Mixing miniatures of different manufacturers in one warband

Hi,

I'm always looking forward for new warbands, and therefor am always looking for different miniatures I like.

So for a human merceneries warband I collected a lot of pictures from following manufacturers:

Cool Mini or not
Games Workshop (Lord of the Rings and Fantasy)
Dark Sword Visions
Enigma
Fenryll
Gamezone
Hell Dorado
Reaper
sphere wars
Tales of war


I wouldnt want to mix of ALL manufacturers. But what is your opionon?

Is mixing okay? Or do you prefer only picking from one manufacturer? If you paint them all likely similar, are the differences even visible at first sight later?


Thank you for your opinions!


Best regards,
Seikilos

I do it all the time.

My current warband has Foundry Arabs, a few Reaper, some old GW figs from the 80s and a couple of miniatures that I can't remember where they came from (Prince August?). Its really up to you.

As long as there isn't TOO great a difference in size I like to mix mini makers. A bit of size variation looks realistic...we do live in a world with jockeys & basketball players after all.    

Enigma minis by the way are really big, but oh-so-cool nonetheless.

The main problem with models from mixed manufacturers is that the heads don't match in size. I usually find 28mm and 32mm go perfectly well together, but LotR and Fantasy models don't match because of the difference in head size IMO.

Thank you for your advice!

So now I only have to search for some more models to mix, for example female halfling archers or female marksmen with muskets/blunderbusses =)

As long as you're not a fanatic, you should be able to mix anything.

As said above, scale and style are very important elements to take into account. You should also look out for differences in detail, as some companies are excellent and others have rougher sculpts and not so much detail.

Cool Mini or Not: scale and style compatibility can vary from model to model.

Games Workshop (Lord of the Rings and Fantasy): watch out with scale of some of LOTR models, as they tend to be smaller than your average 28mm minis (like Warhammer Empire models, for example) and they can lack some detail. Some might match 28mm, but only a small amount among the range.

Dark Sword Visions: again, watch out with scale. Some heads are smaller than 28mm models. The level of detail is excellent, though.

Enigma: slightly larger than 28mm, but not necessarily incompatible. Very good level of detail. The style might make them look too different from your warband's.

Fenryll: in my opinion, most models tend to be too large. There are exceptions, though.

Gamezone: scale and style are compatible, but the casting and detail of some models are not that great. You can check them yourself and then decide if it's up to your standards.

Hell Dorado: bordeline 28mm, but some human models might have smaller heads than 28mm models.

Reaper: usually compatible with 28mm models. I have only tried metal models but not the polymer minis from their Bones range, so can't guarantee how good the material actually is.

Sphere wars: compatible with 28mm. Style is a bit unique, but very interesting choices for wilderness creatures, etc.

Tale of war: slightly taller than 28mm, but still compatible. Dwarves are very big and bulky.

Adding to your list, here are a few more companies that can give you some interesting fantasy choices for warriors and civilians:

Lead Adventure Miniatures
Wargames Foundry
Avatars of War
Freebooter Miniatures
Black Scorpion Miniatures
Black Cat Bases
Hasslefree Miniatures
Heresy Miniatures
Bushido
Black Hat Miniatures
Otherworld Miniatures
West Wind Productions
Alkemy
Perry Miniatures

Again, there will always be issues (even if only slight ones) regarding scale, style, detail and quality of sculping. If you want, check for scale comparison shots between companies or models online.
If you can't find what you want, just ask. There might be someone in the forum who has the models you're looking for and could take pictures of them.

Good luck!

Joao

JoaoS wrote:

...

A lot of info, thanks!

For contribute to the topic i can confront avatars of war, perry miniatures and warlord games:
- avatars of wars is 99,99% identic in all with GW miniatures.
- perry miniatures and warlord games are 28mm but much smaller and fine than GW, more "human" size than "heroic".


Anyway I personally prefer mixing only if the style and size is veeeery similar and the difference minimum!

I wanted to mix in privateer press, reaper, avatars of war and rackham figures, which all are generally closer to 32mm, so i just added a couple of mil to the height of my gw figures and it works great, I didn't worry about the females ones though as generally women tend to be shorter anyway.

Still yet to find a range of halflings I like though (closest i can find were the ltd edition ratling snipers).

With the smaller minis G.W's LotR stuff would probably work size-wise with Red Box & Ral Partha. This is supposition on my part as I don't have any of the LotR pieces to compare other than the Invisible Frodo & a couple of Ral Partha Kender.   

Avatars of War are slightly larger to GW but with Orcs this is hardly noticeable. Reaper Warlord line was larger than GW but their Reaper Dark Heaven Legends was smaller. Not a good fit for my dwarves in either range but I used a human female in mercenaries just fine.

Mike wrote:

Avatars of War are slightly larger to GW but with Orcs this is hardly noticeable. Reaper Warlord line was larger than GW but their Reaper Dark Heaven Legends was smaller. Not a good fit for my dwarves in either range but I used a human female in mercenaries just fine.

Heh, all true and I agree on the dwarves, so I started with reaper dwarves as a basis so I didn't have that problem lol.
Finding trolls slayers that fit was tricky, the mantinc ones with a bit of added neck worked out the best in the end.

Talking about dwarfes:

Have you seen the Red Box Dwarfes? They are reayll goodlooking. I though about using the Crossbow-Dwarfes as kind of thunderers?

They seem to be smaller than other dwarfes, but fluffwise it would be okay to send the strong, big warrior dwarfes in the front line and give the smaller one crossbows...

What you think about mixing Red Box Crossbows with Scibor and Avatars of war?

Red box are LOTR (25mm) scaled and they have arms and necks which most other manufacturers do not, they will look tiny compared to Scibor and AoW, they would only work with LOTR figures IMO.

They would work OK for Gnomes though... lol.

I really like the sculpts but my project is 30-32mm hence why I went with Reaper dwarves which are some of the tallest on the market, possibly only 2nd to Privateer Press's steampunk styled dwarves.

Hmm…

I haven’t thought it would make SUCH a big difference. So you think it really looks kind of weird?

Unfortunately they are imho the only good looking crossbow dwarfes =/

Unless I want to use the static citadel ones…

I'm sorry I didn't think of this before. Over on Lead Adventure Forum they have a rather long thread comparing miniatures for size & proportion that you might find helpful:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=10500.0

 

DeafNala wrote:

I'm sorry I didn't think of this before. Over on Lead Adventure Forum they have a rather long thread comparing miniatures for size & proportion that you might find helpful:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=10500.0

 

seems to be all historic, at least no red box

maxxev wrote:

DeafNala wrote:

I'm sorry I didn't think of this before. Over on Lead Adventure Forum they have a rather long thread comparing miniatures for size & proportion that you might find helpful:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=10500.0

 

seems to be all historic, at least no red box

Well you're right about the Red Box. However, having just done a quick head count, I'd estimate about 1/4 of the comparisons are historical with the rest falling in the fantasy, horror, sci-fi, & such areas. The annoying part of L.A.F. photos is that you have to go to the bottom of each post to move the image so you can see the minis on the far right.   

DeafNala wrote:

maxxev wrote:

DeafNala wrote:

I'm sorry I didn't think of this before. Over on Lead Adventure Forum they have a rather long thread comparing miniatures for size & proportion that you might find helpful:

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=10500.0

 

seems to be all historic, at least no red box

Well you're right about the Red Box. However, having just done a quick head count, I'd estimate about 1/4 of the comparisons are historical with the rest falling in the fantasy, horror, sci-fi, & such areas. The annoying part of L.A.F. photos is that you have to go to the bottom of each post to move the image so you can see the minis on the far right.   

22" wide screen I don't have that problem lol.

Found this, with LOTR in the middle Red box either side:


Redbox vs. GW old Helga figure (who BTW is shorter than current plastics).


D&D Adventure game, Reaper bones, OOP GW I think, Red Box, LOTR, OOP GW, Reaper


AoW vs Mantic vs GW


Oathsworn vs GW vs Oathsworn

Thank you for the link.

For my actual question it's not really that big a help, but in general it seems so be pretty good!



@maxxev:
Sorry, cant see any pictures. Are there supposed to be pictures or links?

Edit: Now I see the pictures. The first one seems to be okay... but the second and third really are scary... They're not only short, but not as wide, either..

Hi,

after further research and several registrations at forums, I found out, that especially Red Box dwarfs are really, really small, similar to the LOTR-Stuff. The AoW seem to be pretty big on the other hand.

I thought of NOT mixing them together, so that the warband itself looks pretty similar. But would you think, the models itself can be to tiny to play mortheim with?

AoW are supposed to be used to represent the heroes of your warband, so they are a bit bigger than the other miniatures.

Ultimately, if you're happy with the design and feel of the models, then nothing should stop you from getting them and using them to play Mordheim and other games.

Joao

Joao wrote:

Ultimately, if you're happy with the design and feel of the models, then nothing should stop you from getting them and using them to play Mordheim and other games.

Agreed. The only game mechanic I can see being disputed with model sizes is the size of the base for close combat, and miniscule models being easy to hide from ranged/los. As long as your gaming group is accepting of model size there should'nt be any problems.

Mixing and matching is great, and allows you to create a much more unique warband. My current undead warband uses GW, Privateer Press, Enigma, Heresy, Malifaux and Mantic and I think they work fine.

It's probably easier for the more high fantasy warbands than it is with Mercenaries, for example. If you've got 15 humans in a warband then you want them all to be in proportion with each other (even so, some variation in size is fine, but you don't want to mix heroic scale with realistic). If you're possessed, undead, beasts, orcs etc then such considerations are less important.

Also, consider which models "should" be bigger. I don't mind using a taller, more slenderly proportioned model as my vampire for example, as it makes him stand out. Likewise, one of my dreg's background is that he is an enormous brutish murderer, so the fact that he stands about 7' 3" in comparison to the rest of the warband I think works well.

Reminds me... really should post up some pics of that warband.

Quote :

Reminds me... really should post up some pics of that warband.

Yes you should!   

Heyho...

I'm really sorry at the moment. ALL my dwarfs are on the postal way for now!

I ordered hasslefree and red box. But some hasslefree models seem to be the exact same models as new red box ones and vice versa. So I think, they would be practically the same!

For more informations I'm going to write on my dwarfs thread. And as soon as I start building and basing them, you will get the pics for sure.

But first I have to paint my beastmen to the end :-)