Figure comparison - Minifigs vs Essex vs Tin Soldier vs Mike's Models vs Roundway vs Naismith

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 I've recently acquired quite a few Minifigs and Tin Soldier minis to add to my 15mm Historical Medieval and Renaissance colection (so far I only had Essex miniatures and a few Landsknechts from Mike's Models). I also bought a few miniatures from Roundway Historical Miniatures and from Naismith Design.

In this post I'll share my opinions on these six manufacturers.

Essex is, for me, somewhat the industry standard for 15mm metal minis regarding the quality of the casting and of the sculpting, with crispy details and no excess metal. The only complaint I have with them are the "weird" proportions in the anatomy of their figures (heads seem to be a bit big, legs and arms tend to be rather "stumpy" and short when compared to other manufacturers' miniatures, etc.). Another good thing about Essex is that their kits come with varied poses. They sell kits with 8 foot miniatures or 4 mounted troops (with a few exceptions).

Tin Soldier produces some good quality metal figures too (as the company name implies, duh) but they look a tad cartoonish, with large heads and somewhat weird proportions which might annoy some people - yet I think I barely notice it when these minis are mixed with the ones from other manufacturers, due to their size. A good thing about them is that the mounted miniatures come as single pieces and thus do not recquire that we glue the riders to their horses (and I really hate glueing miniatures!). Their kits come with 10 miniatures of foot soldiers or 5 horse riders. The down side is that they do not come in varied poses, so you got 5-10 copies of a miniature - ont he bright side, this is good for adding volume to a  battle formation.

Minifigs' figs are rather "thin" and "skinny", with small heads and details and the shafts of their flags and spears are very thin and thus easy to break. Their foot figures are larger than Essex's, but their mounted miniatures and their horses are more on the wee side, with small torsos and somewhat large heads (specially knights wearing helmets). Overall their miniatures are not so well detailed as Essex's, on average: some are rather plain, but some others have just enough details to be good. I've read somewhere that this relative lack of details makes minifigs good to add volume to battle formations but some people on the other hand might be annoyed by this. Personally I don't care about that and I think they are all pretty good. So far the kits I've acquired only come with 3 miniatures of horsemen, and 6 of footmen. However, I've also acquired a kit with about 10 or more footmen, so there are different standards of MiniFigs kits out there. I think they mix well with the ones from Essex.

Mike's Models are somewhat on the middle ground between Essex and Tin Soldier regarding what I called "cartoonish features": their heads tend to be a bit bigger and their faces are relatively large, sometimes showing vivid expressions, an impressive feature for such small sculpts. I really like these minis, all are very detailed and they look beautiful on the gaming table. Mike's Models 15mm range miniatures are sold by Essex. They too mix well with the miniatures made by Essex.

Roundway Historical seems to be a smaller manufacturer, or perhaps one who closed his doors, because I could only find very few kits. I bought them from Noble Knight Games and could not find another store selling them. Their miniatures are well made, with good details, and their foot soldiers tend to be taller than the ones from Essex, but their mounted troops seem to be smaller. They mix well with miniatures made from the other manufacturers aforementioned. Their kits come with 4 mounted or 8 foot soldiers, just like Essex.

Naismith Design seems to be out of business, but I don't know for sure. I also could not find more than 3 different kits for sale and neither another online store selling miniatures from them. They were a bit expensive and their kits only come with few miniatures: 3 horse riders (bellow the market average of 4) and only 6 foot soldiers (bellow the market average of 8). These miniatures were, to me, somewhat a disapointment: although the details and sculpting were good, these are way too small to mix with the others 15mm. I believe they are trully 10mm (maybe among the taller tier among other 10mm ranges?). Their horses were beautiful, though. 

Now let's see some side by side Figure comparison:

From left to right: Essex, Roundway Historical, Minifigs and Tin Soldier - Even though the one from Tin Soldier is noticeably taller, I do think they will all mix pretty well on the game table.

Now only the horses. From left to right, same order as above: Essex, Roundway, Minifgs and Tin Soldier (their cavalry miniatures do not recquire assembly, which I consider a great feature!) Notice how Minifig's horse is a tad smaller and Tin Soldier's is considerably larger!

Now for the foot soldiers. From left to rigth: Essex, Roundway Historical, Minifigs and Tin Soldier. As I said before, Essex's scultps are a bit "stumpy" and short, with relatively shorter limbs. TinSoldier's tend to have larger heads. But still, I do think they will mix well on the gaming table.

The horse riders - from left to right: Essex, Roundway Historical and Minifigs. For some reason, Essex tends to get the limbs' proportion more accurate on their horse riders sculpts. Notice how Minifig's has a shorter torso and larger head when comparing with the other miniatures.

Now look at the Landsknechts - from left to right: Essex, Mike's Models and Roundway Historical. All three mix very well and have similar sizes.

Some more Landknechts - from left to right: the first 2 are from Mike's Models, and the last 3 from Essex. They mix very well, indeed.

Now let's take a closer look to how Naismith Design looks like when side-by-side with the others:

Horse Riders - From left to right:  the first 2 are from Naismith Design, the third one is a dwarf rider from Splintered Light, then Roundway Historical, Minifgs and Essex. Do you see how small the horse riders from Naismith Design are? They are smaller than the 15mm dwarf!

Now let's look at the horses - from left to right: the first 2 are from Naismith Design, the 3rd is a pony by Splintered Light (to be used by dwarves), Roundway Historical and Essex. Strangely enough, Naismith design's horses are not that smaller than the others. And they are beautiful horses, specially the first.

Now let's see the foot soldiers: from left to right - Naismith Design, Essex, Minifigs, Roundway Historical and Tin Soldier. The one from Naismith is at leaast one head smaller than the one from Essex, and looks tiny when compared with the "giants" from MiniFigs and Tin Soldier. It is not just his height: all his proportions are smaller!

The same miniature from Naismith compared to 2 hobbits made by Essex and a dwarf made by  Mirliton. The 15mm human foot knight made by Naismith is the same height as a 15mm hobbit made by Essex!

Well, my only choice is to recruit these Naismith Design miniatures as hobbits! They will work as Hobbit heavy infantry, light cavalry and heavy cavalry!

Overall, great miniatures.

- Armored knight miniatures are quite versatile; they can be incorporated into any medieval or Renaissance European army.

- Minifigs and Roundway Historical are good manufacturers.

- My "frustration" with Naismith Design will be remedied by using these miniatures as if they were hobbits.

See you next time!