Indochine 1951-54: 15 mm or 20mm

Started by henjed, 27 August 2020, 08:49:53 PM

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henjed

First off, I bought about 200 Pendraken figures to play IABSM for Indochina skirmishes. Bloody excellent minis and I actually did a decent job of painting and basing them. I may even be able to adapt thei basing for BKCIV.

But I've fallen in love with Chain of Command and want to do some Tonkin skirmishes, and the game seems to call for a larger scale figure (and individual basing).  Online I've seen Eureka Minarures' range For 15mm (60p a figure) and, for 20mm, Liberation Minatures (50p) and Platoon 20 (75p).

Anyone out there have a view as to which figure are best, and whether 15mm is perhaps too small to allow the figures to be easily identifiable?

Mike

fred.

You could go with 10mm

But 15mm is a decent size for CoC
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Steve J

15mm is the right ground scale for CoC. 10mm works fine for me for skirmish games.

toxicpixie

I'd go 10mm and do a couple of packs on single bases ;)

Although if you did a little fudging with markers I think your fine with "multi base CoC"?
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Sean Clark

Nathan

Alex at the Storm of Steel YouTube channel plays CoC with multi based figures and just marks casualties. That is in 15mm though.

Out of interest, how did you base your 10mm for IABSM? I've just ordered a load of figures for Charlie Don't Surf which is the same size game.

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toxicpixie

That sounds likely, Sean. It's a while since I read Them and thought they'd work ok but they're in my pile of "I'll play this real soon now, honest" :D
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GrumpyOldMan

Hi

I think 15mm is fine for ID purposes, might I recommend the Eureka figures, very nicely done - https://www.eurekaminuk.com/collections/french-indo-china-war

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

Orcs

The first question I would ask is what scale is your scenery and terrain. Do you have anything suitable in either 15mm or 20mm. If so this is the scale to go with.

15mm is the "correct" scale that CoC is designed for and you could also look at Peter Pig for 15mm scenery and civilians  as they have a Vietnam range.

Platoon 20 is an old range of figures, however they are nice sculpts, and while I have not dealt with ERM for many years they were always a reliable company.


If I was starting from scratch with CoC I would go 15mm, but when I started WW2 gaming it was really only Airfix, Matchbox and Platoon 20
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henjed

Thanks, chaps, this is useful stuff. All my terrain that is scale-specific is 10mm as the only manufacturer's figs I have bought (aside from WW1 naval gaming) over the last fifteen years have been Pendraken (apart from some late Dark Age Kallistra stuff).

I reckoned either way (15mm or 20mm) I would have to  get *some* new terrain. Clearly I can reuse more 10mm stuff with 15mm than with 20mm.

The Eureka figures look really clean, but Liberation are cheaper still for the bigger scale - but it's difficult to find many photos of the ones I'm Interested in.

Sean, I base my figs on a mix of square bases (different sizes) with 2s and 3s and a few solo figures. Big Men are on round bases sized according to rating. Mortars and MGs altogether (weapon and crew) on one base. It can get a bit fiddly but it works well enough. It also allows me to vary between different CEFEO platoon configurations.

robh

I have collections for Indochina in 20mm to use with "Crossfire" or the Piquet based "Point of Attack" depending on whether we play with or without vehicles.

Can I suggest you decide on what size games you want to play and then look at the price and availability of scenery and vehicles first (Do you want hooches that you can take the roofs off for example). Not everything you will want is readily available in all scales. The figures are easier to source so are not the critical thing.

henjed

Robh, thanks for the post.... which 20mm minis do you have?

robh

Quote from: henjed on 28 August 2020, 11:10:37 PM
Robh, thanks for the post.... which 20mm minis do you have?

A real mixture.  A lot of 1/72-1/76 plastic, many converted to greater or lesser degree, some Platoon 20 (Civilians mainly as P20 are not a good match with plastics) a few Liberation Minis and an increasing number of the superb Elheim figures.  Village buildings either scratchbuilt or conversions of the OOP Airfix Jungle house and vehicles from pretty much everywhere, WW2 plastic kits are in plentiful supply!
My last addition was a section of M29 Weasels from S&S:

paulr

 :-bd =D> :-bd =D>

They look to be a somewhat bizarre vehicle :-/
I'm not sure they'll see much snow in Indochine :-/
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DaveH

I've thought of doing skirmish level games like Chain of Command and Sharp Practice with 10mm using the mixture of multiple and individual bases using a 3,2,1 system for the rank and file using foliage and other terrrain features on the base to denote which section they belong to.

I prefer 20mm for most periods if I have budget and space and I would think Platoon 20, RH models and Elheim could be mixed to give a good variety for Indochine.