Heh, 20 some odd years ago it came down to the number of character figures available. With a fair number of the 15mm Citadel/RAFM Traveller license figs kicking around Ebay and all the Laserburn, Asgaurd and the like in limited production, I got a start.
Yeah, but the detail level sure wasn't what it was (though I did love the old Vargr minis too). The grav tank was a bit uninspired, but the air raft was fine. Some of the adventurers were good too.
GZGs UNSC hardsuits are imperial marines in both 25mm and 15mm.
The majority of my 1200 painted sci fis are GZG (almost every line, enough to field a company (short to reinforced) for several forces. In there are some Denizen (Ventaurians), some House Kurita and House Steiner old school true 25mm Battletech Battletroops, some 25mm Star Wars figures from the early days of WEG (I still have about six snowpeeders in the original blisters to build). Probably some other odds and ends and second generation star wars plastics could be counted for another 100 (not the click base ones or the latest generation, but the ones when SW was D20 - true 25mm and not hideously expensive).
In the mix, we've got parts of Public Security Section 9, A WHO representation (Tom Baker, Trillian, Zaphod and Marvin), R2 and C3PO, Some Attack of the Clones Droidekas, 8 of the 25mm-28mm scaled plastic M577 APCs and two of the dropships, and the list goes on. Somewhere not counted in that count are about 200 25mm wild west figures and a fairly massive wild west town.
Love some of the stuff... has led to some amazing convention games.
Oh and I got a deal all 5 boxes of the Citadel/RAFM 15mm Traveller, it worked out to $5 box including shipping from the UK.
Yes, 15mm is cheaper (now), takes up less game board space, less storage space, and ships cheaper. And vehicles aren't $25-70 bucks now like they can be for 25mm-28mm.
Most of my stuff was lucky to arrive before the price of metal went up and the price of resin went up notably.
From there calling the various manufacturers bugging them about 15mm ST figures, soon we had new character figures from multiple sources.
I took some of the original Grenadier 25mm adventurers plus a bunch from other sources and created one commonly painted ship's crew with about 20 members - enough to likely to most 'small liner' crews or a small station crew. That's handy, and I can stiffen them with the House Steiner troops because they look like internal security forces.
But to be honest if there had been more characters in 25mm I would have stayed there. Hint 25mm character figures fit on a 20mm base.
Shhh.... I use Canadian Pennies! (Well, I did before we phased them out, but I still have a few containers full just to finish off basing some incomplete bags of GZG 25mms I need to finish painting). They were smaller than fender washers, better (thinner) than plastic slotta bases, they didn't require me to cut my own base from balsa or cardstock, and the very last few years, they had a magnetic center so you could use magsheet to help your minis stay put. I lamented their passing. Plus they were cheaper than all other alternatives at 0.01 $CAD.
Besides do you know how many more 15mm vehicles there are in comparison to 25mm.
I know. But with 60-80 plus LOTS of terrain plus LOTS of vegetation plus entire bases in resin in 25mm, plus 3 x $200+ AT-ATs, etc... yeah, if I get out of 25mm, I'll probably end up going to 6mm. Already have a fair bit of that from old school Challenger II microarmour (GHQ and others) plus a bunch of GZG stuff and some other 6mm.
15mm is 'the scale I despise painting'. 25mm let me paint decent spotch patterns. 6mm was small enough you couldn't go far wrong. 15mm is big enough I want to paint camouflage and detail, but can't. And my main painter is a) busy, and b) his eyes are not what they used to be either.
If I were starting now, 15mm does give you many, many beautiful vehicles, mechs, robots, walkers, grav/hover/wheeled, etc. It still has board scale issues (fig scale 17mm = 2m, vehicle scales still tend to be 1" = 10-20m). Stargrunt II's 10m to 1" was actually just about right for 6mm minis if you wanted WYSIWYG.
I always found weapons on vehicles that could kill at kms could never be vaguely modelled on a 4x4, 4x6, 4x8 or 6x8 table reasonably. Even the biggest of those at 10m/1" = 960m x 720m so any vehicle weapon and most squad support weapons should range most of the board and with any amount of maneuver, you ought to be in range of the enemy within a short time even with half a board between you.
Go to 6mm and your perspective is more accurate. And terrain requirements are smaller than 15mm or 25mm. You can get away with lichen for forests, some smaller buildings, and rivers and such are also scaled down (as are bridges, airfields, landing pads, etc).
And I've played some awesome 6mm games - one was on a molten core moon with floating basalt sheets with cracks... everyone in Battle Dress and enclosed grav IFVs/Tanks. Lose propulsion over a crevasse, into the lava! The other notable one was a game over water where there were some naval units, shore defenses, and a lot of islands so grav, helos, air cushion and naval all got into the act. The bigger spread makes for more fun.
I would consider augmenting my current 6mm forces (which include UNSC Hardsuits from GZG aka Imperial Marines) to get some Ventaurians and if they do them, Garhel in 6mm. The cost isn't brutal and they'd make a good Traveller extension for 6mm.
Tom B
Though GZGs 25mm vehicles are still available from Demonscape ( I think)....
Some. I think some moulds failed and were not replaced. I know they did pass of their lines. Quite a few of them were 'inspired by' the original A.D. 2300 (later Traveller 2300) line-art. There's an APC that looks very close to the German one in the vehicle guide and one of the air cushion tanks with a remote gun (tank destroyer?) from GZG is like the German Panzer that had a remote turret. The Kravak have a Predator/Kafer feel to them as well (figure wise).
I'm just stating my reasons for 15mm. Working on 1/100th scale plans is also easy, as 5mm square or for paper is easily acquired.
That's another plus, your ship diagrams don't have to occupy a room.... unless you want to layout your Element Class Cruiser plans... (that's where 6mm looks better...)
Evyn
On August 7, 2020, at 19:20, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
That's the exact use I have for them.
Am sad that 25mm faded to 15mm when 15mm got good.... after I'd got 1200+ painted figures and about 60-80 vehicles built/painted. I just can't justify re-buying everything in 15mm.
I WISH those Garhel were in 25mm though. They are excellent, although I'm still trying to fathom what a Vargr helmet looks like.... a funny clear 'glass blown' shape? Or is is sort of like an Anubis head from Stargate? I could see that being okay with the Vargr....
If I was buying 15mm, those would be awesome.
I think it's quite possible GZG having moved to 15mm that there might be 15mm UNSC to use for Imperial Marines.
Also note Ground Zero Games 25mm UNSC hardships make good Imperial Marines, to match Denizen's 25mm Ventaurians....
On August 7, 2020, at 09:18, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:
Now, they have yoda heads under their armour, so I just made sure to order individuals that had helmets on. I think I might have ordered one or two with helmets off with the plan to 're-head' them with human heads. I was thinking of building one with a turban (Zhodani Noble maybe?).
They are very close to old CT Alien Module 1 Zhodani Battle Dress.
These figs are 'true 25mm' so not 28mm, not epic 28mm, not 30mm, etc. Of course, scale is a always a challenge - some places reckon it from boot bottoms to top of head (or differently, top of hat) and some reckon it to eye level (for reasons I do not fathom). Anyway, they fit well with the 25mm figure lines from GZG. They would be very underscale to anything from Games Orcshop.
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