacture. But yes they are not going to mix well with other manufacturer lines and that you have to know going into collecting their figures. I am collecting and using Perry's War of the Roses figures almost exclusively for games I am going to run for that period of the Later Middle Ages. I have some figures that are old Grenadier now Mirlaton(sp) minis that are WOTR and will be in a unit all their own as they are bit heftier. Interestingly enough the Crusader Miniature line of WOTR figures are an excellent match with Perry WOTR, at least as far as the infantry figures. The cavalry not so much.

@ Stonty Girl, wow that is steep and prohibitive. Sorry I do not of any UK distributor. Perhaps someone in the know will see this thread and can help out.

Thanks, Kallman I guess I am hung up on the chunkier types like Front Rank which seem to be a little out of favor. I saw an Elite miniature compared to the foundry/perry and it seemed huge. Even Eureka, which I think is a little small beats Perry in heft. But if you want great anatomy and certainly variety in AWI, Perry is an obvious choice for most people.

At one time Scarab Miniatures UK sold the Wargames Factory horse sprues separately.
Can't find them on their site any more but you might want to give Rob a call.