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So Mongoose have put up previews for their Battlefield 2 (sorry... "evolution" miniatures.

Tanks first -
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1368
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1375
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1371

and then infantry -
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1369
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1372
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1374
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=1370

  Sadly no Toyato pickup amongst the first batch of releases

  I'm impressed by the prepainted quality actually, it looks better than what Rackam are promising for AT-43, and I'll be impressed if they deliver camo on infantry. As for the sculpts, they're pretty competent (and slightly more true-to-life than the staple) - just dullll... also the heads are jokes. Not quite Skinny, but getting there...

Fixed yer links:
AFVS
Challenger II MBT
PLA Type 99 MBT
M1A2 Abrams MBT
Infantry
British Army Infantry Section
Terrists! Eeek!
PLA Infantry Squad
USMC Infantry Squad

I like. The more I see these, the more they grow on me. I'm particularlly impressed that they chose to go with relatively realistic proportions. Obviously some things have been beefted up to ease manufacturing issues (namely reducing miscasts & ease of painging) as well as to reduce breakage while in use, but overall the troopers actually look like proportional humans instead of the bizzaro dwarven giants most figure lines come off as.

Depending on the scale I will be picking some IFV when they come out. This stuff looks decent and the price is good. Looks like a winner.

ender502

Overall not bad. The vehicles all have some minor scale oddities and none of the tracks are that great but they are perfectly fine for game models. The infantry are still slightly gangly and the faces not as good as the uniforms but, again, fine for game minis. My biggest beef is still the scale difference between the vehicles and the infantry. This is almost enough to ruin the game for me but I'll wait until I see the stuff in person.

The site says they will release the Shadow RST-V in February.

Posted By tanker on 11/03/2006 9:37 AM
My biggest beef is still the scale difference between the vehicles and the infantry. This is almost enough to ruin the game for me but I'll wait until I see the stuff in person.

Remember the infantry stands in bases and the tanks do not. The bases add to the height of the infantry. Mongoose claims that the infantry and the tanks are in the same scale. The tanks do look like a bit smaller scale on these pics.

I've looked at these pics so many times that I'm getting used to the scale.

To me the tanks look very under-scale.  From what I can see on the photos, the infantry can look clear over the top of the tank hulls.

Well, I live in Newcastle, and regularly drive past the (one of the 2) factories that make Challenger II tanks.  There's one on display outside, and I'm convinced the hull is over 7' off the ground.

I'll need to see the models in the flesh, but from what I've seen in preview, the "meh" posing of the infantry and the underscale of the tanks makes me not want to buy into the game.  The rules sound pretty OK, and the pre-painting is OK, but for me, paying a premium for pre-painting isn't worth the loss in quality of the moulding.  If the rules become popular I'll probably just buy some off-the-shelf historicals and use them.  For the MP price of £2/model infantry and £15 for tanks I'm sure I can find better models out there.

More likely I'll just ignore it altogether, like I have done with SST!

There is no way they are the same scale. An M1 Abrams is just under 8 feet tall. Even adding a foot for the base on the infantry they are obviously out of scale (unless Mongoose is assuming all soldiers are 7' tall).

Posted By Osbad on 11/06/2006 2:23 AM
To me the tanks look very under-scale.  From what I can see on the photos, the infantry can look clear over the top of the tank hulls.

Well, I live in Newcastle, and regularly drive past the (one of the 2) factories that make Challenger II tanks.  There's one on display outside, and I'm convinced the hull is over 7' off the ground.

Do you mean the tank's hull (which infantry can easily see over) or the full height of the tank, including it's turret? The Challenger II's maximum height is 3.04m (10 ft) tall, but even then infantry can/could still see (somewhat) over the hull (see here). A scale figure would especially be able to look over thanks to standing on a one of those thick bases that provide another six scale inches or more to it's height. The M1A1 Abrams has an even lower profile, coming in at 2.43m (8 ft).

That all said, I definitely agree that the tanks are smaller to scale than they should be. That or the figures are larger in scale than they need to be. Either way, I think BF:E will be great. Solid rules and decent looking figs. The only problem I have is Rackham's AT-43 is coming out, which will be getting the lions share of my meager hobby budget.

No the height of the turret. The figures look not only taller but try imagining one getting in the hatches. They just seem much larger. It could all be some weird camera perspective but I'd be surprised.

Look at the pictures at the middle/bottom of this page http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm Notice how the infantry look in relation to the tank. Now look at the BFE pics. The infantry just look a good 20% larger than the tanks in BFE and not just in height. My guess is that the BFE infantry are 28-30mm in actual size but the vehicles are 25mm.

After taking a look at the figures again, I agree. One of the two are out of scale, though I'm not sure this will be a deal breaker for me (though I can see where it would be for others). If anything, I'm glad for the prepainted infantry. If I need an AFV or two, and scale is really an issue, I can always use 1/48 scale models or just chicken out and use the Mongoose models.

Well this pic makes things look better with height I think but the tank still seems too small. It is 12' wide after all. Mongoose says the official scale is 1/65.

Something is off with their vehicles. Look at these two photos. The mini has a  'squashed' feel to it.

BFE M1


The real M!

Not wide enough. That's for sure.

I'm pretty sure the squashed feel has more to do with casting necessity than any sculpting mis-steps on Mongoose's part. Even high end scale models from Tamiya and similar companies have some scale issues with the fiddly bits, hence the wide range of after-market photo-etched metal frets available to correct such inaccuracies (or, for some very high end kits, which include them).

Like I said before, if scale is a deal breaker, 1/48 is returning in vogue. Academy offers a T-72 and a M-60 Patton in 1/48 (both good for the Persian Gulf War as it wasn't until afterwards that the M-60 was finally phased out of US inventories). While Tamiya's 1/48 kits are so far concentrating on WWII era vehicles, one can easily turn Shermans into Ishermans/SuperShermans & other Israeli Defense Force updates (now that would be some interesting gaming). I also imagine Tamiya will eventually get around to 1/48 moderns in the next year or two.

Fiddly bits? They chopped a good foot off each side of the turret and thus the hull as well. There is something wrong with the depth of the turret as well. Notice the CITV is basically the full width of the side of the turret and comes all the way to the front of the turret. On the real tank the CITV is a good 18"-24" back from the front of the turret (nothing can be at the front as it's all armor there). Also look at the gunner's sight housing. On the real tank it's roughly 12" square. On the mini it has almost no depth to it at all.

All of the BE vehicles have issues with proper shape especially the turrets. The M1 is certainly the worst. I can live with the barrel droop sensor being ten times larger than it should be but not the turret being completely misshapen. This is one reason I wish they had gone more sci-fi. When you are replicating real stuff you better get it right.

By "fiddly bits", I'm talking about fine detail, and, as mentioned before, the nature of the beast means it isn't going to be very fine and you aren't going to get a photo-exact duplicate in scale, hence the various exaggerations. But, overall, it's instantly recognizable as an M1A1 TUSK (Tank Urban Survival Kit, and no, I didn't make that up, you can thank the US Military for that). Here's a better comparison pic using an a M1A1 with the TUSK add-on:



Like I said, not exact, but certainly serviceable.

A couple of pictures of Challeneger II's with people next to them for some sort of scale reference:





When you compare that to the image in tanker's post it does look there is a scale problem with the tanks vs. infantry.

It isn't as big as my imagination had made it - clearly a 6' tall man could look over the hull of a Challenger II, just. But look at tanker's photo - even the kneeling infantryman is taller than the front hull of the M1. Even taking the model's base into account, this looks wrong to me.

Just jars a little with me is all.

Everyone has their "issues". For some it is painting, for others it is the rules. For me it is that the models have got to "look right", and on preview, BE just doesn't do it for me.

Looking at the pictures from the preview, if you took the infantry off their bases and put them next to the tanks it would not seem as short. The bases are throwing it off on the hieght comparison. The scale seems a bit fudged, but not as bad as it initially appears.

My beef isn't with the 'fiddly bits' it's with the major proportions of the tank itself especially the turret. I don't care that the barrel droop sensor is ten times larger than it needs to be. I don't care that the gunner's sight housing is 1/4 its proper size. It does bug me that the turret seems to be at least a foot smaller in width and depth and if it is smaller then so is the hull.

I agree the overall size isn't as bad as initially thought. I wish Mongoose would just tell us the actual size of the figures and vehicles so we can do the math.