Gaming in Plastic

I did a little bit of second guessing early on in this process about scale. As I scanned the web for wargamer blogs and sites, the majority embraced a different scale. Very few people I could find had adopted 20mm, much less plastics.

Undeterred, I was happy to find a few key sites that supported my decision.

Here's a 9-part series from Tabletop Gaming News called Gaming in Plastic that addresses some of the more common concerns.

Why Game with Plastics?
Perhaps the most oft-cited reason to game with 1:72-scale plastics is the low cost. It is possible to get boxes of 40+ figures for $12 CDN in most historical eras. At 30 cents each, these models are significantly less expensive than metal figures. For gamers who are either exploring historical miniatures for the first time or starting in a new era, this cost saving is very attractive.

Plastics are also readily available at many local hobby stores and over the Internet. And, most importantly, there has been significant growth in the available ranges over the past five years, particularly from producers located in various eastern European countries.

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Over the course of this series, I will address [several] concerns through the application of modeling, painting and basing products and techniques.

Gaming in Plastics

Age of Battles

Here's a rule set I was very excited about when I first heard of it and was convinced would be the top-contender early on. Having decided to go with 20mm (1/72) plastic figures, finding a rule set that was specifically designed for the scale (as opposed to having to convert everything) seemed very alluring.

Unfortunately there wasn't much info on the web about this game, so I had to cobble together what I could. The main sources of info were:

Age of Battles page on BoardGameGeek

Age of Battles Yahoo Group

Age of Battles Official Site

In summary, Age of Battles is a table-top gaming system using 1/72 scale miniatures by Zvezda, a manufacturer of plastic miniatures noted for historical accuracy. The are different versions of the rules which cover several time periods and countries, all based on historical events (Antiquity, Middle age, Shogun, Napoleonic).

The game comes as battle/era-specific boxed game sets that include everything needed to play out scenarios (rules, figures, stands, cards, accessories, etc), but you can also purchase additional figures in sets and use them in battle.

Movement and combat are performed through measurement and dice rolling. Figures are rated in a number of basic statistics (figure sets come with stats). Game flow is IGoUGo.

Here are some pros and cons:

PROs:

• Lots and lots of high-quality minis
• Designed for 1/72
• Themed boxes give you historical opponents ready for battle

CONs:

• English versions of the rules are a choppy translations at best. Michigan Toy Soldier company offers an English translation that is supposedly smoother.
• "Fiddly-ness": Each fig represents 1 combatant. Lots of touching of lots of individual figs.
  
• Stands. I thought I'd like them but they are too big and bulky in practice.

To be perfectly honest, I probably didn't give the rules the chance they deserve. Since the basic mechanics are so similar to Warhammer Ancient Battles (which is much easier to understand and has more ubiquitous support) I abandoned this rule set pretty quickly.

That said, I really am glad I purchased the boxed scenario game (I purchased the Battle of Issus set) because of the "instant armies" provided.

This rule set is a "no go".

Plastic Soldier Review

I mentioned in a previous post that I have chosen 20mm (1/72) plastics as the miniatures with which to recreate my ancient armies.

For finding the right manufacturers and sets to purchase, there is no better place online than Plastic Soldier Review.

You can keep up with industry news, search for figures by time period, see offerings by manufacturer, get detailed reviews and ratings (with emphasis on historical accuracy), and most importantly get excellent pictures of the actual figures.

In the future I'll post my personal reviews of some manufacturers, tips on tricks on purchasing, and list my favorite sets.

Scale

Before detailing the selection process I went through for choosing a rule set, another important decision that had to be made is what miniature scale to use.

From The Miniatures Page:

The size of a miniature, relative to what it is a replica of, is known as the scale of the figure. For no particularly good reason, two different systems are used to rate scale.

• Some scales are given as a ratio, variously written as either a ratio (i.e., 1:300 or 1.300) or a fraction (i.e., 1/300). The number on the right of the pair indicates how many units (inches or centimeters) on the original are equivalent to one unit on the replica. For example, with a 1:300 scale miniature, if the miniature is 1" long, then the original was 300" in length. In spoken English, you would say 1/300 as "one [pause] three hundred scale."
• Other scales are simply listed as a certain height, such as 15mm or 54mm. Most people usually think of this as being the height of an average man (i.e., in 15mm scale, men are 15mm high), but there is a lot of confusion on this issue. According to some experts (but not all), "traditional" figure heights are measured to eye level, since measuring to the top of the head is impractical for figures wearing headgear (as many military figures do). Therefore, when a manufacturer says his figures are (for instance) 25mm scale, he might mean "25mm to top of the head" or "25mm to eye level."

While most rules will favor one or more particular scales, for the most part rules sets can be played in any scale.

I have considerable experience with 25mm & 28mm from past gaming, but I suspected that these size figures might be too large for mass battles, so I did some investigation.

Here is an overview of the scales typically used in wargames:

SCALE	Where Used	Theoretical Equivalent
6mm	Equivalent to 1/285 scale and 1/300 scales. Smallest viable scale to represent humans. Figures available for fantasy, historical, and science fiction. Available in metal.	1/268
10mm	Relatively new scale, used for fantasy, historical and science fiction. Some think this will be the popular scale of the future, larger enough to show detail but small enough to fit a large army on a tabletop. Same as railroad N scale. Available in metal.	1/161
15mm	The most popular scale for pre-20th Century wargaming. Also used for fantasy, science fiction, and 20th Century "skirmish-level" games. Available in metal.	1/107
20mm	Becoming popular for skirmish-level wargaming. Also used for science fiction. Very close to OO scale (British model railroad scale, alternative to HO scale). Metal & Plastic. This scale is also very close to 1/72 for which there are many available plastics (P20).	1/80.5
25mm	Traditionally popular for pre-20th Century wargaming, though most historical gamers have now switched to 15mm. Excellent scale for display games. Continues to be popular for fantasy wargaming, historical skirmish-level games, science fiction, and for use with role-playing games. Same as railroad S scale. Available in plastic and metal.	1/64
28mm	The "large" 25mm figures are sometimes listed as being 28mm. Available in plastic and metal.	1/58

The pic at the beginning of the post is from http://www.littleleadheroes.com and shows 2mm, 6mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm, 28mm, & 54mm respectively for comparison purposes.

Things to consider other than the look of the armies on the table when choosing the scale are:

• appearance: what is the visual impact of an "army on the field"? how much visible detail on the fig, ie can you make out face/armor details?
  
• availability: how easy to get the figs? which time periods/nationalities are available?
  
• price per piece: how much does each fig cost? how many figs per army?
  
• materials used: metal or plastic?
  
• level of effort for assembly/painting: how much effort to paint a fig/army?
  

All of these are pretty related. For example, both availability and material will strongly affect the price; the size of the figures will dictate the visual detail, which in turn will affect the level of effort in painting, etc

At the end of the day I narrowed it down to 15mm or 20mm. The smaller scales seemed too small to me...lacking visual detail. The larger scales seem daunting from a price and level-of-effort perspective.

Of the two finalist, the 20mm (1/72) plastics has the best price point. Arguably it may have slightly less availability than metal in 15mm or 25mm and certainly is not the "purist" choice, but it is the one that seems to make the most sense to me.