Games Workshop Miniatures....

I think the nominal scale for the vast majority of their LOTR figures is 25mm. But who can tell? Have you ever met a real-life Balrog, and when you did, did he stand still for long enough for you to get your tape measure out?

Cheers,

Chris.

Games workshop mini's are what are called "Heroic style" 25mm. In reality that equates to around 28mm for the miniature.

My wife, Lorraine paints mainly the Reaper range but does have a fair stash of WH40K and Fantasy minatures. The difference in the sizes between the two ranges is quite startling. However the LOTR range is more in scale with the Reaper releases, that is, 25mm.

Cheers

Mike

SkullGundam wrote:

Yeah, Chris is correct.  I just looked them up on NobleKnight and they are listed as 25mm.  I've also been looking at getting these kinds of figures.  So does the 25mm mean that all the figs are 25 mm?  Or is it like an average human is 25mm and everything else changes accordingly?

My understanding is 25mm (or whatever scale) is theoretically based on the height of an average male at eye level, or roughly 5 feet. So if you measure a standing human male from the base of the feet to the eyes should be about 25mm. I don't think this is really a hard rule as I have heard some measure to the top of the head and then of course you have the issue of "average" and artistic license.

As mentioned some of the fantasy figures are nominally 25mm but would scale out at 7 foot tall or so if they were really in scale.

Short version, 25mm is a wargames figure scale, and works out at about 1/76, or model railway 'OO' scale. But remember that these are heroic figures, and therefore you would expect them to be bigger than the average elf. Who, in turn, is bigger than the average human. Dunno so much about hobbits....

So if you use 'OO' accessories around them, the figures shouldn't look out of place.

Cheers,

Chris.

chris hall wrote:

Short version, 25mm is a wargames figure scale, and works out at about 1/76, or model railway 'OO' scale. But remember that these are heroic figures, and therefore you would expect them to be bigger than the average elf. Who, in turn, is bigger than the average human. Dunno so much about hobbits.... So if you use 'OO' accessories around them, the figures shouldn't look out of place. Cheers, Chris.

Chris

I would have to say that 25mm is actually closer to 1:48 than 1:76. 15mm is closer to 1:76

Cheers

Mike

Dunno so much, Mike. If 54mm is 1/32, then 25mm = 32* (54/25) = 1/69. An average 1.8m-tall guy would be 38mm tall in 1/48. A model of the same guy, 15mm tall, would be 1/120.

Cheers,

Chris.

I just did a quick comparison of one of my wife's painted Reaper mini's compared to a Matchbox 1:76 figure. The Reaper figure is a third bigger height wise. Compare that same Matchbox figure with a Games Workshop Warhammer fantasy figure and that increases to almost double.

Cheers

Mike

How high do the two figures actually measure, Mike? If the Matchbox guy is supposed to represent an average 1.8m-high bloke, then, in 1/76 and to the top of his head, he should be 24mm tall. Add 1mm for the base, and that's 25mm. I just measured a 1/76 military policeman from the Airfix 1/76 RAF Recovery Set, and he's 25mm tall, too - but then he's wearing a crash helmet, and policemen tend to be taller than average.

Cheers,

Chris.

The Reaper and LOTR miniatures (A knight, human male footsoldier and female archer) measured about 34-36mm excluding base and helms.

I measured the German soldier that is part of my recent Matchbox build and he stands at 22mm high.

As a comparison, I measured a WH40K Terminator which comes in at 45mm excluding base. However those blokes are in Terminator armour and the average Space Marine is 7-8' tall gaming universe wise.

As I mentioned in an earlier post; Modern 25mm miniatures tend to be around 28mm min. now, the so called "Heroic Size". Certainly in the WH40K range, even the vehicles and accessories are closer to 1:48 than 1:72/76, in keeping with the figure heights.

I always caution comparing gamining miniatures with scale model sizes, the comparisons are not as simple as first thought.

I am certainly not poking holes in your logic, just explaining how the miniatures world tends to work.

Cheers

Mike

I take your point entirely, Mike, and it's always seemed to me that GW/ Citadel figures, though nominally 25mm, have tended to be somewhat taller and broader than plastic soldier figures in 1/72 - 1/76, which scale up to be the same height. I think you've helped me understand where the confusion might have arisen.

Cheers,

Chris.

Very true.

I guess it due to the fact gaming miniatures need to be more "robust" as players attempt to kick the opposition into next week or hope their characters in an RPG game survive long enough to get to the next level.

When our group was actively pen and paper RPG'ing, we knew that the proverbial was going to hit the fan somewhat shortly after the DM brought out the BIG M&M's yellow figure which ALWAYS proxied for something big, ill tempered and not friendly.

Cheers

Mike

This might help some

http://theminiaturespage.com/ref/scales.html

mike91978 wrote:

Ok. I was just trying to get an idea of the size of these figures, since I've mainly been painting 1/35.  Thanks for the responses.

If you take the scale as about the height of the average human, that will get you close. A human figure in 25mm would be somewhere around 1 to 1 1/4" tall (1" = 25.4mm), a 54mm figure would probably be 2 1/4 to 2 1/2" or so. Obviously a horse, elephant, dragon etc would be larger. Very rough rule of thumb would be the scale mm = 5 to 5 1/2 feet tall (1.6-ish meters).

I may be wading into this discussion a little late?  If so I apologise.

For a number fo years I did Wargaming as a proxy for model building (it was more popular amongst my friends of the day), we mostly played various GW systems.  As others have stated above, the scale for GW figures is 25mm 'Heroic', which is basically their way of squeezing an extra couple of milimeters in on their figures.  The range that runs against this rule is the LOTR figures, which always seemed to be more 25mm actual to my eye, I have to admit that I never did any proper scale measurements.

I'd tend to agree that these figures more closely equate to 1/48 than 1/72-76.  In my experience 20mm wargame figures were much closer to 1/72 scale.

Don't know if that helps? 

Ditto to what kilo wrote.  GW's warhammer range does offer slightly larger sizes than a typical gaming mini.

Here is a snap I took a while back.  The only fantasy guys I have are orcs so it's kinda hard to compare therefore left out of the pic.

That pics sums it up, though the new Terminator releases are bigger still. More "normal" 25mm releases in the Reaper and LOTR range sit to the right of the Adepta Sororitas figure. Then would be the 1:72, 1:7620mm and the older 15mm figures.

Even smaller are the older WH40K Epic figures and the Flames of War miniatures.

Cheers

Mike