Introducing Grand Battle Scale!
Speculation has run rampant in the lead up to this announcement so let’s put all the rumors to bed and answer all your questions!
Grand Battle Scale is our name for a completely new range (I hesitate to say range because it will be so much more) of hard plastic 10mm figures. And when I say 10mm I mean 10mm as reckoned by most metal companies: measured bottom of foot to eye with an overall height of around 11.5-12mm or so depending on the figure and pose.
10mm to the eyes and about 11.5-12mm total height.
As we did with 28mm (also measured bottom of foot to eye and standing 30-31mm) we are staying with a standard wargames size that is already out there on the market. Our figures can be mixed very well with existing ranges, buildings, and any terrain that is labelled 10mm.
Each 10mm set will feature the Grand Battle Scale logo (designed for us by the wonderful Steve Beckett!) and the boxes will be black instead of our normal white to help them stand apart. (Although I have to assume when someone picks up a box that says 328 figures I HOPE they don’t think we could fit that many 28s in there!)
The figures themselves come in a mix on the hard plastic frame. There are some singles, some doubles, some triples, and some five-les (five-figure strips). This should match up well with most basing conventions as 5-6 figures will fit nicely across a 40mm frontage. You’ll have the option of packing them onto the bases or going for a looser order for some troops.
When Rob Macfarlane was designing these we printed them out at 28mm size for fun. 10mm are about 60% smaller than 28mm.
Like our 28mm plastic sets we don’t provide bases in the box as we don’t know what rules you’ll be using them for. You’ll notice the only plastic sets we make that include bases are for the Quar which have their own game. Once we launch the various rule sets that we’ve been working on we’ll configure plastic sets to include bases that match the basing conventions of those rules.
WHY 10mm?
We feel that 10mm is the best of the smaller sizes/scales in wargames figures. 28s are obviously the best of all and will always be the apple of our eyes…but when you want to put on a truly GRAND spectacle of a battle then 10mm is the very best choice. We don’t all have 8’ x 12’ wargames tables and 10mm can give that truly big battle feel in a smaller space while the models themselves retain the charm and detail of a toy soldier.
We also wanted to settle on a well-established small size that folks were already using but could perhaps benefit from the “if you make it, they will come” nature of hard plastics. We didn’t want to create a walled garden with a unique scale that didn’t lend itself to mixing with other manufacturers.
Why do we think 10mm is a superior small size? First let me let the late, great Bryan Ansell of Foundry and Games Workshop fame describe his reasons for not liking 15mm.
Bryan Ansell in Games Workshop days
This is an excerpt from a 1998 Foundry Newsletter titled “Bryan Ansell Speaks Out!” In the first paragraph he makes a reference to “those nasty little 15’s” but then wraps up with this:
"AND A SHORT RANT ABOUT FIFTEENS TO FINALLY CLOSE
As I'm sure you must all be aware, the problem with fifteens is that they are just so much work for little return. Fifteens carry a great deal of surface detail; as much as twenty eights, and they take as long to paint as twenty eights too! Except that there's a great deal less pleasure in painting the fifteens, its all too fiddly, it makes you tired and tense, and when you have finished, they will never provide the joy you can experience seeing a 28mm battalion that you've just painted lined up on the table for the first time. Painting twenty eights can be a real pleasure, painting fifteens is just a chore.
Our involvement with wargaming starts with a love of model soldiers, and at least half the pleasure involved in the wargaming process comes from choosing the models, researching the uniforms, painting the units, and best of all, seeing the results of your work paraded on the battlefield. Fifteens just don't have the character and presence to give you that special thrill. I don't think that its a coincidence that our hobby stopped expanding when wargamers started switching from the magic of large scale models to the bland utility of fifteens, and I find it encouraging and exciting that, in Britain at least, so many are switching back at last."
15s then in our minds were out as a useful scale for all those reasons. On the other end, 6mm we feel for infantry is just not big enough to fall in love with the models. 10mm though is big enough to see all the great details and the character of the figures, yet small enough to paint quickly and then get a LOT on the table. Some battles can even be fought 1:1! Yet individual models are even suitable for single basing in some cases! We’ll get into some follow up articles to talk about the scale of games and tables that 10mm will allow you to try out.
To give you a sense of 10mm vs. Warlord Epic. Our Ashigaru bookend the Epic ACW and Epic Pike & Shotte 10-man strips. The ACW are 13.5mm (to the eyes) and the P&S are about 14.3mm (to the eyes).
WHAT in 10mm?
To kick things off we have two 10mm hard plastic sets: Samurai and Ashigaru. These two sets cover most of the troop types for the Sengoku period and beyond (read all about them and pre-order here). Sculptor Rob Macfarlane is working on follow up frames for the period now and will also be working on the next 10mm range. Studio Director Duong Thieu is also hard at work on a 10mm project (in-between all the other things he’s working on and managing!) but that one is a little further off and will include a game launch. If folks like our foray into this size we’ll be releasing regular new ranges while adding to the existing ones.
Samurai and Ashigaru painted and photgraphed by Christian Lemmen.
But what about all those 28mm projects? Have no fear we’re moving right along with all of those as well and 10mm is a bonus to our planned release schedule. So far this year we’ve released 15 hard plastic sets and as we enter the second half of the year we hope to crush that pace with many, many more releases across all our ranges. And don't forget that 11 sets of The Damned are on their way as well!
Happy Wargaming!
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