"Metal miniatures with human proportions (28mm+ 18C)?" Topic

I'm interested in getting into the 18th century as a gaming period. AWI? 7YW? WAS? WSS? Sure. I'm open.

What I'm really interested in though is figuring out a scale and provider that makes miniatures that have proportions like a human being. No giant heads or hands or telephone pole weapons.

So far in my poking around I've noticed some 40mm miniatures look like people. As well as some of the 30mm old school miniatures. Even some of the 42mm toy soldier figures have absolutely excellent proportions.

I tend to paint things with block colours and blacklining where one colour meets another. For example, here's an armies in plastic 1/32 mahdist:

So I'm okay if the figures don't have a lot of detail. I just want them to look like people from across the table.

Any recommendations? I'm looking for metal miniatures 28mm or larger.

Fife and Drum
PERRY

Sorry, Perry are chunky mutants like most other 28mm figures.

If you can live in the 1740s for gaming, try Crann Tara, which are more elegant than most 28mm.

7YW/AWI=Minden and Fide and drum

WAS/45 rebbelion/SYW= crann tara

Minden Austrian Grenadiers

Crann tara French

You want to look at plastic figures but they tend to be 20-25mm rather than 28. Maybe some Hinchcliffe,Connoisseur if you are looking for an old school look though their proportions can be a bit weird. The Spencer Smith AWI range might also fit the bill though 30mm…

Minden, for sure. They are 30mm ish, tall and selnder.

So I did some searching for all the things suggested so far. The Perry stuff seems just into the category of the exaggerated type of figures.

This is a metals only project for me as I've done both 1/72 and 1/32 plastics for a long time. Long enough that my earliest kits are starting to go brittle from age.

I'm also looking into the 30mm old school figures. I'm up for whatever as long as the proportions are good and the figures will be well suited to a simple block & black line painting method.

Those Minden / Fife and Drum and Cran Terra all look great. Apparently they are pretty close with the RSM95 25mm lines (or that's what image searches and searching blogs leads me to believe).

Looks like miniatures that look like people were really popular at one time. I understand why sculptors make the heads, hands and weapons huge, but I'm glad all these ranges are still available.

Fife & Drum and RSM95 from what I've seen.

Those Minden / Fife and Drum and Cran Terra all look great. Apparently they are pretty close with the RSM95 25mm lines (or that's what image searches and searching blogs leads me to believe).

Yes, the owner of Fife and drum/Minden used RSM95 figures to supplement his own army, before he decided to produce Russians for Minden.

Fife & Drum Minden and RSM 95 – great sculpts with good anatomy.

I have both Fife & Drum and RSM95 figures. They fit together very well. Although I don't have any Minden figures, both Minden and Fife & Drum were sculpted, for the most part, by the same sculptor. Plus Jim "Der Alte Fritz" is an outstanding gamer and proprietor. You can't go wrong choosing them.

Jim

Richard Ansell sculpted the Minden, Crann Tara and the Fife & Drum figure ranges, which make them all compatible. The RSM figures are a perfect match in style and size.

I would say minden as well.

Also check out our 40mm Trident Design's figures at Miniature Service Center.

I have been looking at those 40mm Trident figures. So nice!

I'm having a really hard time deciding between a bunch of big regiments all in a similar pose or doing 40mm skirmish to start and then making some regiments as I paint them up.

Start small and then grow your armies as you desire.

In the end, the amount of metal in 40mm horse is scaring me off. Volume increases geometrically while height only grows linearly, so the prices make total sense to me. I think I'm going to stick with my existing 1:32 plastics for the larger side of things.

I think I'm also settling on the Seven Year War as there's just lots of interesting stuff going on there. I got my hands on a couple of Christopher Duffy books. So I'm going to start my reading there.

Thanks everyone!

If you are interested in WSS there are few figures that are better than Ebor Figures, who also do Great Northern War figures. The Paul Hicks castings are superb and the variety of poses and units is extensive. They are very well priced as well. The WSS is a superb gaming period with world wide battle sites, well balanced opposing armies, and great uniforms and standards. There are other manufacturers that supply added variety such as Front Rank ( great cavalry) Warfare Miniatures, and Riever, but Ebor is the one you should consider first.

Front Rank is probably the poster child for non-human proportions.

Though if Front Rank sells heads separately they might be perfect for conversion options for 40mm.

The Ebor though, I can see why you'd recommend them for their proportions.

Though when i do take a closer look at Ebor, it seems like the proportions aren't consistent. Their cavalry look very chunky. As do some of their infantry packs. I wonder if there's more than one sculptor involved.

In my looking on blogs I've been seeing the occasional 40mm game pop up and that looks so good. And when Minden and Cran Tarra are $5 USD or $6 USD a cavalry model for the slight side of 28mm, maybe $12.50 USD for a huge 40mm cavalry model isn't that much of a stretch.

And if I go AWI instead of SYW, I won't really need much cavalry.

I've actually be listening to Mark Smith's excellent reading of Treasure Island on librivox (free public domain audio books read by volunteers):
link

Maybe the way forward is to abandon this idea of ranked up seven years war battalions at a given figure ratio and go for some nice Southern colonies and Caribbean skirmish in 40mm.

Though I must admit that part of me is a bit frustrated by wading into the internet-from-twenty-years-ago approach of a lot of the figure manufacturers mentioned in this thread. The precision of the descriptions and pictures of the Miniatures Service Center and Front Rank's 40mm offerings is a breath of fresh air in comparison.

If you're looking for early 18th century figures with human proportions, look at Warfare Miniatures.

Yeah, they look really good.

For SYW I agree with the Alte Fritz, RSM95 supplemented with Minden.

Front Rank 40mm AWI look very nice and I hear are a pleasure to paint.

Also, please take a look at the Front Rank WSS figures. They are beautiful figures.

Resurrecting this thread three years later. I'm curious, 1905Adventure – what range did you decide on in the end?

With regard to your mention of possibly looking at Southern colonies and Caribbean skirmish, are you aware that Crann Tara Miniatures (who are recommended by many of the above postings) do a range specifically for that theatre? See: link

Whilst I don't have any of that particular campaign of Crann Tara figures, I do have plenty of others of their figures that show off their realistic anatomy, such as these two units of French:

More info on above unit here: link

More info on above unit here: link

Are Minden SYW figures in 25mm?