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Just starting a new German force and was wondering what people thoughts were on some of the other miniature manufacturers.

I would like to use a single manufacturer so that all model are the same scale, have noticed that if you use different manufacturers that tanks etc are different sizes even if they are the same unit.

So far I have looked at

Plastic Solder & Forged In Battle as an alternative to the Flames of War miniatures.

I'm a big fan of the command decision line from old glory. My soviets from them look great and are much cheaper and had less flash than their battlefront counterparts. They're a lot skinnier and more realistically proportioned. I've heard from other people that some of their sculpts do not look the best, but I personally do not have any problems with therm. For tanks I'd go with plastic soldier company. Their stuff goes toe to toe with the resin battlefront ones and comes down to about $5 a tank. Forged in battle has some quality infantry, but I have never seen them personally so I can't judge. You should also check out zvezda. They make super cheap tanks and airplanes that turn out great.

The problem with many manufacturers is that they dont do particularly large ranges, especially with the minor nations. However, if you are doing german, you shouldnt have that problem. The greater difficulty is too MUCH choice!

The main alternatives are the ones Albeezie mentions, but you might consider Peter Pig too. I use them and have no complaints. Find it here http://www.peterpig.co.uk/german.htm

I'm my experience Battlefront and Forged in Battle mix together very well and so do Skytrex and Peter Pig. But they don't mix very well outside of those pairings.

Skytrex and Pieter pig are much more of a 'true scale' 15mm and when placed next to Battle front miniatures just look odd and very short indeed.

Personally I'm a big fan of Forged in Battle and use a mixture of them and Battlefront. I used to have some Skytrex bits but I sold them off due to the scale issues. They just didn't look right next to the rest of my figures and I'm not that fond of the poses either.

LuciusAR,
Do you have experience with the Plastic Soldier Company? If so, how do they fit in your BF/FiB vs. Skytrex/PP picture?

Specifically, I'm looking at BattleFront infantry and PSC vehicles on a type by type basis.

PSC vehicles and BF infantry mix perfectly. In fact, BF and PSC vehicles are almost the same size - German Halftracks are absolutely similar, can't say about Panzer tanks, since I currently own only PSC Panzers.
Vehicles from Forged in Battle are a tad bit smaller/shorter, but if fielded as separate platoon, this will not be that noticeable. I have German Halftracks from all those three companies - FiB does not make 251/1D variation - they only have C's. Another feature is that all FiB vehicles come with precast resin base, which is a part of the model and You cannot remove it - accept it or don't buy it. But since I decided to field all my vehicles on bases anyway, that was not an issue for me.
Infantry - FiB and BF mix up perfectly. FiB is even cleaner in terms of mold lines etc, and more up to human scale. I am not a big fan of PSC and Wargames Factory plastic infantry, but it can work if You need another cheap choice of ad hoc platoon and don't want to spend amount of cash - just grab one of those boxes and You can easily put out all special/heavy weapons and lots of diff. command teams. observer teams, SMG etc. These are tiny and should not be place on the same base with BF.

I am slightly worried about the FIB infantry. They are also cast in 1 piece, like the vehicles... right? Doesn't that lead to stands looking the exactly same?

Well, in 15mm, all infantry are generally one piece.

Unless you are thinking that they are cast on the stand? As they are not.

FiB infantry is exactly the same as BF infantry in terms that they are both made of pewter. PSC and WGF infantry is plastic. All of them (with some exceptions, for example BF machinegun panzergrenadiers with a separate stand, FiB AA gunners for some reason have their heads separate, and literally all plastic light and heavy machinegun teams and observers are separate pieces) are made as one piece. They each have their own small round or not so round (PSC) stand, but only BF and WGF comes with FoW compatible small and medium bases.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
LuciusAR,
Do you have experience with the Plastic Soldier Company? If so, how do they fit in your BF/FiB vs. Skytrex/PP picture?

Specifically, I'm looking at BattleFront infantry and PSC vehicles on a type by type basis.

I've loads of Tanks from PSC and Battlefront they scale fine. I've got Stugs and Hanomags from both and you can even match them in the same platoon. No issues at all.

No idea about PSC infantry as I don't have any. Thought the PSC crew are a little smaller than the Battlefront infantry, but more in terms of bulk than height.

 General Seric wrote:
Well, in 15mm, all infantry are generally one piece.

Unless you are thinking that they are cast on the stand? As they are not.

Oh! Good news. From the pictures I was looking at their site it looked like the infantry were cast as part of the base. I'm glad to be wrong!

I have only bought FIb vehicles once and they were grossly oversized when sitting next to my BF ones. Vehicles in question Schwimvagens.
Black is the FIB one.
But have here lately been seeing alot of the HGerman HAlftracks on ebay used going for a pretty cheap price.Anyone know how theeese match up with BF?

The situation is totally opposite to that of Schwimwagens, since FiB halftracks are shorter than BF and PSC halftracks. I can shoot a comparison pic later, if anyone is interested.

Weird, here is a photo somone put on their blog of a FIB Panther next to a PSC Panther. As you can see in this case the FIB tank is the smaller of the two!



I've got PZ IV's and M10's by both Battlefront and FIB and they sit along side each other fine.