"10/12mm quandry" Topic

So, is there that much difference between say Victrix 12mm and Pendraken 10mm?

I have quite a bit of 6mm and it's starting to be too small for me. I also have quite a bit of 15mm and it's hard to fit a lot of armor on a 10x8 table with 15mm without it looking like a parking lot.

Anyone have any pictures of 12/10mm armor on a larger table? Also, are there any photo comparisons of 6mm vs 12/10mm? Im afraid 12/10mm stuff isn't going to be that much smaller than 15mm

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Early WW2 armour and infantry, mix of Minifigs and Arrowhead 12 mm and Pendraken 10mm. This was on a 6 x 4 table using Blitzkrieg Commander rules.

Thanks Steamingdave…..they don't look that much different than 15mm to me.

I don't have 15mm, only 1/285 and "20mm". For me, "10/12mm" is a perfect compromise. The new Victrix stuff is nicely detailed and relatively inexpensive, but most of mine is either metal or the prepainted stuff from the likes of Cando, Takara, Trumpeter etc.

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Comparison of 6mm and 12mm T34 models

Thanks

I have both 15mm and 1/144 (12mm) tanks. The 1/44 scale stuff is notably smaller, which makes it much easier to store. I am not a big fan of 15mm armor.

1/144 is just about twice the size of 1/285 scale. A lot of "10mm" miniatures are 1/150 or 1/160 scale, so slightly smaller, but still notably bigger than 1/285 (and…. twice as big as 1/300).

I have quite a bit of Pendraken 10mm gear now, and TBH I just don't like it as much as my growing collection of 1/144 tanks and Victrix 12mm infantry. Plastic 12mm figures are generally much closer to real proportions (though many of the guns are oversized to Warhammer 40k proportions); many 10mm figures are exaggerated, chunky, and dwarfish, like shrunk-down Essex 15mm figures.

- Ix

Looking at that 12mm T-34 in the picture Steamingdave provided, it is maybe 1cm shorter in length than my M-4 PSC 15mm Sherman. It's not that much difference. I might just buy a pack of Victrix armor and compare.

10/12mm can range fron 1/160 to 1/144.

Pendraken used to be smaller than others, say 1/160, but they have re-sculpted most of their line to match up better with other manufacturers.

My understanding is Victrix is true 1/144.

Infantry is all over the place, too.

Here are some links with photos I have collected. Many of the sites are quite old now so things have definitely changed.

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Here is an honest review of Victrix 12mm vehicles that has given me pause about the range.
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A video comparison of 10mm to 12mm armor and infantry.
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There are also lots of comparisons of 10mm and 12mm armor and infantry right here on this board. Just look at some of the other message threads, like this one and this one. FlyXwire and Machinehead have done yeoman service here in support of this scale.

- Ix

I understand the complaint in the Lead Death video about "WHY A NEW SCALE?!?!?", but can't agree in the case of 1/144. 1/144 isn't a "new" scale, or an attempt by Victrix to pull a Warlord/GW maneuver and make an unusual that will trap you into their product line; it's an existing scale with many years of history. I have 20 years' collection of 1/144 planes and tanks in boxes in my gaming shed. 1/144 is a natural step in the now-ancient modeling scale lineage which centers on human figure heights in 2" (1/35), 1" (1/72), 1/2" (1/144), and 1/4" (1/285).

Because 1/144 has been around a while, and mostly as a modeling scale, a lot of the models are really nice to look at, with good proportions and good detail, and usually in styrene, which is really nice to work with.

I'm unhappy to hear the complaint about the Victrix M5 Stuart kit, but I'm glad I did. I guess I won't be buying any of those. There are so many 3D printed 1/144 AFVs available now, I've lost interest in building my fiddly plastic kits from Dragon, F-Toys, etc., and I'm unloading them NIB, unassembled.

- Ix

@ Yellow Admiral.
I agree with your comments about 1/144. Like you, I have been collecting 1/144 for about 20 years, initially the plastic pre paints but later the excellent metals from Arrowhead. I use the armour alongside Pendraken infantry and think they match up quite well. I do have a set of Victrix T34s and Russsian infantry in the " I will do these one day" pile. The infantry are nicely proportioned and won't be mixed with any other makes.

Something to consider with the Victrix line, would be its expected longevity – I bet it'll be around awhile, so diving back to order more of what you've bought before isn't going to be an issue.

As has been pointed out already, there's size differences with the scale (as with all others), but that becomes apparent mostly if mixing and matching between different manufacturers, not if you can stick largely to one line for as much as you can use to build up units.

CaptainCold, interested in what you're thinkin' with the 6mm collection being too small – (to paint now)?

I think a good, nicely-painted 6mm collection could be ripe for a unit-based remounting (to formation-like diorama/vignette-basing). (?)

Not attempting to discourage you away from 10/12mm here at all, but part of the move to this scale is to enable larger battlefields, and that's not only thinking in terms of 'battle space', but perhaps to simultaneously move up in the chain of command – to 'unit-based' gaming also. (?)

(I did this with 3mm, but because I had already sold off my sharp 6mm collection)

I guess what I'm trying to add to the discussion – is 10/12mm going to allow you to do gaming largely different from what you've done with 6mm or 15s?

Some awesome Micro basing by Gareth Beamish –

@FlyXwire

I agree 100% that 6mm allows for larger engagements and I can put up a 8x6 table to accommodate.

Painting 6mm is such a nice change of pace for me since I mainly paint 28-40mm figures in my other games.

The ONLY gripe I have with 6mm is they are kind of difficult to pick up and move around and I do not like basing my armor.

I have a decent little collection of 15mm which I use with my I Ain't Been Shot Mom games. I won't stop 15mm buying/gaming.

I'm not sure 10mm will give me the same feel or look on the table like 6mm does.

I think I'm just going to order some 3d printed tanks and put them on the table and see how it looks. I won't be out much money for a handful of them.

If I wind up going 10mm then I'll have to buy another scale of terrain which is also another hurdle.

CC – then that's going to be very risky behavior – I bet those of us in the scale already know once you touch 'em, you're hooked (like Mister Tibbles' excellent linked video above notes – they just feel so right to handle).

It'll be fun to hear your grasp on things once you get a few samples in hand. ;)

And as to other terrain one good alternative is to go with Paper Terrain paperterrain.com which has an excellent selection in 10/12mm.

I'm actually in the same quandry as captaincold69, stuck between 15mm, 6mm, and now 1/144 (12mm). I don't like to have a single period in multiple scales.

My cunning plan is to get rid of the 6mm collection and use as much of the 15mm terrain as possible for 1/144 gaming, reducing the footprint of my terrain storage. That will reduce the number of scales I have for WWII, and neatly avoids the biggest problem with multiple scales: excessive terrain storage.

6mm is undersized enough to require complete duplicates of nearly all terrain items, but 15mm and 12mm are close enough in size that most everything except buildings and fences will work for either scale. Since all my human constructions (buildings, fences, bridges, etc.) are for horse & musket or Medievals or ancients, duplication of those items for WWII gaming is inevitable anyway, so I'm not losing anything.

An unexpected synergy with this plan: base size. My horse & musket stuff is all based on 1" wide stands, so my terrain pieces are sized accordingly. The biggest 1/144 vehicles I have (IS-2, King Tiger, Elefant, etc.) are about 1" wide, and most artillery will fit inside a 1" frontage, so my plan is to use 1" frontage for 1/144 gaming as well. I tried to fit 15mm WWII units on 1" wide bases, but most vehicles and artillery are just too big, and so are most of the FOW bases (which I'm not rebasing!).

- Ix

PS: Of course, it's easy to say I'm going to sell off something, much harder to do. Collections are tough to sell if they aren't pretty and organized, so there's a lot of work to do before I even get started. There's also the internal struggle with my inner hoarder to let go of anything…

LOL YA – we've all got that lead poisoning, and plastic, and now the one coming from the finest resin blends!

I imagine one of the hobby symptoms caused by all these chemicals – "retention issues".

Another terrain item I was just reminded about: railroads.

10/12mm overlaps with the N scale model railroading world, which makes all the COTS options available to the 10/12mm gaming table in scale.

I already have N scale plug-together track I bought for 15mm ACW gaming, and a full WWII train with 3 engines, all ready to go without any painting or model building. Meanwhile, I've been working on and off for a couple years to get a 1/300 train and rails ready for gaming, and it's just kind of a nightmare of unending work and compatibility problems (the worst being: trains that don't fit on tracks, so they sit askew or wobble off – especially on curves).

Decent-looking pre-painted rolling stock and plug-together track are great boons for gaming; rails and trucks that fit perfectly together and actually roll are a delightful bonus.

- Ix

Why not just use 6mm terrain with your 10mm and 15mm stuff? Most terrain is way out of whack with the ground scale anyway, and I find subscale terrain works much better. I use 2mm terrain with 6mm stuff, and 6mm terrain with larger scales. Many 6mm buildings (yes, I'm talking about you Timecast) are vast anyway.

Terrain needs can get pretty specialized.

Martin makes a good point, between actual ground scale vs. table-size terrain and minis.

A lot still depends on a gamer's collection, and the style/manner they intend on using it, and stand-basing requirements may be a big influence on the scale of buildings that can be used.

Speaking of Timecast (and much admired btw), here's some 3mm Eastern Front building sets they make (more so as "Built Up Areas") -

I've yet to get these painted up for use, but when I received my shipment of these, my first reaction was – awesomeness! The second reaction was, hey, these could work with 6mm too, but maybe only if the vehicles aren't based, and the infantry and stands fit to some scale capacity wanted for the game scale being played.

Having placed my 3mm stands here amongst these Timecast pieces, I'm happy there's enough room, and that the low fencing will allow stand-stacking on those areas. It would be interesting to know what engineering went into the layouts of these 3mm farms and village pieces, but I would imagine they were designed for expected use with stand-mounted minis – therefore, the ample footprints of/within the pieces.

Just a bit of an interesting digression that I ended up on when discussing where to go when we wanted to move from 25mm 1:1 gaming to a smaller figure size at 1:1. At 25mm it was all too close for armor to really come into its own and I hate rules that throw reality to the wind to yet armor to work (it never worked for me). So I digress. In reality you perceive the "size" of Stuff by volume so 12 to 15mm linear change 12mm is only 80% of 15mm not really much. However at volumetric scale its 52% of 15mm. Possibly worth it depending how real your 15mm scale is. That was the problem with older 15mm sculptors, they failed to understand scale and so threw it out the window. Some 15mm stuff fitted quite well with some 25mm stuff, barmy.

However there is a difference and it is marked. One advantage of 1/144 is that generally its pretty accurate to it's scale. And 1/150 to 1/144 is not too bad and although N gauge is a bit different the variations are not those of the "15mm" brigade, so much better.

Now there is another issue (naughty really of me). Storage is hell. We invented Fold flat stuff for 25mm and then scaled it down for 1/144. It takes up virtually no space. and en-mass does not look too bad. You could paint it (spray card with acrylic paint to stop warping and then paint in acrylics), but painting is not my thing. For what its worth see these threads The buildings are close to 1/144 the semi-detached houses are more or less my house at 90% sale. Others are dreamed up but anything is possible in the world of architecture.

TMP link
TMP link

y7ou have a computer so you can design your own with a bit of practice. My stuff includes airfield pieces, bunkers, small garages and other stuff but we never published it. However you get the idea and you are not limited to whats published its just a different bit of scrach terrain building.

Now the hill terrain is not for many its Kalistra Hexon II. How expensive is dependent on how you view things. Our lot cost about the same as 2 or 3 Posh Gaming mats, or 3 decent armies so Hundreds of pounds, but folk do spend that on armies so why not on terrain?

However unlike the fold flat stuff it does take up a bit of space and personally, its best for "true scale" 15mm and below games so I may not help save space, depending on how you view terrain.

If you do buy a few models to "visualize" what they would be like, place them at say a decent Tank/Machine gun range apart based on your rules of choice (unthinkable really ther is only one choice but I am biased ;-) ). Do they look daft to you? There is no one answer, my parking lot tolerance is far less than some. The real world says 40m apart is too close, we can get 60m center to center with 1/144 moderns which generally are a bit bigger than most WW2 stuff, and it does not look Too bad, not real but livable with.

We use 1mm represents 10m (roughly 32 yards) for 1/144 and 1" to 10m for 1/72 as a yardstick.

Hope this helps.