Previous Generations of Minis, How Do They Scale

[Blank Dave]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum or not, but here goes....

 

I'm an old fart, and as such part of my army dates back to RT days. I took time off and came back when 3rd came out. In that time almost all the vehicles were redesigned and released, and they were larger than their predecessors. In some cases much larger...I'm looking at you Land Raider and Speeder. Also in that time, the figures also got larger. But not so much so that they looked out of place beside the new marines.

 

Well I'm back again, annoying myself as to go iron hands, wolves, or say screw it and go chaos. But anyway...

 

I'm wondering how the new figures scale relative to the 3rd ed ones. Has there been much of a size change in the years. And will the really old '30 in box' of crimson fists still blend in, or is it time to retire them?

 

Thanks

[Damo1701]

The old 1st and 2nd edition models do look significantly different, but if you end up playing people who were around then, they will appreciate a decent army, regardless of the model source, and they are still playable in GW as they are GW models ;)

 

As for 3rd, well, the metal models look a little smaller, but not a huge amount.  My Fists have one of the 3rd editions captains in their force, and it doesn't look too bad.

 

You are really spoilt for choice if you want to work on an army with different marks of armour, depending on your budget.  You can go entirely Forge World for different marks, or there are the Betrayal at Calth (Mark IV Maximus Armour), and Burning of Prospero (Mark III Iron Armour) in plastic available, or you could stick with the basic sets for the current timeline marks available.

 

Anyway, hope that helps a little.

[Dagoth Ur]

Older models are certainly smaller than modern ones (The Terminators more so than regular power armoured infantry I believe), but I don't think there should be that much of an issue gaming wise. I certainly never had any and I have played against full RT armies, mix and mash and everything inbetween. As long as the base sizes are correct I'd say you are golden.

[Stercus]

You paint them up nice, and any reputable opponent will be delighted and probably envious to face your ancient beakies.

Saying that, marines have generally scaled up a few percentage points since the old days. It's most noticeable in the character sculpts.

[Boudan]

I think most people worth playing, old or not, would be impressed at a RT-era army.

[Claws and Effect]

Use them!

 

Scale be damned. Anyone who appreciates the history of the game will like seeing the old school beakies on the table.

[Blank Dave]

I used to have one of the Mr Peanut dreadnoughts too, but don't know where he got to.  I also have one of the old lead imperial jet bikes, and pocket landspeeders.

[Red_Shift]

The 3rd edition models are definitely smaller. This is very noticeable if like me you repaired older marines with arms from the newer ones. Look a bit gorilla ! I think the new deathwatch are bigger again so the effect if likely to be magnified going forwards

[FlamingDeth]

There's at least a bit of a scale difference with the terminators, though part of it is stance, they're a little taller and quite a bit wider. Scale shot for funsies of a WIP model and zero progress model, because I'm a slow painter. No old power armor for comparison since I only did Deathwing at the time...

[Trevak Dal]

Abaddon kind of looks like a blinged out Deathwatch marine in power armor, cosplaying as a terminator armored guy.

 

Old Wraithguard look stupid next to the new ones (and at t6 is :cussing rediculous for being so small, and potentially troops.)

 

Those are my main experiences personally, some of the older (Macragge marines) look smaller next to the new hotness marines (The new ones being like the Master Chief at the end of Halo 4 next to the Spartan 4s) but I just chop them up for basing material for my Tau suits.

[JeffJedi]

Easy solution, just keep the in squads by age. It's only when you mix that you'do notice.

[Doghouse]

Speaking as a fellow old timer depends what you want to do.

 

If you want to just get back into the hobby and get some games under your belt then go for it mate. There are a lot of 3rd edition models that have not been updated in years but the most noticeable you will see is that for the most part RT era stuff tends to be smaller with bigger hands and heads.

 

The RT beakies would be perfectly fine to play against for a lot of people, legally speaking you have to remind them how the game was in your day and how easy kids have it now with their fancy multi-part kits, plastic terrain and ipad compatible codex...in my day we needed a forklift just to carry the all metal army...

 

This is not a bad starting place if you want to start fresh though: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-40-000?Nu=product.repositoryId&N=102296+1792822988&qty=12&sorting=rec&view=table&categoryId=cat440130a-flat

 

These starter sets are seriously good value for money in some cases, £50 for about £83.50 worth of models in the case of the Ad mech one for example. 

[Major_Gilbear]

Personally, If you have a sizeable number of old models mostly from one era, I would stick with them. With a little creativity and some effort, even older models without current formal rules can still be used as something else (for example, Robots with a Tech-Priest can be allied in from the Ad-Mech, or they can be used in-faction by counting as Centurions).

 

The main issue is that the level of detail, models sizes, and relative scales have all changed so much over the years. You can have each squad be it's own, but it's harder to get a unified army look in my opinion. Game-wise, old models are still valid as-is.

 

If you're making a new army with old models, I would consider using "modern" base sizes perhaps, and also using bases for models that historically didn't have them (like dreadnoughts). A few other things to bear in mind are weapon options (particularly things like combi-weapons and heavy weapons), newer vehicles (like the Razorback, Vindicator, Whirlwind, etc), and flyers were not available back then, and will need to be kit-bashed if you want them. You can also just use the new stuff as-is, but it will look rather out of place. Flyers aside, it's not actually too hard to make most of the conversions you might require though.

 

Your other option is to park the models somewhere safe for a future retro-project, and just start again by buying new. This will obviously cost you more money, but the Start Collecting series is a great start, as are the the various Troops+Transport boxed sets (usually, you get a saving of about 25% or better on these). Another worthy mention are the two Horus Heresy boxed games ("Betrayal at Calth" and "The Burning of Prospero") which have tons of models in them for a good price.

 

Finally, if you choose to buy new, but want to have the old-school vibe, it's very possible to do that with the HH boxes and some help from FW's ranges. So you can have lots of Mk6 Beakies running around with the big ammo-cassette shoulder-mounted missile launchers should you wish!

 

If you need some inspiration, there have been a few old-model armies around on B&C, and Google image searches also throw up a few. For what it's worth, nice armies with effort lavished upon them always stand out and are viewed positively by gamers everywhere. :)

[totgeboren]

I also have a bunch of old RT marines. Those got retired. My RT Land Raider got converted to fit the new scale, as were my Rhinos and Predator. 2ed Termies got either retired or converted to fit the new scale.

For me the scale difference is enough of an issue that I converted my stuff. But then again I play chaos so I guess that gives a bit more leeway.

[Cactus]

Terminators look ok if you mount them on a 40mm base without removing the original 28mm one. This is almost exactly the height disparity between the old metal and new plastic models.

 

http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/20120107_144551.jpg

 

Increasing the height of the base works for beakies too. I don't have a comparison shot for these guys so you'll just have to take my word for it that they look fine on the battlefield alongside their taller kin.

 

http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb440/Cactus-/ETL%20II/SAM_0977_zpsdb1c8b2c.jpg

[SW1]

The size difference between the old metal TDA and new plastics is over emphasised by the arms being so close to the body. Give the TDA a 1mm plasticard raise via the soles of their feet and stick plastic arms on them. You won't really be able to tell the difference, same with the PA marines.

 

Just hop down to my HH blog in a few weeks time and you'll find me working through blending 50ish metal TDA and many more metal PA marines into my SW Legion force. It's a new project so pics will come as I get to them.

[Mirbeau]

They can blend in pretty well from 2nd Ed on, most rogue trader miniatures don't fit in though.

 

My 40k Blood Angels have quite a few survivors mixed in from my first army in the mid 1990's. Modern bits, arms etc. and basing them with a little hight (though not overdoing that) do blend them in, especially in the context of a squad/army.

 

Don't have any other pics of my 40k Blood Angels to hand (and they're packed away while I work on 30k), but this wip shot from 2014-15) has a 2nd ed sergeant leading a modern unit (mini with the back-banner pole) and I don't feel he looks out of place (the flamer marine next to him is on a pretty big rock).