"Collecting Kallistra vs other 10mm" Topic

I'm thinking of diving deeper into 10mm and I'm really attracted to the range and the sculpts of the Kallistra Hordes and Heroes minis. But I know they're incompatibly bigger than most of the rest of the 10mm manufacturers.

What are the considerations if I go all in on Kallistra and shut myself out from mixing and matching with other makers? How much if anything am I really missing out on?

Kallistra are a 12mm manufacturer. They say so on their website.

Their figure range is good.

Depends on what you want. Alas, GW's Warmaster and Battle of Five Armies lines are kaput. You can still find them on eBay and the like, but the BoFA line commands high prices (well, IMHO), and are also a little small.
Copplestone Castings offers the excellent 10mm Fantasy line, which is pretty much a not-LotR line (though not really based on anyone's concept except Copplestone's, so don't expect renditions of the films or any common artwork). This line includes stand-ins for Rohan (Saxon in feel), Gondor (Norman in feel), dwarves, orcs, half-orcs/Uruk-hai, wargs, warg-riders, trolls, Nazgul (on horse and fel-beast), and the assorted heroes and villains you'd expect. These mix very well with both of the Warmaster lines.
Magister Militum has both historical and fantasy 10mm, but I don't know how these match up.
Eureka USA has some nifty 10mm, including stand-ins for Ents, Chaos dwarves, some very wild semi-Celtic Wood Elves, and more, and they, too match up with the GW lines (though admittedly I only own their "Wood Trolls" (Ents), so scale isn't really an issue with these— how big is an Ent anyway?
I have Kallistra orcs and goblins, and they match up fine to the GW and Copplestone stuff I have, largely because "who cares how big an orc is." However, their dwarfs are too large, IMHO, as they aren't actually scaled down compared to their other troops. They look like dwarves, but they're not dwarf-sized. If you only go with Kallistra dwarves, though, that would be a "who cares" thing too. Faced up against anything else, they just become "bulky" dwarves.
It helps that Kallistra has a broad line of historical figures intended to stand-in as fantasy, as well as fantasy troops.
Now, if you're wanting to go with a Warmaster-specific army like Undead, Vampire Counts, Skaven, etc., you may be hard pressed to cover everything you'd need with Kallistra (I'm not even sure they have an Undead army— I'm not even sure anybody does right now). But if you're good with classic fantasy tropes, Kallistra should be fine, and I don't think you'd wind up missing anything.

Most of the Kallistra ranges were originally licensed from our Fantasy figures, so they match up perfectly with all of our current Fantasy ranges (including Undead!): link

Give me a shout if there's anything I can help with.

Thanks, Leon. I knew Pendraken's old fantasy line were essentially the same minis as Kallistra, but for some reason I was under the impression that Pendraken's new Warband were scaled down to match its historicals.
Knowing that I can mix and match Kallistra and Pendraken's new lines, plus tap into some of the randoms that Parcival mentioned sells it for me.
Thanks, all!

No worries!

The newer Warband ranges were a lot of conversions and then some newer sculpts to expand all of the ranges and add a lot more options. A pack of 25 figures now contains 25 different sculpts (poses, weapons, pouches, beards, cloaks, helmets,etc!) so you get maximum variety in your armies.