"Best figures by country?" Topic

By country, where are the best figures coming from today?

There may have been a time when the US was dominant but I think England was a serious competitor then and far ahead now.

What triggered this is seeing news announcements for stuff I'd love to acquire only to find it's a British company. in fact, the holes in my collection are all figures from England.

Define "best" however you want.

Have we done this recently?

I've only been wargaming for fifty years but I don't think I have a single American made figure in my collections.

The vast majority will be British made but a few of the plastics will no doubt have been cast in China somewhere.

Minifigs were the best 50 years ago, Dixon are pretty good now, Pendraken are brilliant. Perry and Gripping Beast are good for plastic.

Old Glory are good, especially Blue Moon and second Edition!

Difficult to beat the Perrys, Paul Hicks and Tony Barton though.

I think you need to break it down by genre. I think the best fantasy figures (non-army at least) are coming out of the US and not the UK.

Tony Barton and the Perrys… England wins IMHO. AB are the best sculpted figures of all to me, with good proportion and very natural and often nicely considered poses with scale length weapons, oh and beautifully produced. The Perrys are very creative and although I prefer AB sculpting style as it's much nicer to paint the twins have done so, so much for this hobby with their tremendous output. They don't win any prizes for production quality though.

Fife & Drum are they British or American? Sculpted and produced in the UK for an American owned company – reckon I'll count them as British since the American company chose to have the created and produced here. The best produced 28/30mm historical figures.

For me GHQ and the ex UK based Raiden planes now with I-94 are my top US based companies.

But who would have thought that a great WW1/2 game that is proving popular the world over would have its genesis in Italy… Wings of War/Glory.

So overall I'll stick by my England win.

Calpe and Front Rank for the U.K.
Old Glory U.S.
Historical figs.

Grand Fenwick.

Everything else is just "not yet recycled."

Tom. Meier.

I would say Britain. Didn't we already do this poll or one very similar?

It depends. I tend to buy slightly more from UK companies than US ones, and there's been some neat stuff coming from Eastern Europe.

I think the UK wins, as the Brits have a larger number of miniature companies per capita. Quality standards are also high as well.

If you did it by county you'd find the vast majority of British wargame figure manufacturers are in the Nottinghamshire lead belt.

As others have said, it depends what you are looking for and what you want to spend. For historicals, I would agree with the UK choice (though Old Glory/Blue Moon are real powerhouses), but once you get into fantasy or pulp, I might give the edge to the States: Tom Meier, Bob Murch of Pulp fame, and Reaper are hard to beat in these areas; but then there is Otherworld in England. The fact is, there are many great companies in both countries and we are in the lovely position of being spoiled for choice. I'm grateful for them all!

For me, a toss-up between England and the United States. Considering the purchases I've made in the last couple years, I concede that England wins!

British : victrix, aventine, perry, calpe, warfare, front rank ect.

American: minden.

Not biased here (I am English and not Australian) a mention has to go to Eureka Miniatures in Australia….Rhodesians for example anyone?

As others have mentioned, it depends on what you are looking for, so far the division has been mainly along the lines of historicals and fantasy, but what about 15mm/20mm/28mm?

But overall, I do agree, the best location for a wide variety of figures is the UK.

I'd also define the 'by country' as where the figures are sold, rather than made or sculpted, otherwise, for example, Minden would be British (I believe the sculptor is UK based and likewise the caster, although I could be wrong. But they are sold by a US company (and a really nice guy to deal with) so are US figures.

I pondered over the same thing, Bindon. I was going to list the Trident figures available from the Miniature Service Centre as one of the great US historical offerings, but then it occurred to me that the sculptor might actually be British, come to think of it, and so didn't include them.

And then I stupidly listed Bob Murch as one of ours in spite of his actually being Canadian, so I suppose that wasn't quite right either. Ah well, I suppose he's still American in the true sense…

Considering that sculptors are often from different countries than the companies they are presently working for, I question the validity of the OP.

Indeed, since the global postal system seems to work well enough (outside Italy and war zones) I'm not sure it matters at all. I just got a parcel, here in New York, from Nic in Melbourne, featuring at least one British sculptor, and one with a Greek name whose passport I don't know ---

The US and UK seem to predominate, but there's some nice stuff from Oz and Poland too.

I think it boils down to us all being very lucky that we can buy so many nice figures from all over the world.

Depends what you're doing.

GHQ 1/285 micro-armour is from the USA and a world-beater. Their ships are superb too, though I think Langton pips them for Age of Sail.

I agree that Fife & Drum/Minden are absolute blinders in 30mm, a UK/US mélange. But I also like Black Scorpion for my cowboys and pirates, PSC for their WWII armour in plastic, I love the Perry sculpts though I agree their metals often suffer from a number of issues, Pendraken in 10mm are delightful. Some of the new Baccus ranges are real achievements in 6mm.

Fantasy & sci-fi is a whole different ball game and I agree that Tom Meier is hard to match in sheer sculptural beauty, though other ranges, often more stylised, have their own charms as well.

And these things can change from range to range. I remember the Great Northern War range being sculpted by Bill Thornhill for Musketeer Miniatures – sublime. Some of Gripping Beast's Arabs and Crusaders are magnificent. I caught a glimpse of some Adler 10 (or was it 12?)mm stuff – gorgeous. Tim above mentioned Tony Barton's 15mm Napoleonics – agreed, and if I was starting Naps in that scale, I wouldn't look anywhere else.

I also have to pay tribute to some of the 'soft' plastics available nowadays, especially those from Zvezda. I've got quite a few of their ancient Greeks and Persians – simply wonderful.

I think it's fair to say that the hobby is mature and broad enough nowadays that there's something for everyone.

Henry
MWBG

Since Italy hasn't been mentioned, I'll throw a respectful nod to both Baueda and to Legio-Heroica.

Henry is right. It depends on what you are doing. Are you into historically, men, planes or tanks? Or are you into Scifi and fantasy. Again spaceships, wargallies, mass combat or individuals? Then there is the scale consideration. 1/285, 1/300, 1/1200, 1/900. 1/4800, 1/600, 6mm, 15 mm, 25 mm, 28mm, 54mm and others. All have companies that try to cast in those scales. Next is the material used in the casting which is also a specialty of particular companies.
I have only been selling since 1983 and gaming since the 1970 s. I too preferred specific companies for what I was doing. Part one

Again castings are a matter of taste. My initial collections in the 1970s were minifig for ancients and heritage for napoleonics. Ghana for micro armor.
Of course for unusual countries you often had to use what was around like Jacobites for minor nap . Armies.
In regards to stocking for my store, I have stocked dozens of companies at one time or another.
Minifig, AIM, pendrak, tin soldier back in the 80s, alfacast, testudines, mikes models, she, Essex, months, Dixon, ghq, CnC, ros-heroics, WRG, zvesda, GW, chessex, Viking forge, valiant, mirleton, Corvus belli historically, museum, ral partha, Rafm quality cast, ram, black Raven foundry, rank and file, stone mountain, musket, Vulcan forge, outpost, Venezia, goblin tooth, black tree design, navigator, gripping beast, warlord, war game factory, Portsmouth ships, empire/heritage, battlefront before flames of war, I stopped naming them due to auto correct issues but there are dozens more.

Part three, the question is too complicated for a simple answer.
The answer is different for different decades.
Micro-armor is ghq
In the seventies I was called into the division's G3 office to look at the new imports and how much great detail there was on the ancients. The maker was Mikes Models
Today, there are several companies that make super nice ancients in 15mm including Corvus belli, Essex, old glory, Xyston.
This just one scale and one era. Too complicated of a question.