Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Alternatives to Metal: Plastic 28mm

There is a quiet revolution going in the world of wargaming miniatures. With the price of pewter figures continually skyrocketing, in the past couple years a surprising number of hard plastic ranges are starting to break out of their 1/72 scale ghetto (that's roughly 21-24 mm in scale) into the big boy ranges.

If you were wanting to start amassing your fantasy army in 28mm scale—a nice median large scale in which you can mix in your rpg tabletop models--there is no better time than now.

Let's take a look at a few of the offerings:

HaT Industries. This long-standing German model company is just starting to break into 28mm. It's mostly Napoleonics right now, but they have a great and potentially useful El-Cid era range out. (In a side note that totally slays me having accumulated three budget-whipping armies of Andalusians, Almovarids, and Spanish Feudals totaling about 700 metal figures seven years back.)

Pro: Dirt cheap and well sculpted to boot, a box will run about $12-14 for a whopping 32 figures which works out to be about $.40 a figure. The figures are very nicely sculpted and exotic enough to have a good feel for a fantasy army. In a pinch the Andalusians and Moors could stand in for elves or some other exotic humanoid.

Con: Again narrow choices from one specific historical era.

Mail order them here.

Wargames Factory. Not to be confused with the Wargames Foundry, this relatively new company specializes in hard plastic 28mms. A scant two years ago they only carried a few lines of ancient historicals, now they have a vibrant range of Orcs, Skeletons, Zombies, Vikings (both bondi and huscarls), Saxons, Romans, Ancient Celts, and Samurai that can be drafted for fantasy army duty.

You can order directly from their webstore here.

Pro: A wide useful range with nice sculpts. The price per figure is very affordable. Most boxes run $20 for 32 figures, that's about $.63/figure. Compare that to the normal $2-4/figure of metal.

Con: Some assembly required (a phrase that makes me cringe).

Zvezda. My favorite Russian plastic soldier manufacturer puts out a fantastic range of 1/72 well-sculpted figures for a range of eras. Luckily for our purposes they have a 28mm fantasy range of equal quality under the clunky derivative title, Ring of Rule.The range has a nice assortment of skeleton legionaries, GW-like Orks, Elves, necromancers, hero-types, etc.

Pro: One of the few explicitly fantasy ranges of the cheap manufacturers (I'm not counting Games Workshop here for obvious reasons). High level of customability, lots of different weapons, arms, and heads (this is again a con for me as I hate gluing at an irrationally high level).

Con: It's harder to get the full range days (they may have stopped manufacturing them) from mail order sites. The price for the individual sets is not at all worth it (in the $10 range), so it only qualifies affordable if you manage to score a larger game box set like Return of the Lost Legion or Siege of the Royal Castle (which comes handily with two armies, siege machines and an entire castle model in scale).

Best bet is a patient wait on Ebay or from a larger mail order distributor like Squadron.

[Editor's Note: portions of this post will appear in the Affordable Alternatives chapter of the Guide to Fantasy War.]

21 comments:

  1. Another thought here, I've mixed in some of the larger 1/72nd ranges with true 25s such as Mini Fig and Ral Partha and have gotten quite satisfying results...I'll post a a few photos
    on my blog.

    http://brazosevilempire.blogspot.com/

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    1. Great point. I have a number of Ral Parthas that I use.

      I have also used 1/72s as elves or even hobbits when you put them up against 28mms.

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  2. Love it. The plastic playset people have been keeping the molds hot for a few years, mostly in the classic 28 mm but increasingly in 25 mm. And they tend to sculpt for accessories as well as troopers so you can create domestic scenes for various themes.

    http://marxwildwest.com/links.html -- scroll down to "Major sources of Marx re-issues or copies." Most are monochrome but should hold paint well.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Edited to add:

      "And the 54 mm world is completely off the chain, if ever your guys had the urge to fight army men OR YOGI BEAR."

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    3. Marx soldiers hold a special place in my heart (Britain's are probably right after). The two toys that I played the most shit out of would have to be their Navarone playset and the Battleground playset.

      I'll have to take a look for sure.

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    4. Navarone would make a great base, just rip out the big gun for a wyvern nest.

      I was shocked to see that before our time the kids had access to vikings, Romans, gladiators, "tribesmen," pirates, all kinds of great Marx 54 mm, not to mention the WW2 and western guys we're more familiar with.

      And at 54 mm, you really can fight a licensed Marx Yogi Bear or an Abraham Lincoln (a gland-wracked giant at native 60 mm scale), explore the Arctic and the tropics, wreck a suburban grocery or even go to the Moon.

      The replica houses are slowly getting it back out there. It's a great time to be a little arrested.

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  3. Good recommendations. Mantic also has a 28mm fantasy range with reasonable proportions and prices, and some customisability.

    http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Kings-of-War.html

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    1. Very nice find and heads-up. I will definitely need a unit of Abyssal Dwarves.

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  4. I am pretty sure Zvedza killed the RoR line. It is not longer on the English version of their web site, and I don't see any likely icons on the russian version. I got a boxed set of skeletons and knights, and a box of orcs. The skeleton legionaries look amazing (Roman legionary skeletons!) but each one is about 15 pieces to assemble ... separate hands, feet, weapons, helmets, shoulder armor...
    The orcs are huge -- more like ogres really.
    The men are very nice too.
    Wish I'd grabbed the griffin cavalry and eleven 'swan chariot' thing when they were available!

    If you're willing to look at plastics, 1/72 is a pretty good deal. Caesar Miniatures does a good range of fantasy and about 20-30 companies cover everything from Sumer to Incas. A little more fantasy is available as spare parts from the "Age of Mythology" game -- Eagle Games. http://plasticsoldierreview.com covers 1/72 in excruciating depth.

    Zvedza's 1/72 are on the large end, at least the later sets are, and I'd use them as elves etc. even with 25 or 28mm.

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    1. Plastic Soldier Review is incredible. I wish they'd bump up their focus a little and start doing some 28mm reviews too.

      I do all my WW2 gaming in 1/72 and have many more boxes of all kinds of periods then I care to admit stashed in the closet. So much to do, so little...

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  5. Excellent! I've added that site to my list of favorites.

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  6. Nice post. I'm going to track some of these down - I can use some Vikings and I can always use more orcs and skeletons!

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  7. Warlord games produce a number of lines good for fantasy miniatures as well. The various Gauls, Britons, Dacians and Germans work well for any fantasy barbarian types.

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  8. Warlord makes plastic imperial roman legionaries, veterans, praetorians, and auxilia, and celts, and they also sell the former Immortal range of plastic Hoplites (regular and Spartan). Both of these ranges are a bit small I belive (true 28mm, not modern heroic 28mm to the eyes)

    The Perrys make a couple of boxes of WotR era figures, which may fit in with your fantasy period, although they do not fit mine. Their plastic Mahdist Ansar may also be useful, being mostly nearly naked sword swingers (with a couple of head options).

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  9. Conquest games (UK) makes Norman knights on horse.
    Gripping Beast makes Saxon Thegns and Viking Hirdmen. I belive those are fairly large, and that they sell "3-ups" of the Hirdmen from their own site.

    Warlord carries both of those ranges.

    Victorix keeps threatening to come out with plastic Hoplites, but that has not happened quite yet.

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  10. Reble Minis has a rather nice "Bag of Orcs" you might want to check out:

    http://rebelminis.com/bagoorcs.html

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  11. I picked some of those Vikings a few months back. I had intended to use them as moods for "Totems of the Dead" and for general fantasy gaming. They're sort of meh and fiddly. I hear the Grpping Beast plastics are better.

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  12. Seconding Perry WotR range. I want to get some just to be henchmen.

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  13. On the cheaper than GW mass produced fantasy front, check out Mantic. Yes, assembly required. I've got a set of their revenants, ghouls (unassembled) and elves (unassembled.) Check frpgames for sets on discount which come to very cheap per figure.

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  14. To second School Master: I have the Wargames Factory Saxons, nearly free from ebay. Lack of painting time still has them sitting on my work bench. The price was right and they should be fine but still have some remorse and consideration for Gripping Beast.

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