Mini Scales

[Primarch]

Well, another series of thoughts has been rattling round inside my head and I wanted to hear your opinions on it.
Does size matter?
Of course, I am talking about the size of your plastic models here and nothing else.
There are a wide variety of model scales commonly in use in the gaming community, so lets briefly talk about them.
28mm (1/56) is probably the one you are most familiar with being the scale for Warhammer and Warmahordes. This scale is often used for casual gaming.
25mm (1/60) is the scale that was mainly used for gaming till GW turned up. Lots of small companies produce figures in this scale and among people who play non-GW games the scale is very common.
20mm (1/72) is often used for WW1/WW2 historical games, being well supported by model companies like Tamiya as well as gaming companies.
15mm (1/100) is the scale for company level WW2 games like Flames of War and several other games where squadrons of vehicles and large numbers of troops are common such as GW's Warmaster.
6mm (1/285) is the scale used for the REALLY big games ironically. Often referred to as Epic amongst warhammer fans, it is common for Napoleonics and other games where thousands of men are involved.
1/48 - Not really a gaming scale, but a common scale for model aircraft and supported by Tamiya and some other companies. Though the scale is bigger, they look small next to 28mm as they are more realistic
1/35 - Again, not a gaming scale, but most plastic kits are in this scale. Look big compared to 28mm.
1/300, 1/600, 1/1200 - Naval scales. When you're putting battleships on the table, this is the scale you need to use (unless your table is 60 feet long).

So, what is your favourite scale and why?

[Primarch]

In answer to my own question:
As a long time GW Fanboy and player of Warmahordes and Malifaux amongst others, I have to admit to loving 28mm scale. I like my models to have a sense of weight and character on the tabletop. I also found that painting models at a smaller scale is less rewarding. I'm not a good painter by any means, but doing my 15mm FoW British army was just boring. The details are so small that I couldnt really pick them out accurately (my poor eyesight doesnt help).
On the table, I can see 6mm being ok IF you have some big minis mixed in, a-la GW's Epic games where you have basic infantry mixed in with squadrons of super heavy tanks and Titans. When the biggest mini on the table actually IS 6mm tall I find the visual appeal to be significantly diminished.
25mm is fine if it isnt mixed in with 28mm (though 25mm humans next to 28mm orcs/marines look just about right).
20mm seems like the scale you use if you're really indecisive about whether you want to go big or small. It's too big to do large scale games with and too small for decent skirmish games in my opinion.

That's my 2 yen, so how do the rest of you feel?

[The Other Dave]

My vote should be no surprise to anyone, heh.

I really love the sweeping scale 6mm allows - ground scale and mini scale means you can fight battles, rather than skirmishes, and lots of games at the scale take advantage of that, with more focus on command & control and so forth. To my mind, you get the best of both worlds. You can actually field, say, Imperial Guard at the company level, and use them as part of a larger battle, rather than just having them cram up your whole side of the board with no room for any meaningful degree of maneuver. It helps that it's dead easy to paint up 6mm miniatures to a level that look really good on the tabletop.

I don't really have a problem with any other scales - I love playing and painting for 28mm skirmish games as much as the next guy, and 15mm is great for engagements at the platoon level. Personally, I just don't think 28mm is well-suited to really big engagements - unless you assume each model represents 10 dudes, and then why not just mount 10 6mm dudes on a 20mm base?*

*Yeah, yeah, because each individual dude doesn't look as impressive. That's a totally fair criticism. I think it would be a pretty cool way to play WHFB, though.

[me_in_japan]

I actually used to play some pretty big games of epic when I was in high school. 8ft tables, tumpty thousand points a side kind of things. 6, 7 titans each side, too. Big uns, in other words. And I have to concede - they were a lot of fun. Visually, I think the armies looked very good. I think from an aesthetic POV, one shouldnt consider a single 6mm mini in and of itself. Itd be rather like looking at only a 28mm space marine's belt buckle in isolation from the rest of the mini. 6mm miniatures look great if you have a whole legion's worth on the table. You can get artistic with taht. spread your colours around the whole table, like. Kinda like the army is your canvas, rather than just a single model. There's an element of this with 40k, but with epic you could really go to town with it.

Im leaning more and more towards single-mini painting. Armies are starting to get on my nerves with their "ye gads, another 5 squads to go" kind of feeling. I want to be able to take my time over one mini, then finish it and say "done." Then consider my next move.

so, I'd say: single 28mm minis for display purposes, 6mm armies for awe.

[Seb]

Voted for 28mm.
Reasons are same as Prim, I want character and feel like I am involved more, so I am not very interested in the big scale battles.

[Spevna]

I have pretty much only got 28mm stuff.

I am very keen to try some 15mm. In my mind it is the best of both worlds. The minis are small enough to get some big battles with. They are big enough to actually have some character to them. They can be used for large battles and skirmish level stuff.

Here are some examples of what I think to be the best 15mm stuff out there;

[The Other Dave]

I'm seeing more and more cool 15mm stuff the more I poke around - it really seems like almost a cottage industry in the minis field, and there are a lot of small-but-well-done ranges floating around. Definitely some on the horizon for me as well. The cost is definitely a factor as well. You can get a squad of 10 human types for $6 or $7 US, and vehicles for less than twice that. A four-squad platoon supported by a tank and a couple APCs is totally doable for less than 5000 yen.

[Admiral-Badruck]

I own mostly 28 heroic scale stuff but the truth is I would not mind stuff that is a bit smaller... the truly tiny stuff for Epic is a bit too small for me... a shame really because epic is one of the coolest games out there... I wish I could get in to the smaller models... but I just do not have the will to change out of the 28mmHeroic scale...

[job]

As the lone voter for 15mm scale, I have to promote its virtues. While it is very small and can irritate the eyes when painting late at night (of course I think painting at any scale late at night can do that), the detail is far more compact and it requires far less to complete models. You can still get a great deal of detail and at the same time achieve the "epic" scale you may want. Also for modeling, 15mm scale is close to the railroad scales, so you can get a lot of great scenery and produce a lot of neat basing.

I also enjoy 28mm models. Certainly, if you are a great painter, this scale allows you to show off a lot more of your techniques (shading and such), but for gaming I think 28mm comes at a massive inconvenience of storage. The other con is the fact it costs so much more. While GW maybe a poor comparison, it seems most 28mm games cost a bit more then the 15mm scale ranges. (Just my impression.)

[Primarch]

While GW maybe a poor comparison, it seems most 28mm games cost a bit more then the 15mm scale ranges. (Just my impression.)

Well on material costs alone, a 28mm scale model is twice as tall, twice as wide and twice as deep as a 15mm scale figure (give or take), so that gives a volume 8x that of your 15mil scale. So yeah, its going to be way more expensive even if all the other costs are the same.