"Best 28mm Fantasy minis for mass battles...." Topic

To diferentiate from the generic "who makes the best fantasy minis" poll run in January, this one is geared towards mass battles (ie. Not RPG/ adventure minis).

If you are nominating a line of miniatures a player should be able to find at least one army by that maker that offers all the needed minis for a multi weapon army that can be made into large units with multiple poses.

That said, who do you like currently. As always, "best" is subjective so just tell us who you like.

I like a good mixture of manufacturers the ones that come quickly to mind are

alternative-armies.com for their crystal elves
manticgames.com for kings-of-war
Shadowforge for Temple of light
perry-miniatures.com for humans (WoR)

But I have lots more mixed and favourites change by the hour.

x42

Oathmark for dwarves and goblins.

I try to follow Gary Gygax's 1977 1e AD&D Monster Manual sizes for Goblins, alongside my 28mm Humans. That means that my Goblins should be around 18mm tall. For these, I use Caesar's plastic 1/72 Goblins, as they fit the bill, perfectly. They also clock in at less then $0.38 USD per figure!!! They come in boxes of 48, in around 8 different poses. I supplement these with 1/72 Dark Alliance Orc Warg Riders. They're basically the same size, though the Wargs are a little small. Again, they are inexpensive, with a decent number of different poses within the set.

For mass battles, the price is a huge consideration. My Goblin army consists of more than 150 figures! If I were paying $3 USD-$6 per figure, my Goblin 'army', would be 1/4 its present size. It would be a skirmish unit, or a small war band, not an army…

I fudge size a bit, to make my army's numbers swell. I use Caesar's 1/72 scale Elves, as well, because they match the sizes specified by Gary Gygax's specified sizes, alongside 28mm Humans, as well.

It is also a fun throw-back to Gygax's days creating fantasy battles: he substituted figures of smaller scales, to represent different races. It is a joy to see wargaming as it was, back in the early 1970's, to climb, as it were, inside of Gygax's mind. Cheers!

The old Grenadier Fantasy Warriors line is still available from a couple of places (mirliton for the most complete offerings). 12 or more complete fantasy armies from Amazons to Barbarians, several flavors of Elves and much more.

Grenadier humans are still one of the best late medieval lines ever produced. Interesting take on Elves too.

TomT

The Wood Elves? Yes they are nice.

Mantic Games miniatures

Also the forth coming Oathmark miniatures from NorthStar Miniatures.

Old Glory Italian Wars and French Wars Of Religion are excellent, affordable, miniatures for Renaissance fantasy.
Especially the French Wars of Religion line. Perfect line for some of the "Oldhammer" minis.

Capt Flash, my first army for Kings of War is going to be made up of Perry's Late Medievals mixed with Warlords Landschnekt.

I still love the look of a plunderhosen wearing human army in a fantasy setting.

If you were to consider 15/18mm I's say the best is Demonworld Miniatures.

I dont have the 1/72 but as Sgt Slag said, those would be a great option also.

Just did a small mass battle yesterday, on the pingpong table using 15mm, and not sure how to do a Mass battle with 28mm unless its not so mass of a mass battle. I initially considered 28mm but the cost and space just doesn't work out.

Albus Malum, I run my 28mm fantasy mass battle games on a ping pong table, as well: 5 feet by 9 feet. It works superbly, but I use the 1992 TSR's 2e BattleSystem rules set: each figure represents 10 creatures, except for heroes, which are one-to-one figures. Giants, and other larger creatures, are also a one-to-one ratio of creatures to figures.

If I need more room, I butt up additional tables, to the ends, but this is rare.

I've played mass battles, in 28mm, with over 800 mini's on the table, so you can mix it up with large numbers of figures, on a 5' x 9' table. It actually can help speed up the game, as players won't spend hours of play time, maneuvering mini's all over the table; it's a trade-off, but it means we spend more time rolling dice than just pushing mini's around.

At my last mass battles game, a siege attack upon a city, by an army of undead, led by a Lich, the undead army commander player opted to use the siege engines alone, for three hours… His teammates sat on their hands for three hours, doing nothing… Will adjudicate siege attacks more strongly, next time. The undead army ended up losing, because they hung back too long, and were too worn down for the Lich to press the attack; a full-on attack at the walls would have been a much better game for the players -- only thing I am interested in, is providing an entertaining game for all of the players. The Lich had waited centuries to amass his army, so he wanted to achieve a total-massacre victory. When that didn't happen, I ruled he would withdraw and amass a new army to achieve a total victory -- he can wait, there is no rush, whatsoever.

The players did not like my ruling, but it was logical, and it was a nice way to drive the point home that their lead player made a serious mistake in tactics. Cheers!