Uncle Mike Worldwide Miniatures - They're Big! Size Comparisons...

[superflytnt]

Size comparison of many mini brands
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwindels/4228623628/

So, I bought thirty or so RAFM miniatures from FRP games not too long ago, and I finally got around to sorting them out. Well, upon inspection, I found that they're rather on the small side, which I had read and was alright with. I'm 5'6", so small isn't an issue.

What was an issue is when I stood one up next to UMW miniatures.  The RAFM guys looked like they were hobbits in comparison! I like the UMW models, and since I've painted 40 of them, I'm a little put out that the size difference was so notable. Caveat Emptor, I suppose.

I just wanted to make everyone aware that if you wish to play with even Copplestone, which I think are some of the largest 28mm pulpsters that are available, even they are smallish compared to UMW models.

In the end, the RAFMs will simply end up being used in another game, and I'll just have to keep buying UMW minis for Strange Aeons.

[styx]

Reaper and Black Cat seem to scale up ok with UMW figures...he does scale them more on the "heroic" side...

I found with basing it helps to balance them out...add something below to give them some height you can balance out.

Personally, I am not that bothered by size differences...I look around my office of almost 2k in workers....some guys are built tall and huge, some guys shorter than me, some guys tall and thin...same for women....personally I am not bothered by the size differences as as a society we have a variety of sizes.

[superflytnt]

While I agree with a lot of what you've said regarding size differences, the problem that I am seeing in scale is that it's not just height, it's the scale of weapons and whatnot as well. A tommygun is a tommygun, despite the wielder, right?

What I ~do~ like is that with a small RAFM guy versus a large Fishman of Mike's, the Fishman looks absolutely menacing.

Thanks for the heads-up on similar sized scale figures, mate!

[obsidian3d]

I've mixed RAFM and Horrorclix with UMW stuff on the table and within my team and don't find the size difference noticeable. So I don't find it an issue at all. Obviously others will. the first set of agents are pretty beefy compared to later models though. The guy toting dynamite has a huge noggin!

[superflytnt]

That's my Conan O'Brien as a child versus Muggsy shots. As you can see, the scale of the man himself, both from a height and girth perspective, is off by quite a bit.

Child labor laws didn't come into effect until later, I guess...



...because the RAFM squad looks like a bunch of children!

[styx]

I put mine all on lipped bases, which helps balance them out. Put them on a base to match the UMW....it should line up better.

[superflytnt]

Yeah, I put all the UMW figures on Secret Weapons bases to make them look all cool, which was a terrible mistake. I had to dremel off the "Green Army Man" bases to get them to stand on the base. I just didn't want to flock.

These guys I'm going to put on lipped 30mm bases and do a proper flock job on them. It should raise their height, but it won't do much for the scale. They're just soooo small in comparison. I've resigned myself to not buy RAFM anymore, and these guys will invariably end up playing .45 Adventure or some such thing, never to be mixed in with the UMW guys.

They're just too small, IMO. Nothing less menacing than a 4'9" Maniac with a miniature meat cleaver coming at a 6'3" Agent (to scale) with an elephant-gun sized tommygun!

[Mason]

I think that one of the problems with your scale issues is that RAFM's range were made way back and are more 25mm scale than modern 28's, and UMW are more 'heroic' 30mm-ish.

Compared to other ranges, other than RAFM, the difference may not be so noticable.

[Malebolgia]

I don't really see these things as an issue and usually compensate by either increasing the base height or keep it as low as possible. And during gameplay it isn't really an issue in most cases.

[Mathyoo]

I like to have all the same bases, so that wouldn't be a solution for me, but I think that when you'll paint the minis and they won't be standing next to each other, you wont see much difference.

[Malebolgia]

Agreed, but having a slightly higher base falls in the category "same bases" for me. Example:
http://www.paintoholic.nl/images/captain.jpg
http://www.paintoholic.nl/images/investigator6.jpg
Similar bases, but the second's is slightly higher. During gameplay not noticeable at all, but it ensures about similar height in models.

[Bergh]

Its unfair to I think to compare RAFM miniatures with the much newer lines of Pulp miniatures.
RAFM are an OLD line, properly scaled between 25 and 28mm. As I see it its RAFM miniatures who are small compared to the other "normal" sized miniatures.

Uncle Mike's miniatures seems to me to be under-detailed compared to how big they are. (sorry Mike), not up to the very high standards of Pulp Figures and Copplestone Castings (ok, quite harsh to compete with masters like Mr. Murch and Mr. Copplestone).

Personally I find Pulp Figures (http://pulpfigures.com/) the best miniatures, and they have a very large selection, and they are adding new miniatures. I also find that Copplestone are a very fine choice, it can be a bit of hit and miss about they size, because some of the models are large.
(sorry again Mike for not hyping your miniatures).

I use Renedra 25mm round bases, they are very flat and in plastic, so if you got a short miniatures its quite easy to use a normal Slotta base or glue two Renedra bases on top of each other to gain some extra height, without it standing out.
If you are using Lipped bases and you put additional height on top it looks weird to me IMHO.
Also those 35mm lipped base makes small miniatures look even smaller. 

 

[superflytnt]

I don't know about "unfair" or not, but this is how it is:

I have maybe six hundred miniatures from a wide variety of different companies. UMW's are by far the largest scale. I do totally agree that the RAFM miniatures are out of scale, and quite honestly, they are some of the most diminutive I've ever seen. This is my first dance with them, and I didn't research the scale since they were sold as 28mm scale figures and clearly aren't. That said, UMW is bigger (both in height and bulk) than my Heroscape, Heroclix, GW, Reaper, and many other miniatures.

It's not that noticeable in some cases, but as I showed, those RAFMs are just so damned small that they don't look right. It'd be like putting a Matchbox car on the table and expecting it would look right next to the terrain and whatnot.

The most irritating thing for me regarding buying miniatures sight unseen, and based on scale, is that scale isn't some nebulous, mysterious thing....the measurement is from the floor to the eyes. 1610mm/scale is the formula. If you want to measure to the top of the hat to the floor, it's 1730mm/scale (some say 1776). If you take eye height of 1610 and divide it by the actual height, you get the scale (1610mm/25mm=1/64 scale). Yet somehow, many miniatures companies deviate so largely from this (RAFM is clearly out of spec) that it makes figures wholly incompatible.

25mm is the standard, and "Big 25's" (28mm) became a "new standard" in the last 15 years or so. That would be fine if people would label their product as such and abide by the standards that have been in place for the past hundred or so years.  Here's another great example of the fact that I'm not the only one saying this is bollocksed:

http://www.whattheminiatures.com/size.html

http://www.warflag.com/shadow/cast/figuresize/figures.htm (This is a really good one)

[Bergh]

Hi Superflytnt, please don't read my post as criticism! I thinks its great you are showing different size differences between different manufacturers.

I'm very surprised that UMW miniatures should be bigger then Copplestones?
That would make UMW miniature line more like 30mm or "Heroic 28mm" scale.

I does disagree that 25mm is the standard these days, as you said 15 years ago it began to change. And I would say that 28mm is the standard. Now the problem is this new "Heroic" buff on top of it.
I do remember my childhood gluing and painting those old Rouge Trader plastic beaky space marines (they are still the coolest btw), they look like midgets compared to newer Space marines.

[superflytnt]

I didn't take it as criticism at all, brother, and even had you been criticising, this is a healthy exchange. My whole point in this was that I spent $125 on RAFM miniatures and found that they looked like Smurfs next to the UMW minis, so then I broke out some of my other miniatures to see about scale, and founf that UMW is by far the largest minis I own outside of the GW Space Marines and Genestealers I have.

If I was at home I could grab a couple of my UMW minis and measure from the top of the base to the eyes and the head, I could tell you exactly what scale/size they are.  But they are a little larger than Copplestone, in fact, but not really all that terribly much. The really noticable part is the "bulk" of the miniatures. I agree on the detail, for what it's worth, but I think a lot of that has to do with the PVC that the miniatures are made of. It's a great material for minis for a lot of reasons, like conversions and modification, but it doesn't seem to capture details as well. Reaper's BONES line is the same material:

http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones/latest/77006


Regarding the "standard" scale, it depends on the genre. In wargaming, 15-25mm is the scale that is most commonly used. For "heroic" gaming, and in boardgames, 28mm is the most common scale. Me, I've got everything between 15 and 30, not to mention my 1/6000, 1/3000, and 1/250 naval (and naval aviation) miniatures.

LOL, that's funny about the space marines!  I felt the same way recently. I bought an old copy of the original Space Hulk and compared the minis with the new ones...you could fit two of the old ones inside the new Terminator suits!