"Nicest Wargaming Miniatures Range You Never Gamed In" Topic

We all have thosse ranges of figures in periods or scales we have no interest in but we find the sculpts and the available codes/packs well planned and irresistible.

What Ranges, manufacturers and scales of wargaming miniatures do you find irresistible in spite of having little interest in the period?

25mm or 28mm scale not a fan of smaller scale as my eyesight
goes

bronze age ancients
NKE Babylon Hittites Assyrian

practically all the chariot armies

SYW and AWI look intriguing as well but are too close to overlapping Napoleon Era

a lot of the Colonial Wars stuff as well I dabble in some African stuff but the Northwest Frontier is still tempting me
Plains Wars as well

28 mm Perry figures. I've painted both the AWI figures and the HYW figures, and thought both were terrific.

I'm currently painting figures from the 1898 Miniaturas Philippine range, and the are likewise amazing.

For me, quality and depth do not make a line irresistible. There has to be at least an underlying interest. It is easy to appreciate quality figures, while not having any interest in purchasing them.

I love 1/72 Napoleonics, and I even own a couple thousand painted ones. I've never gamed with them, and in fact I don't even seem to like Napoleonic miniatures games very much. Other scales of Napoleonic miniatures don't interest me in the least, not even the really nice ones like AB. I can't explain. It makes no sense.

I've always wanted to own a Landsknecht army, and recent 18mm releases by Blue Moon and the revival of the Venexia 15mm Italian Wars range are making such an army even more attractive. That said, I know almost nothing about period campaigns or tactics, I have little interest in it militarily, and I have found every Renaissance game I've ever tried to be more agony than fun.

I had no interest in ACW naval gaming until Thoroughbred 1/600 miniatures came out. They were so beautiful I had to own some, and since the mid-90s my collection of them has been growing. Oddly, I never game with them. I own a whole library of books about the ACW maritime war, I've collected every set of ACW naval rules I've ever heard of, I can think of at least 3 ACW naval games I like, and I even write scenarios and campaigns for the period. I just never get around to running ACW naval games. Very weird.

I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.

- Ix

For Jim Selzer.
Here is a NW Frontier Game where you live.
link
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We do SYW, Ancients and a lot more too.
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If interested to talk about same, PM me.
Respectfully,
Bill P.
Chronicler for General Pettygree

Foundry's Sea dogs and Swashbucklers range.

link

Medieval knights armies, especially knights on armored horses in 28mm look spectacular but I don't have the ambition to start an entirely new period at this point

I painted and collected a ton of Trojan War figures. Even Aethiopians and Amazons.
I had plans for the Foundry Bronze Age Europeans to be Achilles hillbilly Myrmidons. Sea People's up the wazoo.

I made the classic mistake of thinking that I only needed to do 200 more figures and 20 more chariots before I could do a real game. Then the bottom fell out of my interest.
For what it's worth, I rate Redoubt the best, with Foundry second. Never in a million years could Redoubt's lovely chariots fit on WRG or DBM bases. Ditto the pikemen, but that's water under the bridge.

Never gamed with them. Sold them to make mortgage and buy food.

These new Perry plastics so tempt me to do a late Medieval/early Renaissance army in full pomp – but having built a Venetian one in 15mm I balk at the painting quality it would demand of me.

Fife and Drum miniatures American Revolution range

Knuckleduster miniatures War of 1812

The 28mm Chechen War range that Empress took over. I don't collect moderns and virtually never game moderns, but those figures do look amazing.

Hydra Miniatures retro sci fi stuff
hydraminiatures.com
Just too large for me (15mm+ is too large for me)

Copplestone/North Star 1672 range. The figures are drop dead gorgeous. I've even painted some and they are amazing but like Copplestone himself I've moved on.

Perry Carlist Wars. Love the figures but have no clue about the war.

Perry ACW intervention range. Again, love the figures but I can't figure out how to use them.

In 20mm the original MLR WWII ranges esculped by Dave Alsop.

In 28mm the Republican Romans range from Aventine Miniatures.

The AB Miniatures British Paras at Arnhem are the most amazing figures and I've long coveted them.

Claymore Castings medieval range are really beautiful.

28mm perrys are good

GW 40k.

I think the miniatures are cool. especially the space marines, the imperial guard, and the tyranid.

but I have little interest in sci-fi, or GW prices, don't like the 40k rules, don't like grim-dark-never-ending-war universe.

but the figures are cool.

GW Lord of the Rings. The movies and the fantastic figures sucked me in…and I wound up neither painting or playing them. Traded or sold off almost everything. But those sculpts were gorgeous. (They were the Perrys' work, iirc.)

Lansnecht and Italian Wars figures always appeal to me, but I am not interested in that period from a gaming perspective.

Duke Siegfried's line of Aztec figures appealed to me, but I can't figure out how to make an Aztec game against Conquistadors interesting.

I did a huge amount of 6mm with GHQ tanks that are just great.

Add in Leon Adlers 6mm infantry and games look great.

But believe it or not I had the most fun painting Games Workshop Dwarves 'n Orcs.

Orc Boar riders were fun as were Black Orcs (but real problems trying to base them so they'd fit together as a group).

River Trolls came out nicely as did all the bling on the Dwarves.

Getting the layered painting effects and using washes with the GW figures taught me more about painting than anything. And the games looked amazing when all figures were on the table.

Didn't do too much gaming with them though as the figures were for my 8 yr old son, who grizzled loads every time he lost a single figure.

I stared on early hundred years war because of the fantastic Claymore castings. Even though it far harder finding good figures for that part of the war than just doing everything in Perry metal and plastic.

Front Rank medievals

Still really, really hard trying to convince myself I don't need to buy those Irish Claymore ( now Antedeluvian) and Perry Irish. I don't know anything about that period but the pull is becoming so strong….If I'm ever at a show where both are for sale I know I'll cave in.

What Ranges, manufacturers and scales of wargaming miniatures do you find irresistible in spite of having little interest in the period?

Although I have superficial interest in the period, it is highly unlikely I will ever get the chance to use figures from the Indus Miniatures range. I love their Pindari and Maratha figures, both cavalry and infantry:
link

I have 50 or 60 in my collection but none painted.

I game WWII in 15mm but I love my AB Naps, so I picked up a few AB WWII to paint recently. I will most likely never game with them though as I have way too much invested in my 15mm German's & British armies.

Well, I would have said Grenadier Productions 15mm Liberators, but it appears they do not sell them any longer?

Same thing for the range of 15mm 1790s Poles and Lithuanians that have also disappeared.

I like obscure periods but only would only go down that rabbit hole if the product lines were expansive enough to actually game some battles.

I love the Aventine Miniatures ancients and I like ancient gaming but I haavent the space to do what I'd get sucked into doing…Republican Roman, Samnites, Seleucids. I could go on and on.

I too am tempted by the Northstar 1672 range as well as the Warfare miniatures from the same period. It's a good thing the two ranges arent compatible size-wise or I might do something I would regret.

One day, the Perrys will do an odd range that I cant resist. I am surprised they never did later renaissance.

STP sculpted those Suvorov Russian figures which look amazing but fortunately for me they're in resin, and I hates resin miniatures.

Iron Dukes miniatures are amazing but I cant see myself gaming the Indian Mutiny that often.

I agree with Buckeye Daryl that a range needs to be both well sculpted AND complete to attract indulging in a niche period.

forgworld death korps of krieg

Copplestone 15mm fantasy and Perry 28mm fifteenth century are what come to mind.

That would be the Quar:
zombiesmith.com/pages/quar
WW1 style Sci-Fi.

Those are nice 15mm fantasy castings from Copplestone. But he doesnt do any orcs!?

Pendraken Ancients, Napoleonic, ACW and WW2 back in the days before I got old and hadn't collected a ton of stuff in scales larger than 10mm!

Mind you back then there probably wasn't either the quality or quantity of 10mm around and unless my inability to focus on these periods had improved it wouldn't have helped anyway!

I feel in love with the semi round "Greenwood and Ball" back in the very early 70's. Today it's "Aventine miniatures".

I have always been intrigued with 25/28mm Wild West. I've never gamed Wild West or bought any figures. But "Pards," a gunfight game with a few good guys vs a few bad guys in an American Old Western town just looks like something I'd enjoy.