There is something about the color green that inspired Jack Kirby to make his more evil-inclined Asgardians follow a jade hue. Or, perhaps it’s because they the green of Enchantress, Hela, and Loki contrast the overwhelming pop of Thor’s red cape so well. Regardless, it seems like the three primary Asgardian baddies really dig their green duds!
So far, Loki and Hela are the only “evil” Asgardians that Atomic Mass Games has released, and I finally got a chance to get them painted up!
Hela is a lot of fun, with a sculpt that kind of hints at the casual immensity of her power. I have been experimenting with a new speed paint technique, which came together pretty well with her.
Loki is pulling the inspiration for his look from the more recent comics, with a pretty nice coat and a smirk that speaks volumes.
The magic effect for both was created by layering thinned inks over silver, which looks pretty cool in person. In photos, it’s really hard to see the effect working!
I used the same effect on the stone in Loki’s scepter, with a little plasma blue painted over silver. It’s not perfect, and I’ll probably play with it a lot more before I get it to where I want it!
There’s another pack coming soon with Enchantress and Angela, which is cool, but I would rather have Sif packed in with Enchantress if I’m being completely honest. Angela may be a Marvel character now, but she really feels like an eternal Spawn character to me. Still, I’ll be happy to see them in the collection!
Believe it or not, I get a whole lot of questions about miniatures. It might be because I run a miniature blog, or because I spent several years of my life as a freelance miniature painter. It might be because I spend so much time nerding out about miniatures. I have no idea. But, being as how I absolutely love miniatures, I though a series of educational posts covering the full spectrum of the hobby might be handy.
First up, we’ll be covering SCALE.
Exactly what is scale? Really, it’s just a way to make sure that your toy soldiers don’t look too ridiculous when you have them going pew-pew at each other. By collecting miniatures in a similar scale, you can avoid the terrible shame showing up with Micro Machines when all anybody wants to play with is Matchbox cars.
That’s really the nuts and bolts of scale. Your six inch tall Star Wars: Black Series action figures are going to look a little funky if you’re facing off against normal three-and-three quarter inch figures. Scale is a just a handy way to make sure you’re in the right sandbox.
Most miniature games stick to a general range of scale between 28mm and 40mm. But even then, there is a massive amount of variation, even when the scales supposedly match!
Scale normally measures the height of an average (assumedly male from a production standpoint) miniature from the base of its foot to its eye level. Unfortunately, some companies measure from the base of the figure’s foot to the top of its scalp, which means two companies can say they produce 28mm miniatures that can still end up having a pretty sizable difference in height.
28mm Standard
Once one of the most common scales produced in miniatures, 28mm standard miniatures tended towards smaller details in their sculpts, with heads and hands that were more realistically proportioned to their bodies.
You can see this example illustrated with the miniatures below. Both are considered 28mm figures, yet the Core Space mini is definitively smaller than the miniature from Corvus Belli‘s Infinity on the right.
The Core Space miniature was measured from base to the top of her head, while the Infinity model was measured base to eyes. Both are still technically 28mm!
There are still plenty of miniatures being produced in this scale, with some fantastic multi-part kits being produced by Osprey Games for the Frostgrave family of wargames.
Games Workshop has largely disrupted that over the last few decades, with the advent (and proliferation) of what is commonly referred to as “heroic scale”.
28mm Heroic
My haaands are as big as my faaaaaaace!
Supposedly, heroic scale figures are the same scale as 28mm standard, but their larger heads, hands, and feet make them look more like comic book characters (hence heroic). There has also been very little attention paid to keeping the scale of most 28mm heroic figures consistent, which has led to a fair amount of “scale creep” over the last 20 years or so. Just compare a Warhammer 40k Space Marine from 1999 to one produced in the last few years, and you can see a huge difference in their size.
And yes, I know Primaris Marines are bigger. I’m talking about your standard marine. And I have Imperial Guard from 20 years back that are a bit smaller than newer figs.
On the plus side, though, larger minis make for more possibilities for detail, which leads us right to what is becoming the industry standard for miniature scale.
32mm
Malifaux, Zombicide, Kings of War, Runewars, and a fare amount of independent sculptors have settled on the 32mm scale range for their miniatures, which has some definite perks; the larger size allows for crisper details, which can lead to more dynamic or expressive characters.
It’s also close enough to 28mm, especially Heroic 28mm, that most people won’t care much about the size difference.
35mm
There’s really very few games producing minis in 35mm, notably Wild West Exodus and other figures from Warcradle Studios. Everything that we said about larger size is even more apparent at this larger scale, but they’re also much larger than 28mm figures when presented on the same table!
40mm
These Marvel: Crisis Protocol figures pretty much max out the size of scale miniatures, but their larger surface area is far more forgiving to paint!Should have used a pic of him moving, sorry for the empty space…
Atomic Mass Games produces Marvel Crisis Protocol at 40mm, and at this point they’re one of the few miniature lines at this scale. The miniatures are so large that they are much easier to paint, which is nice, but forget putting your Iron Man on the table against someone’s Frostgrave minis. He’ll look like he’s attacking students from that school model in Zoolander.
Other Common Scales for Wargame Miniatures
Quite a few wargames rely on much smaller scales, and this is purely due to economics of space. If you’re going to re-create Waterloo, you’re going to need a lot of miniatures to pull that off!
That’s where 15mm comes in, which is the standard scale for historical wargames. The average figure is pretty small, which means that a whole lot more of them can fit on a table!
Gaslands has been taking off lately, which uses customized 1/72 scale Matchbox and Hot-Wheels cars. This works out to 20mm scale for miniatures, which there is not a lot produced for, but some enterprising sculptors on Etsy and Patreon have been filling that niche beautifully.
Another semi-common scale is used primarily for giant robot games, but it varies wildly between 3mm and 6mm. At this point, human sized characters are about the size of a Nerds candy, and the real stars of the game are the monsters or robots that the game focuses on.
Of course, there are even smaller scales for starship battles, but even those tend to exaggerate scale to produce evenly sized ships. Star Wars: Armada, I’m looking at you…
Why does any of this matter? That’s a pretty good point, and one that some people won’t even care about. Some folks are just fine facing off with any scale miniature that strikes their fancy, and there is absolutely fine!
There are others, myself included, who get caught up in the scale trap because of the immersive quality of a good miniature game. I like to bring a nicely painted group of figures to play on a table with nicely built and painted terrain, and I tend to get lost in the story that plays out in a game. Differences in scale can be a little jarring, but it’s not a deal breaker for me.
Seen side by side, scale difference can be staggering!
Mostly, this comes from the types of games I like to play. Most of the game systems I like are setting agnostic, which means they don’t have an established universe set up for them. So, you can bring whatever miniatures you want to the party. I have a ton of 28 and 32mm minis, so I tend to collect miniatures in that scale to use in the games I like to play.
If Marvel Crisis Protocol was the only game I played, or I wasn’t really keen on throwing Wolverine at a Genestealer, this wouldn’t be a problem at all!
I also tend to display my painted miniatures, and I like seeing minis that are similar scale displayed together. It might be a little fussy, but that’s my preference!
If you have questions about scale, or miniatures in general, drop a comment below!
Nothing like being all smug about all your newly-finished Marvel Crisis Protocol figures, except maybe when you realize you never photographed all of the original release figures back when you finished them!
So, here’s the first of the OG MCP figs, Doc Banner’s altered ego…
Mean Green was a lot of fun to paint, but I really haven’t found an MCP mini that I didn’t have fun with!
One of these days I’ll remember to putty in that wrist seam, there’s no excuse really. But I’m still happy with the finished result!
The story of the Winter Soldier is not only one of my favorites from the MCU movies, I really loved the comics version as well.
Ed Brubaker did the unthinkable when he brought Bucky back from the dead. The running logic in the late ’90s was that pretty much any character death at Marvel could be un-done, except Uncle Ben Parker and Bucky Barnes.
After Bucky came back, I spent a bit of time wondering if Uncle Ben was going to stroll back through the door and scold Peter for making him wait at the library.
I wasn’t initially thrilled with the Winter Soldier sculpt for Marvel Crisis Protocol, but once I got it put together and painted up, my mind changed pretty quick. He’s a great looking figure, and I can’t wait to see how he plays!
I am slowly working my way through the backlog of MCP figs that have been growing in number since the pandemic began. I was also a little nervous about painting the Wakandan figures, since it’s easy to make a ton of mistakes with darker skin tones that end up making a mockery of your subject.
Shuri also has some facial markings that took a very steady hand and a super tiny brush, but the end results are exactly what I was hoping for!
So many more minis to show off, I’ll have more from Wakanda this weekend!
One of my favorite story arcs ever has to be Matt Fraction‘s fantastic run on Hawkeye a few years back, and I am so happy that Atomic Mass Games went with this version of the archer for MCP.
Clint looks pretty capable, and the Hydra logo on the rubble tells me everything I want to know about this encounter!
I’m thinking of putting together a team of street-level heroes for my next game, with Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Suri to round things out. Probably get my butt handed to me, but it will be fun!
Just finished up Vision yesterday as part of my “oh, hell, Atomic Mass Games is about to drop a million cool minis and I only have half of my MCP painted” reaction.
This version of Vision is from the incredible Vision comics that Tom King put out a while back. It’s a pretty grim, yet fantastic bit of writing!
I love that Vision is phasing through this smashed up bit of wall, too. Very nice touch!
I just realized today that I haven’t actually posted pics of most of the Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures that I have painted up, so I’m going to have to make a change to that!
Valkyrie, though, is a newer mini that I finished up this week. The box art shows her in her classic comics version, all Nordic and blonde. Nope. I’m a big fan of Tessa Thompson’s portrayal in the Marvel movies, so I opted for a darker skin tone and black hair.
I kept everything else pretty straightforward from Valkyrie’s classic comic look, with the purples and vibrant blues.
The Thor mini form Marvel:Crisis Protocol is pretty cool, but after finishing him up, he was lacking… oomph. That had to change.
One quick search through EBay later, and that Jane Foster Thor found its way home to me. Click are terribly painted, but that lightning effect is made of soft, transparent plastic. Time for some chop-shop action!
Getting the lightning onto Thor took some persistent pinning, but the end result is pretty great.:
I’m tempted to strip the paint off of the Jane Foster fig. The sculpts on Clix can be half decent once the foot of paint is cleared off!
Gotta love Atomic Mass Games right now. Marvel Crisis Protocol hasn’t even been out 6 months yet, and the line up past the initial boxed set is impressive to say the least!
The Asgardians hit stores about a month ago, and as you can see, a certain Odinson isn’t messing around!
I spent a little extra time layering in some richness to the cape, and I’m still thinking of some lightning effects that I can work in. Other than that, Thor is another solid winner from Atomic Mass!
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