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The mm is generally the size of the miniatures, usually to the eyes because hats and helmets can hide the top of the head.

As for "heroic" and whatnot, that's definitely an issue. I have some 54mm historicals and their hands are the same size as GW imperial guard hands. I now prefer realistic proportions and it was a real strange experience to be reminded of an old cadian painting commission when I was painting some 54mm toy soldiers. GW's proportions are *that* cartoony.

Kilkrazy wrote:If you compare GW figures with accurate 1/35th scale figures you see the heads and hands are the same size, the torsos, arms and legs are the same thickness, but shorter, though the arms are less short than the legs, giving a little bit of a gorilla impression. Overall the GW model looks more like a "Super Deformed" version of a real person.

1/35th is nominally 54mm scale. GW is nominally 28mm.

"Super Deformed" is a great way to describe them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_deformed


"I can be space marines?"

One thing that should be clear now though is that there's no real consistency when it comes to mm sizes. For example, most people would say that 1/32 is 54mm rather than 1/35, but 1/32 figures can easily be 60mm tall. And the thickness of the details and the proportions can often do more to give an impression of size than actual height or volume. For example, Armies in Plastic and Accurate both make 1/32 figures and Tamiya makes some 1/35 and you'd probably think the Accurate ones and the Tamiya ones are the same size and the AiP ones are bigger. Until you put the Accurate and AIP next to one another and realized they are actually the same height, but the Accurate ones are far more realistic in their scaling while the AIP are definitely classic toy soldier in their styling.

Historical gamers have had to deal with this issue for a long while. Are the Roman legionaires from company X okay alongside the ones from company Y and so on.

End result: Case by case basis.