How important is scale and detail on you minis and what details do you want?

[starfox1701]

Just a question, with the demise of both the GW and FW BFG model lines sooner or later someone will start making new ones and I was wondering if we could do the sips over what would you keep and what would you change?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Space stations. The GW ones are crap, barely suitable as orbitals and certainly nothing like the picture in the BBB.

[Armiger84]

Space stations. The GW ones are crap, barely suitable as orbitals and certainly nothing like the picture in the BBB.

+1.

When they rolled out their "space station/orbital dock" model... it was not what I had in mind.

As for scale and detail.  Detail's very important for me.  If I really wanted to just push colored markers around on a table, I'd get some cardboard circles and write ship classes on them.  Scale... As long as things are reasonably to scale with each other, I'm happy.  I feel like the BFG ships were pretty well done in that regard, certainly within each fleet to each other.

Across fleets, well, there's definitely a difference in displacement between a Retribution and a Desolator, and yet they're both 12 hull points, for example.  Chalk most of that up to the stylistic differences in hull shape, but the chaos stuff definitely seems more massive than the imperial stuff.  That said, I'm not sure my longer, thinner plastic chaos battleship is that much better of a solution, since it breaks the proportionate ratios.  Tough call on that.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I dont think the Chaos/ Imperial BBs are that far off but the official Ork ships sure seem too small to me. The difference between a Repulsive and a Vengance is pretty bad tho.

[starfox1701]

So detail is a big thing and you guys would want as much as possible. Obviously bigger models are able to handle more detail but how much bigger would be to big? obviously the same question applies to station models?

[AndrewChristlieb]

Do you mean what would be too big for model size?

The lengths for Imp/Chaos are roughly:

Battleships 120-140mm

Grand/heavy/battle/standard/cruisers 95-115mm

Lightcruisers 75mm

Frigate 40-50mm

Destroyer 30-40mm

[avien]

It's been said already but detail of the models is extremely important otherwise why bother with minis at all.

I love the look of the fleets, it's really critical for me to enjoy painting and playing with something that it at least look like it belongs in the universe.

If nothing else this is going to make me try my hand a scratch building. I've been looking at all the models and they are collections of simple geometric shapes, likely originally sculpted from plasticard.... Oh it sounds soooo easy ha! I followed the magnozac's construction efforts of the Zeus frigate/cruiser/ destroyer over on resin addict. They all look superb but that guy is a pro at this stage and it takes months to turn out a nice looking piece. And they still can't be sold or GW will sue... I'd love a few of those Zeus models, but alas...

I would like to see a few monstrous stations though. I think as regards scale of fleets to one another it helps of you remember that the model is only a representation of the ship which only actually occupies the space of the stem on the table. A speck in the interstellar void.

[starfox1701]

Do you mean what would be too big for model size?

The lengths for Imp/Chaos are roughly:

Battleships 120-140mm

Grand/heavy/battle/standard/cruisers 95-115mm

Lightcruisers 75mm

Frigate 40-50mm

Destroyer 30-40mm

Yes how much bigger could they get before the models are too big?

[avien]

Do you mean what would be too big for model size?

The lengths for Imp/Chaos are roughly:

Battleships 120-140mm

Grand/heavy/battle/standard/cruisers 95-115mm

Lightcruisers 75mm

Frigate 40-50mm

Destroyer 30-40mm

Yes how much bigger could they get before the models are too big?

I would say they can't really go much above those scales. Look at firestorm armada, they aren't exactly loads bigger than BFG but put them side by side and they just look off...

[Seahawk]

Yea, no bigger, no smaller. Anything else is silly.

[afterimagedan]

I agree, I really like to have the scale matched.

[Jimmy Zimms]

I rank quality highest but scale is a close second. I've got Firestorm Armada in my collection for BFG uses but it very limited as scales don't mesh inside of fleets well.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I could go a little longer or wider but not much for existing classes. A FSA dreadnaught ~170mm would in my mind ring in at around 15+ hits. Of course the PK is 15 hits already but its pretty poorly scaled to the other ships.

[starfox1701]

So for example a 10" (250mm) imperial style hull would not be well received as a bb replacement?

[horizon]

Like that. It'll be to big/out of scale.