Is Dystopian Legions Really a 28mm Game?

Spartan Games has begun shipping boxes for their first 28mm skirmish game: Dystopian Legions. Strangely however, the Dystopian Legion miniatures appear to be much larger than the 28mm label suggests. Infantry models stand a head taller than Games Workshop Space Marines; 35mm at least. A blow for anyone hoping to use the models with other 28mm games.

Dystopian Legions: The latest from Spartan Games

Since Dystopian Legions was first announced in August, I’ve been loosely following the reveals and teasers by Spartan Games about their first foray into 28mm miniature skirmish gaming.

Spartan Game’s Dystopian Wars, which is the first game in their Dystopian setting, is immensely popular as far as small-scale fleet games go. News about their plans to release 28mm skirmish game in for this steampunk setting were generally greeted with euphoria, as were the early pictures of concept art and actual miniatures, which all look stunning.

DYSTOPIAN LEGIONS is a fast-paced, action-packed 28mm scale tabletop game set in the exciting world of Dystopian Wars, where Victorian super science fiction has created a fascinating and brutal arena for a deadly world war.

A recent tweet by Spartan Games announced the long awaited shipment of the first boxes for their new game.

Dystopian Legions Starter Sets, Infantry Sections and Section Upgrades have begun shipping from the Online Store. Who did you choose?

— Spartan Games (@spartangames) November 8, 2012

Are Dystopian Legions miniatures 28mm scale or not

Yet, curiously, compared to other 28mm miniatures, the Dystopian Legions line seems awfully tall. Anyone looking at Dystopian Legions mainly for miniatures (which look fantastic) to include in other 28mm miniature games should probably check twice whether Spartan Games’ latest offering really fits other 28mm (or 28mm ‘heroic’) miniatures.

The above shot is from Germany’s adpublishing.de. Adpublishing even notes that the four painted miniatures to the left of the Dystopian Prussian are actually standing on 1-2mm milliput in addition to the base. And still a common GW Guarsman or 28mm soldier from Artizan are barely up to the Prussian’s chest. Even the larger-than-normal Space Marine miniature is a almost a head shorter than the Dystopian Legions soldier.

Now, if you want to jump into Dystopian Legions to play Dystopian Legions, scale probably doesn’t matter much. 28mm gives you a rough idea of what the scale is (especially in comparison to Spartan Games’ other miniature games).

Nevertheless, I believe quite a few people were looking forward to include the new miniatures from Spartan Games in other games, not least because the Dystopian Legions rules are still an unknown for many people (despite the Quickstart rules available online).

Quite a few recent games that explicitly brand themselves as 30mm games (Freebooters Fate), 32mm games (Wrath of Kings, Anastyr) or even 35mm games (Kingdom Death). It is a practice that clearly demonstrates to people that they should expect miniatures slightly larger in scale than the very popular 28mm. If Spartan Games opted to go for slightly larger (often more detailed) miniatures with Dystopian Legions, why did they so adamantly brand their game as a 28mm one?

 

Of course, the whole thing may be a non-issue if you just want to play Dystopian Legions with the official Dystopian Legions miniatures.

Did you pre-order some Dystopian Legions miniatures? Have you considered the game? Have you considered using the miniatures for a different game? Is the real scale of the miniatures important to you?

Leave a comment below!

Z.