Frenchmen without overcoat

[Iron Ivan Keith]

Battle Honors are the great untapped resource for 28mm WWII. Pictures are hard to find, they don't advertise, and they haven't added to their ranges in years (and have directly to me expressed no interest whatsoever in doing so). But...they have most extensive and comprehensive line of WWII figures anywhere. They are some really nice figures overall. The best of their ranges are sculpted by Sean Judd who sculpts 40mm for Trident Designs. His French, Soviets, US, SS, Early War Germans, USMC, and Finns are awesome. Where else can you get French Alpine, Groupe Francs, Motorcycle, and Fusiliers with MAS36 rifles?

There are pics of the SS, and Soviets in Summer uniform on my blog in case you would like to see pics. Some of the ranges have pics on the 19th Century Miniatures site, but not many.

Here's a little secret: many of the packs do not not have the right squad mix of weapons. Every "squad" pack in their WWII range has a model or two with an SMG, one with an LMG, and enough rifles to make a pack of ten. This means French and U.S.squads are two models short for the correct squads. Also, there are more poses in their ranges than fit in a pack, so it is often random whether you an LMG advancing or prone.

If you want a specific mix of weapons and poses, when you order on their website, write out what you want in the pack in the comments section of the order for each pack. For example, if you want the correct French squad, you have to ask for the extra two rifles. They will charge extra for it and it will take extra time to get your order, but it does allow you to get what you want in the squad packs. Usually for ranges where they have two squad packs, the one that is labeled firing is the pack with prone and kneeling poses and the one that says advancing is the pack with all walking and standing poses.

[traveller]

I have their Finns somewhere, if I find them I will upload a comparison shot. Found them!



BAM - BH - Foundry - BH - West Wind - BH - BTD

The BAM has a slightly thicker base but is still a tad taller. I would say that BH, Foundry and West WInd are in the same league while BAM, Artizan and BTD area bit, but not dramaticaly taller

Unfortunately the camera is not good enough but I hope it can be of some help. You get a bigger version if you click on it and view it in my Photobucket album

[The Gray Ghost]

I'm going to try the BH stuff
Thanks

[former user]

Please be so kind and take some pictures 

[Blue in vt]

While not directly associated with the French figures you are looking for I have some experience with BH miniatures and I must say they are certainly 25mm and not 28mm...next to artizan they look quite small.  I painted up some Brit 8th army and some German DAK for the LPL over the last two years...here are pics.





I found the figures to be nicely detailed considering their size (I'm used to chunky old citadel figures) and DIRT cheap.  There was a fair amount of clean up that needed to be done but over all very enjoyable to paint.  If I could find anyone around here that wanted to play WWII in this scale I would order a whole mess of these guys.

In fact I have about 10-12 more 8th infantry figures if anyone wants them...I'll let them go cheap!

Cheers,

Blue

[Wilkins]

Wonder how well they'd scale with the new Perry stuff. Or do you think they'd still be massively too small?

[Blue in vt]

Thats a very good question...I've not had any direct contact with the new perry plastics so can't say for sure...might be a good fit.

Blue

[former user]

well, apart from the marvelous PJ
all I can say is that they look definitely better than the unpainted 2 french packs I've seen as photo
might be the paint, might be the sculptor?
from the proportions wise I don't expect them to fit with the Perry sculpts but who knows...

[Iron Ivan Keith]

It really seems to depend on the range. Their British and DAK (and late war Germans) were sculpted by someone else besides Sean Judd who did much of their other stuff. It seems all of the British and DAK are on the smaller end and could be considered 25mm. That is not the case with their French, Early War Germans, Soviets, etc. sculpted by Judd. Those ranges are all 28mm and do match up in size with most other 28mm. The thing to consider is that few of Sean's sculpts for those ranges are standing upright. Almost all are in a crouched low advancing pose, prone, or kneeling, and they often end up looking shorter when photographed next to other 28mm ranges. Their bulk and detail are similar to 28mm though.

Just to be clear: there is a difference in scale, size, and style between the different ranges in the Battle Honors line. There are at least two, perhaps three sculptors for their stuff. Sean Judd's stuff is 28mm. Their other stuff is 25mm or somewhere in between. I don't know who the other sculptor is though.

If anyone is interested, these are the ranges that I am pretty sure are 28mm and sculpted by Sean Judd:

French
EW German
Soviets
Finns
SS

Other ranges that are from the other sculptor (as far as I can tell) and are closer to 25mm

DAK
British
LW Germans, as well as truck and halftrack crews
Fallschirmjager

Ranges which seem to be slightly in between 25 and 28mm (and seem to be sculpted by the same person)

USMC
Japanese
Italians
US

The USMC actually scale well with Brigade Games USMC (and actually look remarkably similar in style and equipment details). The Italians are similar in scale to Warlord's but the styles are very different, so I think they look noticeably different.

One last thing: The Soviets, Finns, Japanese, and Italians all have the same rifle model. This bothers some, other less. The rifle has a blade bayonet, so it does not work for me for the Soviets...so I snipped all of mine off and did some slight modifications to make them look more like Nagant rifles. They looked good enough for me for the Japanese. Also, mortars (except the Soviet) seem to be the same tube and baseplate across the whole range, and their Maxim HMG is ok, but a little crude. However, their radiomen models are pretty nice and generally have the correct radio and equipment. Most HMG models are pretty accurate and the firer is position properly (especially their Hotchkiss). The support weapon packs are nice as well because they usually come with two teams set up and firing and two carrying and moving their weapon to a new location. They have plenty of loaders and ammo bearers as well.  

Also, there is lots of variety of headgear and subtle differences in poses and equipment that gives these models lots of character across their whole range. There are a lot of varieties of Japanese infantry for example (some of which have the rifle banners) and this makes for a nice range IMO.

So, overall, you have to be pretty specific about which range you are talking about when it comes to scale for these.

I would suggest to anyone interested, pick up a squad pack and see what you think.

I have seen all of their models first hand at HMGS conventions back when they still attended (and I wish they still did!), so I have a pretty good idea of what they all look like. However, I might be wrong in some of the above as far as who sculpted what. The 28mm stuff by Judd I own personally so I can attest to their size and scale myself. The USMC, Japanese, and British I have either owned or a friend has them, so I am pretty solid on those as well, though I don't have them on hand (I sold my Japanese), so can't grab them and measure next to other ranges (many of which I also own, such as Artizan).

Hope this helps anyone interested in the ranges.

[Arlequín]

Thanks for taking the time over that post Keith, it is appreciated and I'm sure not just by me. 

[former user]

I second that

it is very useful to know what You informed us of.

Still, I like to see what I buy....
Quite unconceivable to me how in the age of digital photography it is not possible to take some pictures, even if the range is oh so plentiful.
 But I don't want to rant. I'd be even more grateful if others copy the example and post pictures of what they have.
I'd be very interested to see the french, WW1 and WW2. Personally, I don't care much about size comparisons, it's the style and proportion that matters to me. For this I need to see pictures.

[Iron Ivan Keith]

Here is one of my blog posts with pics of the Battle Honors SS and EW Germans mixed.

http://thisveryblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/28mm-waffen-ss-mid-war-platoon.html



The guys in smocks are the SS packs, and the guys in tunics are the EW packs. I did some head swaps to add variety.