Miniature scale explained

We humans seem to really enjoy miniaturized versions of real world objects. We have doll houses and action figures and model trains and miniatures for gaming. I'm new to the game miniature world, and being new means I get the privilege of making a bunch of mistakes. Here's what I've learnt about the scale of gaming miniatures.

I like to cut to the chase, so let's talk Warhammer first.

What scale are Warhammer miniatures?

The incomplete answer is that Citadel miniatures designed for Warhammer are 32mm, which is 1/48 scale. A typical soldier miniature in modern Warhammer is about 30mm to 32mm tall, from head to foot (not including the base). Some are shorter, some are taller, but on average that's the size of a typical miniature posed to stand up straight.

But actually Citadel (and many other miniature companies) don't adhere strictly to a single scale. They're toys, not technical renderings. When something looks good, that's what gets produced, even when it means deviating from an established scale setting. Conversely, models like a Rhino (tank) or a Stormraven Gunship have rules saying that it contains 12 space marines, but 12 miniatures don't actually fit inside. The look and feel and practicality of a toy is more important than whether it would scale up to life size object correctly.

Using models from other games

Sometimes you want to use models from one game in another game. Maybe you're using D&D monsters against Roman legionaries. Or maybe you want to use your Fallout Board Game miniatures in your Warhammer 40,000 game. Who knows, it's your imagination. You can do whatever you want. But you might also have to imagine that some miniatures are slightly bigger or smaller than they actually are on the table.

The problem is that one company's definition of "cool" or "practical" might not be the same as another company's definition, or your own definition. On the one hand, you might think that, say, 28mm isn't so far off from 32mm. That's true, but it's also misleading. 4mm in our world isn't a lot. But each millimeter in the 28mm miniature world represents roughly 56mm in our world. Multiply that by 4 and you get 220mm, or 22cm, which is basically a foot, which you would notice in real life (and you do indeed notice in miniature form).

Buildings are OK because they're usually oversized anyway to account for headroom. But 28mm miniatures aren't just less tall, they're made of less plastic. The diameter of arms and legs is smaller. Weapons are less impressive.

What scale actually means

The word "scale" gets mis-used a lot when talking about miniatures. Scale is a comparison between one object and another, but in the world of game miniatures many companies don't bother telling you the scale of their miniatures and instead tell you how tall their miniatures tend to be. Because this is a very common way of talking about gaming miniatures, I'll start with what it means, even though this is not actually "scale".

Miniatures and millimeters

Miniatures for gaming are generally described according to the height of the average [miniature] figure, which is typically an adult human. When a miniature is advertised as being 28mm (that's 2.8cm, which is roughly 1 inch), it means that an adult human figure is usually 28mm from head to toe. Allow for some variation, because some adult humans are taller than others, but on average that's what to expect.

28mm does not include the base that a miniature is standing on so it won't fall over. It's from head to foot. So when a miniature is advertised as 12mm (that's 1.2 cm), then the figure itself is 12mm from head to foot, but it may well be standing on a base that's 3mm tall. Bases never count, it's just the miniature.

World scale

The size of the average figure in a miniature line also defines the relative size of everything else in the miniature world. When you buy terrain (that's the set dressing around your little people) for a 28mm figure, the doorways and treasure chests and thrones and gallows and sacrificial altars and computers and other everyday objects are of a size appropriate for a 28mm person.

Defining what "average" means

Any given line of miniatures can have its own baseline for what it considers "normal" or "average". If the figures you buy from Wizkids for your dungeon delving adventures considers a human the "average" baseline, then a faerie is likely to be just a few millimeters tall (and therefore probably not sold as a separate miniature, because that's really tiny).

But suppose you buy a figure from a line of miniatures for a game set in the magical realm of faeries. That miniature could still be 28mm because in its imaginary world, an adult faerie is the average baseline for measurement. It's important to keep that in mind when buying miniatures from separate product ranges. If you buy a 28mm-tall faerie and play with it in the same game as a 28mm-tall human, then that faerie is going to seem a lot less diminutive without some re-imagining of how physics works.

So the reality is that 28mm or 32mm or 12mm "scale" describes nothing except how to build a world suitable for an average sized figure.

Outside of board games and roleplaying games and major wargames, there's a contingent of companies that actually talk in terms of scale.

What scale is 28mm

Because 28mm is a measurement of some arbitrary height, it's impossible to know its scale, but with context you can make an educated estimate.

For me, I enjoy Warhammer miniatures, which don't really make a claim (at least as far as I can tell) about size or scale. On average, though, it seems that an average human in Warhammer miniatures are between 28mm to 32mm tall, accounting for posture and pose. As I've said, what says more about miniatures than the miniatures themselves is the terrain around the miniatures and, judging by the size of doorways and floors, terrain for Warhammer assumes 28mm to 32mm is the height of most "normal" miniatures. A 28mm miniature represents about 1.575 meters (about 5 feet and a half) in the real world. Using math, you can express that as 28mm representing 1,575mm, and then simplify that by dividing 1,575 by 28 to express that there's just 1mm in the miniature world for every 56mm in real life.

That's a scale of 1:56. If you go shopping for miniatures for most wargames that aren't Warhammer, you're likely to find 1/56 scale models.

What scale is 32mm

In Warhammer, 32mm in the miniature world represents approximately 1,575mm (about 5 feet and a half) in the real world. Simplify that by dividing 1,575 by 32, which means that each 1mm in the miniature world represents 48mm in real life.

Warhammer basically uses a scale of 1:48. If you go shopping for miniatures that aren't by Citadel for use with Warhammer, look at 1/48 scale models.

Size comparison

Here's a photo of a 1:48 model Russian KV-1 tank by Hobby Boss beside a Goliath Rockgrinder by Citadel.

It's not far off, but I think you could argue that a military tank ought to be bigger than a truck. You can get away with it because this is imaginary. There's no such thing as a Goliath Rockgrinder, so who's to say how big it ought to be next to a tank?

Citadel designers are clever, and they know how to make a tank model "feel" bigger than the Rockgrinder without actually having to be really huge. For instance, the treads on a Leman Russ or a Malcador tank are relatively huge compared to the body of the tank, so it looks imposing next to something with small little 3cm tires. The cannon on Warhammer tanks tend to be huge in one way or another (length or girth or both), while cannons on models of real world tanks are pea shooters by comparison. That's why I replaced the cannon on my Russian KV-1 model with a cannon from a Warhammer kit, and mounted Warhammer artillery on it.

Scale

Ultimately, the safest way to determine whether something looks right with your collection is to hold it up to your existing models for a visual comparison. Unfortunately, that's not always possible because we're dealing with models that require assembly, and you can't assemble it until you buy it. Knowing a model's scale helps, so use that knowledge, and maybe a little kit conversion, and of course a touch of imagination, to make up any differences.