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I game hail Caesar and warhammer ancient battles in 1/72.

Do any of you collect 1/72?

Also, I plan on going to WAB tourneys with my barbarians, do they accept 1/72?

Thanks
Austin

I used to collect 1/72 as a kid before i knew wargaming existed. But I know a lot of guys that play 1/72 flames of war.

So its somewhat popular.

1/72 plastics probably outsell a lot of other historical figures because they are purchased by modellers and collectors as well as gamers. However, gaming with them has become sufficiently popular that 1/72 figure manufacturers have started changing how their poses are picked to make them more useful for gaming.

If you end up going with 1/72 I'd recommend going with a flexible brush on primer like liquitex gesso, or a dedicated plastic spray primer.

I just started collecting 1/72 for Battlegroup. Couldn't tell you how popular it is overall though.

And if you don't know about it, I have to recommend the fantastic Plastic Soldier Review website:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.aspx

WAB tournies will be on a case by case basis. Mostly though, if you mount figures on the same base size as everything else and everything is nicely painted, most people won't complain. WAB tournies tend to have organizers, so I'd ask the one for the event in question.

PSR is a great tool!
I love some of the ancients lines they have I'm this scale.

Plus they are so affordable!

I wish more gamed ancients like me!

Thanks
Austin

All the WW2 gamers I know use 1/72...

It was the scale for the period due to the thousands of plastic kits and the massive selection of metal and resin figures and vehicles.

While 28mm and 15mm have grown in popularity, there still exists in Europe and large base that games WW2 in 1/72.

Outside of WW2 though its not used very much.

I didn't even know that people made and used 20mm until recently. All I've ever seen where I live is 28mm sci if and fantasy and FOW.

1/72 plastics are often things gaming stores won't stock. Instead you'd have to look at model railroad type hobby shops. Most gaming with them tends to happen in people's homes, clubs and occasionally at conventions.

Collectors, painters and gamers are buying them though. Check how many new kits have been released on the market over the years:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ShowFeature.aspx?id=27

 Strombones wrote:
I didn't even know that people made and used 20mm until recently. All I've ever seen where I live is 28mm sci if and fantasy and FOW.

20mm used to be standard for WW2, Vietnam and Modern skirmish because it fits with the massive range of 1/72 and 1/76 scale plastic model kids on the market.

Battlefront/Flames of War managed to convince a lot of incoming dare I say naive or at any rate inexperienced ex-GW players that 15mm was the scale for WW2. But that did not last because other companies started to make 15mm WW2, and now there is a very good amount of stuff available in that scale for WW2 at least. (Could also be used for Korean War.)

Back on topic, there is an astonishing range of 1/72 scale soft plastic figures on the market and they are very cheap. As noted by frozenwastes, acrylic gesso is a good primer as it is more flexible. If you want to do the effort of painting lots of them, the cheapness of the figures makes it feasible to build quite large armies in matched pairs. Stick to a simple basic paint scheme and magic dip shading is my advice.

I used to have some 1/72 scale when I was a boy. Nowadays I still have a large number of 1/32 scale soft plastic models, which is how I know about the gesso primer. I would like get into 1/72 but I already have such a lot of unfinished projects that it is useless to start more of them.

The beauty of 1/72 is that it doesn't look weird on the table with either 25mm (not the gw extreme 28mm, but REAL TRUE 25mm) nor does it look weird with 15-18mm. They either look like midgets or giants!

Plus you can field 300 models for under $50. Try that in ANY other scale (except 2-10mm of course...)

They are small enough to be fielded en-masse and look presentable, but large enough to play skirmish games if toy wanted.

Thanks
Austin

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back on topic, there is an astonishing range of 1/72 scale soft plastic figures on the market and they are very cheap. As noted by frozenwastes, acrylic gesso is a good primer as it is more flexible.

My process:
1) Wash the entire sprues with soapy warm water and a tooth brush to get the mould release agent off the figures
2) Trim the figures from the sprue and cut (not scrape) any flash that is really apparent.
3) Glue them to a base. I like washers and laser cut mdf squares.
4) Prime with acrylic gesso
5) Paint with acrylic paints
6) Varnish with a acrylic or urethane based varnish that also remains flexible.

I like using Vallejo's urethane based sealers as they stay super flexible.

If you want to do the effort of painting lots of them, the cheapness of the figures makes it feasible to build quite large armies in matched pairs. Stick to a simple basic paint scheme and magic dip shading is my advice.

This is great advice. The figures are made primarily for historically modellers so the details are often shallower than you'd find on exaggerated wargaming miniatures. So some sort of shading wash brings them out perfectly.

Absolutely, love making model kits and there is such a massive range of stuff out there. I personally like to go for the more expensive, highly detailed kits from the likes of Hasegawa and Dragon, which you can really make a little project of, but there are also plenty of other easier and cheaper kits you can use.

And as mentioned, there are quite a few rules sets (from multiple eras) that use the scale.

Does anyone do 1/72 polish cavalry in action poses?

Which era? Like Napoleonic lancers? Winged Hussars? WW1 or WW2?

Second world war.

I am not aware of them but I haven't looked. The Plastic Soldier Review site is the place to go for that sort of info.

I don't think there are any WW2 Polish cavalry, but from all the pictures I've been able to find, they look very, very similar to how the British equipped their cavalry for WW1. I imagine at 1/72 you could simply paint the WW1 British cavalry as if they were Polish WW2 cavalry and it would take someone with a good eye who is looking for it to spot the difference.

And now that I think about it, the Russian Hussars from WW1 really look like Polish Cavalry as well. Strelets makes some of those as well as British ones. HaT makes some British ones as well.

Ok they look like polish cavalry enough.

One downside to 1/72 that I noticed again when I looked at the cavalry with lances is that the bendy plastic often results in spears that don't look great. I've taken to replacing mine with brass rods like Amian from Spain did with these:

i think alot of old school wargamers go to 1/72. The new business model for wargames is more expensive 28mm ala GW and warlord etc. but 1/72 is just soooooooo much cheaper, especially for periods with lots of massed infantry like ancients or napoleonics.

I decided to go 1/72 when i began collecting WW2 due to it being much cheaper than 28mm and I just dont like 15mm for infantry. I dont regret it and there is a ton of stuff for ww2 . There are alot of people with 15mm ww2 due to FOW im the sort who has to collect both sides so thats no big deal.

FoW is basically just 40k with a World War II coat of paint over the game, so it's not surprising you get a shift towards the build one army from a list approach rather than the normal historical project based approach where you build both sides and host a game.

1/72 is an excellent scale for wargamers who actually take ownership of their hobby rather than getting miniatures, rules and hobby supplies spoon fed from a single source. When you get your figures from one producer and your rules from another, they get to stand on their own merits rather than benefit from the complete package marketing approach. It also is very freeing to see the true utility of your figures when you're willing to try rules of all sorts of different scopes and approaches.

15mm is pretty cheap and very wide ranges of figures are available for Ancients. Mediaeval and Napoleonics. (Renaissance and Lace Wars too for all I know.)

Most wargamers have always bought their rules and figures separately. It is very much a young modern and dare I say naive thing to think that because you buy 40K figures you must buy GW rules, or vice versa.

Flames or War tapped into this naivety and made 15mm an important scale for WW2 but it didn't use to be.

I have some 1/72 zvesda samurai and they are very nice. I will be trading them because I already have samurai in 28mm and 6mm and don't need a third scale to paint but the models are very detailed for the size and are of a harder plastic than expected. If their other 1/72 stuff is of a similar quality I recommend it.

At Bovvy this year, was one 28mm WW2 demo, two 15mm and three 1/72nd WW2 demo games.

Was also a 1/72 WW1 demo too.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

.... It is very much a young modern and dare I say naive thing to think that because you buy 40K figures you must buy GW rules, or vice versa.

Flames or War tapped into this naivety and made 15mm an important scale for WW2 but it didn't use to be.

It's also a very old thing to be a condescending grognard.

Flames of War tapped into the desire for a game that was solidly made with less confusion about what you needed to buy to play a game.

And I dare say that, considering the large number of successful alternative miniature and bits companies that produce not-40k stuff, I think people get the idea of using miniatures not tied to the rules.

Instead, people are tied to the setting of the miniature game they enjoy playing. In the case of historicals, which are also a fantasy no matter how much you want to protest, your setting is that view of an older time in human history. In the case of 40k, or anyone else who plays a game with a setting, they buy 40k miniatures because those miniatures most closely match that setting, and lately people are buying plenty of miniatures from other manufacturers that also match the setting.

And do you know why those games do so well despite how grumpy it makes some grognards? It's because a strong setting is appealing, the same is said for a strong and well defined army. It doesn't matter if that's the US Army circa 1944-45, or Ultramarines circa 41,000.

Sorry to derail the thread, but I'm getting really tired this kind of grumpy old argument about miniatures and how they are purchased, especially when people who should know better start belittling others.

And back on the topic, well slightly off. I was actually seriously considering making a 1/72 scale scifi game because I think that 1/72, regardless of setting, is a good tabletop scale that allows for good looking minis that aren't too small to see interesting detail on the miniatures, but also aren't too big that it limits how much maneuvering you can do on the table.

 Vertrucio wrote:


Instead, people are tied to the setting of the miniature game they enjoy playing. In the case of historicals, which are also a fantasy no matter how much you want to protest, your setting is that view of an older time in human history. In the case of 40k, or anyone else who plays a game with a setting, they buy 40k miniatures because those miniatures most closely match that setting, and lately people are buying plenty of miniatures from other manufacturers that also match the setting.

.

I don't think it's just a setting or aesthetic thing but a culture GW has enforced through the fact they own stores where people play. If you play in a GW store you have no choice but to use GW miniatures or find somewhere else to play with your third part stuff.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Flames of War tapped into the desire for a game that was solidly made with less confusion about what you needed to buy to play a game.

Flames of War's true success was creating a complete package that worked for distributors and stores in the same way GW's product line did at the time. Now, with GW's trade barriers, FoW actually work's even better for retailing in comparison. The bundling of rules and figures and selling miniatures via army lists is only about making it as accessible as possible for customers as doing so allows for higher MSRPs and higher miniature counts in each person's collection.

1/72 is the perfect scale for those who want to take ownership of their own hobby as you won't have the rules and marketing package designed by GW spoon feeding you all the time. You also won't have commercial interests impacting your experience at the table. If you want to over saturate the table with miniatures and tanks, it won't be because you've been sold on some arbitrary points value as a normal sized game that's way too cramped for the suggested table size.

Since FoW support in my local community has shriveled up and died, I'm considering getting rid of what I have and restarting with 1/72 WWII.

I find historicals are best served on a project basis rather than an army list basis. You can pick a battle or scenario and build both sides, make the terrain and host games. Then if you inspire your fellow gamers, they'll know they have an opponent to game with if they just want to make one army.

If you get a set of rules that generally supports the warfare of the period, then you have the entire range of figures and the entire history of the war in question to draw upon. Depending on the level of WW2 game I want, my current four favorites are Chain of Command, Battlegroup, Crossfire and Company Commander.