Reducing scale without changing systems – Is it possible?

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 3]

Afternoon chaps and chapettes,

I have been looking at getting into 6mm for a little while as the look of them on the boards ive seen has just gripped me. However i dont want to start picking up yet another rules system, so im thinking, can i get 6mm models but use them in my usual 28mm games.

For example i play a bit of saga, primarily a 28mm game. But could i substitute a 28mm 8 man warrior unit with a 6mm 8 stand warrior band and still play the same game? The battle would look much grander but would essentially still be a skirmish game.

Again with Sharp practice, love the game, can i make it grander in scale by going 6mm or would it just not work? What games do you play that are designed (for the most part) for a different scale than you are actually using?

Ive been painting 28mm models for a good 20 years now and its time for a change!

[torros 23808xp 4]

1. The easy answer is yes. The easiest way  is to keep ranges and movement as is in the rules or you could change to cm instead if you want to play on a smaller area. I favour the first approach
2. If you have a look at http://www.rollaone.com you can see SAGA being done in 6mm
3. I don’t know where these bullet numbers are coming from
4. aarrgh
5. I give up…

 

 

[torros 23808xp 0]

One more thought. Any game can be played in any scale as I would say all rules are concerned with the base size not what’s on it

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 0]

Thanks @torros basing is my next obsticle, how to base my (mainly historical models) so i can use them in several different games. Just got to find that balance i guess. I like the idea of having bigger battles with the same amount of time.

[oriskany 60771xp 3]

Not only possible, put preferred.

One of the many dirty little secrets of miniature wargaming is how preposterously compressed the scales almost always are, especially in true LOS games where the units have to be “in scale” with the terrain.  This leads to situations where we see tables with tanks advancing in fender-to-fender “parking lots” and exchanging fire at 20 paces.  Sure it looks great on the table and always in the movies … shocker… it’s also always “wrong.”

A quick fix for this (without changing systems to, say … a command-level game where the units do NOT have to be in scale with the terrain)  is to “underclock ” the scale.  I usually play Battlegroup in 15mm, I sometimes play Flames of War / TY in 10mm.  I would play in 6mm if I had the patience to build those tables and had the armies.  Whatever scale the rules are written for, I actually usually prefer to play at least once scale smaller than that.

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

Got a friend who uses 15mm for Bolt Action (he buys the 10 man squad packs from Skytrex (Command Decision)). No changes to measurements, templates etc.

It makes the game look a lot more “realistic”, but the table starts to end up being built a lot more terrain heavy if you’re not careful. As we are used to seeing games in 28mm, then we start to build tables with the same “compression” of scale (ie fields are more the size of a back yard visually on the table). So you have to be a little more careful in that aspect.

 

[torros 23808xp 0]

I am presuming your in the UK. Warbases do larger sabot bases which cater for 1p and 2ps which might help. I think they do sabot bases that fit smaller square  and rectangular bases as well

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 0]

@oriskany we too play BG in 15mm, we find it gives a lot more tactical flexibility and makes manouvering a lot more important (Plus we have a lot of FOW models about)

@torros I am in the UK. I have used warbases before, thats a good idea to allow them to be multi system. I am going to base my 15mm british paras like that for BG and BA

@phaidknott thats something ive not really thought about as we tend to use the same hedges etc in our 15mm and 28mm games (where possible). Thinking about it that should make the fields relatively bigger and so this wouldnt be a problem. There you go probelm solved haha.

[oriskany 60771xp 0]

@civilcourgae – “we too play BG in 15mm, we find it gives a lot more tactical flexibility and makes manouvering a lot more important (Plus we have a lot of FOW models about)”

 

This is exactly the situation I was in.  Tons of 15mm, great game system, and I usually like smaller scales.  Actually, I should go on record as stating that Battlegroup, as published, says it can easily take 15, 20 or 28mm.  I just prefer the smaller end of any gaming scale.

[torros 23808xp 0]

If you have a look at @firelock22 WW1 Bolt Action project    https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1249799/  it gives a good idea of what an be achieved. I have presumed he is using one base to represent one soldier in 28mm bolt action

[civilcourageParticipant 11134xp 2]

@torros its basically firelocks fault i started to re look at 6mm gaming. His stuff looks really nice. I am following with interest!

@oriskany we do play BG in 28mm as we have a lot of that as well but you just dont get the room so i agree there that smaller is better! Plus its not like 6mm costs much, takes up a lot of room and takes long to paint….

[captainventanusParticipant 4936xp 0]

A rather topical question for me too at the moment. Just a few weeks back out of no where really I thought it might be interesting to look at Napoleonics. We are talking about two years down the line as the moment I’m happily invested into 40k and FoW – it would take two years to get two moderately sized forces ready.

I know exactly the forces we would take and we would play Sharpe’s Practice through to Black Powder. The dilemma is the scale. In 28mm I can get the exact figures of the units, its a bit cheaper with plastic and it looks great.

In 15mm I can get all the different units except two – completely irrelevant to playing the game, but the completionist kicks in. The advantage would be I could standardise all my non-40k terrain to 15mm and its a bit easier to play it on the normal dinning table. A 6×4 can roughly be condensed down to 3×2 or you just use more realistic ranges. For WW2 I’m quite happy with 15mm as the three gaming systems work fine at that. On the other hand I’m not sure if I could face panting hundreds of 15mm men anymore as FoW/TY already maxed that out.

I see really no problem in scaling down a game system as long as you can get the models you want in the scale. I’m not quite convinced that I would play a skirmish level game below 10mm as I don’t really see the need to do that and you loose some immersion. But from a rules perspective its no issue.

[torros 23808xp 0]

I do like 6mm but my personal favourite is still 10mm

[oriskany 60771xp 1]

@civilcourgae – we do play BG in 28mm …

Cool deal.  I just didn’t want to come across as misrepresenting Battlegroup by unintentionally implying that you could only play in 15mm and 20mm.  😀

[elessar2590 18207xp 2]

A Friend of mine plays Flames of War in 20mm which is great since you can use the same minis for 28mm Games as well all without changing any measurements. My WWI are all 20mm Based on Flames of War Bases so they can be used for a few different systems.

Fun Fact almost all 28mm Games actually use a 15mm Ground Scale.

Here’s some cool 6mm Saga Stuff I found online.

[Author]

Posts