Wargames Through the Looking Glass

I've finally cracked how the Flames of War flexible groundscale works. With a bit of help from Lewis Carroll.

'When I make a measurement playing Flames of War,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it represents just what distance I choose it to in real life, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make similar measurements on the table represent so many different distances in real life.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master – that's all.'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them – particularly weapon ranges, they're the proudest – movement rates you can do anything with, but not frontages – however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

New US Paras from Battlefront: A Brief Review

Seriously folks, these things are badly deformed. They've got their arms just about fully extended to wave the rest of the platoon forward. And their hands are only just making it above the top of their helmets.

This picture comes from Battlefront Miniature's website here, though I added the commentary. It shows two figures from their US Paratroopers Parachute Rifle Platoon. Their website also has pictures of the accompanying machine gun platoon and mortar platoon. All of these figures are proportioned similarly.

Olmec-Head Derision Society

Another week and more big headed miniatures from Battlefront Miniatures. Some people on TMP think they're taking their inspiration from giant monuments made by the Olmec civilisation of Mexico while others are blaming the Simpsons

German 88mm gun team. Most are under 4 helmetted heads high. I've been told that these are conversions and that their heads have been swapped. Well you'd think he could have found some 15mm ones rather than the 20mm ones he seems to have used there.


British infantry. About four helmetted heads high. I'm not sure how old these figures are, but it looks like they've got bigger heads than the old style British Engineers I have in my collection.


Here's one of those old style Engineers. About four and three quarter helmetted heads high.

This real life British infantryman is between six and a half and seven helmetted heads high.


More fun with Photoshop

More on Battlefront

Much discussion on The Miniatures Page (TMP) as to whether or nor the new Battlefront Miniatures' paratroop figures are as distorted as I claim. Someone questions whether its the result of British Paratroop helmets being really big in real life. Well here's my answer. They are big, but they're not that big.

A reenactor dressed in British Paratrooper uniform. Note he is just over six helmetted heads tall.


Here's his Battlefront counterpart. Four heads tall. Live with it folks, their heads are massively oversized.

Some people have said that the new Panzergrenadiers are less distorted than than the paratroopers but that's just not true. Take a look below, that Panzergrenadieron the left is under 3.5 helmetted heads high. The one on the right isn't quite as bad, he's four helmetted heads high.


For comparison here's an older style German from Battlefront nearer five heads tall than four (4 2/3rds) and looking a lot better to me.

And just for a laugh here's something I knocked up in Photoshop last week. Not the best Photoshop job in the world, but I had fun doing it.


The guy on the right is four and a half heads high. His head size is less distorted than the Battlefront models.

Fanboys Only at Battlefront Forums?

Seems the people at Battlefront Miniatures can't take a bit of criticism. In a recent thread on their General Discussion Forum entitiled "Evans 600pt US Paras" I posted "Big heads, but not as bad as the Brits", a comment which was deleted within eight hours. That's the third time I've had postings deleted without a word of explanation from anyone at Battlefront.

It will be intersting to find out if this is a general policy or a personal honour. In the same thread someone else has posted "Beautifully finished minis, but the huge heads have me unïmpressed. Please BF, go back to more human size heads! The paras look like dolls compared to the panzergrenadiers on the same page." Fight the good fight brother.

But the fanboys know how to behave and some of them are talking about selling off their old style figures and replacing them with the new ones.

Welcome to the world of marketing everyone.

Big headed US paras from Battlefront

The trend towards big headed "heroic" 15s continues at Battlefront Miniatures

One of the pictures in the preview of their D Minus 1 supplement that has recently been posted on their website quite clearly shows the changes that are going on with the style of their infantry figures. Take a look at the picture second from bottom here link (Direct link to picture)

Look at the Germans who are runing away from the new US paras. Compare and contrast the size of the heads, equipment and their body proportions. The new paras are quite different - to my mind incompatable.

But don't go pointing this out on their forums or you could find yourself being personally attacked by moderators before having your posts deleted. That's what happened to me.

How long can it be until Battlefront feel the need to remodel all their older ranges in this new "heroic" style. No doubt telling us that they're doing it to bring them up to the standard of their latest figures.

That's the logical conclusion to the road they're travelling and would fit right in with a marketing model that looks like it was borrowed from the Evil Empire.

Would they dare to do the same thing with their vehicles?

British Paras: Peter Pig and Battlefront compared

Amidst the discussion arising from my previous post on Battlefront Miniatures' newly released British Paratroopers someone posting on The Miniatures Page pointed out that the para figures from Peter Pig, my personal favourites, have similarly proportioned heads to the Battlefront figures that I've described as grotesquely malformed. Well I didn't really believe him, but in the interests of fairness I decided to have a look.

Well it's almost true. As you can see below the Piggies are about four and a half heads high, slightly less distorted than the Battlefront ones, which are about four heads high, but still well outside the normal human range of six to eight.


So how come the Piggies manage to look vaguely human while the Battlefront ones look like apes?


Well the small difference in head height seems to make a significant difference to the overall look and the Battlefront figures are considerably chunkier than the Piggies. The weapons and detailing are also more exaggerated on the Battlefront figures while the Piggies have traces of a neck.


Just look at the size of the equipment on the Battlefront figure below left. The chinstrap on his helmet is enormous, blocking out half his face, while he appears to have a fridge rather than a radio set.


To my eyes the Piggy Paras look human while the Battlefront ones have gone over the top into the realms of the grotesque. But the differences between them are certainly not as great as I initially thought.

And I don't think I've ever seen quite as bad a case of malformation as the para pictured below. He looks like close relative of the WWII styled orcs made by Wessex Games

Battlefront's new British Paratroopers

I've already posted here about Battlefront Miniatures and how I feel that their new releases are changing style, becoming bulkier and gaining oversized heads and oversized equipment. Well this trend has reached a new low with the company's latest releases, British Paratroopers. Battlefront are producing the 15mm equivalent of heroic scale 28s - grotesque parodies of the human form, carrying huge weapons and massively oversized equipment.

Now some people like this style but I agree with Tim Marshall, who on his website Tims Toys describes heroic scale 28s thus:

"The big heads, too short limbs, gaping maws, over exaggerated features, personal weapons as thick as telephone poles and personal equipment not sculpted to any discernible scale all contribute to something that I personally feel looks absolutely awful. Indeed, I find it embarrassing to show non wargamers pictures of such figures on line and in print (Wargames Illustrated, for example, seems to really push articles with photos of these types of figures). Why and how, I often ask myself (and others), can so many gifted artists overlook these awful characteristics, the beautiful painting they do on these figs, notwithstanding? How can such wargamers reconcile wartime photographs, paintings and illustrations of troops with figures that look like small overweight and stumpy children wearing military costumes?"

Tim tops off this rant with a lovely photoshopped picture which shows what a Sherman Firefly would look like if it was given this "heroic scale" treatment.

Well I'm with Tim on this one and do not welcome the move by Battlefront to start producing their 15mm infantry in this style. It's such a shame, they used to make really good figures that fitted in well with other ranges on the market.

Just take a look at the size of the head on this guy below. It's over a quarter of the total height of the figure . Normally proportioned human beings have heads that take up between one sixth and one eighth of their height so that para's head is somewhere between one and a half and two times the size it should be.


LtCol Pine-Coffin. Here again the figure is four heads tall.


For comparison this reenactor is about six and a half heads tall. On the right I've made him heroic scale - 150% sized head, hands and feet. He's still not as out of proportion as many of the Battlefront figures.






He looks a bit like this guy who is carrying a rifle that looks to be double scale width and has helmet straps oversized about the same amount.


And take a look at this guy below. It looks like the paras have been recruiting from the cast of the opening scene of 2001 a Space Odyssey. That's not a para, it's an ape in a denison smock. Hands like shovels and a jaw to match.


Some posters on the FoW forums have tried to defend the realism of these models on the grounds that in real life people come in different shapes and sizes. Well they don't come in those shapes.

Still the fanboys love these models and, thanks to Battlefronts marketing muscle, I'm sure they'll outsell the more realistic offerings available elsewhere. I just hope other 15mm manufacturers don't follow Ballefront's lead in this.

Flames of War scalecreep

A few years back, when I was making up some 15mm forces for the Normandy campaign of 1944, I chose to use mainly Command Decision figures, mixed in with some Peter Pig when I didn't want to buy 50 of something. Then I saw some pictures of some rather nice British Engineers from what was a new company to me, Battlefront Miniatures - who have since gone on to produce the game Flames of War which seems rather popular at the moment. Well these Engineers fitted in quite nicely as can be seen in the photo, the left hand stand are Battlefront while the right hand stand are Command Decision. The Battlefront miniatures are perhaps slightly larger but nothing too noticeable.


Well all that seems to have changed and the new models from Flames of War have changed in style and now do not fit in with other manufacturers stuff at all well. Left to right we have Peter Pig, Command Decision and Flames of War. At first glance at these new figures I thought, he's huge, but a comment below and discussions on The Miniatures Page made me take a closer look. That Flames of War infantryman is actually not much taller than the others if you consider that he is mounted on a base that's considerably thicker than the PP or CD models. What is different is that he is a bit bulkier, has a rather large head and his rifle and bayonet are considerably oversized. All this makes him look bigger.

I won't be buying many of them anyway, they are really quite nice, in a cartooney fashion, but I've got far too much invested in CD and PP stuff that's just not compatible.