Size Matters - Scale Creep and Pasta

OK I have to say from the outset this is a bit ranty. I also have to say there is no suggestion I could do better as a putty pusher, but this has got under my skin and I need to vent.

Why are figures getting bigger?

As a side project I've been working on some Boxer Rebellion Great Powers units. The plan is to have a go at 55 Days at Peking in 28mm as a club game using a varient on The Men Who Would Be Kings rules (TMWWBK). I already had some Old Glory Austrian Sailors. These represent the landing party from the Cruiser Zenta. Old Glory's range is several years old and a nominal 25mm, but in reality they are on the large side which means they pass easily with most "modern" 28mm .

At this point I should add OG were a bit "cute" with their Boxer range - as far as I can tell the Italian and Austrian Sailors they do are the same bodies but with a head- swap. Worse things happen at sea. The other issue is the posing - OG have gone for some very dynamic running poses, even to the point of one guy running with his rifle to his shoulder in a firing pose - very strange. And while I'm on the subject the packaging from OG is very inflexible - you get 30 in a bag, usually an Officer pose and 5 "normal" guy poses. One last minor problem is OG don't make a Skoda M93 machinegun, which the Austrians had at the Legation, but this isn't a problem as Redoubt do, and their crew, although bigger than OG, are still close enough. Anyway I have had them a while and I rather like them. I also had the mixed Naval Arty crew OG do - again mostly headswaps.

So at Vapnartak in a moment of weakness I found myself buying a bag of Pom Pom guns from OG too. The twisted logic being use the arty crew plus some suitable Matelot gunners to make a 1Prd QF which the Italians had at Peking. This has so far went smoothly, so my next thought was "if you have the gun, why not get the Italian sailors to go with it??" Here I ran into a problem. OG only sell their figures in bags of 30 (as I mentioned earlier). In TMWWBK units are generally 12 strong, and in fact the whole Italian contingent at the Legation was only 29 men meant that buying a bag of Italian Sailors was going to be wasteful, so I thought I would shop around.

I discovered 2 other manufacturers of 28mm (note that) Boxer Rebellion era Italian Sailors - A fairly old Redoubt Miniatures range, and EMP miniatures, who had recently created a range using Kickstarter and these looked quite nice, so only needing a dozen, I decided to order them from EMPs "28mm Historical" range over the weekend. EMP were damned fast and the figures arrived today. I opened the package to discover 2 had broken rifles (in transit I assume) so I got on to EMP and they happily volunteered to replace them with no quibble. All good. Then I took a look at the figures, and another problem loomed - literally. They're HUGE. Not just in relation to the admittedly "25mm" OG figures, but also in relation to just about every other figure I have.  One of them stands 37mm tall! the rest a few mm less, but all so far past 28mm foot to eye as to be useless alongside other figures. Either pasta in the late 19th Century had powers to build the physique only dreamed about by modern bodybuilders, or there is a scale creep problem.  Here's a pic to explain far more than words can.

 L-R EMP, Old Glory, Redoubt (EMP stood behind) and EMP again.

As you can see the EMP figures are literally head and shoulders taller than Redoubt and OG, and yet are nominally the same "28mm" scale. And that's before you put them on a base.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. Actually I'm not - I'm going to go to OG and buy a bag of Italians from them, even if that means spending more and getting "spares". At least they will fit with the rest of the collection. This is a shame because the EMP figures are interesting if you ignore the size problems - there are some nice poses in there (but importantly no officer - another problem with them).

Anyway - Caveat Emptor and all that, but it does wind me up that figures are getting bigger and bigger for no apparent reason. Ah Well

Current Projects - Project Creep and Abstinence

Its been a bit quiet on the blog front - mainly due to Real World stuff, but also because I have been fairly single minded in trying to get some of the lead mountain painted and ready to play, so rather than hitting the keyboard I've been using a paintbrush.

I've also decided to pair down the number of games I'm buying into for a couple of months just to allow myself time to enjoy what I already have. This has meant some "culling" and abstaining from games that I would usually be very interested in. Current abstentions being Gangs of Rome, Dreadball 2, Tanks (ok not that hard to abstain as the game is DOA around here) and Dr Who.

The "Big Project" this year is going to be Stalingrad in 28mm for Chain of Command. To that effect I have been sticking together and assembling German Pioneers from Warlord Games, plus supports. The original plan has started to expand to include at least 4 tables of themed terrain - more on that later.

The "new" project is going to be Blood Red Skies - assuming it takes of (geddit?) I think this is a no-brainer because unlike a lot of games where the rules are an excuse to sell minis or jump on a franchise these rules were developed by that Andy Chambers bloke because he thought WW2 dogfighting hadn't been done properly. They have been his pet project for years - the delay has been down to him trying to convince games manufacturers there is a market. Having tried them, I have to say I think theyre pretty darned good and am therefore getting ready for the release in April.

And the dark horse is .............. Boxer Rebellion in 28mm. I've been looking for a multi player \ Beer & Pretzels type game I can run at our local club - Hartlepool Wargames Society. I saw some "fun" games of Rourkes Drift run at Asgard Wargames at Middlesbrough and using "The Men Who Would Be Kings" rules and thought they would work well for Boxers - so I'm slowly prepping for that too.

That's about all for the mo - some pics of work in progress to follow once I get that damned Heinkel sawed up :-) 

Musings on models - production and the future

I'm busy tooling up for a Stalingrad campaign using Chain of Command in 28mm along with a couple of friends Andy, Mark & Paul. Blogs from a couple of them can be found here and here and are well worth a look.

Anyway we were exchanging progress pics and I sent this one of some of my support options currently getting painted up. Left is a Perry Miniatures Pak 38 in metal from their Afrika Korps range, centre is a Warlord Games leIG18, right is a Rubicon Models Pak 36 and lurking at the back is a Butlers Printed Models StuIG 33.

In between banter it struck me that this pic shows just how varied and diverse our supply of toys has become, and also highlights the way technology is moving forward, even for hobbyists like us. The Perry and Warlord models are "traditional" metal, mastered (I assume) by hand from plasticard, brass rod and greenstuff then converted into production models and cast in a centrifugal casting machine. That can mean mould lines, flash and warping (though mercifully both were almost free from those) They're sold in plastic blister packs with only a generic card back.  They're both very nice too, but are still being made the way we've been making wargames models for the last 50 years and if we had the talent you or I could set up with limited outgoings and do the same (though clearly not as well) from the garage. In fact the only thing that has changed about the whole process as far as I can tell since I started wargaming in the late 1970s is the packaging, which once upon a time would probably be a zip lock bag or cardboard box.

The Rubicon Pak 36 is a CAD (Computer Aided Design) model, digitally mastered which has then been converted to an injection moulded plastic kit. Detail is therefore precise and crisp. This is a big step up both in technology and scale of production. The mould needed to produce this kit is very expensive (relatively) and therefore only viable with production runs spin casters could only dream of. Injection moulding brings more detail and precision - unlike spin casting every model should be the same, and flash and mould lines are minimal. The kit is packaged "commercially" in a full coloured printed box with printed instructions. This is a quantum leap ahead of the other two, though you could reasonably argue that when viewed at the distance you would when they were on the table you would be hard pushed to tell the difference.

The Butlers StuIG is a 3d print. It's also the budget option. In all honesty the detail is ok but not great - in fact it is positively poor on the running gear particularly, and there are areas where it has failed to print such as the front tracks, but as you can see, it painted up well enough. I'm not going to harp on about 3d printing being the next big thing - I did that a few years ago when I first saw the Shapeways aircraft for Wings of War. The difference is that 3d printing is now within the reach of "Joe Wargamer" - in fact I know of at least two local chaps who have taken the plunge and got 3d printers. At the moment this is still an art or craft rather than a full on manufacturing capability, but assuming the usual laws of cost and capability continue, we will see both costs fall and quality rise on home 3d printing - then, well who knows?

I suppose I should mention prices. All the guns came in at around £12-£13 including crew (3 on the leIG, 4 on the Pak38 and 5 on the Pak 36) The StuIG was also £12. At the time I ordered it I thought it was the only model of this vehicle available in this scale but I later found out Company B do one - albeit for £30ish.