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So I am trying to introduce my wife to wargaming. She really likes the painting aspect but every time I sell her on something like Warmachine or Mailfaux she gets the figures and hates how small they are. Are there any systems out there that use a larger scale and have cool looking figures?

Fuzzy Heroes. It uses a 1:1 scale. You don't paint anything for it, but it's a really lighthearted, easy to learn game that's great for beginners.

Most of the Battletech figures are a little less detailed, but still not clownish. They'd be a little easier for a rookie to paint. And many gamers have played Battletech in the past, and would probably be up to restarting.

There used to be a range of 40k miniatures for an RPG game ("Inquisitor") that used 54mm... but most game scales these days are 30mm or smaller.

"Mercs" I think says it's a 35mm game, but because they measure from the top of the head, it actually equals about the same as GW scales.

There are a lot of 54mm models out there though, nothing stopping you from using some for painting, or for smaller games/RPGs.

Also, for Warmachine - show her some of the Hordes Beast models, she might enjoy painting some of them, as they're quite largish models, not fiddly like infantry.

There are various types of 54mm figures available for historical periods.

You can play any ruleset with a larger scale of figure by adjusting the distances to suit.

Warmaster!

40mm seems to be a popular historical scale, certainly the biggest scat that I have seen for "battles".

You need a big area, though.

Thanks for the input all. I think she'll be stuck with Gatormen from Hordes. She's quite picky about not having "human" looking models. Gatormen give her 40mm in troop sizes and can go beast heavy.

Try Darklands from Mierce. The "Snakemen" faction are all about 3" (+/- 65-75mm) tall and they have gatormen as well. The bigger models are huge, up to 10 or 11 inches long. The one drawback is that because they are resin they are expensive. They look fantastic though.

Wow thanks Judge those do look great. Have you played it before? I was wondering how the game play was.

There was that Duel Fighters game from scale games that just finished:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/986826251/duel-fighters

75mm scale figs.

It's no more or less complicated than any other skirmish game. They do have an interesting mechanic that reduces the power of units the more damage they take. So the big, big monsters can succumb to foot soldiers given enough of them. The two links are the quick start rules, and a battle report. In the battle report it shows mountains of dice in a flow chart, don't get scared by that. I think he was just trying to show how the damage mechanic works. All in all it's a good report, worth a read. Plus he has a Mierce blog on WIPs that is great.


http://www.mierce-miniatures.com/downloads/darklands_quickstarter_rules_v10.5_draft.pdf

http://thebeerwaaagh.blogspot.com/2013/10/darklands-initial-battle-report.html

'Bones' from Reaper has a number of large fantasy monsters at really good prices. http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones

As was said, you can adapt any game to larger figures. I'd recommend a small scale skirmish game Like Song of Blades and Heroes which doesn't take much room to play, uses only a few miniatures per side and has a unit creation mechanic adaptable so you can use miniatures from whatever line you want.

Several producers make fantasy figures in 40mm and 54mm and some in even larger scales. Montsters are often rather scale-les, so an ogre giant in 28mm might just be an ogre in 54mm.

Reaper's range has both alot of large creatures in metal (sort their figs by price to find the big-expensive creatures) and in their bones materials.

A search for 54mm fantasy will bring you alot of other brands to check out.

Though she seems to prefer monsters, if she wants to paint some extremely realistic female figures, then check out the Denizen 90mm line. Some are rather cheesecake and a few are less than perfect, but most of the sculpting is top-notch and non-heroic in a way you don't often see.
http://www.denizenminiatures.co.uk/dm_new/90mm.htm

One other suggestion for a game system would be brushfire. Not alot in the way of "monsters", but it's all anthropomorphic animals fighting. The smallest creatures (mice and such) are as big as a 28mm miniature and the size goes up from there: http://www.on-the-lamb.com/content/brushfire/

Does LARPing count as a Wargame? Cant get much bigger than that.....

How about Historicals? 54mm Sharpe Practice gives a relaxed game, and you can't get much better for painting challenges than Napoleonic uniforms.

LARPing is the largest scale I can think of.....

Saldiven wrote:LARPing is the largest scale I can think of.....

Ratius wrote:Does LARPing count as a Wargame? Cant get much bigger than that.....

Seeing as how she wants to paint miniatures and doesn't want "human looking models". I don't think LARP is really an option.

Largest scale I've seen was an unofficial rules set (the name of which I can't recall) for Gundam battles. Lacking dedicated models, it was designed to be scalable to any of the existing kits - it used an amorphous "range stick" instead of set distances in inches/cm (move range 2, shoot range 6, etc.). Any object could be used, from a pencil to a yard stick, depending on whether you were using little keychain models or the massive kits. Since the combatants are giant robots (humanoid mecha with human pilots, but not human models), even 1:144 scale figures absolutely dwarf 72mm human models.

I've seen games at conventions using Aliens action figures in scale terrain.

There was this

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/986826251/duel-fighters

Funded last month, 75mm is huge! I backed initially, but thanks to the lousy timing of running the campaign over Xmas, had to cancel.

If it looks of interest, might be worth contacting them to see if they'll let you on after the fact, I know I've had luck with that approach in the past.

 JudgeShamgar wrote:
Try Darklands from Mierce. The "Snakemen" faction are all about 3" (+/- 65-75mm) tall and they have gatormen as well. The bigger models are huge, up to 10 or 11 inches long. The one drawback is that because they are resin they are expensive. They look fantastic though.

Some great looking pieces

You could buy action figures and repaint them.

Also there's a Japanese company that does a line called "Revoltech" that basically is jointed action figures.

http://www.hlj.com/cgi-perl/hljlist?qid=HYSCDFWMZ34&Dis=2&q=1&Sort=std&Word=revoltech&set=1&DisplayMode=grid&gclid=CMvToMuWv7wCFSgKwwodcw8Abg

Schleich does knights and mediaeval soldiers. They come ready painted and could be repainted though obviously you're paying for the paint job as well as the figure. The scale is 1/20th which is 90mm. Could be very nice for a large skirmish or a jousting game.

Schleich also do fairies and elves, animals, fantasy knights, and dinosaurs.

http://www.schleich.org.uk/

I once saw some Historical Wargamers play a game with painted Dollar Store toy soldiers. they're about 54mm size.

Old Mechwarrior: Dark Age minis from Wizkids are pretty large. But they some painted.

Take the rules for any skirmish game, and multiply distance measurements by 2 or 3. Pick up 54 or 90mm figures to use in the game.

That is the simplest method. There are dozens of companies who work in 54 and 90mm for resin kits. They are normally for collectors, but work well enough.

Otherwise, 54mm is pretty popular still for historical games, and there are the odd scifi/fantasy set of rules that use them too. The game play is generally a good bit different though for large scale rules, so you may find she likes the figures better, but you dont like the game.