Most people here who've been interested in miniatures for fantasy role playing games should know there has been a progressive evolution of the scale of such miniatures from a strict HO, 25mm scale to now more like a 30mm scale.

I must say, looking at my miniatures now, I am nostalgic of some of the old Grenadier and Ral Partha's miniatures feel, but I'm not really nostalgic of their scale. The 30mm scale actually allows for much better detail, and painting becomes that much more interesting, I think.

Looking at a thread on CM, Mistwell posted some pretty cool pics. Look at this, for instance:









Some pretty cool miniatures, there!

I think I agree with you.  I dig the greater detail afforded by most modern minis and they are far easier to paint, but they do look wonky if you care too much about scale on a battlemat or terrain.  My time and income goes to minis lasts, so I pretty much just shrug it off, but I know what you mean.

WOW,memory lane with those pics...had many of those in the day...

I have recently started to collect again,after selling all but 2 mini's of the hundreds I had. (The two I kept are a Mithril Halfling bowmen and a Mithril mounted halfling.)

My collection morphed over the years to become prdominated by the Reaper scale stuff. I like the details but the scale is to big for my taste when it comes to actual use on a matt or whatnot. Sometimes I feel that the armor weapons etc. are to over the top...kinda cartoony...and they are expensive

As I start to collect again I am focusing on the old Ral., Gren., Dun. Dwell., Thunder Mtn.& Mithril as the bulk with a few choice Reaper. It is cheaper and the old stuff has SO MUCH NOSTOLGIA for me I love it! Am allso noticing that the older stuff has a more "artistic" feel for me. Not so crisp. When mounted on a hex base they can hold their own...newer gamers love it when I bust them out for play!
cool stuff!

Quote from: winkingbishop;425166I think I agree with you.  I dig the greater detail afforded by most modern minis and they are far easier to paint, but they do look wonky if you care too much about scale on a battlemat or terrain.  My time and income goes to minis lasts, so I pretty much just shrug it off, but I know what you mean.

I'm not too picky about using both scales in the same game. If I started getting picky about scales in a game using miniatures, then I'd start getting picky about the playdough I use for the gelatinous cube, the exact size of the miniature building and so on...

I mean. You're shooting yourself in the foot as far as the props are concerned, for one thing, and for the other thing, that's really the start in most instances of taking what you see for what *is* in the game, which leads to tactical nitpicking, including and not limited to square-counting bullshit in my mind. So I have avoid getting too nitpicky about these kinds of things in the first place.

Mega Minis has several old catalogs from a variety of companies on their site as pdf downloads.  There's also the Stuff of Legends website but they really are mainly focused on early Games Workshop stuff.

For myself I like the smaller, more realistic figures.  However there is only one Tom Meir and that largely restricts the field.  And he's moved on to 1/48th.  If toy cars were 1/48 and not 1/43 I would too but I can't live with VW beetles being the size of a Stuart tank.

I have always liked the larger, chunkier scales. One of the reasons the Warhammer line originally appealed to me was the exaggerated, iconographic quality of the sculpts. The somewhat oversized heads, hands, weapons, etc. gave the sculpts more personality, and if they sacrificed realism in scale, to me that was not a big deal. It's sort of like the appeal of the Kirby or Bruce Timm style figures in comics or cartoons, I think.

I am not entirely sure of their scale as far as the actual height of the miniatures, but one of the reasons I like the Otherworld line is that it has a similar stylized/exaggerated approach to the sculpting - I think it has its roots in the miniatures being inspired by illustrations to begin with - some of the art inspiration being from quite stylized artists like Trampier. I would love it if they cut a deal with the original artists to make an Erol Otus or Russ Nicholson or Wayne Reynolds "signature" line.

I like the smaller figures. I play with a mix of metal and 1:72 plastic Airfix-style figures. The smaller 25mm figs look ok with the even smaller 1:72s, which I'm guessing are about 20mm. Terrain is easier, it's easier to eyeball 1in = 2yards/meters. You can get more distance on the table with smaller figs. 15mm would probably be my favorite scale if there were a better assortment of figures.

The nice Confrontation-level detailed figures look better painted, but I always hated being under that kind of pressure. I'm not an outstanding painter.

I play with a mix of the larger figures now. Heroic 28, 30. Heroscape figures and Clix are about 32. Close enough. And I have a nice, big table now. And lots of figs come pre-painted now. So it's not so bad.

But if I had my druthers, I still like the 15-20mm range.

I've been going through my horde of miniatures the past week or so... looking to see what I can put on the table.
These days we mostly play skirmish level stuff so I only need a handful of matching figures on the table at one time... meaning that though my minis don't all match style or scale... they've all have the potential of seeing time on the battlefield.
Most of the old Grenadier I have are monsters and demons... so they work fine anyway... maybe not as imposing as they once were, but there's nothing to say they're out of scale... and the sculpting on a lot of them still holds its own.
The Ral Partha's are the only ones that really don't fit in... great sculpts but too small. So they'll just have to play amongst themselves.

I may have to rescind my earlier comment about the narrow range of 15mm figures. This thread piqued my interest, and I've found several pretty neat ranges of 15mm figs, and several free, fun, generic rulesets for them. I haven't found one that mixes sci-fi and fantasy to the degree I'd prefer yet. But there a bunch of them.

It's nice to see a bunch of them going to figures based individually, which is key when repurposing figs for roleplaying. I may have to get some of these out on the table soon.

I've seen some 15mm WW2 miniatures at Drexoll Games when I was there, and they were dirt cheap. They tempted me for a moment, but I had no idea what to do with them at that moment, so I didn't purchase them.