GW LOTR Scale Issues

[joe5mc]

So last night, I was painting some Gondorian Men-at-Arms.  Although I've got a pretty good collection of GW LOTR figures, these were my first MAA.  Halfway through painting, I realized that they seemed really small.  Pulling out my Beregond figure, I compared them - the don't appear to be the same scale at all!  Really not even close. 

I had previously noticed some scale creep between the earliest figures and the latest ones, but it was always within the realm that I felt comfortable using them together.  These figures, I fear, are useless used against the rest.

My question then - are there any other sets like these that are badly out of scale with the others, any others I need to avoid?

[DowVooVoo]

I also have found that the scale is sometimes way off but once the figs get to the table painted and based with terrain the scales don't matter much. After all 'people' come in all sizes?

[Suber]

A friend of mine got the same issue, he compared some minis, here you have the conclusions (Spanish text, but the pics speak by themselves):

http://keyansark.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/comparativa-de-tamanos.html

(As a matter of fact I think Keyan Sark also posts sometimes over here...)

[Doomhippie]

Yeah, the newer models seem to be a lot bigger than the old ones. But on tabletop it doesn't actually look quite as bad. Still, I hate that the "tall men of the west" and the elves are on the smaller sider of of the scale.

[AzSteven]

The first wave of Perry releases for The Lord of the Rings were true 25mm figures.  As the line continued, the figures (particularly the metal ones) started to get a little larger, and are now more 28mm or ven heroic 28mm (but not as large as some of the standard Games Workshop 28s).  And some are really outliers in the scale area; one of the Rangers sets from Two Towers or Return of the King were HUGE.   The plastic figures are still a little smaller than the metal ones - I have not looked at a LOTR Finecast to compare scales on those.

[rob_alderman]

Finecast would be slightly bigger or the same as the metals due to the shrinking of metal in molding, whereas the resin doesn't shrink and is taken from the original green.

[Momotaro]

Yeah, the plastic rangers set is huge, and the plastic Rohirrim are at the smaller end of the range.  Even with figures released at the same time as each other, the metals were often larger than the plastics.  it's been like that since the range started

On the table, it's not a problem for me.  At 1/56 scale, everything between 25mm and 35mm is within reasonable human scale, as long as you don't have 6'6" grandmas alongside 5'0" burly warriors.

I start to get itchy when the figures get much bigger than that - I have a couple of Avatars of War figures that are 38mm tall, and really are noticeably bigger than any other humans they stand beside.  Anything less is fine IMHO.

[Vongoosewink]

I believe that the LotR figures were contractually required to be true 25mm at the start, to differentiate them from GW's existing Fantasy range.  (They didn't want gamers using Warhammer Elves instead of LotR Elves, etc.)  This restriction seems to have slipped away as the range progressed.  I for one am happy to see it go -- the initial miniatures were too small for my tastes, but where they are now is just right -- around 28mm but nicely proportioned. 

[Mr.J]

I for one am happy to see it go -- the initial miniatures were too small for my tastes, but where they are now is just right -- around 28mm but nicely proportioned.

I for one would agree with this however the only problem is you end up with some quite small figures next to some quite large ones. I bought a load of Men of Minas Tirith and some Citadel Guard to convert but found that the two were hugely different and the conversion wouldn't work.

[joe5mc]

Are the Citadel Guard larger then? I might just use those as my standard Gondorians.

[Mr.J]

Yes they are significantly larger. As said used on a table together it isn't so much an issue for most but when trying to convert it made life very difficult for me.

[Doomsdave]

My metal knights of Dol Amroth were bigger even back when they first came out.  Citadel Guards the same.  Guards of the Fountain court were fine to me.

[P_Clapham]

It is a tad frustrating, the initial plastic sets were very nicely detailed.  I particularly liked the warriors of Rohan.  At this point I have ended up with more of the newer and larger figures, my solution has been to move from using the official LotR miniatures.  The Wargames Factory Saxons and Vikings scale up nicely with the new plastics, and are much cheaper than the LotR plastics.

Here is one of the Vikings compared to a Corsair of Umbar.  I think they match up pretty well.

[Doomhippie]

They do. And actually the style fits well to LotR as well.

[beefcake]

I never really liked the wargames factory plastics I got