"If you were starting over, what scale?" Topic

Let's say you were starting over in building your army. What scale would you pick today?

A tough one. If I had to pick a single scale, maybe 1/72.

6mm. You need a lot of hoplites to make a credible battle.

15mm or maybe 28mm. The space for 28mm is an issue, especially for terrain. The other being cost. So I guess pretty much what I am doing now. Would not get into Micro Armor again.

I've gone for 10mm (Cromarty forge) miniatures. Gives the mass look with some good figure detail

10mm.
6mm I find too hard to paint and I don't like painting 15mm, so splitting the diffence, there we are.

I've had 25/28mm figures from the beginning. All 15mm figures were… lame.
Now, even given the price of 25/28mm, I'm still not willing to change.
I'm so locked in, I look at current 15mm figures and say, "Aren't they cute?" But they don't turn me on in the least. 🤷
I'm good.

Tough question. I would go with 28mm. Most every period is covered, they look like toy soldiers, have enough detail to paint and you can find different sculpting styles.

I have 10,15,20,25,28 and 40mm. If I had to trim down I would go with 10,28,40.

What I've always mostly used from the beginning, 1/72. But I'd never be able to paint them all if I restarted…

I'd stand by my 25mms / 28mms. Wouldn't change a thing. Just more rewarding to paint and they look so nice on the tabletop, whether as armies or in a skirmish-level action. Or even Fantasy moonlighting.

10mm for 1700-1910. Colonials 15mm or 25/28 mm. No decided of 1900s maybe 10mm or 15mm.

Kind of did once already.
I started out in 15mm and moved on to 15mm.
One thing I would do, is get rid of my huge 15mm WWII collection and go for 25mm WWII skirmish

Depends on which army.

I'm not sure there's any where I really picked the "wrong" scale, but it's slightly silly to have both 10mm and 15mm.

If making an army of say 150 or more figures, then 15mm. Big enough to see the detail and small enough to afford and carry.

A skirmish game of less than 50 figures, then 20mm/plastics.
A small skirmish game of less than 20 figures then 25mm for individual bases.

Just thoughts.
No right or wrong answers.

martin

10mm, the benefits of 6mm and 15mm (Numbers and detail)

My usual response to these sorts of questions is "15mm", but for Ancients, I really, really like my 20mm plastic armies, so I'll stick with those.

I have 2, 3, 6, 10 & 15mm armies and still add to/expand all of them time to time so don't see any good reason for going for a single scale. If I had to I suppose 10mm offers the best all round – enough detail to do a decent paint job but small enough to store in a relatively small space.

Despite the space limitations, I would still go with 28mm. The only thing better would be 40s, but they aren't common enough for group games.
There is nothing like a big group game on lots of tables with masses of big figures. Smaller scales may be more accurate representations on smaller tables, but nothing stimulates me more than the spectatular big battles.

Since I do mostly skirmish games, probably 54mm plastic.

Ancient? Stick to 28mm

Now, ACW – I would go for 10mm but with the 2000 or so 15mm I have I an NOT changing over!

Judging by the responses you really should ask this question based on a specific period. In some cases, you may need to qualify the type of game as well.

All metal and all 28mm.

A better question would have been size and period.

15mm for the cost and ease of travel.

6mm or 10mm depending on my size of battle goals for all land combat.

1/4800 for WW1&2 naval. 1/6000 for modern+ naval. 1/3000 and 1/2400 for earlier depending on what was painted already.

I have accomplished this, selling or giving away all my 28 and 15mm armies and my 1/2400 and 1/3000 WW2 and WW1 fleets. I retain only a half finished 15mm OLd West I may get back to eventually and some 1/1800 Victory at Sea stuff my friends like to play.

If I were collecting and gaming the ACW, I could see going with 15mms, cause you don't lose much of the "color" at a smaller scale. Or the Alamo, there's nice 15mm scale models sold now, so 15mm soldiers would be sensible for that, plus it would be more transportable than my 25mm behemoth and also take up less tabletop and storage space.

DeRuyter, Col Durnford, unless I'm missing something, this was only posted to Ancients Dsicussion.Which means yes, many members are answering questions the OP didn't ask. What else is new?

I don't specify what Boards are open on my front page. Also I don't particularly care which board a topic starts out in.
So, I was not aware that this was only supposed to be Ancients.
I had huge Ancients armies in just about all periods, all in 25mm. I sold them all off, and have no plans to start any of them over again in a different scale. (Or size. 🙄)

As for ancients, I would do again what I did before, 28mm for nicely detailed and painted figures arranged on diorama-esque stands, and 10mm for the mass effect

For Ancients I would go all in on Warlord Epic. I bought some so I don't know if that means I did. I still have my 28 and 15s

Oh! I didn't realize it was only for Ancients, although the way the question was asked this does make sense.

I have Ancients in 15mm Romans, Carthaginians, NKE and Hittites (DBA) and 28mm Warring States Chinese.

If 10mm of the quality available today had been a there,1990s, I might have gone with them but I'm happy with my Viking Forge figures.

As for the 28mm WS I like the John Jenkins figures and something very powerful would have to happen to make me dig further into this period and a great line of 10mms would be part of that.

From a purely practical point of view 6 or 10mm depending which size had the most comprehensive ranges for me to use. It's a no brainer given considerations of cost, storage and size of table I'd need. Having said that I love painting 28s, that's my happy place, I just don't enjoy painting smaller sized miniatures. So it's a bit of a heart or head decision that could go either way on the day of purchase 🤣

Difficult choice, I prefer playing with 15mm or massed 6/10mm.

I prefer painting 28mm, and using 28mm for convention games.

"Period" only gets you so far. As a general rule, you want to fight your way out of burning Troy or go adventuring with the Argonauts in a scale big enough that you can identify and handle individual figures. Fighting out the major battles of the Peloponnesian War with such calls for a huge table with budget to match or a higher level of representation--"he's a mora"--than most of us are happy with. Ideally, such should be fought out with the smallest figures you can readily recognize by type and army. (I've been known to cheat a little on skirmishers, painting them the same color tunics on each stand so I can tell which side they're on. Not at though I can listen for field words or accents.)

So, as I said, 6mm with 16 hoplites on a 40mm frontage for the great battles of the classical world. I don't maintain an "ancients skirmish" set as such, but if I wanted to play "escape from Troy" I'd pull castings from my 28mm Ren/Fantasy boxes.

I think the general principle holds regardless of period, though I do keep two 28mm individually-based "horse and musket" armies for small, intimate battles like Cowpens or Chippewa, and a matching 20mm set for away games.

Napoleonic 1/72 plastic

I mostly love 28mm. However I do like the Wpic stuff from warlord.

10mm.