The following comment was made about my previous post:
"You seem to happily mix troops from different manufacturers without problem. What's your opinion on this?"
And it struck me that I do tend to mix troops from different manufacturers in my various armies. So I decided to pontificate on this for a bit.
My current 25/28mm imagi-nation Seven Years War armies are composed of Old Glory, Sash & Saber, Front Rank, Foundry, Eureka, Miniature Figurines, RAFM, and London Warroom figures. With very few exceptions, the manufacturers' figures are not mixed within individual units, but are mixed within various commands. With the exception of the MiniFig and RAFM figures, all of them are, in my eyes, comparable in height if not in heft. I acquired them by various methods, primarily via eBay and direct purchases. I like all the manufacturers figures, not having any real favorites.
My 25mm Napoleonic armies are just as eclectic, with Miniature Figurines, Scruby, and Hinton Hunt/Der Kriegspieler figures being in the majority, with smaller contingents from Hinchliffe and Warrior. Many of these have been acquired over the years going back to the early 1970s. Again I rarely mix manufacturers' figures within a unit.
My 25mm medieval armies are just as mixed, with even older out-of-production lines represented. And my Victorian Colonial armies are primarily Ral Partha but with a good leavening of MiniFigs, Scruby, Askari, London Warroom, and Falcon.
But once they are deployed on the tabletop and the battle begins, the differences seem to fade into the background and all you see are your courageous troops engaging the enemy. As you can see, I am not a "size" purist although I think I do draw the line at say putting the newer "heroic" 28mm lines in with my older "true 25mm" Napoleonics, so you won't see Redoubt or Calpe (great figures though they both are) in with them, just as I don't have any Ral Partha Renaissance in with my primarily Foundry Renaissance armies, the Rals are just too small for my eyes.
Well, I hope I haven't bored you with my ramblings, but the question did make me ponder my past troop acquisition decisions and contemplate my future ones.
Good gaming to all!!
Jim
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5 comments:
This sounds like a reasonable approach to me.
-- Jeff
I'm of the same opinion. My imagination armies mix RSM, Spencer Smith and Front Rank, and are none the poorer for it. As you say, once a game is underway all the differences tend to fade.
Hi
I posed the question because I've typically tended to stick to single manufacturers in the larger scales, but not worried too much in the smaller. My 10mm Napoleonic armies come from every available manufacturer and, though there are some apparent differences in "style" on the tabletop (Old Glory are more "massed" than the anatomically more correct but visually spider-like GHQ, for example) they look pretty uniform.
I'm building my imagiNations from whatever I can find, however, in 28mm, so it's a bit of a departure. I find Front Rank do not mix well with RSM, but look fine in independent units. In fact, RSM appear to have significant variation within their own ranges: I thought I'd acquired a couple of 20mm figs in error.
Noel
when it comes to the 25/28mm figs I too have tried to keep the same manufacture within units but have not been so fussy about the whole army.
Recently I have discovered that minifig riders work well on Prince August horses...so I have collected many and sundry riders from discarded parts of others collections (some in part-painted condition) and assembled them with horses I cast myself. Voila! An army at half (or less) the price.
Let the purists who wish to compete in shows ramble on about continuity...for in reality no two men are exactly alike.
My armies are formed from a mix of figure manufacturers; generally I have each unit being from one manufacturer; I something is different it is usually the command figures.
-- Allan
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