The Valiant Conundrum

We live in strange and confusing times. Fake news, claims and counter-claims.. it seems like everyone has an agenda these days and it’s hard to know who to trust. But here at Skinflint HQ, we strip away the opinions and get straight to the facts, to answer the burning question so many of you want answered.

Just how well do Valiant Miniatures’ “heroic 20mm” WW2 miniatures scale with 40k figures?

I set out to find out – inadvertently ordering a full box rather than the single sprue I had planned to, but not going to argue with the results, 65 figures for £14.95! So maybe that Imperial Guard army you fancied doing isn’t so far out of reach?

I had actually got something slightly different in mind (assuming the results of my experiments were up to par) – we’ve already got the Guard for 40k in 20mm, and just doing the same thing in a slightly different scale seems a bit pointless to me (not to say we won’t do that at some point, but still) – I had actually planned to build a Levy platoon for Firefight, to work through the campaign in the rulebook, probably for a bit of Deadzone too, and I was planning to give them a bit of a “Colonial Marines” kind of vibe to try out another lost system from the 90s… more on that another day!

For my test figure, I based one of the little guys (late WW2 German infantry) on a 25mm round base, and after having drawn inspiration from this thread on TMP, I started to sci-fi him up a bit using card, superglue, granny grating (thanks Dan!) and greenstuff. He got a visor for the helmet (cardboard – this got knocked off during the conversion process and forgotten about, whoops), some body armour over his tunic (cardboard again), a greenstuff facemask – in the grim darkness of the far future, it pays to be COVID-secure – and some granny grating to turn his Mauser rifle into a lasgun/ pulse rifle/ autogun.

Mask, as is de riguer these days…

Body armour and knee pads

Upgunned with granny grating

Next step was basing – a bit of filler to smooth over the lip where the mini joins the base itself, followed by Ye Olde PVA & Sand mix, then a spray with white primer and a thin Smokey Ink wash. I’m not sure this really has an effect on the shading, but as I get older and my eyes start to go, this is really helpful to outline which bit is where on the miniature.

And the result:

Now we’re getting the 40k vibe..

I took my cue from the “Aliens” and “Avatar” films for the paint job, going with a craft tan base coat and a digital (ish) camo pattern using Army Painter Goblin Green, Vallejo Russian Green, Olive Drab and German Grey, all unified with a thin Smokey Ink wash and a very light bone drybrush.

I’m pretty happy with the result, he’ll do well for Firefight once he’s got his mates with him and he’s generically sci-fi enough to work in a variety of settings. And I’ve got 64 friends for him, all for under £15!

And now the answer you’ve all been waiting for – here he is with some 40k minis, an Ork, a Gretchin, most of an RTB 01 Marine and the Genestealers of Hive Fleet Imprudens:

As you can see, he looks pretty good – I think he works as a “true scale” human, he’s a bit puny looking compared to the Ork, but that’s kind of how it should be.. he’s taller than the Gretchin but much less imposing than the Marine, and that again is how it should be. So maybe those folks looking for “true scale” Marines are missing the point, the actual way to go is to downsize the humans?

Anyway, that’s it for now, I’ve got a LOT of superglueing to do to build a platoon of these guys! Stay safe and thrifty out there, we’re getting there now….