One Scale to Rule Them All

Or not?

I’ve been experiencing this inexplicable and uncontrollable urge to get into WW2 miniature modeling/wargaming. The most natural (and most popular by far) choice for people facing my situation would be to pick up this game called “Flames of War” (www.flamesofwar.com hereafter referred to as FoW).

However, two things are stopping me from doing this.

1. There are no local retailers/distributors carrying this stuff, and all their models are cast in metal, making it rather expensive (although comparatively cheaper than what Games Workshop charges for their Warhammer 40K models)
2. FoW models are in 15mm scale, making them downright tiny! Infantry figures are especially affected by the “miniaturization”, looking for all the world like a cluster of irregular lumps.

And if I factor in another important consideration, that there are extremely few FoW players around where I live (this little peninsula jutting out beside China, called Korea), the whole popularity of FoW elsewhere in the world becomes moot.

So I’ve decided to use 20mm(1:72 scale) models instead, because they come in plastic (which means real cheap), they’re readily available in local hobby stores, and because their level of detail is pretty good (even though you can’t really see the facial details on infantry figures).

And I was feeling all good about this decision… when I came across 28mm figures.

Bam!

The level of detail on infantry figures totally blew me away! And those evocative facial expressions! Those dynamic poses!

I tried to stay away from 28mm for WW2, because I knew that 28mm sculptors like to use this thing called “heroic scale” – where the limbs and head are deliberately sculpted out of proportion to the body, so as to give a more “impressive” look. That’s all good and cool for fantasy or sci-fi games (such as Warhammer 40K, my other miniature obsession), but realism is an important factor for WW2 models, at least for me.

But the sculpts by some of the better quality companies (such as Artizan, Crusader, etc) are actually anatomically correct, and come with all the attention to detail that the 28mm scale is famous for!

They’re much costlier than 20mm plastics (or even 15mm metals) though…

I feel like I’m back to square one (undecided), but with a heavy lean towards 28mm.

Now if I can find some good vehicle models to go with them…

(This was my first actual “moblog” post; written on my BlackBerry over lunch. Edited to add formatting and hyperlinks)