'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'

-Robert E. Howard
Beyond The Black River

Corrupt Cliffs

Corrupt Cliffs
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Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Miniature Scale Comparisons.

"How well do they scale?"

When people talk about miniatures from board games(BG) this is one of the first things that comes up. It is probably second only to people wondering how good they are.

Scale is a common concern among miniature gamers, and it gets asked about different figures from different companies all the time, it is not just asked about BGs.

I recently got my pledge for "Mythic Battles: Pantheon" and let me say, that I love these figures.  I was asked almost immediately about how well they scaled with Conan.  This blog post will attempt to compare and contrast a fairly decent range of figures including Bones, Bronze Age, Conan, Mythic, Wizkids pre-paints and the new line of unpainted figures from Wizkids.

One last caveat.  We are not scale modelers in my opinion.  We use our miniatures and our terrain to make our battles or rpgs come alive with cool ideas.  The figures and terrain we use are seeds to our imagination and serve to keep each of us playing more or less in the same frame.

Starting with  a group shot of all the figures.
Bronze Age, Bronze Age, Pre-paint, Bones, Bones, Bones, Deepcuts, Conan, Conan, Mythic, Mythic.

The last Mythic figure I simply included for fun as it is the "god" scale for the game.


These two images show a Bones Conan-eque figure next to some Bronze Age figures, both are your pro-typical barbarian figs. I think they are pretty similar in scale, with the Bronze Age figs perhaps being more physically proportional. Either way they will work fine together on the table.

The two males next to each other show the proportional differences much clearer. Despite these I still think they will work fine on the table together.
Here we have that same Bones figure next to one of the pre-paint figures. I think she is from the "Rise of the Runelords" collection, but I can't recall for sure. Again the scale is pretty good. She stands at a human height next to our hulking barbarian. He might even look a little short if their bases were the same height. But again I have no issues using these two figures together on the table.
This is a scale comparison between one of the Conan BG figures and our Conan-eque Bones figure again. Again we see more of the same. Decent scale, easily useable on the same table, even thought the Conan BG figure is a little talled.


Same scale we saw in the Conan BG figure, this Mythic BG figure is slightly taller than this Bones figure, but still useable together on the same table. I would also like to take this time to point out the excellent detail on the Mythic figure.
Now lets look at a few non-Bones comparisons. We have seen these two before, Conan BG vs Bronze Age. I think they stack up pretty well together. If I had to make a critical note on the scale differences, the Conan BG fig makes the Bronze age fig look like he has a giant head. From a tabletop perspective though, I think they will be great together.


Comparing one of the new Deep Cuts figures (or Nolzurs I can't actually remember which) to the Bronze Age figure. I think these two are a pretty good fit. She is smaller, but generally in fantasy (and other generally heroic and idealized) art women are drawn with smaller frames.

Not surprisingly the Conan BG and Mythic BG figures both scale very well together. Probably the most similar sized strong dude to strong dude of the lot.


To be complete here is the Bronze Age figure next to the Mythic BG figure. Nothing new here, pretty much what we saw when comparing the Bronze Age to the Conan BG figure.






One final shot of a Bones, Mythic God and Mythic Warrior....



This Bones Paladin is in a pretty similar stance as the Mythic Warrior, and has a base of about the same height. He stands nearly a head shorter. This is getting to the point where they might start to look funny in my opinion, but then again, maybe the Paladin is just a short human or an elf?

Are you more of a scale perfectionist than I am? Do some of these figures not work for you when placed together? Why not let me know what you thin and drop me a comment below?

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for doing this. You've done all the work for me when purchasing figures to augment my Conan BG Minis. (Planning to use them on the table top when playing cConan 2d20).

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  2. Thanks for leaving a comment! My pleasure, just realized it was a very common question and I had quite a few different manufacturers. I am glad it was a useful post!

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