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So I'm wondering (with the death of Warmaster) what the best (in terms of miniature quality and suitable rules) miniature wargame there is for the 6-15mm ranges of models - with a focus on games that allow for large scale battles. I'm aware that this market has a lot of historical and less fantasy present; and that in the UK there is a more limited range than in, say, the USA.

I have come across both Microworld (who don't appear to be stocked in the UK?) and Pendragon (who are)
http://www.microworldgames.com
http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Warband-Fantasy-NEW-c36/

However its tricky to tell the quality of the models of this size from the typical photos online (and the Pendragon, whilst seeming to be a more complete range, does appear to have a lesser quality of sculpt - but that's only a gut feeling and it should be noted their photos are also of unpainted and not painted - which I think makes a big difference in this scale).

Warmaster's still around. Check out the Warmaster Podcast and efforts like Warmaster Revolution. Plenty of 10mm miniatures and paper counters to use.

Aye and its likely got the most market appeal; but the model range access is somewhat limited now - and whilst paper does count its just not the same.

Mm. True enough.

Well, Pendraken's got Warband, and the guy who writes the Lord & Lands rules uses Microworld miniatures(I have an overview of the rules on my blog).

Splintered Light Miniatures produces rules and armies for Pride of Lions (here's a WWPD review). And Mayhem, from Bombshell Games gets pushed whenever people are talking about fantasy mass battle rules, usually by Vermis, if I remember correctly.

You could always play Kings of War with smaller scale miniatures on the same base size.

Try Battle Valor games for 15mf figs..very pricet though

Battle Valor seems to like ians on the end of everything!

I am using Splintered Light minis to play Kings of War. In the pic below, each 3-man base is a "troop" on a 25x50mm base, with characters on 20mm bases (which makes them bigger than they should be, but it works just fine). Each troop base slides together to make regiments (one troop behind the other) and hordes (2x2). In this scale, you convert all inch measurements to centimeters, and the 3-man troops make each battle appear more like more of a large skirmish, but it plays great like full 28mm KoW.

Some units from my Twilight Elves army (croc-man is a stand in for a Lord of the Abyss). The rest of the primed Dark Elves, along with an Orc army, is under progress in back (see the troll brute in front of Orc characters)

licclerich wrote:
Try Battle Valor games for 15mf figs..very pricet though

Battle Valor Fantasy is a beautiful line of figures, and he's cranking them out fast.

Plus their rules aren't bad either -- successfully funded a KS for the HC rule book, vampires and lizardmen last year.

Here's the painting competition winners on their facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1747725692129247

Battle Valor is interesting and the mention of how he's turning out models quickly is encouraging as he seems to have a very large range planned for the miniature line. The other bonus is that the prices are not too bad for larger numbers of units; whilst at the same time the range does have a UK/EU supplier.

Splintered Light sadly doesn't have any UK/EU supplier at present.

Pendraken appear to be the most affordable by far (at least compared to Battle Valor). Though they also appear to be the smaller scale compare to Valor and I think Valor (at least in photos on their websites) has the edge on quality/detail.

Splintered light makes some nice figures as does 15mm.co.uk, but my favorite will always be Deamonworld, which are still available from either Ral Partha Europe or Fasagames.com in the US. Very much GW styled fantasy figures, just half the size.

http://www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk/shop/demonworld-15mm-c-76/demonworld-classic-c-76_151/

http://fasagames.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_11

 Kalamadea wrote:
Splintered light makes some nice figures as does 15mm.co.uk, but my favorite will always be Deamonworld, which are still available from either Ral Partha Europe or Fasagames.com in the US. Very much GW styled fantasy figures, just half the size.

http://www.ralparthaeurope.co.uk/shop/demonworld-15mm-c-76/demonworld-classic-c-76_151/

http://fasagames.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4_11

These miniatures look excellent Kalamadea, thanks for the link.

I'm going to use the Crawling Goblin Fortress in replace of the dinosaur creature from BVG.

Note to the OP about mixing ranges, however -- the BVF really are a heroic 15mm. they could very well look out of place compared to other lines, so shop wisely.
The new Decian Gargoyles are up on the FB page for Battle Valor and I simply must have those. Going to stick with this range aside from the gobbo spider I think.

keep these great comments and links coming tho, I'm sure this is quite helpful to a lot of potential and current 15mm players.

If you are looking for good 15mm fantasy minis, I would add Khurasan Miniatures. Magister Militum carries a bunch of good fantasy 15's and is UK based. Eureka also has some good stuff. Copplestone castings has some great barbarians, but the are on the larger end of the scale. Miriliton's stuff is good and their historical Italians and Swiss are great for not-Empire. Essex is mediocre, but has a wide range. Peter Pig also has some fantasy and medieval stuff.

As to rules, Hordes of the Things is a fun variant of the DBA ruleset that uses element based combat. Two Hour Wargames has a couple of good rulesets ranging from skirmish to larger battles.

Overread wrote:So I'm wondering (with the death of Warmaster) what the best (in terms of miniature quality and suitable rules) miniature wargame there is for the 6-15mm ranges of models

Can't help but think you've started off with two examples of the wrong attitude, but moving on...

infinite_array wrote:And Mayhem, from Bombshell Games gets pushed whenever people are talking about fantasy mass battle rules, usually by Vermis, if I remember correctly.

More like 'only by', 'til now, but I'll keep plugging. Here's a short batrep (you can tell I'm new at it) with some thoughts. Here's the Bombshell page, with better batreps. I think it's a very interesting system, with unit creation, use of polydice (possibly a barrier to entry, but one cheap set of d4-d20 is enough to go on) and interaction of types and traits.

I also bought the Lords and Lands book when it was released, and it looks pretty good too.

The biggest Warmaster community I know of is at the Specialist Arms forum (used to be the Specialist Games forum), which lets you have a look at some shops and the 10mm minis they sell. Two that I haven't seen mentioned here yet are Polar Fox and Trolls Under The Bridge, which have small but growing ranges of great-looking 10mm minis.

http://www.polarfox.info/storepage2627792.aspx
http://www.trolls.cz/collections/10mm-fantasy-miniatures

And there's Copplestone's 10mm fantasy, which started as unofficial gap-fillers for GW's 10mm Battle of Five Armies game. Although they're chunky, 'big' 10mm. (i.e. closer to 12mm)

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/list.php?cat=6&page=1