"How Badly Does Scale Creep Bother You?" Topic

It hardly bothers me at all.
In one game I had RAFM and Redoubt FIW Indians on the table together.
There's the key. "On the table". Not held in front of my nose to sniff and be outraged. On the table, where the huge difference in size was barely noticeable.
"Close enough" is my guide.

Agreed--not an issue for me. Besides, the older I get, the more agreeable slightly larger figures are to paint--particularly faces.

Big issue. Most of my colonials are RalPartha and I would really love to add more Zulus.

Why should scale creep bother us? A giant and a dwarf are technically in the same scale, are they not?

BattleTech. Nominally 1/285. The new Iron Wind infantry are well over 10mm, some are pushing 18mm.

That's a whole different and well established scale, and then another one beyond that!!!! Meanwhile, the Mechs apparantly have been shrunk in the wash, because they're not made at the larger scales.

I do enjoy having figures from different manufacturers that might be a bit different heights, but I do not want armies full of dwarfs and giants.

I'm glad for the people who do enjoy having miniature armies full of dwarfs and giants; this is the golden age for them!

I don't mind a little difference in size, as long as the gear looks about the same size. But when I've got guys wo heads shorter than other guys, armed with rifles half the size of the ones on the big guys, it's like that episode of South Park where the guy is buying a rifle and the gun store owner asks if he wants it in a bigger size. When figures are obviously different scales (not sizes) by looking at their gear, it's a problem for me. A big problem.

For me, it's an interoperability and a planned obsolescence problem. I don't much care that Baccus and H&R make two seriously different scales and both insist they're 6mm--except that they can't possibly be used on the same table. How often do we see some post on TMP asking what castings can be used with each other? At that point, "scale" has ceased to have meaning.

And of course obsolescence. I have a small (both meanings) West End Games Star Wars contingent. I can't possibly buy more of them or supplement them with new items. I can only start over, and given how the Star Wars people operate, how long would I have before I was back in the same hole?

The main problem is as above, when suddenly you have units that appear to be double the size of the opposition.

I am bothered with WW2 figures. Rifles should be the same size even if soldiers vary in height.

But when it comes to Ancients, I deliberately mix a few old 25s (closer to 20mm) and 28s (closer to 30mm, of course) in with my Minifigs/Hinchcliffe/Lamming 25s. So not very bothered there.

It doesn't bother me until I notice the size difference; then it bothers me.

You wouldn't mix your 15mm and 25mm figures together on the same table in the same game, would you?

As I have noted previously – when my Xyston psiloi are a head taller than the Xyston hoplites they are supposed to be screening (and the hoplites are big 15s to begin with) – it matters a lot.

As noted above when the miniatures from one manufacturer are drastically different in size it is particularly irritating.

And again as noted by others, the differences in size between humans might cover some of that scale creep, but when the same weapons are being carried and one figures weapon is half again larger it becomes ridiculous.

That and the fact that some 15/18s are bigger than my old 20mms.

As long as I have been into miniatures (late '70s) different makes of figures at the same nominal scale have been different sizes. I learned to live with it years ago.

I too have played F&IW games with Redoubt and RAFM on the same table together. Not only did I not notice the size difference, I failed to notice until halfway through the game that a number of teh Indians had not been painted only pried white and washed with burnt sienna.