What Scale Are the Cthulhu Wars Miniatures?
Cthulhu Wars does not publish a single scale ratio for its whole miniature roster, and that is by design. The 5 Great Old Ones are oversized centerpiece sculpts built to dominate the table, while faction cultists and monsters are sized like standard hobby-game unit figures. For exact dimensions on any specific sculpt, check the Cthulhu Wars O4 Edition product page or BoardGameGeek before you plan a paint job or a display case around it. That said, the miniatures are 28mm scale, meaning an adult human sized miniatures would be roughly 28mm from bottom of feet to his or her eyes. All the other non-human figures should roughly equate to that same scale.
That distinction matters more than a single mm number would. A painter prepping brushes and primer cares less about a ratio on a spec sheet and more about how the pieces actually sit next to each other. Cthulhu Wars is built around that visual gap on purpose. The core box ships 72 miniatures total: 5 colossal Great Old Ones, roughly two dozen cultists, and around three dozen monsters, all unpainted premium plastic. The scale story is really a story about three different classes of figure, not one number.
What Are the Different Miniature Classes in Cthulhu Wars?
Three classes, and they are not interchangeable. Great Old Ones (Great Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep as the Crawling Chaos, Shub-Niggurath as the Black Goat, and Hastur as the Yellow Sign in the O4 core box) are colossal centerpiece sculpts, each one built to anchor its faction. Faction units are the cultists and monsters each Great Old One commands, sized like standard tabletop unit figures rather than showpieces. Terrors are a separate unit type found in expansions like Cosmic Terrors, distinct from both Great Old Ones and faction units.
Mixing these up causes real confusion when you are shopping or planning a display shelf. A Great Old One Pack adds more colossal centerpiece figures, not more faction units. A Terror is not a smaller Great Old One, and it does not belong to any single faction; it is its own unit class with its own rules. Know which class you are looking at before you decide how much shelf space or paint time it needs.
How Big Are the Great Old One Miniatures Compared to Regular Units?
Stand Great Cthulhu next to a cultist figure and the size jump is obvious before you read a single stat on the card. The Great Old Ones are built as environmental threats, not ordinary game pieces, and their sculpts carry that scale visually: tall, heavy bases, wings and tentacle masses that take up real vertical space compared to the smaller cultist and monster figures around them.
This is the reaction most people have when they open the box for the first time. Cultists and monsters read as normal-sized hobby miniatures. The Great Old Ones do not. They are the figures people photograph first for an unboxing post, and they are the reason serious collectors give Cthulhu Wars its own shelf rather than folding it into a general miniature cabinet. If you want a second opinion on how that size gap plays out on an actual table, Meeple Mountain's review of Cthulhu Wars covers the table-presence angle from a reviewer who has played it, not just unboxed it.
Are Cthulhu Wars Miniatures Compatible with Other Tabletop Miniature Lines?
Compatibility depends on which figures you are trying to mix. If your goal is to use these miniatures for tabletop role-playing such as Call of Cthulhu, then the figures will work perfectly. In fact, Sandy Petersen expressly required the Cthulhu Wars miniatures to be 28mm scale so that they could work for his game Call of Cthulhu. Faction units may sit reasonably close to other publishers' standard hobby-scale figures, but sculpting studios do not follow one fixed ruler across the industry, so "close" is not the same as "matched." The Great Old Ones, being purpose-built centerpiece sculpts, are not designed to slot into another line's army at all.
Miniature wargaming as a hobby has never settled on one universal scale standard across every publisher and product line; the broader miniature wargaming category covers a wide range of figure sizes and sculpting conventions that vary by manufacturer and era. That is the honest answer for anyone hoping to drop Cthulhu Wars cultists into a different game's ranks: test-fit a single figure next to your existing collection before committing paint or basing materials to a whole faction. Collectors on Cthulhu Wars's BoardGameGeek page regularly compare sculpts and post side-by-side photos in the forums, which is a faster way to judge fit than guessing from a spec sheet alone.
One thing to rule out fast: none of these figures were built as counts-as substitutes for a licensed miniature line. They stand on their own, and the mythos elements Cthulhu Wars draws from are public domain, not a licensed IP tie-in to another publisher's range.
What Are Cthulhu Wars Miniatures Made Of, and Do They Come Painted?
Unpainted premium plastic, straight across the board. Every figure in the box, from the smallest cultist to Great Cthulhu himself, arrives in bare plastic ready for primer. Nothing ships pre-painted. That is standard for collector-tier tabletop games, and it hands hobbyists full control over faction color schemes rather than locking them into a factory paint job.
Plenty of players never pick up a brush and still love the figures on the table. Sculpt detail carries a lot of visual weight in bare plastic, and it holds up at both scales, the compact unit figures and the oversized Great Old Ones alike. Collectors who do paint get a real project out of the box: prep work on a 72-piece set spans a lot of surface area, and the size range across the three miniature classes means brush technique and basing decisions change depending on which figure is in front of you.
How Should Painters and Collectors Prep Across the Different Miniature Sizes?
Start small, finish big. That is the order most painters find works best with this box. Cultists and monsters go fast; they are compact, the detail reads clearly under a wash, and you can knock out a faction's worth of units in a focused session. Save the Great Old Ones for when you have more time per figure, since their scale means more surface area, deeper undercuts, and more room for layered shading to actually show.
Basing is where the size gap matters most for display collectors. Standard unit figures pair fine with typical hobby-scale bases and off-the-shelf basing kits. The Great Old Ones usually need custom or oversized bases given their footprint; a stock base built for a cultist will look wrong under Great Cthulhu's wingspan. Plan basing material purchases around the class of figure you are prepping, not a single blanket size.
Storage runs into the same issue. A foam tray sized for cultists will not hold a Great Old One upright without crushing detail, so most collectors end up with separate storage solutions for the two classes: dense foam or trays for the smaller units, and either custom-cut foam or an open display case for the Great Old Ones. It is a minor extra step, but skipping it is how paint jobs get chipped in transport.
See the full current lineup, including the Great Old One Packs that add more colossal centerpiece figures to the collection, on the Cthulhu Wars O4 Edition product page. It is the starting point for the whole collection, and the place to confirm current component counts and pricing before you buy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What scale are the Cthulhu Wars miniatures?
Cthulhu Wars does not publish one uniform scale figure for the whole roster. Faction cultists and monsters are sized like standard hobby-game unit miniatures, while the 5 Great Old Ones are colossal centerpiece sculpts, dramatically larger than the unit figures. Check the product page or BoardGameGeek for the latest published dimensions on a specific sculpt.
How much bigger are the Great Old One miniatures than the faction units?
Noticeably bigger. The Great Old Ones are built as environmental, cosmic-scale threats, with tall bases and heavy sculpted mass, while cultists and monsters are compact unit-scale figures by comparison. The exact size difference varies by which Great Old One and which unit you compare, so a side-by-side look at the actual figures (or collector photos on BoardGameGeek) is the most reliable way to judge it.
Can I mix Cthulhu Wars miniatures with other tabletop miniature lines?
It depends on the figures. Faction units may sit reasonably close to other publishers' standard-scale figures, but sculpting studios don't follow one fixed industry ruler, so fit varies by manufacturer. The Great Old Ones are purpose-built centerpiece sculpts, not designed to integrate into another game's army. Test-fit a single figure before committing paint or basing to a full faction swap.
Do Cthulhu Wars miniatures come painted?
No. Every figure, from the smallest cultist to the largest Great Old One, ships as unpainted premium plastic. That is standard for collector-grade tabletop games and gives painters full control over faction color schemes.
What material are the Cthulhu Wars miniatures made from?
Premium plastic, across all three miniature classes: Great Old Ones, faction units, and (in expansions like Cosmic Terrors) Terrors. Plastic at this production tier holds fine surface detail and deep undercuts well, which matters most on the oversized Great Old One sculpts.
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