Are 28mm miniatures too big for proper wargaming? What is the ideal scale for mass battles on the tabletop?
>>92606262Platoon scale 28mm is a perfectly acceptable scale to play at. It might not be the only scale or even the best but it's certainly not "too big"On the topic of scale though, I'm still trying to decide on the perfect scale for ground infantry actions involving destroyer ships. Surprisingly difficult.
1/144
>>92606262"28mm" is rarely 1:56 anymore. I measured like 50 WizKids minis with calipers and they came out to like 1:53, and WizKids minus are smaller than warhammer ones. And the 3d printed ones are often straight up designed to print at 40mm scale. Just, so you're aware those scales are misaligned with the minis people make these days. They hold up okay if you get old minis though. IIRC MESBG was 25mm, and it wasn't a bad scale, like 20 years ago. Back when I was a kid (in the 1990s) my dad was into WWII wargaming and dioramas. I think they were somewhere between 10mm and 15mm. Very small. Not a chance anyone was painting the eyes white.
>>92606262Like >>92606292 it can work for platoon-level although personally I think you start running out of space, especially if the game is mostly melee with limited ranged attacks. It's great for skirmish, though, since you can have great looking models and board. I don't know whether you count skirmish as "proper wargaming" though.
>>92606262>What is the ideal scale for mass battles on the tabletop?One of these represents a million men. No unit types because your smallest unit is an entire army and contains every kind of unit in it.
>>92606262There's no set "proper" for wargames.Certain miniature scales are better for certain combat scales. But platoon and skirmish games are as much "proper" games as napoleonics.
>>9260626228mm for skirmish level (platoon or lower), 15mm for company, 6mm for battalion, and 2mm for divisional.
>>92606478The problem with 28mm scale is 40k, where Space Marines are considerably taller than normal humans. It leads to steady scale-creep, because they make the Marines bigger than other models, but then people bitch about their guys being tiny, so they scale up the other minis to math the Marines, then a new version of Marines are made larger, etc.
>>92606544that image does not do a flattering job of portraying 2mm
>>926065972mm scale is a fucking joke.
>>92606610I like pico armour they have good shit.
>>92606544my mind tells me 6mm is the one true scale, but my heart lies with 15mm
>>92606597>>92606610I dunno man. I'm open to the possibility of 1:1 scale gaming.
>>92606583That makes sense.I think when I measured my WizKids& d minis, the "28mm to the eyes" humans averaged more like "32mm to the eyes", and again, that's smaller than the GW shit. I think you'd be hard pressed to find 1:56 scale minis these days.
>>92606262Mass battle should be in 6 or 10 mm. 28 is fine for skirmish games.
>>92606720Oops, forgot my picture.
>>92606637Every scale has its pro's and con's. Sharpes Practice, modern SOF based wargames play (hell even KillTeam) really really well at 28mm, and look gorgeous. WW2/Cold War or anything with a mix of infantry and vehicles do great at 15mm, and to really get the feel of large Napoleonic era battles with a 1:1 representation, 6mm and 2mm are perfect.
>>92606262Depends.Skirmish games are generally 28mm and while the distances are inaccurate the game looks right. For larger non-representative games you need 6-15mm at this point you have multiple squads and/or vehicles. At this scale distances are generally more reasonable.For representative scales it is less relevant but I often find 28mm to be awkward formations, giving the formations too much depth for their length.
I mostly like 28mm for the modelling possibilities. Might get into naval at some point for similar reasons, ships are cool.
>>92606769Yeah, that's why 3d print guys seem to like their ~40mm minis and can't agree to make 28mm minis. The bigger minis are nicer to paint, even if they're less practical to game with. But there's no real standard among the 3d print artists either, so a lot of them just don't fit together at all.>>92606262If you play on Tabletop Simulator of course, you can make the minis whatever size you need them.
>>92606720Even then 1:1 scale would entail really tiny armies 10000ish total soldiers in a battle. A real scale battle would require extremely big tables and multiple players or massive bases.Could be a fun event thing, each player controls a division of say 3-8 brigades, 6-16 regiments, and 12-32 battalions/bases. Maybe illustrate command limitations with timed turns and if a commander is killed someone else has to take over his forces as delegated by the supreme commander.
>>926068471:1 scale means real life size, not 1mm. Each mini would average 5'10".
>>92606544My brother in Christ is correct here, each scale has it's level and benefits. D add that 28mm and upwards is really mostly for the hobbyists that want to paint in detail. A lot of people who just want to game would probably be a lot happier even skirmish level with 15mm.
>>92606917It could also mean 1:1 in number of men, one soldier represents one soldier as opposed to a stand of 4, 8, 80 soldiers representing an entire regiment or brigade.
>>92606847According to the designer there are 1,024 men in this picture. 1:1 battles would either need to be relatively small, or the extremely cool kind you mentioned amd I'm open to either. A standard 6 foot table would still be over 1.5 km at the 2mm scale wouldn't it? Not bad.
>>92606946At 800 soldiers per (very large) base you could have about 70-100 bases per side for larger battles of the 18th century. Would be overwhelming for one or two players but if everyone on one side does their turns at once you could have like 4-5 total players maybe one of them being a supreme commander. Would still be at least a whole day event I think.Another option is a two player game on a basement a large table or just a sectioned off part of the floor. Could do a turn a day while doing other stuff and when not battling it makes a cool diorama.
>>92606946>same infantry unit, pre-assembly
>>92606769There are naval wargames? Are they all historicals?
>>92607140There are a couple GW naval spinoffs but I'd do historicals.
>>926062626mm is a great scale for mass battles. It suits either huge ranked games like ancients, Napoleonics or sci fi, and also suits the more sparse modern combat with tanks, aircraft and other vehicles.I find 15mm good for skirmish games, especially modern, while 6mm covers pretty much any land or combined arms warfare (I generally play Vietnam, Soviet-Afghan war - combined arms heavy conflicts with lots of helis, vehicles and infantry).For things like air combat or naval combat we tend to use smaller scales. 1/600 for air combat, and 1/2400 or 1/200 for naval warfare.
>>92607140There's a bunch of naval wargames - mostly historical, although Distopian wars and I guess Battlefleet Gothic are both popular examples of sci fi / fantasty naval
>>92606544Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
>>92606544You have the truth of it, but why even bother with miniatures instead of blips or tokens at 2mm level?
>>92606262Forget miniatures, they are just a way for games companies to squeeze extra money from you and they detract from the actual game. Mass battles work best with counters.
>>92607541Nah sorry, I enjoy the game more when the representation of my little dudes is actually little dudes, not a colored tile. Not to mention counters are so easily moved/brushed/misplaced compared to models, and if you're playing anything where line-of-sight matters just forget it.
"Scale" is mostly bullshit anyway. Between nonsense like it being the measurement to the eyes (as if that's how anyone ever measures real people), lack of clarity about what an average person is in this context (worse with F&SF), and miniature scale not matching ground scale (usually by a wide margin), the numbers shouldn't be taken at all seriously anyway. 28mm is between 25mm and 32mm, and that's about all you can reliably say.Even worse is the basic confusion that "scale" can refer to conflict scale as well, ie how many dudes turned up.
>>92607575True LOS is dumb in general and just slows shit down.>Can I draw a line to it without intervening terrain? I can shoot at it.>Is there specific intervening terrain as the rules allow you to shoot through? I can shoot at it.Just declare that you can or can’t shoot through are terrain.
>>92607871>Scale" is mostly bullshit anyway. Between nonsense like it being the measurement to the eyes (as if that's how anyone ever measures real people)It’s because the average man is 6’3” tall so about 6’ to the eyes meaning you have a good rule of thumb for sizes in general.
>>92608013>the average man is 6’3” tallAbsolute bullshit. This isn't true anywhere in the world even today, and was far less so when the idea of measuring miniatures that way was established.
>>92608013>the average man is 6’3” tallWhere do you live, anon? That size doesn't conform to any society that I am aware of.
>>92606945In a discussion about the scale of miniatures, with a comparative diagram of heights?
>>92606583From my measurements, 40k is 28mm if all the guardsmen are about 6'2".
>>92607871I've always taken the 'eyes' rationale as, between crested helmets, shakos and what not, you might not be able to really guess where the top of the head is, but you can see the eyes.
>>92606262>1:56 = 28mm28mm at 1:56 only equates to 5'2" tall, which is way to short.Google says average is 5'10" which makes 28mm more like 1:63.5>>92607871I think this is partially true cause no one can agree on what average is. I just want my space marines to be about 33% taller than my guardsmen.
>>92607871Its to the eyes so that big hair and helmets don't fuck up the measurement.An average person is an average European male soldier. French or English or american, because that's the context of who invented the standard several decades ago. AKA average height is around 5'8" to 5'10". 30 or 31mm minis to the top of the head if they're bald.Assuming 5'10"31 / 1626 = 1:52.45 scale.30 / 1626 = 1:54 scale.(I'm not sure how OP's source got 1:56). But at 1:56, for an actual 28mm scale mini, its assuming a 5'7.5" average adult male, which is the average in Mexico. Maybe average soldiers were shorter for the data they got the label from. But its somewhere between 1:52.5 and 1:56 scale minis.>ground scaleVery true. And annoying.
>>92608513>>92608552I believe that is the rationale. I also think it's fucking stupid. Anyone familiar with the shape of a human face - which should be anyone, and certainly anyone sculpting miniature humans - can tell pretty well where the top of the head should be even if it's hidden. It's not like it's a precise measurement anyway.
>>92608485In reference specifically to 2mm gaming. Do you think anon thinks people are 2mm tall?
>>92608527>no one can agree on what average isNit-picking, but: no one can agree on what population to take an average from. Which is bad enough for historicals, but with F&SF the population data is made up anyway.
>>92608598>Do you think anon thinks people are 2mm tall?Maybe anon believes measurements are relative. Like, compared to a behemoth-sized creature, we'd seem about that size?
>>92606544correct with some variance for era, this would be for anything gunny.More importantly any discussion of scales without game/operation scales is not in good faith.
>>92611134>More importantly any discussion of scales without game/operation scales is not in good faith.Definintely, and I think anon's need to understand with historicals, it's not so much collecting an army to play other peoples armies, rather it is more about creating the chess board and having two sets of pieces for people to play with.
>>92608598I think anon believes 2mm gaming means 2mm to the height of the eyes, IE 1:855 scale.
>>92606262I actually really like 1/72.
>>92612523Which is of course so small that you don't have actual models of characters.
>>92612528It's a great scale if you want to keep 1:1 basing, but also want to a lot of vehicles, while giving both plenty of room to fire and maneuver on a 6*4 table.
Anything over 6mm is only intended for collectors and """influencers"""
>>92612552Sure. I think it multibases better than 28mm though and the poses feel natural, graceful. Sometimes 28mm details end up being a bit grotesque.>>92612568Not a serious statement. I would say 6mm is good for mass battles, 15mm good for large skirmishes or medium battles and 28mm better for small to medium skirmishes. This is borne out by the vast majority of what wargamers do.
>>92606262whatever you can affordI mulled over and went for 1/72 for Chain of Command as it is cheap as fuck and I can still differentiate weapons and paint it, even mod something if needed (started to had trouble with it with more common 1/100 scale)for realistic distances go 6mm or even 3-2mm
>>92606262The ideal scale is 1
>>92612568All miniatures are for collectors and hobbyists. If you didn't want to collect shit you'd just play with chits or blocks.
>>92612568I like 32mm / oversized 28mm minis. Typically 3d printed. They're more fun to paint. And they're small enough for the scale of a TTRPG skirmish combat with no more than 20 minis on a table at a time, which is what I'm generally using them for.I can see how if you're playing a wargame with big armies, you'd want smaller minis for practical reasons.
>>926062627m
28-30mm is the OG scale. If Tony Bath can have huge epic battles with them in the 1960s, you can too
>>92612523Yes, that is presumably what he meant.
>>92615605What do you consider epic scale? 500 men? 1000 men? 10000 men?
for the type of games i want to play (very large RnF fantasy games) with anywhere between 200 and 2000 miniatures per side and that still look properly impressive i think 15mm is the best scale there is.a great balance of spectacle, practicality, achievability (and cost?).if I ever get to a point where I consider my 28mm dwarfs collection completed and painted I'll start it all up again in 15mm.
>>92617334200 and 2000 miniatures per side is a very broad range. 4-12 foot soldiers per base is generally the norm for 15mm giving you a range of 50 to 500 bases per player. The low range is reasonable, the high range is fucking retarded even with grouping bases.
>>92617334What rules are you using?
>>92618000I'm trying a bunch of rules lately.but I only have 28mm minis.I have tried/ have been trying hobgoblinRunestarD12 fantastic battlesoathmark dragon rampart would love to try battlesystem 2nd edition.plus of course years of playing whfb (mostly 8th ed) and a good deal of KoW (2nd ed)
>>92607575>true LOSthis is nothing but a fucking meme even in miniature games, only the sweatiest of tourney fags thinks its a good thing
>>92606262What is "proper" wargaming? The point of gaming with miniatures is because they look impressive and interesting, so whatever scale you enjoy best for the period. 28mm is best for medieval or any era where individuals actually matter, 15-20mm is better for uniformed or uniform formations, anything lower than 15mm looks stupid unless it heavily involves vehicles.
>>92606262Models are a mistakeRetvrn to Kriegsspiel blocks
>>92607332I used to read that about 6mm for a loooooong time. Glad the 2-3mm scale is taking the piss nowaday, probably implies 1/285 is more and more accepted.Anyway think of microscale and below as an excellent occasion to set up a very large battlefield in less time, money and efforts. 2mm infantry might not be much, but you make up for it with a whole village and forest there instead of two buildings and ten trees at 15mm. Switching to token implies switching to a board too so no grand diorama display for you now.Also worthy of note is that 2mm is truly a massed battles game and by WW2 era no ones fight shoulders to shoulders so it's a bit wasted there.Tl;dr this picture is not what 2mm is meant for.
>>92606597>>92606544Are there companies that make flock/static grass appropriate for this scale?>>92606946>spear tip the size of a man's legwhich Warhammer spin off is this?
Bump
>>92607541based ASL enjoyer
>>92618689I think 2mm is good for games that you want to feel impressive in scale. At that point you no longer have individual soldiers within a formation you have a formation itself and you can have literally several thousand soldiers fighting over an area with actual towns in it instead of three buildings called a town. I will say it works best in eras with bright uniformed armies with big lines or blocks of troops. Tercios, pike squares, and lines of musketeers look good from the distance you are generally looking at. Pic related is the sort of visualization you’re aiming for in 2mm scale.
The best scale is HO so you can skirmish through a layout.
>>92618689>28mm is best for medieval or any era where individuals actually matterAnon, individuals (aside from commanders) have never mattered in warfare, not ever today.Medieval was a bout blocks of men, sometimes hundreds large.6mm is great for large battles of any period, but it's certainly an acquired taste - lots of people seem to have an issue with it (mostly to do with wanting to paint eyeballs, or just a hangover from Warhammer?), and to each their own. Just remember that even GW released epic scale miniatures and had an appreciation for larger scale battles.pic are 15mm.
>>92628787My problem with 6mm for premodern wargames is the frontage ends up being the same anyway, and despite being able to put more figures on a base:a)it's still nowhere near a realistic nukber of troops for the formation it represents, so you might as well use 15mmAndb) the figures often end up looking like indistinguishible blobs
>>92631447NTA, but I do agree with that sentiment. At a certain point it's easier to abstract it as one figure representing multiple guys and enjoy the more detailed figurines.
>>926062621 to 1 scale war reenactments
>>92628787That depends on the environment, for example people who live in mountines (highlander scots, chechens etc.) usually had most of their fighting done by very small groups of people
>>92634990Not really. It’s more a matter of era and government, and what you want from a game. Skirmishes can make sense in say the Hundred Years War (chevauchee) or Early Middle Ages (small viking raid), but even in Scotland during the middle ages impactful battles (outside of border raids) would generally involve multiple thousands of soldiers.I honestly don’t see much point to skirmish games unless there’s lots of customozation options on individual models so instead of “this is a Norse chieftain” I can say “this is Harald Redmane a giant of a man wearing mail armour and carrying a daneaxe, he fights with reckless abandon and will continue fighting even with moral wounds.” If my “army” is 20 dudes I want them to be my dudes, not just 5 generic knights/sergeants, 8 crossbowmen, 3 light horsemen, and 4 spearmen.
>>92606583GW keeps making their minis bigger so they can push the idea of "wow, look how amazing and more detailed our new minis are!" to push the idea that they're more advanced when really they're just bigger. It's a sales tactic.
>>92606728Perry bros are always the correct scale and proportions.
>>92606262I have been slowly moving to 10mm. Perfect scale for wargaming IMHO.
>>92641709Not enough manufacturers imo
>>92641709>>92641765I went hard into 10mm a couple of years ago with SYW, Napoleonics, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, PIke and Shot - love it. Pendraken and 3D printing is all you need for 10mm miniatures. That said, I am considering 6mm for DBA/ADLG ancients/dark ages - it's not like the models will have any meaningful individuality, uniforms that are in any way distinguishable from each other, etc. anyway.
>>92641765I got all of my needs from Pendraken, but yeah.
if you and your mates aren't filling the parlour or the back garden full of 55mm+ toy soldiers, are you really gaming?
>>92641709I 3D printed some 10mm to see if I'd like it and I do but I haven't bothered to actually do an entire army because I have no one to play with. An anon earlier in the thread mentioned that even at this smaller scale you're not really getting many more bodies on the table than 28mm and he's right, but it's still a much more comfortable scale for blocks of infantry.
>>92645831I wonder if wells' terrain actually looked like this
>>92647437the book has some photos
>>92606720sure, at your or my country club?
>>92606768>>92606732>>92606637imo I feel like 10-15 tends to still give off the sense of mass groups of men and still allows for some smaller detail. at 6mm you are still probably abstracting numbers anyways, so might as well go slightly larger, and 2mm rice grain scale is a meme and at that point you should pretty much just be playing with representational shit like the classic fighting boxes with x’s and slashes.
>>92646180I'm not sure I agree - if you're talking about rank and flank style wargames you can quite easily get 3x2 10mm figures on a 25mm base - so if you were inclined/mad enough, the typical 28mm unit size of 100x50mm could yield something like 50 figures instead of 10?I think the problem is that when you go to >15mm you start to think about 'proper' unit sizes and scale and then paradoxically a desire for more, larger units and bigger tables. When it's all 15-28mm you're already suspending enough disbelief that your unit of 15 pikemen is a Macedonian Phalanx that the fact you're fighting in the equivalent area of a large back garden is moot.>>92648073Agreed - I went hard with 2mm for a while but it just ends up as undifferentiated blobs when it's on the tabletop unless you're using a macro lense with great lighting.6mm has a problem that it can't reflect enough light in proportion to the size and detail so it's tough to 'read' and figures often look silhouetted. I think 10mm is about the smallest you can go and still retain the idea they're figures, but problem as noted above.
Almost all of my fantasy stuff is in the 25-32mm range, as well as my 40k figures. Beyond that, all of my historical, scifi and most of my horror wargaming miniatures are in 15mm scale. I think it's a really solid compromise between detail and size. They're pretty straightforward to paint, terrain can be stored easily and you can reasonably fit a ton of stuff on a table. If I were to do my whole collection over from the start, I would most likely collect almost entirely 15mm stuff in every genre. It's especially great now with 3d printing where any model can reasonably be any scale.
>>92653568> If I were to do my whole collection over from the start, I would most likely collect almost entirely 15mm stuffthat's exactly my reasoning too. if I wasn't already hundreds of minis deep in my hobby project 15mm would have been the most obvious choice.
>>92606530What even would the game be?
