Vehicles are an essential part of modern and science fiction
gaming. Even if they are not actually driven in the game, cars are an
indispensable part of an urban landscape. Who'd believe a street with
no parked cars?
Vehicles are an essential part of modern and science fiction
gaming. Even if they are not actually driven in the game, cars are an
indispensable part of an urban landscape. Who'd believe a street with
no parked cars?
While there are vehicle models to go with the figures, they tend to be expensive and selection is limited to military vehicles mostly. However, toy cars are made in a variety of scales and can be had for cheap. Could they be the answer to this dilemma?
Assuming a 28mm tall model is supposed to represent a roughly 6 foot tall man, that would translate to a scale of 1:64. Just find cars in 1:64 and you're done, right?
Wrong.
The problem is that a 28mm figure is not a scale model of a human being. Like it or not, but the modern style of 28mm figures has modified proportions -- namely, they are wider and bulkier than their height would suggest, and certain features like heads and hands are exaggerated.
A 1:60 car next to a modern 28mm figure just looks silly, as this
picture shows. Even though the height scale might be correct, the
figure would never fit in the car and frankly they look silly standing
next to each other.
The ideal solution would be to have vehicles done in the same style as the figures. While some manufacturers do offer vehicle kits, they are expensive and usually cover only military subjects. Who wants streets parked full of APCs?
Since the figures don't conform to a real scale measure, the
suitability of vehicle models can not be determined with a simple
calculation. One must actually compare the vehicle models and figures.
There are two primary considerations for this: How the figures look standing next to a vehicle model, and how they'd look inside the vehicle model. Is there a figure scale that would look reasonable in both cases?
Luckily, 1:43 toy cars are readily available and reasonably cheap. Simple arithmetic tells us that a scale human should be about 42mm tall. However, given the above consideration, maybe there is hope for 1:43 after all.
We start with picking three random sample cars from my son's collection and checking their scale accuracy, as sometimes toy cars are not really the scale they claim to be.
| Car | Real size (l x w x h) | Model size | Scale | Picture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Land Rover Freelander | 4.4m x 1.8m x 1.7m | 100mm x 42mm x 39mm | 1:44 / 1:43 / 1:44 |  |
| Volkswagen Golf | 4.2m x 1.7m x 1.4m | 95mm x 43mm x 35mm | 1:44 / 1:39 / 1:40 |  |
| Dodge Viper | 4.4m x 1.9m x 1.2m | 104mm x 47mm x 28mm | 1:42 / 1:40 / 1:43 |  |
Overall, the scale accuracy is reasonably good, but the Golf has clearly been puffed up a bit to fill the box better.
For three cars, we pick three men. This does not imply that female figures couldn't drive (none of them can, they're too leaden), but there is often a very profound difference in the stature of male and female figures, where the latter can be described as "silicone-enhanced anorexia". Not that the muscle-bound physiques of male figures are very realistic either, but at least they tend to form the majority of tabletop troops. The occasional willowy female can blend in, but if vehicles don't match the bulk of the troops, it's going to get noticed.
It should be noted that the bases do make a difference. A "standard" slottabase is about 5mm thick, giving the figures a bit of a boost to see over fences, walls and ofcourse vehicles.
| Man | Make and Model | Height with base | Height w/o base | Picture |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Cowboy | Foundry Old West | 33mm | 27mm |  |
| Ashigaru | Target Warzone | 36mm | 31mm |  |
| Chainsaw Warrior | Games Workshop Ltd. Edition | 34mm | 29mm |  |
A normal man should stand roughly head and shoulders above a normal car. The car should be roughly as wide as a man is tall and twice as long. There is some fudge factor involved, but too large a divergence becomes readily apparent from too far away.
Looking at the sample cars, a normal man should be just about level with the Land Rover, able to shoot over the Golf and jump on top of the Viper.
As these pictures tell, the cars are a bit too tall. Even with the thickish slottabase, none of the figures really looks like it could fire over the Freelander or the Golf. With the Freelander this is okay, but the Golf is really too tall -- but then again, its height scale was off anyway. The Viper looks perhaps a tad too tall, but not off by that much.
This discrepancy is less apparent the farther away the figures are from the vehicles.
What's the point of having a car if you don't drive it? While you
can't usually put your figures inside the vehicles, will it look like
they could if the wanted to?
To check this, we introduce a new measurement: Butt Width. Butt Width measures whether the seats are wide enough for the figures.
| Man | Butt Width |
|---|---|
| The Cowboy | 8mm |
| Ashigaru | 10mm |
| Chainsaw Warrior | 9mm |
Corresponding measurements for cars:
| Car | Seat Width |
|---|---|
| Freelander | 11mm |
| Golf | 10mm |
| Viper | 9mm |
The seats are a bit tight, especially on the sporty Viper, but figures look they might be able to squeeze in. If there are no actual crew figures to compare against, the scale difference is not immediately apparent.
While 1:43 toy cars are not an ideal solution, they provide a workable
low-cost alternative to 1:48 models. Ironically, the high slottabases
help alleviate the scale differences.
It seems that the worst problem is actually the scale inconsistency in the cars themselves. Despite being advertised as specific scale, their actual dimensions seem to vary according to the time-honored toy productions logistics maxim: "whatever fits in the box".
| 1/43rd cars | guest | 28.12.2005 0:51:49 |
|---|---|---|
I liked the article. Please keep stuff like this online. Chuck Sheffey sgtrockcts@hotmail.com |
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| TwoGunBob | guest | 28.12.2005 19:54:39 |
This article just happened to cover exactly what I'm having issues with as I start Westwind's Road Kill. Excellent article and exactly what I needed to know. Cheers! |
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| Thanks | guest | 17.10.2006 23:08:39 |
Just the sort of practical information needed. I've been trying to determine what sort of vehicles might go with 28mm figures. |
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| Vehicles | guest | 27.11.2006 18:33:55 |
It's amazing that this is exactly the kind of article I was looking for with exactly the information I needed for a campaign I am starting. Please keep this posted! |
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| Thanks a lot | guest | 19.4.2007 20:19:46 |
Great article! Keep it alive. It really saved my much time, not to have to do all the calculating by myself. thumbsup |
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| Vehicles in tabletop games. | guest | 30.7.2007 21:38:46 |
Thanks for such a helpful article. 1/43 scale cars look pretty good next to your figures. Quick question, if 1/48 scale was not expensive would you go with that scale instead? Again great article please keep'em coming. |
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| Still great! | guest | 24.4.2008 17:21:57 |
Even two years old, this is a fine and useful piece of work. I was especially pleased to be able to find it by googling "butt width car", since I couldn't remember anything else about this site when I was looking for this. In case you haven't looked recently (assuming they're available where you are), Hot Wheels has been releasing cars in a proper (and fairly consistent) 1:50 scale. I have a comparison report up at http://overloadedqueue.blogspot.com/2008/04/vroom.html . |
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| Thanks | guest | 20.2.2009 19:54:06 |
This was exactly what I was looking for, thanks! |
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Copyright 2003-2007 Mikko Kurki-Suonio
