Monday, August 18, 2008

1/72: the scale of awesome?

I have an on-again, off-again relationship with miniatures in roleplaying games. On the one hand I love toys of all sorts and non-rpg minis games. On the other hand sometimes I can be one of those snobs who thinks your brain shouldn't need precisely arranged plastic dioramas to tell you whether or not Bob can attack the goblin king this round. Before the rise of prepainted plastic I also stayed out minis because I suck at painting them. Over the years I've gotten better, but I still pretty much suck.

But I still have a couple of dream RPG projects that involve miniatures. One of them is a combined Chainmail/D&D campaign with knights and landsknechtes and purple dragons and all that jazz. But 28mm metal for armies of figures can get pricey, especially when on any given day I might not be into figures.

Thanks to a tip on ODD74, I'm looking at 1/72 scale plastic as a solution. By my eye 1/72 is roughly equivalent to the 25mm of old, before Citadel started putting horse steroids in the tin/lead mixture. And it's cheap. 35 Orcs or Goblins can run you 10 bucks. You can even get the humanoids in green plastic, allowing you to skimp on painting if you're not too picky. Several companies offer medieval lines, making knights and archers and poor saps with spears easy to acquire. You can even get Swiss from at least three different sources.

Michigan Toy Soldier looks the the number one place to look for this stuff. They carry a huge array of manufacturers, including Caesar, who make the goblins I mentioned and a few other fantasy sets. Click here and scroll to the bottom to check out the Caesar fantasy stuff. I like the Caesar sculpts a lot. Heck, their goblins look a lot like the way I've always drawn the little buggers. The one thing that gets me about the Caesar figures is their Adventurers set. Dig it:


First of all, that troll is friggin' awesome. My beef here is the lack of a beardy wizard with a pointy hat. Why no Gandalf type? It boggles the mind. But again, 1/72 plastic should work well with smaller/older 25mm metal or perhaps recent/taller 20mm. There are lots of Merlins available in those scales.

I'm thinking my Andorian-style hobgoblins could be done up as palette-swapped Romans, as you can get lots of Centurions in 1/72.

11 comments:

  1. Hey, that is helpful! I recently went to a local shop that still caters to the hobby, hoping that the price for those little figures went down. Sadly, they haven't. The problem is that you don't need them for little battles, everybody can keep track of things in their head, thus you need LOTS of figures, and I'm such an anal bugger that if my prep sheet says that it is a troll, then by god it has got to look like one!

    My next campaign will be on a much grander scale that what I am use to running, and I was considering just printing off pog markers, but this website could get me to change my tune!

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  2. The lack of a Gandalfesque wizard is particularly odd when you look at the packaging for that set: http://www.modelhobbies.co.uk/shop/caesar-miniatures-adventurers-p-11812.html

    Love the troll, though, very much in line with the "long-eared" variety of "Tunnels & Trolls."

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  3. Anonymous4:59 AM

    Love these. I'm a big fan of 1/72 scale too. Pricewise they're a bargain compared to D&D minis AND you know what you're getting too.

    I picked up a pack of Persian Infantry a few weeks back that I'm in the process of painting. Much fun, and very therapeutic too. 42 of them for £4. Lovely stuff.

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  4. If you are interested in specific DnD pre-painted plastic figures, THEN give gamerocket a Google as they sell individual minis.

    Back in the day when I played WarHammer
    (before I became disgusted with the rules lawyers and ever changing splat books),
    I used to only custom paint my command, musician and characters.

    The rest of the army I would spray paint two tone –
    Half the miniatures one color and half the other color
    (i.e., red & black for chaos, green and black for orcs, silver and blue for elves, etc)
    and they look awesome.

    I was later informed that official rules required four colors on each miniature to participate in Warhammer tournaments; whatever . . .

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  5. Though Michigan Toy Soldiers doesn't stock them, one of the lines, Zvezda, did make fantasy miniatures for their medieval line. Looking online they're out of print, however.

    Still, they had these cool Roman Legionaries skeletons for armies of the dead and orcs. You might be able to eBay them or something.

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  6. That's funny; I just this weekend got the three sets I was missing (Orcs, Gobllins and Elves).

    My Adventurers set DID include the pointy-hat wizard (there may even have been two; I don't remember but I'll check tonight. If there are, I might be able to send the extra one to you.)

    I'm actually finally getting ready to paint them. I primed the Skeletons last night, and figure to put in an hour or two behind the brush tonight.

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  7. will, did your adventurers set come with that big gronk? The Michigan sites says you get figures in 12 poses.

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  8. Oh, yeah, he's in there. Otherwise, they would have had to sell that pack for about half price; the "soldier" types all come with 35+ and this one came with (I think) around 18 Adventurers.

    Plus the big gronk. And he is big. The pictures do not lie.

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  9. I am a wargamer. I love minis. I also am cheap. You sir, have just given me a site selling at INSANELY GOOD PRICES everything I could ever want to play Field of Glory. And I thought 48 figures for 30 bucks was good!

    No, I was wrong. Now if only I had money to spend on it right now.

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  10. Anonymous5:02 AM

    4 random figures (including Gandalf style wizard), 2 in each box indeed.

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  11. Anonymous6:56 AM

    Please, go to
    http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Features.aspx

    "Caesar Fantasy Figures"

    and look

    Gandalf and Legolas - is the bonus figures

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