Price

Price, and perceived value of what you get for your money can be touchy subjects in our hobby.

When I first started at the Stoke club back in 1989/90, Dixon 25mm American Civil War figures were all the rage. We gamed with them almost exclusively playing large ACW battles out over a period of 4 or 5 weeks. Nearly everybody in our room at the club (10-12 of us) bought and collected some Dixon's to contribute. At the time they were 50p a figure. We would play usually a 1:40 scale and so a unit of 10 figures would represent a regiment of 400 on the table. We occasionally doubled up the units to 20 figures if we were playing a particularly small battle. The discussion around the club, as prices started to rise would be that if ever figures even approached the £1 mark, it would be the end for us.

Well, we are still here. Dixon figures (still my favourite 25/28mm figures ever!) are now £1.50 each. Most metal figures in the scale are over £1. With plastics such as Perry, the cost of a figure has actually come down to just over 55p each which is amazing if you can be bothered to glue hundreds of the buggers together!

For me, gaming in God's Own Scale has numerous advantages, not least of which is cost. As I start to work out what periods I want to do in the coming months (...most of them!), I thought I'd take a look at comparative costs between the various scales. To put it into some context, I have chosen to look at the Antietam scenario for Altar of Freedom. You can see a video AAR from the Little Wars team here Antietam is always a battle I have wanted to game at a Grand Tactical level but never gotten around to it.

Working from the OOB in the Altar of Freedom scenario book, the requirements are:

Infantry - 1920
Cavalry - 72
Guns - 28
Generals - 10

This works on the assumption of 24 infantry to a regiment, 9 cavalry to a regiment and 1 gun to a battery. To purchase this complete from Baccus would be somewhere, around £178.70, opting for the cheapest options available (i.e. unit or booster packs). Rapier would I think come out a bit cheaper and when I do come to ordering the figures, I will be getting some Rapier for variety.

TYPE	TOTALS	PERRY	DIXON	PETER PIG	PENDRAKEN
INFANTRY	1920	1066	2316	816	336
CAVALRY	72	120	288	61.2	26.25
GUNS	28	200	245	95.2	49
GENERALS	10	30	40	14	3.5
	£	1416	2889	986.4	414.75

To explain my choices. Perry Miniatures are by far the cheapest way to game in 28mm, using all plastics. They do have a significant range of metal figures to supplement their ACW range, but the above numbers are based on plastics, apart from the Generals.

Dixon, as stated are my favourite figures and so it was interesting to see just how much it would cost me to do a large ACW battle in metal.

Peter Pig have, in my opinion the best 15mm ACW range around, as do Pendraken in 10mm. If I was to choose to do this battle in any of the scales mentioned, these manufacturers would be my choice - in 28mm, Dixon if I had the cash, Perry if I didn't.

It's no surprise that 6mm comes out significantly cheaper. You get less metal for a start. But also remember the space saving. To play the Antietam scenario as written in 28mm probably needs a 12'x6' table and in 10/15mm, probably a 8'x6' table to fit in all of the features required to make it a decent representation of the field of battle.

If you haven't clicked the Little Wars link, go and do it now and just have a look at how the table looks that the guys play the battle on. It's pretty amazing, including Burnside's Bridge, the Sunken Road and the Dunker Church. It's all there. If you walked up to that table at a wargames convention with no figures on it and no other material to give it away, I'm pretty sure any Civil War enthusiast would be able to work out which battlefield they were looking at.

This isn't to denigrate the larger scales. If you have the space, the money and the time to paint over 2000 figures to do this project from scratch, then I congratulate you. I'm sure it would look awesome and be a hell of a thing to see. But, again referring back to the Little Wars re-fight, to my eyes, that looks equally awesome and it is what I intend to do. So for the last 6 months of the year, alongside my Somme game and other gaming commitments, I'll be blogging my own interpretation of the Antietam scenario for Altar of Freedom.

I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks. WiFi permitting, I'll write a couple of further posts, but until then - play nice!