20mm WW2...endangered species?

[Hang Tuah]

Just play what you want and stop making up excuses not to enjoy your hobby. Scales don't die just because some oddball that only you have heard of isn't in production.

No, they die when the number of manufacturers dwindles to less than half the number of twenty years ago, all offering more or less the same products. Your example is also a very specious one as there is a significant difference between not being able to find a specific vehicle variant and not being able to play an entire army. Equally fallacious is your characterization of my comments as a complaint, or your interpretation that I am refusing to enjoy the hobby.

[2010sunburst]

As a model maker as well as a wargamer I’m finding all this a little weird.  Gaming figures are always assumed to be ostensibly about six foot in height. 

1/76 is 4mm to the foot, so a six foot “standard” figure would be around 24mm, not 20mm as this discussion seems to imply.  I don’t think there are many 24mm ranges about…..

1/72 scale means a six foot man would be about one inch high….ie about 25mm…..….the scale that was usurped by 28mm figures….

For 20mm, the title of the thread, vehicles would need to be scaled at around three and a half millimetres to the foot, which is approximately 1/87 scale.  Vehicles in that scale are very rare. 

The real problem is that people have got used to the “look” of “Airfix” tanks against 20mm figures and do not really see the scale discrepancies.  Early Airfix kits were 1/76, no matter what the say on the box, as were Matchbox (now marketed by Revell)…..on the other hand there are a  plethora of firms making 1/72 kits, mostly Eastern European or Asian, that followed the Tamiya flag once they started to appear. 

One great exception, and possibly the best 20mm vehicle range around if you want to build 1/72 from kits, is S models.  Two kits in a box, no excessive parts count, and a fit and finish as good as anything out there.  They look good with 20mm figures as well.

Seems to me that if you used 1/72 kits with 28mm figures you would get the same appearance on the table as 20mm figures with 1/76 models though.

Scenery is relatively easy, just use HO model railway stuff against 20mm figures.  It should be close enough, and is the scale of the very old Airfix kits.  OO model railway stuff is 1/76, or 4mm to the foot, so is actually a bit big for 20mm.

As to figure availability, this expansion and contraction has always happened in the hobby.  Sooner or later someone will fill the void with a 20mm range to try and create a market.  It’s why we have so many different scales across the hobby…..

Personally I’d go with what makes you happy and not over think it…..if there isn’t much around at the moment things will change….they always do…..

[shadowbeast]

No, they die when the number of manufacturers dwindles to less than half the number of twenty years ago, all offering more or less the same products. Your example is also a very specious one as there is a significant difference between not being able to find a specific vehicle variant and not being able to play an entire army. Equally fallacious is your characterization of my comments as a complaint, or your interpretation that I am refusing to enjoy the hobby.

No, they die when there is nothing left and no-one left to consume them.

[V]

This still going?

People always seem to want 20mm to die off, I guess it's so they don't show up how naff the others are compared to them.... 

20mm has been around forever, and will carry on, lurking in the shadows as it always has done, despite 15mm and 28mm WW2 trying to turf it out... and will occasionally pop out and expose itself like some mackintosh clad flasher from the 70s, before running back into the shadow where we can be left in peace with our superior models and kits with bazillions of parts, away from the common sizes!

As this is the Internet, my disclaimer that the above isn't me being serious...

[Adler]

 'but like Adler they are only doing stuff that are already out there, like US airborne and late war Russians. '

Hmm ..........Adler made a very specific effort to produce ranges THAT were not already out there......Waffen SS in HBT, Late war Brits in the Windproof, US Airbourne in the late uniform, British Glider troops let alone a whole bunch of specific vehicle crew figures.
Nice to know the effort and thought we put in  is noted.....................
L

[V]

You don't expect people to actually pay attention do you Leon?

Hyperbole is much more fun. To be fair though, if someone thinks 20mm is dying and nothing is being released, they may not see the nuances in the Adler ranges actually filling in gaps. After all... all we see in 28mm is yet more Germans in camo smocks.

Plus so many 20mm companies still currently releasing new stuff - AB, Simons Soldiers, Elhiem, Playa Major to name but a few along with more still going.

20mm never has the visibility it once had, in the days when WI used to feature Rapid Fire games and running ads from Britannia etc. Now the 'main stream' WW2 games use 28mm and 15mm so magazines tend to feature those, especially when they have 'special' relationships with certain manufacturers.

Of course, online it's different, the large number of 1/72 groups on Facebook shows a wide spread of interest, makers and both modellers and gamers alike. It's often a case of seeing what you want to see. Non-20mm gamers won't see (or be shown) 20mm stuff by their social media at times, while my algorithms throw it up constantly. So judging popularity based of your own single perception is likely highly flawed. If it's mine, 15mm and 28mm WW2 just don't exist... so perception plays a part.

What would be nice if people just enjoyed all scales and sizes rather than the tribal sniping that goes on. It's all very bizarre, trying to 'one up' each other but I guess that's just human nature to feel 'yours' is the best. Despite my love of 20mm WW2, there is some great stuff in 15mm, 28mm and other sizes.

[Phil Robinson]

You don't expect people to actually pay attention do you Leon?

Hyperbole is much more fun. To be fair though, if someone thinks 20mm is dying and nothing is being released, they may not see the nuances in the Adler ranges actually filling in gaps. After all... all we see in 28mm is yet more Germans in camo smocks.

Not forgetting all the ubiquitous STG44s🙂

[V]

Well the new Victrix ones will have alot of rifles... I hope!

[robh]

This still going?

People always seem to want 20mm to die off, I guess it's so they don't show up how naff the others are compared to them.... 

 

This discussion will never end.
Apparently 20mm WW2 gaming was killed off years ago when gamers were pushed towards the nirvana of 15mm Flames of War.
Except it wasn't.
Now 28mm Bolt Action is being prescribed as the holy grail of all WW2 wargaming which has finally eliminated 20mm and the now irrelevent 15mm.
Except it hasn't.

It is all moot anyway as none of the figure manufacturers are going to be around in 10 years time anyway (maybe less). You will buy customised stls of whatever figure or vehicle you want and make it or have it made for you in the specific size you choose.
No doubt you will then play games with them using rules and scenarios purpose written by your home AI, which for a lot of people will probably be their opponent as well.
Then a few years later there won't be a need for any physical objects at all everything for the hobby will be VR generated.

[HerbertTarkel]

A terrifying vision of the future, robh! 

I remember when Flames of War was supposed to take over the world, and no, it didn’t, as you say. The tanks were ok, but the infantry were awful, and still mostly are.

Bolt Action? Again, the tanks are ok, but the Warlord infantry sculpts are bad. Perry and so many others are just superior.

Speaking of Perry, there are a small number of their sculpts available in 20mm from Wargames Foundry - and they are fantastic!

To me, AB still make the best WW2 infantry models, hands down. Their sculpts are stunning.

[V]

AB - Everything else is just a toy. 

[HerbertTarkel]

Stunning as always! 

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

It appears that my information on WWII US uniforms in the early part of Pacific war is either obsolete or downright incorrect. Thank you, Carlos and Hang Tuah for the correction. (Apologies if I missed anyone else who pointed it his out).

I’m still rather unclear about the situation re the later campaigns in the Pacific theatre, however, and particularly surprised to hear that the Perry metal range is accurate for this. Admittedly I have not looked at this in detail but had assumed it was also geared towards the European theatre. I’m aware that a new uniforms began to be issued following the North Africa campaign and that both the old and new versions were in use for the remainder of the war but had always understood that in the Pacific it was different again, though to what extent and in which particulars, I couldn’t say.

Edit: Having reread Carlos’s post I see that the Perry metal US infantry are in shirtsleeves. This is no doubt the factor that renders them suitable for the Pacific, irrespective of the regulation uniform. Is there an equivalent to these in 20 mm?

[sultanbev]

Early WW2 Americans are available in 20mm from plastic manufacturer Strelets.
Also many other obscurer WW2 ranges are constantly being released, eg Soviet Partisans, NZ troops, Finns, Hungarians, Italians in Russia, and so on.

Now, they may not be to everyones' tastes, but focussing purely on metal releases and saying the 20mm hobby is in decline isn't strictly correct.

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

Early WW2 Americans are available in 20mm from plastic manufacturer Strelets.

Now, that’s a uniform I wasn’t aware of. Looks a bit warm for the Pacific, too  but that’s an interesting use for the machete.