M3E Miniature Size Increase and Model Allowances

[Frenzytoast]

Wyrd has already announced a re-sculpt for the Neverborn Dreamer crew and I have to speculate if all crews will get a re-design in M3E.  I also have to wonder (and hope really) if the models will increase in size.

After M3E was announced, I got excited and dusted off my un-assembled malifaux kits to start making my crews and I forgot how ridiculously small some of these miniatures are (I was putting together gremlins).  I played other games between the announcement of M3E and the open beta (Kill Team, WarmaHordes) and comparing some of the models to each other Malifaux easily comes in as the smallest.

So... will they ever get bigger and will other crews be getting re-sculpts?

[Eddard]

Well Lucius is probably getting a re-sculpt eventually, now that Dashel has gone his own way. 

Myself I like the less "heroic" scale of the Malifaux models.

[Ludvig]

I like the current scale. If anything I think many gremlins are a bit too large, they're supposed to be roughly half the size of a human. I like the humanoid sculpts and would not want all the new releases being so big that they look strange next to the old ones.

Lucius already has a printed prototype model that was shown this summer (long with new lawyers I think) so his crew seems likely to be one of the early resculpts.

[Mortarion]

The crews that have been more or less confirmed for a resculpt and re-release are Dreamer, Lucius, Rasputina and Lady Justice.

Marcus, Nekima, Dashel, Basse, von Schtook, Euripides and Hamasaki are very likely to get new models, as they either have none or have changed quite a lot.

Sonnia and Kirai are getting models for TOS, but I'm not sure if they are going to get new Malifaux boxes as well.

[solkan]

5 hours ago, Frenzytoast said:

So... will they ever get bigger and will other crews be getting re-sculpts?

I think the safe answer to "Will they ever get bigger?" is "No."  Apart from the occasional scaling aberration (like the plastic Watcher in Hoffman's box), there's no enough salt or hand-wavium in the world to make people put up with a scale shift.  

[Bengt]

17 hours ago, Mortarion said:

Marcus, Nekima, Dashel, Basse, von Schtook, Euripides and Hamasaki are very likely to get new models, as they either have none or have changed quite a lot.

I'd add Ironsides and any other masters who now have out of keyword models in their boxes.

I wouldn't be surprised if the long term plan is to replace all, but obviously some are pretty low priority because they are fine as is.

[Qracy]

On 1/20/2019 at 2:04 PM, solkan said:

I think the safe answer to "Will they ever get bigger?" is "No."  Apart from the occasional scaling aberration (like the plastic Watcher in Hoffman's box), there's no enough salt or hand-wavium in the world to make people put up with a scale shift.  

I really, really hope, that you are right.

I have also opened a thread to that topic in M3E Open Beta with a photo comparison between a "new" model and an old one:

The Scale of M3E Models

 

Because otherwise, from an aethetic point of view, all old models would get useless and all the time I have spent painting them, would feel like wasted time.

From my point of view, that would be something I would not have expected from Wyrd and remembers of the behaviour of the branch primus some years ago.

 

I really pray for the scale not to change and would be glad, if we get an official statement to that...😉

[solkan]

6 hours ago, Qracy said:

I have also opened a thread to that topic in M3E Open Beta with a photo comparison between a "new" model and an old one:

The Scale of M3E Models

  

You’re complaining about the scale of two M2E models.  

All I can say is that Wyrd occasionally has strange scaling abnormalities—the ginormous Watcher in Hoffman’s box, out of scale crouching figures, the original run of the mounted guard, Reva’s pony, the TTB figures...  Hell, I’ve got the three models from the Samurai box in front of me right now and the two standing models look to be Queeg scale and the crouching guy is Male Monster Hunter scale.

The M3E Rasputina and Marcus test figures that they were using at GenCon are properly in scale with the current models.

[lusciousmccabe]

11 hours ago, Qracy said:

I really, really hope, that you are right.

I have also opened a thread to that topic in M3E Open Beta with a photo comparison between a "new" model and an old one:

The Scale of M3E Models

 

Because otherwise, from an aethetic point of view, all old models would get useless and all the time I have spent painting them, would feel like wasted time.

From my point of view, that would be something I would not have expected from Wyrd and remembers of the behaviour of the branch primus some years ago.

 

I really pray for the scale not to change and would be glad, if we get an official statement to that...😉

I still use my metal models with the plastics and they're scaled very differently. 

It sort of annoys me, but not as much as some of the scaling issues within the current plastic line. I don't even know what scale the Guild Pathfinder or The Beast Within are meant to be, I've never based one Insidious Madness because it's more than 30mm across, and there's the odd figure that isn't even to scale with itself (looking at you Rail Workers).  

Some of this is down to artistic license when it comes to human proportions and a lot of it (as Solkan mentioned) is either a production blip or that bizarre conversion they do for crouching figures to double or triple their volume for some reason. 

So I wouldn't worry too much about an actual scale change. There's always going to be variation, but you rarely notice it on the tabletop and can always separate the worse offenders out for display purposes. 

[yool1981]

The Wave 5 models I own are bulkier than the pre-Wave 5 ones.

I think it is safe to assume that there is going to be a shift towards bulkier models based on the renders we have seen so far for M3E and the Wave 5 models.

It is annoying but it happens to a lot of miniature companies when they change editions.

[dope_danny]

I imagine a fair few will, but probably the 'time skip' element will decide who takes precedent. Like the Dreamer being a teenager now for example. I would love to see Mei maybe get a new or just alternate sculpt since hers is very much flat if you dont look at her from the front but its probably not nearly as urgent as stuff like the inevitable frankenstein, stitched up and mutated Mortimer piloted by the soul of Nicodem (lets be honest well all know that soul stone is not just being used for fuel) or maybe give lady justice one since her current one is super tiny and her hair looks more like a fish hook than a dynamic motion frozen in time.

[ageofegos]

I really wish they'd put this to bed and say "no, there was some scaling issues among individual models but in general, our scale is staying the same"

There are members of my group (me included) that are holding off buying anything because we spend a lot of time painting it--and don't want to repaint a bulkier miniature in the future.  It's one thing if it's just a nice/newer sculpt but still in scale--as then it's really a choice.  However, if the scale creeps up and something looks 'wrong' on the table--that's another thing.

[solkan]

Well, according to the newsletter there are going to be limited (20 of each SKU, limit one per customer?) pre-releases (essentially production samples?) of the M3E resculpts at Adepticon.  Dealer hall opens at 10AM Thursday, for mob planning.   

So presumably that will be an opportunity to actually see the new models.  Seems more effective than a statement would be.

[Cathaidan]

As a general rule, miniature games tend to increase in size as they move from metal to plastic minis.  At least, this has been my experience with GW games and with D&D minis.  This used to frustrate me to no end back in my GW gaming days, until I made a realization: the newer figures (plastic) tend to be much better sculpts than the older figures (metal).  That isn't to say that there's anything wrong with the metal ones.  I have seen a number of the metal Malifaux minis and they look great.  The plastic ones just seem to have more detail and are in much more dynamic poses.

I for one welcome our new, larger scaled, plastic overlords!

[oistene]

I picked up some models at Adepticon - will assemble shortly and compare. They seem the same.

[oistene]

Adding pictures was notoriously hard this morning, so I put the pictures into a Capture album. As you can see, the scale looks much the same.

https://web.min-sky.no/a/7P9I6nIlTPqkN8tHLOAglQ#sc