Pro's of 10mm over other scales.

[17-21l]

Hi - just noticed weve gor 33 guests on line at the mo and 4 members, so I thought a little discussion on the Pros and cons of 10mm compared to other scales may interest and 'tempt' the guests into dipping into 10mil.
Obvious Pro's are
COST- at 10p per figure there is no comparison to the 15/25/28 mm figures - averaging £1 a figure
PLAYING AREA- decent size games can be played on a kitchen table with realistic 'ranges'
DETAIL- depends on maker of figures - but in comparison to 6mm - fantastic (look at Pendrakens AWI/7YW ranges)
BIG BATTALIONS- Lots of figures for your cash - gone are the days of having 12 man Regts

CONS -?  Well maybe a few - Detail in some of the ranges- but you arent going to see it in 10mm
                                         Completeness of 'Period' - some firms do not 'complete' the range- AIM (great Naps range but limited to troop types) - but this said things are improving every month-.  Not a WW2 buff myself, but look at Pendrakens 10mm range-who could ask for anything more? ( well obviously we can-and do, where are the Finnish bugle players?)
So if you are a guest and are reading this post - take it from a 23 year collector/painter, for building realistic size armies youl'l not look back after starting 10mm.  Try a few packs of your fave period, youll get hooked!!
Anyone else any comments on Pro's and Cons?

[Kebabman]

All pros no cons for me.

[Gunhit]

Cost is certainly a main factor as is playing area. However, with the increase in Hard plastics cost for larger figures are falling dramatically. However, time to get to the table is another factor with 10mm winning hnads down even over 15mm figures.

I prefer gaming in the smaller figures scales 15mm and below, mostly due to my lack of playing area, ease of transport and storage space (especially for terrain).

My only concerns are the lack of companies producing 10mm figures. Basically we have 3 main companies, Pendraken, Old Glory, Magister Militum. This means the support for this scale in regards to diversity in ranges and figure sculpts is not as good as the other more popular scales. My fear is that 10mm could so easily go the same way as 6mm with 1 or 2 main players.

Adrian

[Hurley]

Ton's of pros (I do WW2 in 10mm)

BUT

I would like to see more detail and multi-part kits. The multi-part kit idea comes from a idea to have larger guns made in a harder metal (eg tank guns) cause I hate trying to straighten out gun barrels. It would also be cool to swap out things like cargo and bed types on trucks.

The biggest thing I don't like about 10mm is lack of support for the product. What i mean by this is no pictures on the web-sites, having to hunt though blogs and tabing back to the site to do orders is not cool. Also short unit bio's would be cool as well, like tank x was used from 1939 till 1942 in north Africa or these (ancient unit) lived around in X-Y century and could have fought against Romans. Miniature war gaming is hard to get into for a person especially if they don't have someone to show them the ropes. I have 3 guys helping me and I know a little and I mean a little about WW2 and it's still kinda hard for me to get into, of course this is true for all historical gaming anyway. Why is this?

[Leon]

The biggest thing I don't like about 10mm is lack of support for the product. What i mean by this is no pictures on the web-sites, having to hunt though blogs and tabing back to the site to do orders is not cool. Also short unit bio's would be cool as well, like tank x was used from 1939 till 1942 in north Africa or these (ancient unit) lived around in X-Y century and could have fought against Romans. Miniature war gaming is hard to get into for a person especially if they don't have someone to show them the ropes. I have 3 guys helping me and I know a little and I mean a little about WW2 and it's still kinda hard for me to get into, of course this is true for all historical gaming anyway. Why is this?

This is something I've been interested in for a while, a short paragraph description for each range.  I'm not sure about the logistics of doing it for every item though!

[Aart Brouwer]

This is something I've been interested in for a while, a short paragraph description for each range.  I'm not sure about the logistics of doing it for every item though!

What Hurley says. ^

Bios can be found in libraries, on the Web, anywhere and everywhere, Leon. Hurley is right that we really need more pictures of the actual models in your ranges, even if unpainted, to make adequate shopping choices. I've heard this complaint for some time and from diehard miniature gamers, too. Give it a thought, will you?

As for the pros of 10mm: they provide (1) nice detail in the models, (2) a nice mass on your table and (3) a nice bang for your buck. Can't beat that, no matter what your fav period is.

Cheers,
Aart

[Leon]

Bios can be found in libraries, on the Web, anywhere and everywhere, Leon. Hurley is right that we really need more pictures of the actual models in your ranges, even if unpainted, to make adequate shopping choices. I've heard this complaint for some time and from diehard miniature gamers, too. Give it a thought, will you?

The pictures will all be done, I was referring to the bio's of each model.  It would take us forever to provide dates/specifications/opponents for every code in the catalogue.  I would like to do it for each range though.

[Aart Brouwer]

The pictures will all be done

Great. I've already noticed the extra pictures on the new website, that's a good start. Of course bios would be nice. but your core business is models and you have a lot to show for even in the unpainted department. That new picture you put up of an unpainted Panther model is a better sales pitch than the best WWII doctoral thesis. And anyway, if you have time to spare, I'd use it to produce decals and other accessory stuff for the models. Sorry if all this comes across as insufferable meddling, I'm just a Pendraken enthusiast trying to put in my 2 cents. The new site is a beaut and I still feel like a kid in a candy shop every time I visit.

Cheers,
Aart

[Leon]

Great. I've already noticed the extra pictures on the new website, that's a good start. Of course bios would be nice. but your core business is models and you have a lot to show for even in the unpainted department. That new picture you put up of an unpainted Panther model is a better sales pitch than the best WWII doctoral thesis. And anyway, if you have time to spare, I'd use it to produce decals and other accessory stuff for the models. Sorry if all this comes across as insufferable meddling, I'm just a Pendraken enthusiast trying to put in my 2 cents. The new site is a beaut and I still feel like a kid in a candy shop every time I visit.

Cheers,
Aart

I've been looking at decals, and it's something we'd like to offer at some point.  At the moment, I haven't done enough research to make it commercially viable, but I'll keep looking.

[Pruneau]

The pictures will all be done, I was referring to the bio's of each model.  It would take us forever to provide dates/specifications/opponents for every code in the catalogue.  I would like to do it for each range though.

Just an idea, but couldn't bio's and stuff like that be done by the users?  A bit like a wiki? When and if someone messes up with a description, it could easily be rectified.  Most people that play a specific period have a good bit of knowledge about it, and can often say of the top of their head what years that say the PzKW III e was used in.  Of course, having just done the site, I can see the dilemma.  But maybe appoint a number of period editors for the bio's that can moderate a room on the boards and that way the bio's could grow organically?  Or am I just being naive?

[Leon]

Just an idea, but couldn't bio's and stuff like that be done by the users?  A bit like a wiki? When and if someone messes up with a description, it could easily be rectified.  Most people that play a specific period have a good bit of knowledge about it, and can often say of the top of their head what years that say the PzKW III e was used in.  Of course, having just done the site, I can see the dilemma.  But maybe appoint a number of period editors for the bio's that can moderate a room on the boards and that way the bio's could grow organically?  Or am I just being naive?

It can be done, although I'm not sure about putting something like that on the website, it would take up a lot of space around the products, and the site isn't set up to allow people to edit things in a Wiki-style.  I think that kind of thing is something which would be done on here, which is fine, we'd have to create a space for it if enough people were interested.  And we'd have to come up with a suitable format.

On the website, I'm going to talk to Mat about having a small paragraph inside each range, with a short bit of info on it.  Obviously people have a lot of knowledge about WW2, but it would be useful for some of the smaller ranges we do, like the South Pacific War range.  It could also contain info on which other ranges are compatible for that period.

[Martyn]

I am a firm convert to 10mm, the main reason being you can fight with proper sized armies without compromise. At the moment my 1942 period western desert consists of one complete panzer div, one italian div and two british divs complete with all the artillery and support.
On the down side: Figure manufactures, including Pendraken (although this is getting better) believe that because it is of a small scale then we can get by with just one or two figure poses (see WW1 Turkish Infantry), gun crew that arn't and ranges that are not complete. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages but for me infantry for any period needs to be available in a minimum of three poses, four would be better. Proper gun crew of say four or five different figures in poses relating to the weapon. Not like the current Pendraken bofors gun : the gun is a great model, I think the crew come from the 5.5"!! I'm using minifigs bofors simply because they have seated crew!.

[Hurley]

(Warning after writing this up I realized it sounded very negative please understand that it is just me trying to make historical wargaming easier to get into. My point of view is from a non-old school wargamer so I'm used to sites like GW, PP, and Battlefront)

Well I fully understand that time is money. I also understand that it would take time to do all the bio's but what if we (form users) did up the bio's so you could copy paste them?

For the WW 2 stuff at you need is year production started and ended next to the name of the product. Eg. GR102 (1935-1943) panzer 2

I believe if you talk to the guys over at BKC they have all the would done for you as well because of their army lists. Man would it make my life easier if I could shop by time line or BKC army list. That would be a dream to go: open site put in start and end date for production. See what I can buy for my army. Click checkout.   

One small thing I do not like about the new layout of the site is I would like to see the full lineup of the army, not just 30 or 40 at a time. I just tried to search for panzer II and got everything with panzer in it. With the old site I just went to the army list (Germans) and used the find option under edit. Perhaps you could up the number of entries on each page like ebay does?

Hurley

Hurley

[Leon]

I am a firm convert to 10mm, the main reason being you can fight with proper sized armies without compromise. At the moment my 1942 period western desert consists of one complete panzer div, one italian div and two british divs complete with all the artillery and support.
On the down side: Figure manufactures, including Pendraken (although this is getting better) believe that because it is of a small scale then we can get by with just one or two figure poses (see WW1 Turkish Infantry), gun crew that arn't and ranges that are not complete. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages but for me infantry for any period needs to be available in a minimum of three poses, four would be better. Proper gun crew of say four or five different figures in poses relating to the weapon. Not like the current Pendraken bofors gun : the gun is a great model, I think the crew come from the 5.5"!! I'm using minifigs bofors simply because they have seated crew!.

Thanks for the comments, some valid points, especially about the gun crew.  I've made a note to get some more crew made when we get chance, including some seated chaps.  

The incomplete ranges is kind of a bugbear for me too, I've got a list of things we need to do to finish off some ranges, but it's difficult to quantify what is 'complete'.  The other problem we get is, with the number of requests, sometimes we have to shift focus from one range, to meet the demand for another, and quite often, we don't get chance to return to the original project!  Hopefully with the requests coming in, we'll be able to address this properly.

With poses, it's a delicate balance between variation and economics.  Increasing the number of poses, from 3 to 5 for example, is an extra 66% outlay straight away, and it's quite often hard to justify that when you consider the potential sales of an item.  We've always tried to strike a happy medium somewhere in between, and our more recent ranges have had a bit more variation in them (AWI, Late Romans, SCW).  

[Leon]

Well I fully understand that time is money. I also understand that it would take time to do all the bio's but what if we (form users) did up the bio's so you could copy paste them? For the WW 2 stuff at you need is year production started and ended next to the name of the product. Eg. GR102 (1935-1943) panzer 2
I believe if you talk to the guys over at BKC they have all the would done for you as well because of their army lists. Man would it make my life easier if I could shop by time line or BKC army list. That would be a dream to go: open site put in start and end date for production. See what I can buy for my army. Click checkout.   

One small thing I do not like about the new layout of the site is I would like to see the full lineup of the army, not just 30 or 40 at a time. I just tried to search for panzer II and got everything with panzer in it. With the old site I just went to the army list (Germans) and used the find option under edit. Perhaps you could up the number of entries on each page like ebay does?

Thanks for the comments.  I'll talk to Mat about possibly incorporating something like a bio into the new site.  It might only be something in the descriptions, but we'll see.  One problem with this though, is that production of Tank A might have ended in '41 say, but they would have continued using them until they were all destroyed, so how would you put an end date on it?

On your other point, we can increase the number of codes per page, so I'll talk to Mat about that as well.  When you're searching for something like Pazner II, make sure to click the box marked 'Search for all words', this will filter out all the other stuff to get you what you want.