Chessman actually prefers to use relatively smaller-scale, more easily mass-produced models for two reasons:
1)He has to spend time working with them and improving them for his power to settle. Mass-produced models such as army infantry require little work and, because mass numbers are generally deployed as one unit in most games, it's a neat little loophole that the tiny time spent on each individual soldier counts towards the army as a whole, and vice versa. Individual models that are easy to come by (adventuring game characters, DnD units, or easily-assembled vehicles) are also a favorite, because they're usually made of sturdier materials to begin with, so it's easier to make them tougher.
2)Because of the time necessary to invest in each model, one of his biggest concerns is battle damage. If Hookwolf cuts through that cool mech he spent weeks on, how is he going to repair it? Liquid resin and a tiny tiny welder will only get him so far. It's a conundrum similar to Bakuda's power: all his stuff takes a good deal of time to make, but while not single-use it's all ultimately disposable, so he needs to balance the resources put into the model versus how much use he can get from it before it's too damaged to play with anymore.
He does collect higher-end models and cool things in general, spending a few spare hours here and there working with them, but they're kept in reserve for the most part for when they're needed on a rainy day. Since Danny doesn't attend Endbringer fights (and thus doesn't pull out any truly Alpha-strike models), he keeps his loadout appropriate for countering threats in Brockton Bay. He's also known for an almost compulsive love of irony when it comes to using his power, in that if he knows who/what he's engaging with in advance, he'll almost always use something historically or culturally appropriate for it: E88 gets WW2 models or spacefuture WW2 models, that sort of thing.
The PRT's primary classification for Chessman is Master/Tinker 5.
