Dawn of the Lead

I love miniature size comparisons. With plenty of manufacturers out there, it’s useful to know which manufacturers fit together size and style wise. I’m not too fussy with what lines I use together (as you can see from my Colonial Marines), but I know a lot of people are very particular about it. As I’ve amassed a lot of pirate/18th century miniatures in 28-ish mm recently for my small project, I figured I’d do a quick comparison for the benefit of everyone out there. Posts like this are something I tend to google a lot, so this is just paying it forward. This isn’t a review as such, more a quick comparison.

The ranges compared are 18th century sailors by Galloping Major, pirates by Black Scorpion and Foundry and FIW civilians by Redoubt. Here they are side to side:

L to R: Black Scorpion, Galloping Major, Foundry, Redoubt

In my opinion all these can be used together, but as said above, I’m not fussy. If you want matches, here are my suggestions:

Black Scorpion has a different style from the others. They also have a fairly large range, so you could just use them exclusively. If the height difference is the thing bothering you, Galloping Major matches up nicely. Style wise Redoubt’s weapons are thinner than Foundry’s or Galloping Major’s and match up quite well with Black Scorpion.

Redoubt can easily be mixed with both Galloping Major and Foundry.

Galloping Major matches Black Scorpion in height but not style. They’re a good match with Redoubt and Foundry style wise, but in general chunkier and taller. However, you could circumvent the height difference by removing the integral base from the Galloping Major minis.

Foundry are short, but style wise match Redoubt and Galloping Major. You could remedy this by giving them a boost under their integral base using putty or a washer.

So that’s my take! As a disclaimer, note that these are single samples from larger ranges which in themselves have internal variation and and..oh heck, I’ll just leave it to Captain Barbossa:

As I like all of these minis and don’t want to unnecessarily put you off from buying them, shown below is a picture of two Foundry pirates and a Black Scorpion one. As you can see, you can do wonders with matching basing and I think they go together just great, even with the height difference.

Click for a larger version

Hope this post proves useful! If it does, I’d love to hear about it.