General compatibility of MESBG plastic with current historical kits

[Seditiosus]

Hello everyone!

For many years I was led to believe, that all the LotR-miniatures are simply too small to be of any use to a fantasy wargamer with an already full bitzbox(To be fair, I have some moria goblins and these are indeed tiny) So while I marveled at the paintjobs of some of the very people who call this forum their (partial) home, it never occurred to me, that - be it due to increased age, change in taste or the influence of the last solar eclipse - I for several years have enjoyed the more realistic proportions of what is commonly known as historical figures more and more. Following up on my recent realisation, thanks to Pattus Magnus and his beautiful ork kitbashes, that the old dogma no longer holds true, I turn to you, oh people of the limitless bitz to answer the burning question: Which of the MESBG miniatures are compatible with which kits?

Sorry, a bit unspecific and I know for some kits, this question has been posted before but I really hope that somebody here owns each and all plastic kits in the world and can make a fair judgement and in best case scenario provide some size comparison shots. I know the plastic range of the MESBG is not consistent size wise, but that does not help really to calm my nerves. Also, I believe that I read that the old kits are potentially smaller than the new ones? I'm only really interested in plastic kits, working with metal always stressed me out.

Maybe to increase the chances of informative answers and decrease the general annoyance of it being a too broad question, if somebody could comment on the compatibility of the following kits with the usual suspects (Perry, Victrix, Fireforge,WGA, Oathmark), that would be really appreciated..

• Warriors of Dale
• [Hunter Orks (Can somebody tell me, what happened here? these look really bad, like something went terribly wrong)
• Palace Guard
• Galadrim Warriors
• Corsairs of Umbar

Thank you very much! And cheers,
Seditiosus

edit: fixed the messed up list...

[Ogrob]

Not one of the kits you asked about, but I say from experience that the Dol Amroth knights are good and compatible with Perry WotR, though the Dol Amroth horses are a little smaller.

[ColonelMutumbu]

Great question, there's no standard answer to this but as a general rule the GW plastics are very finely featured and don't mix that well with plastic historicals. Things like swords and hands and many accessories can be made to work but bare heads particularly are often larger. However some are exceptions to this, I don't know this from personal experience but I believe the plastic Dale warriors are larger than most gw plastic kits, as an aside the later GW plastic tend to be marginally larger than the earlier kits. This is also variable depending on the plastic historical donor kit as well. On the larger end Victrix plastics are usually too large to match heads and bodies well(hands and weapons tend to be fine) but Perry plastics are pretty close in size(as you might expect). If you are not mixing parts on the same model mostly the variation in human size will cover the discrepancy.


The metal and fine cast models are usually significantly larger than the plastics and will fill better with most plastic historicals.


Corsairs of Umbar are of the later LOTR warrior kits are not as finely featured as the warriors of Minas Tirith. I have mixed all kinds of parts from Perry 100yrs war plastics and warlord Gauls into these sculpts and they worked well. Depending on the head the Victrix heads may also work on these though some will simply look too large. Topless Victrix bodies from the Dacians(for example) would probably also work well for reavers(I must remember to try this when I get home)


Palace guard as a hobbit kit are on the larger end as well (I have some of these). They would fit well with the Perry and maybe the warlord, as elves they tend to  have not small but, like fine head and hands so don't usually match well with human plastics other than Perry as many plastic historicals have pretty meaty hands and heads(Victrix I find tend to be an exception to this with quite fine hands for the most part).


Galadhrim are of a similar vintage to the corsairs but being elves are fairly fine so see above.


To sum up, Perry kits usually fit very well with all gw sculpts, Warlord size kits will usually fit well with later plastic gw kits and metals. Victrix you would likely only match weapons and accessories with most plastic gw kits but might get closer matches with LOTR metals. 

 

[robh]

I have been using Warlord, Victrix and Gripping Beast plastic weapons and shields to renovate broken LOTR plastics recently without any problems, from simple weapon swaps to arm replacements.

I do not think head swaps work at all though, the LOTR figures are "true proportion" whilst the GB, Victrix and Warlord are "heroic proportion" so those heads are much too large.

[Seditiosus]

thank you all for your detailed replys and shared wisdom.

I feel there is some hope here   I have previously seen the usage of morgul knights as undead in a kow undead army and it worked really well... I feel that there ought to be a online repository of these things with both fantasy wargaming and lotR being so successful, somebody should have made a lengthy blog entry and comparing those site by site. guess the for historical kits steep price and the only-gw-miniatures policy most ppl seem to have acts as quite the selective force here...

if anyone has some pictures on successful transplants of parts, would be appreciated!

[ColonelMutumbu]

If I remember I will post some later today

[Seditiosus]

guess you forgot

I would still be grateful for some comparison shots...

[Ultravanillasmurf]

A certain Joseph McCullogh is using Fireforge Almughavars  for Dol Amroth if that helps.
https://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com/2022/05/army-of-dol-amroth.html

[Seditiosus]

bit of a threadnecromancy here. I was again looking at those warriors of dale the other day and wondered, if somebody might be able to provide a useful scale comparison shot to the circulating historical plastic kits... much appreciated. my google-fu is not turning up anything useful unfortunately...