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Would you want 'generic' 28mm dinosaurs?

  • HM

    The idea that there are raptor riders on the way had me thinking of saurian possibilities lately, particularly that there are no good ranges for clearly 25/28mm scaled dinosaurs out there.

    I reckon you could fit the pieces for a nice mid-size carnivore, like a largish Ceratosaurus, or a smallish Allosaurus and/or a Megalosaurid or smaller Tyrannosaurid on a WGA frame, but then I have none of the skills relavent to actually making an informed observation about that. ;) But at least these animals have similar enough body plans that they really just need a head and arm swap to give multiple species.

    To me it's hard to tell how much extra space might be left on a sprue after you break up and split things in half (but maybe not everything needs to be split in half, like they do on GW kits? But any extra sapce could be used to give alternative heads and arms/hands. (or really, just alternative upper jaws, as the lower jaws for alot of these animals when at the same size is going to be similar to the point of just being able to re-use the same piece.

     

    I'd love to see some bigger species represented as well - but the larger carnivores begin to have very divergent body types (T-Rex and Giganotosaurus for example seem similar enough from the side, but head on they are very different, with the Rex being much, much more robust - tales of its demise to either Gianotosaurus or Spinosaurus are unlikelly to be true. But we may never know for sure until we have such kits in hand and can experiment for outselves ;))

  • MD

    Hell yes.

    There's some 28mm dinos around in metal, and many unscaled toys are good enough (even high quality ones like Schliech, though the most useful ones in my extensive collection are cheap vinyl ones from China).

    But more hard plastic is always better.

  • JTam

    It's an interesting idea.

    Working against it is the wide availability of affordable, and really quite nice dinosaur toys almost everywhere.  (Barnes and Noble and Hobby Lobby spring to mind immediately.)  

    On the other hand perhaps if the dinosaurs came with optional fantasy armor/howdahs, and sci-fi howdahs/gun platforms, and what not to increase their flexibility.  One dinosaur kit could consequently serve your Land of the Lost adventure, Victorian Steampunk, and Death Fields/Eldar Exodite needs. 

    Primitive.

    Steam.

    Sci Fi.

     

  • JTam

     

    Makes me laugh every time....

  • MD

    I shall endeavour to post my old Feral Ork army at some point. Their Boar Boyz are mounted on Cold Ones and the Squiggoth is ... well you shall just have to see about that ;)

  • JTam

    @Mark Dewis 

    Looking forward to seeing these guys!  Mysterious Squiggoth is mysterious.

  • HM

    @JTam While there are dino toys out there, very, very few of them are ate a good scale compared to 28mm figure. And I get it - most people seem to be okay with 'good enough', or they just want the impression of a movie monster from the 70's or 80's rather than something more representative of a dinosaur. (And that's before we get into feathers - but I tend to have the view point of most large, adult dinos wouldn't have had them since the combination of body size and increased temperatures during the mesozoic would have made them trap too much heat in the dino's bodies.)

    There's also how difficult it can be to strip the paint off them, and difficulties around good durable conversions.

  • GM

    Do  we want Dinos, "HELL YEAH" as HM states most toy Dinos are that not to scale, poor paint jobs, inacurate, i could go on. If Dinos are produced to scale and natural, (No Armour or toy weapons) they make two slices of the cake, the Dino collecter me, and the Ones shown by J-Tam above, also me. Honerable Lead Boiler suit made the most acurate DINOs at the time and I brought herds, now though metal prices have brought the range to a close. GW and Mantics have molded on Fantasy / SiFi bits and price EEEhhh, so I tend to use toys to suppliment my herds but thats a lot of mess before painting, and scale is crap.

    Mark, comments about the exellent Schliech range, but these are way to big for us I`ve seen them used, each to his own, but I would`t particullary if Armoured. Dino riders was one of my favorite Toy products paticullary as harnesses could be removed.  They were my sons most played toy, he never got bored the self made Roars of T-Rex, stangled cries of Triceratops. filled our living room with delight. Make the Dinos, more the merry`r. I`ll show you how to do the armour from Tin foil and Milliput, linen bows,and small cheep metal  chains.  Gallimimus are Honerable Lead (still a few herds left) Baby Apatasaurus toy converstion.

  • HM

    On a related note, I realized I probably want just as much -if not- plastic whooly Rhinos.

    I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to make a fantasy ice age civlization of whooly rhino cavalry.

  • VC

    @H M I'd love some feathery gian lizards

  • AS

    Do I want 28/32mm scale plastic dinosaurs? Yes.

    Is this related to a game idea I have? ...maybe

  • VS

    @Viking Cowboy I agree. 

  • MD

    @H M however, in all cases a humans-with-dinos scenario is totally fictional. Rough scale is sufficient.

    Not to mention that the fossil record is so incomplete that a larger or smaller species with similar morphology to the well known ones is not unreasonable. If we have pygmy hippos, why not pygmy Tyrannosaurids?

    Not to mention alien pseudo-dinos, abominations of science and just plain juveniles.

  • HM

    @Mark Dewis I think we're just going to be of two different minds on this. For me at least, I'd like to have dinosaurs that scale well witht e fossile records in terms of largest size, as most dino toys are either markedly too big, or too small.

    If that'd a good fir for you, that's wonderful! But I sit unsatisfied with it.

  • JTam

    I think a dinosaur kit that tied in with WGA's Lizardmen would be cool.  WGA Lizardmen could ride on a howdah/fighting platform that mounts a heavy weapon of some sort.  As the WGA Lizardmen can be equipped with primitive spears or muskets....  I would suggest the platform could mount a ballista or black powder cannon. 

    If the resulting kit was roughly this sized and filled a similar base it would definitely be a bonus:

     

  • JTam

    I guesstimate 7% of all the WGA Raptor kits will be converted into Exodites. (91% used as Imperial Guard Rough Riders, and 2% other.)  Similar to:

    A larger dinosaur kit would also be handy:

  • BVD

    @H M If they came with parts to upgrade them for fiction gaming (saddles, etc.) might be a good fit, but I kind of feel the prepainted toy dinos out there beat everyone to the punch for 28mm games unless one goes real fantasy with them (in which case why are you not just doing dragons?🤷‍♂️).

  • MD

    $25 gets you this (fully painted):

    Tyrannosaurus rex

    https://www.schleich-s.com/en/US/dinosaurs/products/tyrannosaurus-rex-14525.html

    11" long (27cm) for a 13m long T-Rex comes to a scale of... 1/48. If you use a nominal 28mm scale of 1/56, it would be about 15m long... big for a T-Rex but not out of the question scientifically.

  • Grumpy Gnome

    @Mark Dewis Which is great If you are after a T-Rex. Do not get my wrong I have used Schleich myself for a Triceratops but there are other species that folks are after... especially if WGA makes fitting sci-fi and fantasy accessories for them.

     

    Home of the Grumpy Gnome

    https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

  • MD

    Yes. It's the smaller and largest ones that tend to be the problem, as the toy ones (like Matchbox cars) are sized to the packaging, not to a common scale. I find regular, non-prehistoric, animals are a particular problem here.

    Nonethless, I have accumulated a pretty good collection over the years in usable scale.

    And hard plastic dinos and other animals are ALWAYS wanted.

     

  • GM

    Hi J-Tam ,Mark,Grumpy, nice pictures guys guess those eleven are GW? dam , they look niceand the Lizard men howdaw. Thing is theres two for the price of one, if the Dinos are scaled with Prehistoric Animals to get in Marks Rino etc. When done in 1/56th scale as Honerable Lead did the Dinos make a lovelly collection for a real collector, great wargaming as just Dinos then add Fantasy and Si/Fi equipment and you`ve nailed a large market. 

    Honerable Lead are friends of mine, so i really know how good this range was for them, it created their buisness and was there main stay. Only the prices of lead alloys have destroyed this range, and it is still being decided if resin can replace. 

    Marks right several companies have done Dinos and Prehistoric Animals but if you put that Schliech Rex next to my Gallimius they will look daft. Size does matter its would be great to see a range of animals in plastic , Herds look great on a table.

  • HM

    @Mark Dewis For me the Schleich stuff is among the worst - it's way too tall and out of proportion for a rex, and that's even with the 'Jurassic Park' filter on.

    The one Schleic model I might go for -and honestly, one of the few i would but for the purpose of gaming are thier Spinosauruses, and the things were colossal anyway, and more and more companies are making models with the latest understanding of the what the animals looked like.

    https://www.schleich-s.com/en/US/dinosaurs/products/spinosaurus-15009.html

  • JTam

    @Geoff Maybury 

    All good points on 1/56 dinosaurs being collectible/displayable... but also great for gaming/converting.  

    The first Triceratopish model is a standard GW Lizardmen (I think they call them Seraphon now) kit.

    The other pictures I posted are talented individual's Exodite (Space Wood Elves who ride dinos) conversions.  I believe the base "dinosaurs" are Games Workshop "Cold Ones" (more or less Raptors) and this thing:

     

  • Blutze

    I believe the base "dinosaurs" are Games Workshop "Cold Ones" (more or less Raptors) and this thing:

    Mostly. The red one with the elf knight is a 7th edition dark elf cold one, currently sold as "drakespawn" knights. The purplish-brown one is either a 5th edition (pre-2000) dark elf cold one, or not a Warhammer product at all (might be 40k though). The big blue ones are indeed two of the possible build options in the current production carnosaur kit, the third being the actual carno look.

     

    For me the Schleich stuff is among the worst - it's way too tall and out of proportion for a rex, and that's even with the 'Jurassic Park' filter on.

    I've had a similar thought process with their stuff in general, including modern animals. The quality is good, but they are roughly (and only roughly) twice as big as 28mm/1:64 scale. An option for dire animals, but not for regular ones.

    They've got a few fantasy offerings though that might work. The white dragon is pretty cool (heh), and their ice wolf is just the right size for a hound of thrym, which is actually huge-sized.

     

    WGA Lizardmen could ride on a howdah/fighting platform that mounts a heavy weapon of some sort.

    Hum. I went with a second hand metal mini because is just really wanted the original GW metal carno, but if I ever decide to move on from my current 2k points, I might actually look into a skink priest with an engine of the gods (triceratops with a massive crystal in the howdah). Not sure if I would want the regular stegadon with mundane weapons though - part of lizardmen's playstyle is all the shooting being very short range. Pft pft.

  • MD

    A further point about "realistic" dinosaurs...

    Are you happy to mix Cretaceous with Jurassic and Triassic? My stance is that you can't be that fussy about sizes (within reason) if your'e happy to mix species that existed millions of years apart from each other.

    On the other hand, if you ARE happy to mix Stegosaurs and Triceratops, you shouldn't be too concerned if some are a bit large or small.

    Pretty much everything comes down to your scenario.

    Time travellers on safari? Yeah, by all means try to get the sizes right to the best of current knowledge, but make sure your species are correct first. We can never be quite sure how big Tyrannosaurids grew, but we have a good handle on their temporal range. They definitely did not eat Dimetrodon.

    Jurassic Park? Mix and match species using whatever DNA you managed to recover. Grown in a lab may mean unusual size variation, but you'll probably stick with accepted sizes.

    Alien monsters? Depending on local gravity and atmosphere could reasonably be pretty big. Use the weirder ones the Chinese factories seem to produce.

    Fantasy? Dude. They're magic and ahistorical. Leave them fluro green if you want.

  • JTam

    I'd most likely be using dinosaurs for pulp "Burroughs" style games.  Exact scale not a requirement.  Certainly all the lions and bears are described as gigantic as opposed to normal examples in Burrough's works.

    That being said if WGA was going to do a dinosaur kit, might as well make it scale.  It only helps, it doesn't hurt.

  • JTam

    We can look at some of the plastic dinosaur kits out there to see how a kit could be layed out/broken down.   We can also see if any are 28mm-ish.  (A lot of these kits are out of production, but samples still pop up on Ebay, etc.)

    Old Arii kits:

    These seem pretty small.  Maybe they're adorable baby dinosaurs?

    Lindberg has a bunch of dinosaur kits.  The detail and style can best be called nostalgic.  They are reminiscent of the stop motion dinosaurs of '60s films and consequently do have a certain charm.

    Someone can do the math on the scale if they care enough.  My guess would be that there's no consistent scale to the line and consequently one or two of the models probably are the right size for 28mm.

    Tamiya made some dinosaurs in 1/35th (super roughly 54mm).  Obviously too big.... but I loved making these kits when I was kid.  Must have been 7?  8?  Using crappy tube glue and painting them with my Dad's Humbrol enamels.  

  • MD

    Airfix have done dinos in the past. There was a reprinting of them as recently as 2005, aparrently. But unscaled. I don't have a size for them. 

    Boxart Dinosaurs 08667 Airfix

  • JTam

    I did the math on the Lindberg Stegosaurus.  I get somewhere between 1/34 to 1/47th.  (The internet says they were 6.5 to 9 meters long.)

  • JTam

    How did I miss these as a kid?  These are awesome!

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino-Riders

     

     

  • MD

    Also:

    https://www.nhmshop.co.uk/dinosaurs/dinosaur-models.html

    These ARE scaled with each other and are listed as 1/40 scale. OTOH, their T-Rex is 26cm, smaller than the Schleich one. So I assume they based their 1/40 T-Rex on a smaller (~10m) fossil than the biggest 13m ones.

  • BVD

    @Grumpy Gnome intresting arguement, but I have seen Schliech, Papo,etc. do several diffrent breeds of Dinos (including Herbavors) over the years that work just fine on the tabletop alongside 28mm figures, particularly since we are talking living things and not cars or tanks. In fact the only thing that might actually be a real "need, need" are raptors unless prehistoric era gaming is bigger than I thought.

  • GM

    @Brian Van De WalkerHonerable Lead Boiler Suit thought it big enough to do a complete range and sell four different rule sets with two second editition reprints. The decision to do 1/56th and push for museum sales as well gave them a run of 18 plus years top of the food chain.  some rules alow hunting of animals and animal v`s animal. 

  • GM

    @JTam Don`t know how you missed them, my son and Daughter loved them,they were their number one toy. So did there Dad, when I got a look in, very nice back story, and well thought out for a kids toy set, they would have made a good wargame or RPG. 

  • Grumpy Gnome

    As noted in my post above, with the photo showing the Schleich dino repainted... I am willing to use Schleich. But I would not turn my note up at WGA Dino's if they were of a design I liked.

    Worth mentioning here I suppose, I just saw the news on these Dino's...

    https://www.beastsofwar.com/news/olmec-the-drowned-earth-releases-september/

    Home of the Grumpy Gnome

    https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

  • HM

    @Brian Van De Walker It's worth remembering that hard plastic dinos are certain to attract the eyes of some warhammer lizarmen (seraphon) players. I somewhat resemble that category of person myself ;)

  • CO

    Great. Now I need to make a Dino Riders army. And Dinotopia...

  • MD

    Here's my Feral Ork riders, and Squiggoth. 

  • MD

    Detail.

  • HM

    @Carsten Ohlsson Dinotopia - now that's what I'm talking about!

  • JTam

    @Mark Dewis 

    Awesome!

  • GM

    You Know this forums not just for the fun of learning to model. and paint or it`s exellent social. The forum allows, amazing info, to be passed on, from member to member .This side of the pond. I had not heard of.  "The Drowned Earth", god I probably could not afford it, but would I have liked it. hell yes. its full of Dinos. Thank you Grunpy my mate I`ve joined their mailing list, down loaded some brilliant painted model Dinos, they do 12 + all ready looks agood game.Thanks all Geoff

  • GM

    The Drowned Earth looks to be  a good idea, only fly in the oitment is prices, £45 for 5 human figures,  £12 , £15 for 1 figure . Dinos £60 for that one above , out of my league now.Got the free PDF rules,the basics £45 -50 ,but I`ve not found a British stockist, and postage for a Hardback book from States is allmost the book again. I `ll look for the rules at a reasonable price, and go J-Tams Stalingrad aproach,  i won`t be able to play offical tornement games  but who minds that.

    One thing though, proves Dinos sell, if they invest this much in to a game were the principal villians are Dinos

    Just been on E-bey shops, Olmec Games will need to get in bed with a British retailer if they want this to take off, it`s £75-18 p@p £31-82, £71-44 P@p £31-16. Two books and the Dinos are all ouch, all items are from the states.

  • Grumpy Gnome

    The current international trade situation seems to be heavily impacting this hobby when it comes to the small businesses. WGA seems to be big enough now to deal with distribution better than smaller companies like Olmec. 

    Home of the Grumpy Gnome

    https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

  • M

    to be honest, i'd love dinosaur kits. but the question would be how to do them.

    what dinosaurs, how customizable could you make them, what size of dinos could you fit on a single sprue and how many in a box, etc.

    and that is before we tackle the usually highly contested issue of "accuracy vs movie monster" which can include thingsl ike "feathers vs scales" and "lots of spikes a and such vs smoother features", "action poses vs running posses vs standing poses" etc.

    we're going to be getting raptors of some sort for a future deathfields related set, so that'll at least cover most of what people want.

    personalyl i could see the lizardmen getting some sort of tamed dino as a unit. perhaps some sort of ceratopsian or ankylosaur, which can come with a howdah big enough to mount some of the lizardman figures on.

  • GM

    @Grumpy Gnome Had my first look at the PDF rules, 85 pages form a 190 Hardback. Not bad, the sad part is the rules are infull and good, but it`s the major fluff thats missing and you`d really like them. They have a forum site that as outstanding scenery,and painted figures

  • GM

  • GM

    Some of the best Dino modelling, I have ever seen, feature in the painted figures for this game, check out this guy,by Mark Blackbird.

  • GM

    Plus this amazing 2x 2 board by Robin Somberg. pure class.

  • GM

    This is wargaming as an art form I love it all on 2x2 boards.

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