The “scale” of the rules doesn’t automatically mean LOADS of figures. Too often we play all of our games (no matter what period) with way too many troops on a given frontage. How often do we see Napoleonic games with two lines of troops ranked up side by side with no gaps (effectively meaning you would equally be as well off just throwing dice at each other).

By far the best games are to be had with not enough troops to cover your frontage (as was quite often the case in WW2), so that you have gaps in your lines that each player can look to exploit (or defend against) by using manover. So for a game with 12mm miniatures on a 6’X4′ table (played with each player having a 6′ frontage), typically starting with just a couple of infantry platoons along with one or more “small” ATG guns, and then having no more than 6 AFVs (tanks/APCs/ACs) with some more infantry platoons coming on as re-enforcements should give you a good “armour heavy” encounter style battle.

Perhaps I’d look at the Battlegroup books for scenarios (these offer a mix of anything from a squad vs squad to some major encounters with lots of armour with “fixed” formation lists for each side). You might prefer a different set of rules, but the scenarios in the Battlegroup theatre books are “golden”.

You could easily use Bolt Action rules (I know a fair few people who play using 15mm figures and leave the ranges as they are). Do you really need to use multiple figures to represent a single 28mm BA soldier? I dunno, perhaps a 12mm figure on a circular MDF base (3mm think for easy handling) would suffice. Alternatively you could just base them up on Flames of War sized bases to use them for both BA and FoW (just with 12mm figures and leaving the ranges as written). But as I said probably the army list you build (and the overall amount of figures/tanks) you end up buying will probably dictate the gameplay you end up with more than perhaps the rules themselves  🙂