So I was trawling through tabletop game youtube a few weeks ago when a particular video presented itself to me, it gave me the idea that the 28mm scale for DnD miniatures was too big, and we should give smaller scales a try
In this video Knarb Makes presents the case that using miniatures at 28mm for dnd is tough, in the fact that most battlemats and tables aren't even big enough for a lot of creatures to use their whole movement in a turn! and he posits that changing over to a smaller scale will mean that more tactics will be opened up due to more space, scenery and miniatures will be done and painted faster, and that it'll be easier to transport and store your miniatures
this lit a fire under me, i had countless thoughts about the issues i've had with using miniatures for dnd, the fact that if i were to map a classic dnd dungeon out for my players with the standard 5ft squares (which i have tried and failed at) it'd stretch all the way across the battlemap for some standard DnD dungeon, or i can use 10ft squares and have the minis all squished up together in hallways, making it look very silly and making movement rates more of a suggestion.
so i got to (badly) working out the math to shrink my selection of 3d printable minis down to that scale, i searched around to find a formula but couldn't really wrap my head around it till i found this video:
I'm admittedly terrible at math so i'm very thankful he presented this! so you take the scale you want the minis to be at, divide it by what they are, then times it by 100 to get the percentage you need to put in the 3d printing slicer's scale function, so i printed a few test scales to see what i wanted in the end
(10mm, 15mm and 28mm pictured here)
from this test i found something interesting that solved that longtime issue i had with mapping dungeons in dnd mentioned earlier, turns out, 15mm miniatures fit extremely nicely into a quarter of a square! meaning that i can put the battlemat on the table, square by square, without having to make any sacrifices at all really, while preserving more of the detail than the 10mm figure
so i got to printing and painting, the bambulabs A1 mini did very good at the smaller scale, but it did struggle with some of the overhangs on a few models, resulting in some looking a bit wonky. plenty of online miniature creators make supportless, easy to print models that work amazing for this:
I don't really have any more collected thoughts on this so i'll just go over a list of my personal pros and cons
Pros:
The minis print FAST, i'm able to get about 20 miniatures in 8 hours which is much faster than making them at 28mm, where each model could take about 2 hours (although my slicer program slows to a crawl when i do this many minis)
The same minis are really fast to paint! i don't time myself when painting but i'm able to get a lot more done in less time
Both of these previous pros mean that i can make enough minis fast and easy enough so that i can have encounters that keep up with the extreme amount of characters that can be present in an OSR game, players and enemies alike (just look at the number appearing for Orcs in wilderness in OSE(B/X)
The minis are kinda harder to paint? i find myself having to paint with a bit more light than usual, and relying on just blocking out the colours then using a wash for the shadows and then calling it done, it may not be for you if really complex, artful paintjobs are your thing
Some of them break easily, i had to superglue this guy's arm back on after being a bit careless and knocking into the sword
