What is the model scale for 25mm/28mm?

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

One of these days, I'm going to run a Twilight 2000 game at 1/16th scale with the 3 1/2" GI Joe figures.

The guy whose house we play at ran an attack on a German-held Italian villa with the old-scale G.I. Joes at several conventions, and picked up a couple awards for it.

I never got to play in it, but the pictures are pretty sweet.

 

[CharlesRyan]

I've run a lot of post-apocalyptic games, and have a large collection of vehicles and whatnot.

In my experience, while 1/72 is technically accurate for 25mm, it doesn't look or work right on the gaming table. 25mm-28mm minis take up a lot more space than they technically should, especially when you take the base into consideration (the base is usually about 5 ft across at scale, and adds a foot to the minis' height).

I find that 1/48 tends to work a lot better. You can also find loads of cheap die-cast toy cars commonly at 1/43, and they work great as well.

The larger the vehicle, the closer you want it to "actual" size. A small car at 1/72 would look ridiculously small next to 25mm/28mm minis, but it's less pronounced for a semi or a helicopter.

Mongoose made a prepainted modern warfare minis game a few years ago that included a lot of vehicles; maybe you can find some on eBay or whatever. They're nice, but they're a good example of what I'm talking about--they look stupidly small on the gaming table, even though they're exactly to scale.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Wayyyyyy back when (mid 70'sish), I understood 25mm scale to represent 6', or the height of a tall human.

I would say that now the 28 mm figures are using that measure as closer to 5' than 6'. They're all terribly oversized, and I just CAN'T bring myself to mix modern minis with my old ones. When the "dwarf" and "halfling" minis are the same height as the previous humans, there's just something wrong!

True - my old Ral Partha miniatures look puny next to modern Reaper and Warhammer stuff. Heck, my old Warhammer stuff looks smaller than my new Warhammer stuff (I have the infamous old WH goblin giving the middle finger, and it is decidedly smaller than my newer goblins from the folks at Warhammer)

However, scale is not just old vs new. The Gravetouched Ghoul D&D miniature looks gigantic next to the Ghast D&D miniature, even though the ghast is supposed to be more powerful/elite than a mere ghoul. The ghast looks like a preteen boy before becoming undead, while the ghoul looks like an NBA power forward by comparison.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

However, scale is not just old vs new. The Gravetouched Ghoul D&D miniature looks gigantic next to the Ghast D&D miniature, even though the ghast is supposed to be more powerful/elite than a mere ghoul.

Size creep in DDM was a source of great frustration to many of us who collected from the beginning. It was partially a function of design, partially a function of the larger degree of unpredictability in mold contraction and expansion, partially a function of sculptor preferences, partially a function of method (e.g., the later CAD minis tended to be significantly larger in all dimensions), and (IMO) partially a matter of carelessness.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I decided to go with 1:72 since this is TWILIGHT:2000 and not sweat it that much. 1:48 models are way, way expensive for what I want to do and there won't be that much vehicle combat anyway.

I may pick up a couple of ITALIARI Soviet kits since there's damn few papercraft 1:72 kits for stuff like BTR-80s, MT-LBs and BDRMs (or T-series tanks for that matter).

Ultimately I think it will be fine.

 

[CoreyHaim8myDog]

One of these days, I'm going to run a Twilight 2000 game at 1/16th scale with the 3 1/2" GI Joe figures.

And I will play that game, sir.

 

[Kadmon]

For Twilight:2000 I'd also recommend 1:72 miniatures, especially as there are plenty of new insurgent and terrorist sets that can be used for ragtag militias, and both the figures and the vehicles are cheaper than others. It's also easy to find scenery for that scale.
1:16 is also useful if you already own the action figures, or if you can be satisfied with cheap Chinese ones. Those minis are easier to customise, and you can put any kind of weapons in their hands. With 1:16 my problem was with creating bases for the miniatues that will hold them, and also, I used old casette cases, books and such for scenery, but there were some players who felt the non-realistic terrain causes problems for their immersion, but and storing scale model terrain is problematic for me.