I know there is a size comparison guide, but....§

[Atelier Robin]

I  looked and pondered and had almost made up my mind but am now not so sure. I got some Empress artillery to use for my 30 Years War collection and the gunners were huge. Mountains of men, bigger than my TAG, Perry and Warlord.
Might this be an anomaly. The photos on here look like pretty much perfect matches but I cannot bring myself to order more figures yet. The plan is to do the bulk with TAG and Bohemia/Horcata and fill out the occasional model with other manufacturers. Made the mistake of getting some of the rather lovely Bloody Mini's but cannot use them either. This is turning out to be rather expensive. Anyone have any more photographs showing TAG alongside other makes please.

Cheers my Dears!

[Legiox217]

Sorry to hear! I can’t exactly help at the moment, unfortunately. I do have TAG figs coming in an order, and possess plenty of Bloody, Perry, Warlord - but from Empress, only newer Paul Hicks sculpts, none from their TYW. I believe Hicks did the Empress TYW range but a while back under “Bohemian Miniatures”, so maybe as newer packs were added, a scale creep occurred ? I am just speculating based on the info from Empress TYW range page. I believe Nick Collier did most of the work on TAG REN, so I actually am curious how they size up next to Bloody, but also Empress now, as I understood the sizings to be such that TAG/Bloody/Bicorne/Renegade match up nicely (correct me if I’m wrong?), but learning that Hicks did the Empress, it makes sense to me that they wouldn’t be compatible
- however I would have thought that they would have been too small, not too large! It may have been the commissioners stylistic request ? I understand Hicks’ work is generally going to be smaller than Nick’s, in my experience, so this is news to me haha     I had been eyeing up the Empress TYW range and it appears gorgeous on the website, but I ended up going all in on Bloody for this period. I will be following this… if I get around to acquiring some empress TYW I will do a comparison.
Either way, at least the good news is that you will be hard pressed to find a bad sculpt among the lot, as both sculptors are extremely talented 

[v_lazy_dragon]

Hicks did the Empress TYW range, the ECW range is by a different hand.
TAGs TYW range is by Nick Collier BUT a lot shorter than his work for Bloody/Renegade/Bicorne. They match *stylistically*, not nessecarily size wise.
Within the TAG renissance range there is also scale creep - the Stuart English are tiny, but fit old Foundry and Perry
Their Dutch are a good size, and fit the Mike Owen Foundry Elizabethan Swashbucklers.

[Legiox217]

Hicks did the Empress TYW range, the ECW range is by a different hand.
TAGs TYW range is by Nick Collier BUT a lot shorter than his work for Bloody/Renegade/Bicorne. They match *stylistically*, not nessecarily size wise.

Thanks for confirming the Empress ECW aren't Hicks', they do look pretty good but don't have his signature - I have heard they are supplied in "bits" or have separate heads, can you comment on this? Just curious... I had heard that upon first discovering Empress when I was under the assumption they were Hicks' as well, which didn't add up of course.

So Empress TYW should match up with Perry, but appear tiny compared to Bloody? I am confused as to why Atelier's gunners would be so large. Perhaps he purchased the ECW codes, or did Hicks sculpt the TYW larger than usual? It seems it is a bit limited on what would match up with TAG, seeing as how the other ranges that are stylistically similar are too large, I don't have an answer for what would be on the smaller side in that style. Foundry does sound like a good suggestion.

[Paul Richardson]

I think you have to be very careful about generalising for two reasons. First, there seems to be significant differences in sizes within ranges, even when they are sculpted by the same person. For example, the later figures Paul Hicks sculpted for Horcata (now Empress TYW) are taller than the first release, which he also sculpted. I've noticed the same with Foundry, where some of their later releases are a bit bigger than their first figures. Secondly, I believe that figures get smaller the more often they are cast from the same mould. I bought a pack of Bicorne figures the other day and I was struck by how small they look - much smaller than I remember them being.

Foundry figures are 25mm and, in my view, don't really match TAG.

It's all such a shame for the buying public. You see really lovely figures in a range but you can't buy them because they won't match what you already have. And this is all because certain manufacturers decided long ago that they wanted their figures to match something else, so Bicorne ECW were designed to match their Napoleonics, Renegade to match Bicorne, TAG to match Perry and Bloody to match Bicorne (although there is a good reason for this last one). 

[v_lazy_dragon]

I'm afraid that I can't comment on the Empress ECW as I don't have any

By playing.with base thicknesses/boosters I mix TAG TYW Germans with Warlord, Foundry and Perry... But then I also remove the bases from Bloody and Redoubt and mix them in too so I guess I might not be too scale sensitive*
*even with booster bases Perey versus Bloody looks totally off

[Legiox217]

Secondly, I believe that figures get smaller the more often they are cast from the same mould. I bought a pack of Bicorne figures the other day and I was struck by how small they look - much smaller than I remember them being.

I was unaware of this phenomenon, but I recently opened my first Bicorne pack, and when comparing the Irish musketeer to a Bloody Miniatures, I was surprised how small it was in comparison. I had seen the online comparison shots, and knew story. But I didn’t know about this trivia at the time - that very well may be the case, because despite not knowing this bit at the time, I do distinctly remember feeling something may have been off. I’m not particularly bothered by it, as I don’t mind the metal used, and a little shrunken is still no where near the worst I’ve had recently … *shudders*

[westwaller]

Just to add to this, some of the more recently sculpted Empress Ecw miniatures (the marching ones) are a bit taller than the original loading/firing/Pike standing releases.

[Captain Blood]

Ah, the gift that keeps on giving

As I have a little (Bloody) skin in the game, I shall chip in my two pennyworth, although most of it's been said already...

1. The Empress ECW range are tall, thin figures with rather shallow surface detail. Height-wise they're a match for Bloody / Renegade / Redoubt etc. but style-wise they are very different. The foot figures in particular are stiffly posed. They're not to my taste, but I know many people like them very much, so it's just a question of whether that 'look' appeals to you. They have a very distinctive style of their own, which probably makes it tricky to mix them with figures from other manufacturers.

2. The Empress TYW range is nothing like their ECW range. Hicks sculpts, acquired from various extinct brands and assembled and expanded into a more cohesive range under Empress. Very nice figures, as you'd expect from Paul. Medium-sized I would say. A reasonable size match for TAG for the most part, although Paul and Nick (Collier) have different sculpting styles.

3. Bicorne and the diminishing size of their castings: Many people have now observed (complained) to me that Bicorne's current ECW castings - especially the rank & file shot and pike packs - are noticeably smaller than castings of the same figures from 20 years ago, when they first appeared. The likely cause of this is that over time (ownership of Bicorne has changed hands at least three times over this period) master moulds and castings have been lost / deteriorated, and new production moulds have been made up from previous production castings. Do this a couple of times, and you will end up with figures which are 10% smaller than your originals, and on which the surface detail gradually gets softer and less well defined. The current owners of Bicorne also use an extremely shiny casting alloy, which adds to the impression that the detail on these figures is not what it was.

When I started Bloody Miniatures four years ago, the explicit brief to Nick Collier (who sculpted the Renegade, Bicorne and TAG ranges) was to pitch Bloody Miniatures size and stature just between Bicorne (big) and Renegade (the biggest, apart from Redoubt). This he duly did - as you can see from the size comparison photos on the Bloody website. And yet now, Bicorne rank and file castings are noticeably more diminutive than Bloody Miniatures, to the extent that a couple of people have returned their Bloody orders claiming that the comparison photos are misleading and that they aren't compatible with Bicorne. To which I can only say that they absolutely were - by design. Which can only mean that the Bicorne figures have got smaller

Nick's sculpting for TAG is smaller by design - stylistically a very good match for Bloody Miniatures, but the figures are definitely shorter and slighter. I do use them together, by double mounting the TAG figures on two stacked washers and building the bases up a bit. This helps disguise the height difference at tabletop distance, although the TAG figures will still not have the same heft as Bloody, Renegade and (old) Bicorne.

Hope that helps 

[Legiox217]

Honestly, after doing all these comparisons and reading through the thread - and gazing at my zenithal primed figs I have on the bench; nothing really “compares” to Bloody Miniatures. These are still the best figs I have ever owned as far as I can tell, so I am just going to consider myself lucky I got into this Era after Richard set up his business.

My only further input to our gracious OP is something that I should have started with, and that is to sell everything and convert to bloody miniatures    I know you have some, so you know

[Silent Invader]

Just chiming in as a big fan of Bloody Miniatures (and Richard is a friend, though that doesn't make me biased).

One of the nicest things about the BM range is that while they are stylistically the same, just like in humans there can be small differences in height and/or heft.

I find that this provides a very human impression.... rather than a line of identically sized figures, my units comprise a mix of all sorts of humans.

I don't have many 'line up' photos but hopefully the following give an idea of the mix of characters (some are conversions).





The gunners in the following pic include whole or parts of Bicorne and Renegade.

[Captain Blood]

Awww. Thanks guys (and nice conversions Steve).
Yes, Bloody Miniatures are definitely the best as far as I'm concerned
But when it comes to wargames figures, beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. People all have different tastes, so you pays your money and makes your choice

[Paul Richardson]

One lesson I will take away from this is that it takes a lot of effort and expense to keep a range in the same condition and size as when first released. With the older ranges, I would always buy just a few figures to check what state they are in now before spending lots of money on them 

[Legiox217]

One lesson I will take away from this is that it takes a lot of effort and expense to keep a range in the same condition and size as when first released. With the older ranges, I would always buy just a few figures to check what state they are in now before spending lots of money on them

Too true. I may have ordered less from Bicorne had I seen their recent castings in person, but this was interesting to learn. And sizing aside and not to derail, but to touch on something important... I personally now (try to) put a very heavy emphasis on casting quality, and I often find myself being more impressed by the CASTING than the actual SCULPT, so seldom it seems that metal figures are cast properly these days... likely due to reasons similarly related to Bicorne's, (although the castings are technically nice enough considering, so it's less of a science issue for them since the sizing issue is now unavoidable) - they are mostly VERY old by this point (unless they've been replaced), and eventually there will be a need to make new Masters...it must be strange for people who have owned the figures for 20-30 years and received them in mint condition, to then go on to hear people complain about poor quality control, sculpts, miscasts, etc. (Unless they know their stuff of course!)
 I've had terribly cast figures that were sculpted beautifully, and mediocre sculpts that were cast crisply and would win in a side by side. I can't even begin to articulate my experience with one major company's casting quality. A big reason I'm a fan of the Bloody figs, as they are cast near flawlessly, and in the style of being very sturdy and tanky, so they come clean, and are here to stay.