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Post by Sleepy Hollow Mike on Jan 30, 2014 6:45:30 GMT
I just got litteral but load of Mage Knight minis. What scale (if any) are they? Some look to be 25mm some seem like 32mm! I havent really looked into them before now. I had a few in my collection but they were very specific minis picked our for a reason. I dont usually do 25mm and above but these guys seem way cooler than my previous bias would have allowed me to believe. Does anyone else use them for there dungeons?
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dmj
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Post by dmj on Jan 30, 2014 11:00:18 GMT
I use a few here and there the scale I'd say is reapers "heroic" 28mm. Effectively 32mm
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Post by indigo777 on Jan 30, 2014 11:35:41 GMT
From what I understand they are like Heroclix from the same company. They are considered 28 mm but tend to be "Heroic scaled". Meaning the humans tend to be slightly taller than D&D mini's as they are sculpted at Superman size compared to a normal human. In the scale most of the humans stand around 6 and a half feet tall where a D&D human would be 6 foot tall in the same scale. That said the mini's still work great with D&d miniatures. Here's some pics of the D&D minis with rebased Heroclix Hobbit and DC Heroclix: Orcs: Humans: Dwarves: Halfling, GNome and Hobbit:
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Post by sgtslag on Jan 30, 2014 18:19:01 GMT
Actually, MK had no consistent scale... Their Gnoll figures are nice, but they are supposed to be 7+ feet tall, according to AD&D's Gygax. Their Centaur figures are decent, if very plain ( The Dip, over the factory paint, helps, considerably), but the un-armored figures are quite small. Their Gnolls, and Centaurs, would work best for 1/72 (around 20mm) scale figures. Then again, it depends on which figures you look at. Some of them are closer to 28mm-30mm in scale/size. They really need to be evaluated on a type-by-type basis. It sucks, but that is how it is. I play 2nd Ed. BattleSystem mass combat fantasy games. I use various MK figures for armies, including their Centaurs (their Centaur Zombies are much larger than their earlier, un-armored Centaur figures, which are close in size to their armored Centaur figures...). I also use their Bone Golem figures as Giant Skeletons [usually around the size of Hill Examples of toy conversions for BS games: Giants, slag-productions.blogspot.com/p/comparing-gaming-miniatures-with-toy.html; Dragons, slag-productions.blogspot.com/p/gaming-miniatures-vs-toy-figure.html. I want/need large numbers of figures for armies, so MK fills the bill, for a fraction of the cost of buying proper, "gaming" miniatures for my armies. It is all about trade-off's -- which sacrifices are you willing to accept? Cheers!
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robagd
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Post by robagd on Jan 30, 2014 19:57:52 GMT
We dont worry about scale all that much, if the players get picky I throw down a Galactus Hero Clix MK are cheap and come in fantasy figs so if they are close it really should be ok. It is after all only a game -R
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Post by adamantinedragon on Jan 31, 2014 4:55:12 GMT
When I went on a binge to expand my miniatures collection, I purchased over 500 MageKnight miniatures and rebased them on wooden disks. It took me a couple weekends to do them all. My impression of the usability of the miniatures can be summarized as follows:
1. There is very little conformity in scale compared with WotC D&D minis. This doesn't bother me but it is noticeable. 2. There is a wide range of sculpting styles ranging from dark horror style to almost cartoonish. Side by side some of the minis don't even look like they belong in the same universe. 3. There ia a serious range of sculpt quality, some of them are so bad I find myself wondering why I don't just throw them away. Others are exquisitely sculpted and painted. 4. Many of the minis strike me as far more imaginative and interesting than the WotC D&D minis which tend to be very predictable and even boring in comparison. 5. About half of the minis I have fit very well both in scale and in style with my other minis, especially the human and elf minis.
Overall I think they are a solid addition to my collection, but one of these days I'm seriously going to dump the 1/4 or so that are just awful.
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Post by Sleepy Hollow Mike on Jan 31, 2014 10:48:37 GMT
Thanks for the advice gentlemen! I am getting started again in fantasy minis and I was really confused by the difference in sizes. Then it hit me I was comparing the MK minis to Ral Parthas from 1983. They are what "True 25's"?
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Post by tauster on Jan 31, 2014 11:36:48 GMT
Sorry to derail the thread away from mage knight, but adamantinedragon's post reminded me on another small line of WotC figures: Creepy Freaks. weirdotoys.com/creepy-freaks-by-wizkids/www.funlines.net/42.html Most of them are too weird to be of use as regular PC or monster minis, at least not in 'normal' games. But they are fantastic for a halloween or a general tongue-in-cheek session. Maybe even in a regular modern roleplaying session where the players enter some kind of dreamland. Their main use for me is to have some totally outraging figures that I can either use as described above, as illusionary monsters or - and this is probably the most probable scenario - to scavenge parts of them for building other stuff. Example: I frankensteined parts of several creepy freak minis on Mother, but I wouldn't have if I hadn't got them very cheap (you can always wait and see if someone sells a bunch on ebay).
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Post by sgtslag on Jan 31, 2014 14:51:52 GMT
Back in the early 80's, Ral Partha's lines were true 25mm. Grenadier, on the other hand, has some serious scale problems. They issued a boxed set, official AD&D, "Adventurers", which had a kneeling Cleric, who was as tall, kneeling, as the standing Knight! Scale creep, and other issues with scale, are as old as toy soldiers (1700's?).
Tauster, I never knew of Creepy Freaks before. Interesting, and just a bit odd. Thanks for sharing. An interesting tid-bit of gaming trivia.
When it comes to mini's, I am not anal-retentive about scale. I mix 1/72 fantasy with 25mm-28mm figures; I also use toy figures, painted appropriately for what I use them to represent. I do, however, try to make the shorter/taller monster figures match as close as possible, relative to Humans (but my Humans are not all the same height, body mass, etc.). It is an interesting challenge. Cheers!
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dmj
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Post by dmj on Feb 2, 2014 15:07:42 GMT
I try to match scale now but for a while I had ral partha, with reaper and those two the scale is way off. Ral partha was 25 mm scale and like I had said earlier reapers heroic scale is 32mm so my ral partha stuff is now used as old retired out of shape heros and such since on a board with reaper stuff they look weak.
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Post by adamantinedragon on Feb 2, 2014 16:47:51 GMT
I use some of my old 25mm scale miniatures a little differently than they were designed, and they seem to work OK. I've used the smaller elves as gnomes or halflings and have used the smaller orcs as goblins. I've even used the smaller skeletons as gnome or halfling skeletons.
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