Woodies Comparison

Finally some content that I want to put on here.  I took a few pictures of what I have left of my Wood Elves.  I did sell the majority of my collection a few months back unfortunatelly.  It is an army that I do have interest and want to collect once again, but there are a problem with that proposition, the older models is what I most likely going to collect.

Now that metal is getting hard to come by for any new models from GW I am going to be buying second hand no matter what I do.  I will put a post on my thoughts on finecast in its own post later on, but lets just say that I am not fond of the idea, and it is not just the obvious.  Honestly if I want to start collecting once again I will most likely put together an army with older models mainly due to their character.

Nevertheless, here are the comparison shots of the two different editions that I have.  I believe that I have 4th/5th metal Wood Elves and 6/7th plastic Wood Elves. 

The first set has two standard new archers, and one metal archer and one kneeling scout>

From the Front:

The second set has two new plastic models, with one metal archer and one scout that is running:

From the Front:







As I have said earler I do tend to like the older metal models with their character.  I believe that the older metal models do have a lot of depth in their range.  Last time that I checked it was atleast a dozen of the standard archers for them. 

It is still something that I want to think on and something that I am not planning on doing any time soon however. 

Kazad ai-menu! (The Dwarves are upon you!)

As promised a month or so ago, I decided to make a few comparison shots of some of my GW figures over the years.  I am going to start with my first love, the Dwarves.  I started these guys back in the heady days of the mid 90's.(specifically 1994)  In my collection I really have three distinct lines that I have out there.  Given the merging of Marauder Miniatures, I will just characterize them based on the edition that they came out or the closest editions.  What I want to do with these pictures is to help me figure out whether I want to continue with my idea of using the 7th edition (well usually called 6.5 as well given that they came out earlier than the 7th) models in my collection.  If I really have lost interest in that line of models, I dont see a reason why to keep them anymore.  Without further ado here are the models that I brought out based on the edition used.  At the end I did take the caliper to them and have the results of my measurements below as well. 

Dwarves Over the Years

These are some of my 4th edition models.  I have sold off about 1/3 of my collection from that time, mainly from the look of some of the models that I am not interested with much any more and also because of the fact that I have just too damn much of one model.  I did not have much in the form of depth on the bench with this edition.  I really do love these models, but mainly as character models in my armies. For example, that fully painted handsome devil on the near left, is my thane of pain.

These are the models of my main line army from the 6th edition.  I really do like these models mainly due to their functionality and versatility.  I will talk about this later but I have no problem with the "monkey hands" that everyone incessantly complains about with this edition.  When I got a good hold of them, I really liked working with these guys.  From my experience, they fit really well with my 4th edition Dwarves. 

While technically from the 6th edition, they came out just prior to the 7th, and part of the joke in Dwarven circles as Dwarves 6.5.  I have put these guys together, and I am still rather undecided as to whether they will serve as a functioning wing of my Dwarves.  Unlike in the two previous editions, this army is significantly different in looks so much that they really dont fit side-by-side with previous editions.  This means that they would have to be a separate army. 

Now for the Comparison

The following pics are my comparison shots, rather self explanatory so I will leave the repotage out of the pics.  The commentary will come later on. 

Now this following pic is one with one of my Romans from Warlord Games, just for laughs.  I know that there are some discrepancies between historical miniatures and fantasy miniatures, and that Romans tended to be on the shorter side and thus modeled by some to be shorter, but this is rather rediculius.  From my Calculation of the models without the base, a Dwarf is about 4'7" or so.  Just by looks that would make that Roman no taller than 5' or so.  That would make Napoleon a LARGE guy for during the Roman Times.  I really do find that hard to believe that the Romans were that short given that the Greeks were as short if not shorter and they ranged around 5'4" or so last time that I looked.  It really does make me wonder if Warlord made their Romans more for 25mm playing initially. 

Comparison Stats

I also decided to do some comparison statistics with my models.  I dont really know how to import a table just yet onto one of these posts so please bear with me on this one.  Height is self explanatory for the model itself, but I am just measuring top of head gear to bottom of base.  Width was from Arm to arm, and if different the widest part on that axis in parentheses.  Girth is how I measure from front to back  at the widest part of the beard.  I also did the hands with or without a weapon in hand in both width of hand and length of hand.  All of these numbers are in mm. 

Body Dimensions

Edition:                                  7th          6th          4th

Model Height:                        25           25            24

Model Width:                         17(20)    20            16

Model Depth:                         12           11            10

With Hand weapon

Hand Lenght:                           3             4              4

Hand Width:                            3             4              4

Without Hand Weapon

Hand Length:                           4             4              4

Hand Width:                            2.5          4              4

A note on the 4th Edition measurements, they were the most wildly varied of the three whereas the 7th and 6th are very consistent concerning the body measurements.  It is proabably due to me not using any poses that have the arms tucked down in a ready position rather than in a heroic upright position.  Honestly I dont think that I can find one of those models if I wanted to.  I will have no problem standing by the measurements on the hands, which were eaiser to do than expected. 

What did suprise me was the hands being that much different in size, and yet that consistent between the previous two editions.  Likewise how different the variability in bodysize in the 4th edition also suprised me as well.  What also suprised me what the consistency in the height of the models.  I think that the comparison shots show that any variances in height is based solely on the headgear of the models and not on the projected height of the models.  This is odd since everyone bemoans the fact that GW has been making bigger models, which includes me on this.  Perhaps that this is a Dwarf Thing in that the size comes from a thicker and bulkier plastic model rather than a taller model. 

What to Do with the new Models?

Honestly, doing this comparison and subsequent measurements have raised more questions and uncertainty in general than answered any of my questions.  When I was putting them together, I really didn't like the general bulkiness of the model, yet when I did the measurements there was not that much difference.  Admittingly I only measured a few points on the miniature which does not take into consideration other points that could show how bulky the model is.  Unfortunatelly even a milimeter difference can cause a big change in the look of the model, which should make sense on a 28mm miniature.  I know that I hate the look of the warmachines that are in this edition in question, and what looks like a monopose of the rank and file with the models does not help out either. 

 I think that I can kit bash the old 6th edition models for some variety for a Great Weapon that would give me the almost the same thing with a 7th model, but I can actually move the left arm around.  The problem is that it is a dis-continued item so what I have is what I have unless I get lucky on E-Bay.  Also I saw and I believe still have some awesome looking pictures of dwarfs that were greenstuffed to look like Ironbreakers from these guys.  One ray of hope is that I have what looks like four peanut butter jars full of Dwarf parts.  One is admittingly my bit jar, but the rest is all new dwarfs.  It will take me a while to run out of Dwarves when I start getting them up and running. 

The other good news is that may be able to find some 4th ed. miniatures out there that are not as flamboyant and can fit into the unit without looking like a character.  Not exactly the easiest but better than nothing.  Also I have not taken a look at Wargames Foundry, or Mirliton's lines and see if they match the same dimensions as GW.  Bugman's said that Foundry are supposed to be larger, however they are comparing a Slayer to a fat dwarf in the pic.  Unfortunatelly I want to see this for myself with what is supposed to be a regular with a regular.  Nevertheless, hope springs eternal on that front, and I saw online that Militron does have crewmembers for cannons and Stonethrowers.  That is something that I really do want to find since I do lack viable variety in models for my artillery crew.  I cant remember right now if Foundry has any warmachines.  Even if they dont quite match up, it would be better than nothing for a new crew.  I have not been impressed with any other manufacturers out there. 

All in all, it is looking worse and worse for the 7th edition that I do have.  Perhaps one or two of the thinner characters may pass muster for me, but I expect to be selling my inventory when I get  a chance to move them, unless I have a wild mood swing which I doubt will happen.  If anyone is interested, please let me know and I will provide you an inventory of what I have. 

SPQR in the field

Well yesterday I took my Romans out to play a game with a friend.  It has been several months since I have played WAB, and I was glad for the occasion.  I was tabled easily, but it was still good to get them out and roll some dice.  I dedided to not do a battle report mainly because I did not take any pictures of the game, and that I didn't take any notes on the play-by-play to do it justice.  I usually dont so I am not suprised.

I really wanted to take these guys out and acutally get them some action.

Here is a close-up of them. 

There is a full century that is just about done, which I plan on getting done this month at the latest.  Usually, it is in jest when I set a painting deadline, but since it is getting colder, I really do need to get the models that I have almost done, complete so that I can put varnish on them before it gets too cold where I am at.

A few Comparison Shots

Someone asked me to do a few comparison shots of the IOB High Elves against the troops in the regular box.  I was planning on doing that anyways, but I figured that I would do it now and get it out of the way.  I put the figures in front of graph paper measured out to one inch squares for the large lines, and .10 for each small lines.  It sort of looks like a line up at a police station if the even do these kind of line ups anymore.  The models not IOB are 6th edition plastic/metal models. 

I usually take a calipers to my models if I see something that is not right.  When I calipered the IOB models I noticed that they were different size.  You really do see well the height of the models in the pictures, but you don't really see the width of pieces of the models that well, nor the depth of some pieces as well.  After measuring the minatures, I had to say that it was a "dealbreaker" for me to use the IOB models in my army even in just their own unit.  I still think that it would be visible to me and bug the hell out of me that they were that different.  I have the distinct feeling that the new elite plastic models fit the IOB models well and thus would look larger compared to the older models.  Enjoy!

The swordmaster on the left is from The Isle of Blood set, and the one on the right is the standard metal Swordmaster that we have had for around a decade.  Notice that the metal swordmaster is atleast 1/10 shorter than the plastic ones from IOB.  The IOB sword is a little bent toward the camera so it looks smaller than it really is.  You have a hard time seein in the pictures, but the IOB swordmasters have very large mellons for heads.  So much that their heads don't look even close to each other. 

Here is a set of spearelves in some form.  On the left is a Seaguard model from the IOB.  The center is my own kit bashed spearelf, and the one in the right just the standard spearelf.  The center model is a spearelf body but with a Silver Helm's head.  As you can tell the IOB model is once again taller significantly compared to the older models.  Also, once again, the heads are very much fatter on the IOB models compared to the regular models. 

On this pic, we have the IOB Ellyron Reaver, a Standare Ellyron Reaver, and a Silver Helm.  Now I really cant see much difference in these models heights personally.  I would admit that I dont have a rider nor a head on the IOB Ellyron Reaver.  To be honest I really didn't look at these models that closely and measured them out like I normally do.  I just did not like the looks of the Reavers exactly, when I was perfectly happy with the existing Reavers, and in a pinch, I could do the "Glade Rider Two Step" and kitbash a few glade riders if I really felt the need to do something different.  All in all I have a lot less problem with these models than the other models.