"Is 32mm the new 28mm?" Topic

My morning rant with my coffee.. as discussed here:

link

I agree with the annoyance, its so hard to mix figures from different ranges like we used to do.

Yep

Are you writing about figures in general or just SyFy/Fantasy?

What can I say? The first time I heard this discussion, Staddens and Surens were too tall to blend with 30mm Scruby castings. That was about 1970. Sooner or later heroic 35mm will take up too much space and money, and something smaller will come in.

Right now, the historical 28mm seem to blend well enough, but the fantasy and SF castings are completely insane. What I'm trying to do is buy in "heroes" (one-offs) "teams" (5-6)"units" (about 12) and "hordes" (50-100) all at one time from one manufacturer before he resculpts or loses the license. That way the castings look right with the ones they play close to, and if my West End Games Imperial Stormtroopers aren't as much taller than the GW Gretchin as they should be--well, it still sort of works.

Now, If I could ever have gotten the Star Wars people to make 5-6 different ewoks in any one scale…

Its annoying but from a company's point of view you want people using your stuff. Especially the bigger fantasy/sci-fi companies like GW who don't want you mixing in cheaper proxies but buying their premium priced stuff one way to achieve that is to make sure your miniatures are different size to everybody else's stuff.

Red, I was talking about Sci fi and fantasy. I know scale creep is a lot less with historicals; should have clarified that.

It's gotten crazy with sci-fi and fantasy for sure. Very damn annoying.

That's where model railroading surpasses us every time

No, the price difference per casting is way too high for 32mm. Given the choice between old West at three dollars for 28 and five plus dollars for 32, my customers go for the 28. The only 32 that sale are those with captive systems and I refuse to carry them.

I agree with DisasterWargamer.
I realy hate what some manufacturers do, and don't buy those huge sculpts.

If it doesn't fit with what I already have, I don't want it.

Yep. Soon they'll be 54mm.

Dan

It is now a common practice. i think it is intended to create a new market that features only their product. Recent ones have been 25-28-32 and 15-18-19. It will probably hit an upper "wall" of scenery and model incompatibility. New sizes will succeed if the sculpting quality is better than the smaller size. the 32 mm size seems to be working with plastic digital sculpts. Many of which are very good indeed. My guess is that it will head toward 35mm in the next ten years but will stay at that size?. I think the labelled as "18mm" ranges will be re-labelled as 15/18 if 15mm makers continue to bring out good ranges and gamers do not find 18/19mm a great improvement. ?? This may change if the 18/19mm ranges are digitally sculpted.

just thoughts.

And some 15mm are approaching 20mm…

I think you're right about people going to say no if it means that their current inventory of terrain is not compatable.

Of course, new gamers with no such inventory will not mind and may push the market to larger scales.

I' m waiting for the day when someone produces 15mm that will match up with my RalPartha true 25mm.

I need Afghan regulars.

I simply won't buy the larger figures despite my consistent/constant behavior to go with what's shiny and new. 18mm for large armies and 28mm for skirmish, nothing else need apply

Some scale creep is accidental, but with the licensed ranges I suspect there are definite policy decisions to create a clear break with any previous ranges-especially if those ranges were "unofficial". They won't want you just to use their new products just to fill in your gaps..they want you starting from scratch!
I don't of course know this for certain but there does seem to be a pattern. If you've paid a lot of money for the licence you want to make the most of it.

FFG is making a break even from their own previous line, making Star Wars Legion 35mm vs their other Star Wars game, Imperial Assault, which is 30-32mm..

of course FFG are they don't want you using the miniatures from one game when they can make you to buy them all again its simple marketing it sucks but then you and I don't have to make a games company profitable.

Some scale creep is accidental, but with the licensed ranges I suspect there are definite policy decisions to create a clear break with any previous ranges-especially if those ranges were "unofficial".

IIRC, Paul Sawyer from Warlord pretty much stated that for the Dr Who licence.

Also, IIRC, the LOTR licence that GW have come with a similar set of conditions…the figures have to be realistically proportioned as opposed to the exaggerated physiognomy of the normal GW ranges.

Where are the Scale Creep Police? They need to step in and stop this.

A few might give in, despite the incompatibility with their current stuff.

But I think most of the buyers are going to be new people getting into the hobby for the first time or people that collect, paint and display unique one-of "statues" and for whom wargaming is not their primary appeal. Their pricing for simple plastic figures certainly reflects a new target audience.

Dan
PS. Wasn't there a company that tried something like that with 12mm figures just recently? I wonder how many off-size miniature producers never got their product off the ground because they didn't understand that, or thought it would be the latest craze and went under after a lot of wasted effort and expense.

I don't give these over sized figures any consideration.

Buyers do control the market. If they buy, then they will sale. Virtually all ranges of 32mm are specific to a game system.
That and the size makes them hard to resale , if you are getting out of it. You will never get your money back, imho.

A lot of figures in fantasy ranges seem to be somewhat flexible in size, just look at Reaper for instance (of which I have a couple of 1000), but you can get away with it more in Fantasy.
Historicals are a little harder, and my figures probably range from 25mm (Foundry?Minifigs) up to 30mm (Front Rank).
However I won't be getting into FFG Star Wars Legion, why chose 35mm, when their other SW stuff is 32mm (which is still a little tall for me). All of my pals have so far passed on Legion because of that 3mm scale creep – why?

If (when) the 15s reach 22 or 23mm, I can mix them in with my 20mm figures !!

When saw FF were going to go 35mm I just did what I do (or did) with GW. They stopped getting my money. GW changed its attitude to its customers as we started to kill it. GW was starting to crumble because we all hated it. Then they started to talk to there customers and fans and now they are back. If big companies do crappy things; punish them by not buying there products. If you want to stop scale creep stop buying the bigger figure.

I hope not but fear it will. I won't buy into the FFG Star Wars game simply because of the scale difference with the minis I have. Pity too because I was looking forward to the game.