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I'm bored indoors, building a Raider, and finding that the vehicle scale relative to infantry is bugging me somewhat. The Raider starts off looking like a sinister transport galley, but when I add the gunner and steersman it takes on the appearance of a small fishing boat.

I realise that the vehicles can't be properly in-scale, but I wonder if the crew miniatures were smaller whether it would help, or if the whole thing would look farcical?

Anyway not a serious issue, just a bit of cabin fever.

There's a diagram somewhere that shows a chimera with everyone nicely seated inside. It's bang on scale for guardsmen. The marine stuff, though, seems out of whack.

Banville wrote:
There's a diagram somewhere that shows a chimera with everyone nicely seated inside. It's bang on scale for guardsmen. The marine stuff, though, seems out of whack.

Chimera is 6.9m long "IRL". 12cm or so miniature. So it's about right if we play with 32mm scale aka guardsmen is 32mm

This applies to every vehicle in the game, none of them are remotely in scale, and they pretty much all have crew of some sort.

 harlokin wrote:
I'm bored indoors, building a Raider, and finding that the vehicle scale relative to infantry is bugging me somewhat. The Raider starts off looking like a sinister transport galley, but when I add the gunner and steersman it takes on the appearance of a small fishing boat.

I realise that the vehicles can't be properly in-scale, but I wonder if the crew miniatures were smaller whether it would help, or if the whole thing would look farcical?

Anyway not a serious issue, just a bit of cabin fever.

Vehicle size is difficult as you want it to look good on the table but not be massive - look at Bolt Action they look biazare next to the infantry if you have ever stood next to a real tank.

The raider - well I have had them since the beginning - still have about 10 - was not so much of an issue for me as I have always seen them as raiding boats, short duration and the Dark Eldar haning off them etc so I figure that they should not be the same space issues as non open vehicles - similar to a Ork vehicle.

I have more of an issue with the Kharadron Overlords ships - less so if they had not described them as Frigates and Ironclads

Some of the vehicles are actually pretty well scaled, some are not. As much of a problem as the vehicle scale is the infantry scale, where there are two issues. First, even the infantry don't have much consistency, an 8ft tall Space Marine is just...bulkier, but not any taller, than a Guardsmen. Second, the "heroic" scale, where the proportions are slightly out of whack (oversized heads, enlarged shoulders, oddly proportioned legs, etc) on many models that throws off scaling or makes them take up more room than they really should, and dynamic posing doesn't help if you want to visualize what troops crammed into transports looks like.

With regards to a Dark Eldar Raider, I actually don't think there's much wrong with their scale, Raiders are basically just engines with handholds and a gun mount, a flying fishing boat with a dozen people on board between crew and passengers, is about what I'd expect.

It's a simple matter of...realistically a lot of things would need to be 20-30% larger to "work"...that's expensive, takes up a heap of table space, etc.

We've gone over this before, but my take is that the Rhino is actually pretty close to scale:

A Rhino, just measured, is about 12cm long. The supposed "fluff" length of a rhino is 6.6m, so that's a scale of about 1/56 or so... which is the number that I've heard is the "semi official" scale for 28mm wargaming [40k doesn't have an official scale, it's 28mm Heroic and varies by whatever they want as long as they're all around the same size]. Okay, fine, supposed that 6.6m was calculated just off that 1/56 number:
Well, a Rhino is just an M113 armor personnel carrier. An M113 is 4.9m long, and sized for 12 normal human soldiers and all their wargear.

A Space Marine is 8' tall in armor [a little shorter, like 7.5' out of armor], a regular human is about 5.7' tall. That's a 40% increase in size for human-to-space marine, and for M113-to-rhino that's a... 35% increase in size. Pretty close, actually.

Given that, I think the Rhino is probably big enough to accommodate the listed 10 Space Marines.

tneva82 wrote:

Banville wrote:
There's a diagram somewhere that shows a chimera with everyone nicely seated inside. It's bang on scale for guardsmen. The marine stuff, though, seems out of whack.

Chimera is 6.9m long "IRL". 12cm or so miniature. So it's about right if we play with 32mm scale aka guardsmen is 32mm

If guardsmen were proportioned realistically, yeah Chimeras would be ok.

Measuring the Rhino out based on 7' tall marines, I get this:


Which is pretty dang big.

The stylized proportions of the models and them being on bases make the infantry look bigger than they actually are in comparison to the vehicles. The vehicles wind up being kinda huge.

I think the dynamic poses and exaggerated proportions on minis is what makes transports look too small. People also underestimate just how cramped military vehicles are.

You can stuff eleven guys into the absolute clown car that is the M113 (for reference to the above image- 4.8m long, 2.7m wide, 2.5m tall), but they are not going to want to be in it for long.

If a Chimera translates to 7m long then that seems pretty reasonable. The Russian BMP-3 is the same length but significantly narrower, and devotes a significant amount of internal space to munitions, and it still holds 7 passengers.

For what it's worth, the rhino and land raider were small and had the 'clown car' issues even back when the Space Marine models were on 25mm bases (before the current round of scale creep). And the problem gets worse if you stop and look at the interior modeled for the rhino and land raider.

Among the issues for marines are the space requirements for backpacks, and banners.

 Mr Morden wrote:

I have more of an issue with the Kharadron Overlords ships - less so if they had not described them as Frigates and Ironclads

100% agree.
I love the models. But the scale..... it just makes me cry. :(
WHY Gw?? WHY? You already make huge things - knights, baneblades, etc. And they sell! GIve me properly sized Kharadron ships!

Does anyone have a 3d print file for these things? I sooo want to up-scale them.

 catbarf wrote:
I think the dynamic poses and exaggerated proportions on minis is what makes transports look too small. People also underestimate just how cramped military vehicles are.

You can stuff eleven guys into the absolute clown car that is the M113 (for reference to the above image- 4.8m long, 2.7m wide, 2.5m tall), but they are not going to want to be in it for long.

Absolutely. It would be doable based on height of the minis. Just not if Guardmen are about 4 foot across the shoulders as they are proportioned for the models

Back when the Rhino was redesigned, didn't GW tout in White Dwarf that you could physically model 10 space marines in the interior (3 per bench on each side, 3 in the middle, sergeant up front with the driver)?

Of course, size creep has made it so it'd no longer be true with current models, but I think it once was.

By the way, is there a driver on a Land Raider, or does it shuffle about controlled by the machine spirit inside? Looking at the interior, I don't see a spot for a driver's cabin, just a monitoring station and space for the engine...

Problem now is that 40k or GW in general does not use a "Scale" but a "Size". 28mm/32mm base to eye or total, are a Size and not a Scale
1/56 would be the a scale and there you get the difference between True-Scale and Heroic-Scale (heroic uses unrealistic body dimensions so that the model looks better from the Table Top Player point of view)

So models in 40k are about the same Size, except those from different time frames as GW changed the Size used over time (so old metal Imperial Guard was in line with the HIPS Marines)

Converting to Scale does not really work, IG infantry is ~1/56, tanks are 1/48, weapons are 1/35 (specially tank weapons) and Space Marines are 1/72

 Insectum7 wrote:
Measuring the Rhino out based on 7' tall marines, I get this:

Spoiler:

Which is pretty dang big.

it is rather small for a Marine transport

the M113 (which the Rhino is based on) is 2.5m high and ~5m long, a 1/48 model is 10.5cm long and 5cm high, a 1/35 model 14cm long and 7cm high and would carry 11+2
a Rhino is 11,5cm long and 5cm high so similar in size with the 1/48 version an carries 10 SM that are twice the bulk of modern infantry man

scale for 40k is ~ 1/56 (1,8m tall infantry is 32mm total or 28mm base to eye)

so the size of a Rhino is on the lower edge of possibilities for the older (those that came out around the same time with the Rhino not the re-scales newer ones) Marines as the problem is not how tall they are but how bulky
not talking about that a Rhino (and LR) still needed to be higher as ground clearance would make it impossible for them to drive anywhere but perfectly flat streets

By the way, is there a driver on a Land Raider, or does it shuffle about controlled by the machine spirit inside? Looking at the interior, I don't see a spot for a driver's cabin, just a monitoring station and space for the engine...

if I recall correctly, LR is controlled with the Terminal in the back and the help of the Machine Spirit

I'll look through my old pics later, but I have one of my standing next to a WWII Sherman tank. When I compared that picture to a picture of a Space Marine model next to a Predator it made me look like a giant. I'd say a Predator is about right. Remember, military vehicles are NOT spacious and luxurious SUV's you relax in on the way to battle. The seats don't recline and you have no leg room. Start thinking about how it would feel if a airliner was all coach seating and every passenger was 6'5" tall, and 300 pounds.

It would probably help if GW stopped using the tall bases, now that they no longer sell metal miniatures that need the room for the slot. They could use flat bases that are only 1mm thick like bolt action.

 argonak wrote:
It would probably help if GW stopped using the tall bases, now that they no longer sell metal miniatures that need the room for the slot. They could use flat bases that are only 1mm thick like bolt action.

The tall bases are great for things like unit markings or ballast for unbalanced plastic models doing dynamic poses.

I know someone managed to fit 10 in a Rhino at some point but I can't seem to find the image anymore.

In any case, the Rhino's scale is different to that of Marine Troops. Most Vehicles are on a different scale to Infantry in 40k