"Switching to 1/72 for fantasy. " Topic

After some consideration I've decided to start using 1/72 miniatures for my fantasy gaming. This isn't a cost decision. I just hate scale creep and I'm fighting back.

I haven't painted in a long time and I'm a little rusty. But my beginning efforts are below.

Is anyone else using 1/72 out of sheer preference. I hear most people make the switch for affordability but I really like the scale. Almost as small as modern 15mm but still has plenty of room for scaling between dwarves halfling humans goblins kobolds and other differently sized fantasy races.

Thanks for any input.

With very few exceptions I have only being buying 1/72nd plastics for about 10 years – because I like them, there is so much choice, and, as Paul of Pauls Bods ( link ) keeps proving if one has the talent they paint up superbly.. .

His Airfix Elves :

There are also some great Fantasy sets out there from Caesar :

and Dark Alliance :

I'm getting more and more tempted. . .

As well as the fantasy ranges there are any number of ancients & medievals to fill out human armies.

Some are better than others. There are a lot of things for non-humans out there

I really like these sets:

Zombie pirates PDF link

More Zombie pirates PDF link

Ratmen (cough, cough, skaven cough cough) PDF link

Lizardmen PDF link

Also really old 25mm and really new 15mm can sometimes be used. Ha

I like the challenge. I've painted up several LotR units using Caesar Miniatures Elves Dwarves and what have you. Dark Alliance stuff is also quite nice!

Here is the roll of all my LotR in 20mm related posts. link

BTW, is that Revell Anglo-Saxon? He's looking good!

Yes it is! It's ultimately not a mini I plan on using but I needed to paint something just to shake the rust off.

Well, he's always there if you need an NPC !

It's true – 25mm and 15mm figures will be handy – want some Gnomes ? Well, 15mm dwarves fit the bill. Want an Ogre ? 28mm orc fits the bill.

When it comes to the Zombie Apocalypse I've gone over to 1/72. The plastic sets by Caesar and Dark Alliance and the metal figures by Elhiem decided this for me.

I now have about 120 – 130 zombies and a few dozen surviors, citizens, gangers, cops, and military.

Along with zombies, Caesar makes great terrorist (urban resistors/modern militia) and counter-terrorist (special forces worldwide/counter-terrorist police) that can be used in zombie settings.

Zombies is my second go to genre to game and I even made my own ruleset for zombie campaigns so I'll be getting either 1/72 or 15mm zombies next. Considering 15mm because there isn't the same amount of detail or scalability concerns to me with modern zombie gaming.

I do most of my gaming in 1/72 or 20mm scale. It si the right scale! Have a look on my blog to see my undead, empire, orcs and goblins and dwarves… plasticgeneral.blogspot.nl

One of the interesting things about 1/72 fantasy is that many/most of the larger monsters can be used directly from directly the 28mm collections.

And vice versa--check out the Alliance trolls--big!

To cover some of the gaps that still exist in what is available in plastic, consider Historifigs (nee Scruby)--their 25mm figures fit with the beefier plastics, while their 20mm figures fit in with the older, smaller figures.

1/72 is an interesting choice for fantasy. There are plenty of sets to choose from, even sets of non-fantasy "normal" (if you can call them that) are useful.

We have some generic bad-guy ork bowmen here who are basically old Airfix Roman archers and the green guy with the spear and the thunderthighs is from the Hat Sea Peoples set.

Some more green-skinned generic baddies. A couple more of the Hat Sea People, the figure second from the left is from a board-game called The Fellowship of the Ring, and the skinny pigailed running bad-guy is from the Esci Barbarians set.

Some of the MARS Sea People are perfect for orcs if the Dark Alliance style is too cartoonish.

Lots of great info. I am excited to get a set ready and painted

Also, the size means that a lot of the plastic D&D monsters from WOTC's old range can fit just fine.

You can often get a big box of random stuff for cheap on ebay.

Thanks 20th for the shout :-)
There´s loads of Fantasy sets;
The Basic (Classic) ones;
Orcs = Caeser 2 sets, Dark Alliance 3 sets
Orcs on Wargs = Dark Alliance 2 sets
Uruks = Dark Alliance 3 sets plus 1 mounted on wargs set
Wargs = Dark Alliance- Without Mounts 1 set
Elves = Caeser and Dark alliance 2 sets
Humans = Caeser (adventurers set)
Goblins = Caeser 1 set
Trolls = Dark Alliance. 1 set out, another 2-3 coming
Dwarves = Caeser 1 set, Dark Alliance 2 sets
Undead = Caeser 1 set (skellies etc)
Undead Warriors (ghost army ala LotR) = Dark Alliance 1 foot and 2 mounted

Then the weird and wonderfull

Cimmerians = Dark Alliance 2 sets foot 1 Mounted
Amazons = Dark Alliance 1 set foot and 1 mounted
Modern amazons = Dark Alliance 1 set foot and 1 mounted
Zombies = Dark Alliance 2 sets, caeser 2 sets, Ykreol 1 set
Zombie Pirates = Mars 2 sets
Ratmen, Lizards = Caeser
(did I Forget any?)
Add to those all the ideas above, using other sets of humans or conversions and you will be busy for a while

Oh..and you Need a Mr D. Eath ;-)

and you can create fairies and pixies :-)
link

Thanks for list,Paul. Horseflies? Haven't seen one in years. Wonder if there's a market source. They look a bit fragile for gaming though--or did you coat them with something? And yes,if that's Titania, I pity poor Oberon!

I mentioned before that I would try to find something about these guys on some of the plastic kit forums:

link

I did find one reference,but it was just a note about new products they were adding--and it was from 2009. As you can see,they carry the lines you mentioned, and prices are low. Plus they seem to have lowered the free shipping threshold to $100 USD,unless that's just a Christmas special.

My question remains: anybody here ordered from them?

Maybe I'll try asking on the front page again.

I have not ordered from SMK, but I have found similar prices on e-Bay, from the Ukraine, and Taiwan. Usually, they clock in at around $9 USD for the box of figures, and $6 USD for S/H, so around $15 USD/box, delivered. It pays to shop around for best prices.

I have quite a number of sets from both Caesar fantasy, and Dark Alliance sets. LOVE THEM! I bought four(?) sets of Caesar Goblins, for an army of 104 figures strong. I then bought several boxes of Dark Alliance Orc Warg Riders, which I am painting up as Goblins, for use as Cavalry, with my Caesar Goblin army.

These 1/72 plastic fantasy figures are an incredible value IMO. I love them! Cheers!

And I recently bought direct from Caesar his latest elves and men of the South sets – any similarity to a well known film would be purely coincidental…

Best money I have ever spent for fantasy in 1/72 – fantastic figures.

And the Uruk Hai, sorry, orcs with polearms are brilliant, enabling me to build up proper sized pike blocks of the evil guys at a sensible price.

Direct from Caeser? How´s that work? I haven´t seen any of the elves and men sets anywhere for sale.

minitoysoldier.com

Here is their website Paul. Great service and I will order from them again.

Thanks :-) I didn´t know (or I´d forgotten) they had another site. The link at PSR for Caeser goes to this
miniknight.com
edit…and if I had looked properly, they have a link to the sales site..DOH!! :-)
miniknight.com/contact.htm

Email sent Paul

What are these "men of the South" you refer to? I can not find any reference to them on the site nor elsewhere online!

@Marc. My old E-Mail doesn´t exist anymore
@Wesley. The "men of the west" are the Númenóreans shown in the First film in the battle

Ahhh. Sorry Paul. Did you manage to get any of the LotR figures?

Nope, not yet.
The old E-Mail got deleted when I changed Providers.

Those Numenorians are not listed for sale on the site. There is a set of elves that do not have a box, though.

The Númenóreans are half the set, 36 figs @ 12 poses, 6 elves, 6 Númenóreans ;-)

link

Great thread, great information! Cheers!

Just made the switch to gaming fantasy in 1/72. It is extremely cost effective! There are so many options!

There are some new savage goblins on red box alliance

These goblins?
link

Does anyone use human figs to represent the the various races such as ratmen, beastmen , halflings etc instead of the excellent Caesar/ Dark alliance sets ?

Humans into goblins
link
link
Humans into orcs
link
orcs into wildmen
link

Probably means purely human figures rather than the good idea of head swaps like Paul mentions in his excellent blog.
How about ancient Germans for beastmen ?

Gygax and his fellow gamers did this, in the late 1960's and early 1970's. There were few fantasy miniatures available at that time. At arm's length, who can see the pointy ears of an Elf, unless they are really huge ears?!?!

I am using 1/72 Dark Alliance Orc Warg Riders painted up as Goblins. Can anyone tell the difference at arm's length? NO! >;-) Even if they picked them up, and looked closely, they're about the same size as my Caesar Goblin infantry figures. No harm, no foul. The Wargs are a bit small, but I ignore that -- they look so good, that the size disparity is easily overlooked.

I used plastic Human figures as Hobgoblins. I painted their faces orange, and I painted their noses blue (open faced helmets). They work just fine. My fellow players instantly recognize them as Hobgoblins, due to their orange faces, and their starkly contrasting blue noses. Gary Gygax stated in his 1977 AD&D Monster Manual that Hobgoblins are often mistaken for Humans, at a distance, due to their discipline, armor, and arms. It is only when they come close enough to see their faces, that they are recognized as not being Humans…

Gygax listed the size of his Giants, in his 1977 AD&D Monster Manual. He based D&D upon 25mm Human figures. Doing some simple math, I discovered that with 25mm Humans, a Hill Giant figure would be 54mm tall -- the same size as Cave Men plastic toy figures. A Frost Giant, is 60mm tall, which was, and still is, a popular size for plastic Viking figures. I bought figures of Cave Men, and Vikings, and painted them up for these races. Very inexpensive, with enough detail for me. They are a blast to use in 2e BattleSystem games! I also used the Hill Giants in a full model of the the Steading of the Hill Giants, running it as a miniatures game, using 1e AD&D rules. Working to run the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, with full terrain, and 30+ Frost Giant figures, using 1e AD&D rules, as well.

I found an article in an old issue of Dragon Magazine, from the late 1970's, which recommended using different scales of Human figures to represent different fantasy races. It was the then in-vogue means of fielding fantasy armies for tabletop games.

I say, "Go for it!", aardvark99 Cheers!