why you should use the 1/72 (20mm) scale ?

[farfade]

If you are on this forum, you probably whant to play on the cheap AND you are a handyman.


why should you consider to use the 1/72 scale ?

  - It's small and cute

  - It's cheap 5$-10$ the box of 40+ miniatures

  - There is a very large choice of historic miniatures (you should have a look here : www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Periods.aspx)

  - But you can also find fantasy miniatures (www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?274115-1-72-scale-fantasy-miniatures)

  - Most of 1/72 figs are made of plastic and conversions are easy !

  - Most of your 28mm monsters (the big ones) will still be usable with smaller miniatures (dragons, giants, etc.)



Because I'm honnest :

Why you should not use 1/72 scale minaitures for rpg ?

  - It's difficult to find fantasy miniatures even for "standard" d&d races & classes





In order to use 20mm miniatures for rpg you must have imagination, but it's possible.

If you want to see more, have a look on those incredible blogs :

cheapfantasyminis.blogspot.fr/
72-multiverse.blogspot.fr/
and join this G+ community :

plus.google.com/u/0/communities/113363218840328050806


And now, let me introduce some of my miniatures :

[thorswulf]

I have a bunch of 20mm dark ages minis from Stan Johansen's old Warlord line from the 70's. They fit very nicely with 1/72 plastics. In a pinch I have a very nice Dwarven Army!

[adamantinedragon]

I have most of the sets of 1/72 that are shown here. I use them all the time. I do use the "orcs" as goblins sometimes, but for the most part I just use the miniatures interchangeably with my D&D, Reaper and Ral Partha miniatures (some of which are roughly the same scale). The campaign I am running needs to sometimes have soldiers from four different armies, so I use the 1/72 minis for squads or patrols. Yeah, every now and then there will be a comment about how this guy is a midget or something, but overall they all just work together fine. It is a game of the imagination after all, and having slightly small but accurate miniatures is better than constantly saying "These red pawns are the orcs, remember?"

[pedrodevaca]

You forgot to mention the seamless integration into historical WW2 armor dioramas, allowing for amazing genre mashups >_>

[farfade]

You're right Pedrodevaca, A lot of "modern" buildings can easily be converted into medieval buildings.

I see a wooden watch tower & a medieval camp (for about 10$) : 

ruins are ruins :

Even building might look medieval with a few conversions :

[sgtslag]

There was an article in Dragon Magazine, back in the late 70's, where the author had two gaming groups: one would only play fantasy (OD&D), and the other would only play WW II games with Axis and Allied troops. He invited both groups over, to allegedly play their genre of games. In reality, he did a mash-up, where some Nazi troops, in half-tracks, and trucks, approached a castle -- normal game situation for WW II Nazis. The fantasy players saw these weird machines, with strangely clothed/equipped men approaching their castle. The Nazi's were attacked by Ogres, and Orcs, repelling all boarders with machine guns, and panzerfausts (anti-tank rocket launchers); the wizard, defending his castle, launched fireballs, lightning bolts, and other magical 'artillery' on the invaders. The article was an absolute hoot to read.

Around 10 years ago, a friend of mine hosted a WW II game, Nazis vs. Americans, in a city. He took me aside and informed me that I would be commanding a group of aliens, from another planet, with advanced energy weapons, cloaked Mech's, concussion grenades, blasters, and light sabers! They couldn't see the Mech's initially, so they really were shocked when some of their armored vehicles brewed up, when no human enemy could have accomplished it. Finally, my Mech's lost their cloak, and appeared -- and the shocked looks, and the questions, were hilarious, to me and the referee.  The Mech's weapons produced visible flashes, so they assumed there were hidden troops in certain locations, which they pelted with artillery, disabling the cloaking devices -- which is when we put the sci-fi Mech's on the table.

I had troops looking out second-story windows, inside a factory, as Nazi troops skulked along the outside wall, below me. I dropped concussion grenades, stunning a couple of squads, then I ran outside, light saber in hand, and decapitated as many as I could, before they recovered and opened up on me with their guns. It was great fun for me, as there was wholesale carnage everywhere!

The Axis and Allies, joined forces long enough to blow the Aliens away, then they happily went back to killing each other. It was great fun, particularly since the other players didn't know what the [bleep!!!] was going on for a while. The disappointing part was how they just eliminated the Aliens, then went back to 'war', as if nothing had happened. LOL! Cheers!

[adamantinedragon]

Heh, this takes me back. Way, way back. Not quite to the 70s, but close, I think it was 1982.

Our group of adventurers had completed an epic campaign, defeated Asmodeus, restored balance to the world and pretty much become demigods.

So our GM put us in a magical boat and we went sailing into interstellar space. Where we found ourselves in the middle of a war between two technical worlds. We had to board their spaceships, fight through armies of robots and eventually take over the ship. And that was supposed to just be the start, but the GM had to move away. Still, magic missiles vs laser beams was a lot of fun.

[furfle]

the smaller one goes = the more fun one has

[farfade]

My yesterday paintings :

a dwarf, a imp & the famous caesar big monster (what is it ? a giant "troll" ?)

[sgtslag]

Nice work! I use my Caesar monster as an AD&D Troll.

You are the only other person I have seen who painted their Goblins red, as per the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual, by E. Gary Gygax. ;-) I used a brick-red color for mine. Love it -- can't stomach bright/dark green Goblins, and Orcs... Thought about painting some groups of Goblins in the other colors E.G.G. mentions in his description of them, to represent other tribes, but I always end up using the brick red, as I like it so much, and I can use all of my Goblin figures as a single, large tribe (108 figures, total, so far; some are infantry, some riding Wolves, some Wargs, some riding Giant Bats as aerial cavalry, mostly used for BattleSystem mass battle games, rather than RPG's)

A box of 36 Goblins, shipped from Hong Kong, for all of $12, makes building an army quite easy.  I've found the best prices for Caesar, and Dark Alliance fantasy, 1/72 plastic figures on e-Bay thus far, but it does pay to shop carefully, for best prices.  The Dark Alliance Light/Heavy Orc Warg Riders, 1/72, are about the same height as the Caesar Goblins, so I am painting them up as Goblins -- at arm's length, it is hard to tell they are much different than the Caesar Goblin figures. The DA Orc Warg Riders are really superbly detailed, varied in pose, and just very nice figures.  They paint up easily (thus far), even without priming -- I use the plastic's color as the base for the coat of the Warg fur, adding brown spots, following the box art.  Once painted, I will seal them with either The Dip, or Magic Wash, which will seal the paint sufficiently for handling in games.  Cheers!

[adamantinedragon]

Heh, I liked that troll so much I made a silicon mold for it and cast more than half a dozen copies. I use them for trolls, but I also made them into demons with some green stuff and wings. Love that beastie. My mold fell apart though, so if I want more, I'll have to make another mold.

Here's a couple of my troll/demons:


In the top one I cut off the arm at the shoulder and repositioned it, then smoothed things over with green stuff.

[furfle]

You can do so much... for a zombie horde, these bag o' zombies are cheap/easy to paint... Moreover, I can shrink a paper model to scale... The woman in purple dress is a custom babe I made from a template...

Female Zed Test by JJMS313, on Flickr

[farfade]

bag o zombies, I don't know that !
Must have!!!!

[sgtslag]

They also made a bag of zombie dogs... I got mine off of Amazon.com.

The dogs are perfect for my game world: all dead bodies are burned, to prevent the dead from returning -- what's a Necromancer to do?!?!? Answer: animate animal carcases as zombie/skeleton armies. The easiest creature to breed for undead armies, are dogs: they reproduce in larger numbers; no one will suspect anything as dogs just breed anyway, without help; and if you breed larger dog types, folks will assume you are selling them as war dogs, which can be a nice, legitimate, side business.

It's creepy, and twisted, I know, but it makes sense in my game world. I have yet to paint up the dogs, but I have around 100 of them, so my Necromancers will have a decent sized army to command, and they never need food, rest, or question his motives. YMMV. Cheers!

[onethatwas]

Jan 13, 2014 18:02:31 GMT sgtslag said:

They also made a bag of zombie dogs... I got mine off of Amazon.com.

The dogs are perfect for my game world: all dead bodies are burned, to prevent the dead from returning -- what's a Necromancer to do?!?!? Answer: animate animal carcases as zombie/skeleton armies. The easiest creature to breed for undead armies, are dogs: they reproduce in larger numbers; no one will suspect anything as dogs just breed anyway, without help; and if you breed larger dog types, folks will assume you are selling them as war dogs, which can be a nice, legitimate, side business.

It's creepy, and twisted, I know, but it makes sense in my game world. I have yet to paint up the dogs, but I have around 100 of them, so my Necromancers will have a decent sized army to command, and they never need food, rest, or question his motives. YMMV. Cheers!

I have something similar going on with a powerful Necromancer (Actually a "Dracolich"...Pathfinder doesn't have Dracoliches, but instead has a Reaver, which has a ward of protection fueled by the souls of slain creatures. Also, spells are fueled by the same energy). Basically She lives in an area over run by goblins. Quick breeding makes for plenty of souls to harvest, and bodies to make into undead hordes. And Goblins are easily cowed, so they make decent henchmen (if a bit on the slow side for the small ones. Thats what HobGoblins are foor...).

I dislike Necromancy as a whole, so I stay away from it when I play a Wizard. But my streak of nefariousness while DMing gives me wonderful excuses to use Necromancy...

[Sleepy Hollow Mike]

Jan 13, 2014 17:12:43 GMT farfade said:

bag o zombies, I don't know that !
Must have!!!!

Truth be told the Bag O Zombies are a bit larger than most 1/72 scale guys!

[furfle]

Thats a base thing tho... Just cut them off the base.

[Sleepy Hollow Mike]

Jan 7, 2014 20:55:39 GMT adamantinedragon said:

I have most of the sets of 1/72 that are shown here. I use them all the time. I do use the "orcs" as goblins sometimes, but for the most part I just use the miniatures interchangeably with my D&D, Reaper and Ral Partha miniatures (some of which are roughly the same scale). The campaign I am running needs to sometimes have soldiers from four different armies, so I use the 1/72 minis for squads or patrols. Yeah, every now and then there will be a comment about how this guy is a midget or something, but overall they all just work together fine. It is a game of the imagination after all, and having slightly small but accurate miniatures is better than constantly saying "These red pawns are the orcs, remember?"

I remember those days! We actually used chess pieces once upon a time! Lol My primary scale is 1/72 and altho there is a dearth of "adventurering types" out there I generally can do well with what is there as far as Orcs and GolbilnsUndead things like that Ceaser has helped a lot. The rest is really just trying to find other monsters and other scales that work. The Dollar store has provided many oppurtunities for conversion. Also scale isnt that much a factor with large types of minis. Dragons for instance are pretty common.I have used plastic cavemen for Hill Giants. The possibilities are out there and endless!

[Mike H "Chugosh"]

I have that set of Ceaser's fantasy adventurers and the goblins. I only did my troll up about half way before I set him aside, and most of the rest are somewhere between primed and half painted. I really like the smaller than 28mm scale figures, even if I cannot really see them anymore.

Do you use any sort of special paint to paint them; is my craft store cheapo stuff going to work?

As I am getting back into Savage Worlds, this seems like almost as cheap an option as paper miniatures.

Hey I think I found my video of my half painted troll!

[farfade]

I do use cheap paint with my cheap minis :



No miniature specific paint : no GW, no revell. 
I use only cheap acrylic gouache. I prime with it. I paint with it, I wash with it...


As you can see, it works pretty fine !