Yes.

Early Armory. www.dicecollector.com/THE_DICE_THE...

A massive once-in-500-years chimpanzee civil war has broken out | BBC Science Focus Magazine The largest-known group of wild chimpanzees has split in two. The aftermath has been brutal

All around the world, #wargamers are reading this headline and thinking "Well, I guess I need to start another army."

www.sciencefocus.com/news/a-massi...

FLGS (which I haven't visited in years) in Livonia, Michigan has been #vaguebooking through some stuff lately. If I still shopped there, I'd be afraid to shop there.

Searching the Internet Archive (without much luck) for 70s wargaming zines, I discovered The Armory's Buyers Guide to Fantasy Miniatures made the same claim Barrett did, but made it in 1983!

archive.org/details/Armo...

So the idea is older than I thought, but I still don't have an origin for it.

Meanwhile, I also found a stray message board reference to Edward "Willie" Suren using the "eye-height" argument in the 1970s. I'm looking for that as I explore 1970s wargaming literature but haven't found any supporting evidence yet.

theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.m...

(Footnote: In 1973-4, Minifigs ran ads describing their art director Dick Higgs as "the originator" of 25mm. I guess they wanted him to get credit for the scale creep that triggered Scruby?)

Sojers History I am trying to compile a history of Sojers. If anybody can help me in this matter I would be greatly appreciative – maybe some old magazine

Update: Confirmed Barrett did produce a line of WWII soldiers at one point, so I guess it's a little less ironic now.

east-front-miniatures.com/20mm-news/so...

Castle Zagyg Galleries of the Arch Mage 2! The forge of fantasy role playing, Gary Gygax's legendary dungeon and its environs. Here begins the journey into depths never before reached.

Proud to be the 872nd backer 😎 on @BackerKit.com Crowdfunding for Castle Zagyg Galleries of the Arch Mage 2!! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/t...

#PalladiumBooks had the same problem. They'd cut-and-paste the same combat rules into every genre, and you'd end up in horror games where every PC has an Uzi and a black belt in Karate because that's the only way to be useful in combat.

If you're wrong, do we get a refund?

I realize, of course, the historical citations I really need are probably in German. I guess I need to learn German now.

In any event, *if* Barrett was referring to German toy soldier scales, the "small minority of manufacturers" who ignored it is probably the entire English-speaking world.

I have an unusual number of #toysoldier related interlibrary loans shipping to @ypsilibrary.org, hoping one of them will give me some good historical citations on Nuremberg scale.

The librarians will probably consider it a nice change from my usual books about UFOs and Tudor-era magicians.

Meanwhile, online resources keep describing Nuremberg Scale as 28mm to eye level.

I feel like *somebody* is rewriting #toysoldier history here, and I don't know who it is, because nobody is giving me good citations.

The Nuremberg Scale is often cited, but inconsistently described. History books describe it as overall height, but list different heights like 28mm, 30mm, or 1⅓ inches!

I know (from reading three books about #toysoldiers during this search) that German toy makers attempted some standardization in the 1840s, but sources are confused about whether those were head-height or eye-height standards.

Take, for example, Heinrichsen's oft-cited "Nuremberg scale."

In both his letter and his article, Barrett claims the eye-height measurement is an old #totsoldier standard that he's re-introducing. In the MWAN letter, he even claims "This was a universally accepted method and was ignored by only a small minority of manufacturers."

What was he talking about?

Barrett's Courier article references a letter he wrote to the Midwest Wargamer's Association Newsletter. I didn't used to collect MWAN, but I guess I do now, because I ordered a copy of that issue from @nobleknightgames.bsky.social. I can always count on them to enable my weird gaming impulses!

Michael Bauser | RPG Designer | RPGGeek RPG author

Very Random Aside: Just confirmed that @rpggeek.com lists me as a TTRPG designer due to my one fanzine credit.

Even worse, I have no fans there. My wife is an #RPGgeek member! Come on, @coreyosullivan.com, click that little heart already!

rpggeek.com/rpgdesigner/...

I understand that rationale, but can't fathom why 1990s gamers couldn't handle a system that 1950s gamers handled without issues.

So far as I can tell, #toysoldier collectors still use "top of the head" scales, and they have more helmet-wearing figures than anybody!

1970s #GrenadierModels figures all look like they have glandular disorders when standing next to 1980s Grenadier figures!

Tell me about it. There are TTRPG games where a 1/64 "getaway car" mini would be useful to me, but I can't trust toymaker scaling. So now I'm measuring toys with calipers.

I suspected Citadel's definition of 28mm had someone to do with it, but I haven't dug into the details of that part yet. I stopped reading White Dwarf when it stopped covering TSR games!

So, in semi-conclusion: The two most important names in the history of #miniatures scales are Jack Scruby and Toby Barrett, no #TTRPG players (and few young #wargamers) know that, and anybody who tells you miniatures scales are easy and logical is lying to you.

But wait, there's more!

(When I started this historical quest, I feared a lot of the history happened in lost media like CompuServe or FidoNet. That doesn't seem to be the case. The #wargamers who wrote Wargames Newsletter in the 60s wrote the Courier in the 80s and wrote USENET in the 90s, and joined TMP in the 2000s!)

Barrett apparently owns a #miniatures company that only makes minis of Civil War ships? Slightly ironic he was so focused on human figure scales.

tbfigures.square.site/about

And one of his customers in the 1990s was the owner of The Miniatures Page!
groups.google.com/g/rec.games....

HMGS Home | HMGS.org HMGS, Inc., the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, is an educational 501(c)3 (non-profit) organization whose purpose is to promote the study of military ...

Back to Mr Barrett. At various points, The Courier called him "Toby," "Tony," or "Tobey." I think "Toby" is correct. Armed with a name, I went back to Google searches.

Most of the USENET references were about about HMGS drama. (No shade there; I've had my share of game club drama, too.)

hmgs.org

Some sources reclassify 80s #GrenadierModels and #RalPartha as 28mm, while other sources classify "true 28mm" as 28mm to the eye. Attempts at making it easier to compare different miniature lines have made it worse! (Don't get me started on "Heroic Scale.")

I have shopping rulers now.

Also, a lot of companies were advertising their #miniatures as 28mm by the end of the 1990s, following Citadel's lead. I suspect having two simultaneous shifts in how we measure miniatures broke everyone's brains a little.

By the 2000s, miniatures scales were (and still are) a mess.

The cultural shift is beginning to make sense here: An influential magazine started using a new system in 1990, #wargamers started using it, and by the end of the decade, everyone convinced themselves the original system didn't exist! Gamers have pliable minds.