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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Leftblank on 01 October 2017, 11:02:49 AM

Title: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Leftblank on 01 October 2017, 11:02:49 AM
News from 6mil-land. And the wargame magazine planet.

My favorite 6mm-trader Peter Berry from Baccus, in some circles well-known for his j'accuse rant against 28mm, started an interesting discussion about the dominance of 28mm skirmish games and the role of the wargaming magazines. Are we seeing a "a major trend in the hobby whereby historical gaming is now predominantly played at skirmish level and the big games are rarer and therefore become more noteworthy when staged"?  And do wargame magazines overemphasize 28mm skirmish scenarios? Do the magazines reflect the state of the hobby, or are they biased against small scale big battles? The editor of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy and the subeditor of Wargames Illustrated reacted.
His full article here: https://www.baccus6mm.com/news/20-09-2017/Historicalgaming-'Thetimestheyareachanging'/ (https://www.baccus6mm.com/news/20-09-2017/Historicalgaming-'Thetimestheyareachanging'/)
Full forum follow up here https://www.baccus6mm.com/forum/General/General/774-1-28mmgamesinthemags/ (https://www.baccus6mm.com/forum/General/General/774-1-28mmgamesinthemags/)

For quick readers: I wrote a shorter summary of his arguments and the editor's reactions on my blog: http://amsterdam6shooters.nl/node/1145 (http://amsterdam6shooters.nl/node/1145)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jamesmanto on 01 October 2017, 11:11:02 AM
Magazines are just reflecting current trends.

They aren't driving. 28mm skirmishing has a lower entry point to start playing so quick and easy to get in to.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Plynkes on 01 October 2017, 11:44:05 AM
As for this Berry character, I think rather than ranting it would be a better idea to do something constructive. There's enough polarization and negativity going around without trying to drag it into gaming by encouraging caustic divisions over scale choice. It's rather pathetic, actually. He complains about "pompous" 28mm gamers and their "one true scale" thinking it gives them the right to criticize and belittle 6mm figures. That's exactly what he's doing, in reverse. Take a look in the bloody mirror, mate.


There is room for everybody. If you think your chosen scale is under-represented (what does that even mean? Are there hordes of 6mm gamers out there who are somehow being blocked from showing off their work? Are the LAF moderators secretly deleting 2mm, 6mm and 15mm threads so as to preserve the One True Scale?) then do something positive to promote it rather than going on the attack. You really think that by calling people pompous gits you're going to win them over? Pot, meet Kettle.

I'm tired of division. Crybaby rants aren't the way forward. Flood the pages of LAF with beautiful images of 6mm big battle games and you might change some hearts and minds. But these sort of people never do. They just complain.


Here, let me do my bit to help, lest I fall into the same trap. Steve Dean's absolutely gorgeous 6mm Sudan thread. It's well worth a look:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=103864.0 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=103864.0)

It has actually tempted me to dig out my own old 6mm collection, that I abandoned in frustration years ago as "impossible to paint."  :)


Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: robh on 01 October 2017, 11:51:22 AM
Peter Berry has been on this soapbox for years, makes him feel important in the hobby to be a provocateur.
Has become tedious and pathetic now, he really does need to move on.

Every scale has advantages and disadvantages depending on what you want to do.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: N.C.S.E on 01 October 2017, 12:09:39 PM
I'd agree with his remarks that the different scales are heavily underrepresented in the big magazines (although just one article in WSS on 2mm ECW wargaming sorely tempted me to get into that scale). However I would disagree that the other scales are being played less and less. I'd suggest that thanks to the internet they would be played more. Were it not for the good old internet I'd still be stuck playing Bolt Action in 28mm (and grumbling about list building) . Thanks to the internet, I have Jutland in 1/6000 and the Cold War in 1/600. I have Napoleonics in 18mm and am currently deciding between the gorgeous AB 20mm figures and the altogether more practical (and friendly to my wallet) Peter Pig (not BF!) 15mms. I indulge my whimsical streak with 28mm Steampunk and my serious streak with searching for Cold War ORBATs.

I sense that whilst the magazines might paint a picture of wargaming as adventures in 28mm only, the internet has meant that people can be inspired by what the different scales have to offer. I remember at my local club being in awe of a few guys who had ancients in I believe 6mm, it truly looked like a battle, especially compared to our "skirmishes" in 15mm.

As ever in this hobby I sense there is a strong prescriptivist streak of: "you will play what I enjoy or else you're wrong". I indulge in it myself when I watch people playing IGOUGO rules. It's a hobby, play what you and your friend wants and enjoy. The internet makes it so much easier to see amazing things. I must echo another poster on here and say that if you want to inspire people, post gorgeous pictures of your [insert scale here] forces going at it. I'm sure you'll inspire more than a few.

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 01 October 2017, 01:49:11 PM
I'm afraid it gets mentioned in the forum thread and in LeftBlank's summary; 28mm players provide content to the magazines for publication, while users of other scales mostly do not. Articles and scenarios don't write themselves.

I admit to being a scale bigot, I started with 'Airfix', graduated to 25mm when I joined a club and then on to 28mm when 25s got bigger (and moved away from 'big battle gaming' around the same time). I'm sure I will become a 32mm-ist when people routinely stop calling them 28mm. That probably makes me all that's wrong with the hobby in Mr Berry's (and possibly a few other peoples') eyes. 

I would feel a bit silly calling a small group of figures an 'army', so I use warband, platoon, company, or force et al, as appropriate. That said in the 7th Century King Ine did put it into law that an army constituted more than 35 men.

 ;)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: stone-cold-lead on 01 October 2017, 02:02:36 PM
28mm skirmish level gaming has a lot going for it. Low model count so low cost which also means low entry level to a new game. Fewer models also means less time and effort required to get an 'army' painted for the tabletop. Less playing area might be needed too. Gaming time is also a factor. A skirmish game might be done within an hour. It also allows variety so people can have a whole range of different games on the go covering all sorts of periods and genres. There's so much out there to play these days (and it's easily accessible thanks to the internet) that I think people are more inclined to want to do a bit of this and that.

Big battles in 28mm are costly in terms of miniatures and time consuming when it comes to painting them, regardless of whether they're the latest releases or 30 year old castings from Foundry! Smaller scales are are more economical but might still require a lot of work. Also, as much as it'll upset some, the quality of smaller scale models isn't always the best. I think it's been getting better over the years as expectations have increased but there are still some rough old ranges out there. Nice models painted well and presented in an attractive manner might improve things in favour of bigger battles but I think the market has changed.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 02:02:45 PM
I have never come across this chap before but his rant and many of the follow up comments read like a meeting of Ukip members at the local pub, very angry at everyone else without trying to do anything practical!
the comments blame games workshop,fantasy, the young, the education system, Some secret 28mm cabal..
And yet if they would just show us these supposedly beautiful 6mm armies they all have (for why else would they complain so if they didn't all have gorgeous hordes hidden away?) then they might find people wanting to look at 6mm more.

It seems Mr berry is one of those people who would be very content for the hobby to exist only in his own house.

(Of course we all know it's out fault, us dirty 28mm usurpers!curse us for having fun and enjoying our detailed and personally identifiable figures!Now lets all do the secret 28mm handshake and go burn down a 6mm barn.)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 02:25:09 PM


I've still never fully decided what conclusions to draw from that. It mostly depends on how cynical and vitriolic I'm feeling.

Perhaps it's to due with the suppoort structure around games?

Most fantasy and sci fi produces have a facebook page, blog, forum,twitter, instagram ect, a hundred lines of communication to say to their players "show your support, tell us what you're doing, let us know, spread the word!"
And whilst more recent historical rule sets like Saga and the warlord sets also have this, Alot of the rule sets produced for BIG games are either no longer being handled by their author, or are kept within a small group of players and only really promoted on forums dedicated to that game, made by the people playing it.

For example, The sword and the flame ,a very famous historical rule set with its own wikipedia page, has no obvious facebook presence , no social media presence, and no unified website from what i can find.
"GOOD!" you might say, But if you aren't at a club where someone is already playing that rule set then it isn't going to get new players, especially if you aren't making the effort to promote it yourself.

In short, I think fantasy and sci fi producers incentivise their player base to share more through images and articles where the myriad historical rulesets stick very much to their core demographic of show attendees or people they already know.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: stone-cold-lead on 01 October 2017, 02:46:23 PM
Perhaps it's to due with the suppoort structure around games?

Most fantasy and sci fi produces have a facebook page, blog, forum,twitter, instagram ect, a hundred lines of communication to say to their players "show your support, tell us what you're doing, let us know, spread the word!"
And whilst more recent historical rule sets like Saga and the warlord sets also have this, Alot of the rule sets produced for BIG games are either no longer being handled by their author, or are kept within a small group of players and only really promoted on forums dedicated to that game, made by the people playing it.

For example, The sword and the flame ,a very famous historical rule set with its own wikipedia page, has no obvious facebook presence , no social media presence, and no unified website from what i can find.
"GOOD!" you might say, But if you aren't at a club where someone is already playing that rule set then it isn't going to get new players, especially if you aren't making the effort to promote it yourself.

In short, I think fantasy and sci fi producers incentivise their player base to share more through images and articles where the myriad historical rulesets stick very much to their core demographic of show attendees or people they already know.

It's called 'not moving with the times'. It's so easy to promote a game or rule set these days but if the people trying to do so are still in the SAE and catalogue without pictures mind set they're going to have a very insular outlook and appearance. That pesky internet thing is to blame. It's not how it used to be in my day.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 02:53:56 PM
It's called 'not moving with the times'. It's so easy to promote a game or rule set these days but if the people trying to do so are still in the SAE and catalogue without pictures mind set they're going to have a very insular outlook and appearance. That pesky internet thing is to blame. It's not how it used to be in my day.

I hear even Citadel have a website these days!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: stone-cold-lead on 01 October 2017, 03:05:31 PM
I hear even Citadel have a website these days!

Yes, it's dedicated to the destruction of 6mm historical wargames.  ;)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: fred on 01 October 2017, 03:07:43 PM
I don't think this is about old school rules authors and more modern ones. I think it is about size of organisations and their marketing budgets. Companies like GW and Warlord have far more resources (people, time & money) compared to the many one-man bands who produce many of the big battle rules.

These marketing budgets lead directly to more exposure, and because their marketing is driving exposure, then there are more gamers playing, and therefore more battle reports being written. Only a small percentage of gamers write up games on blogs, and even fewer for magazines. So if your player base is small there is much less chance of a report being produced or published.

Many of the small publishers are internet savvy, but they simply can't keep pushing out the content at the frequency the big guys do.

The group I play with is mainly focused on big battle games, currently Fantasy, Sci Fi and WWII all get a look in. And we mainly play in smaller scales. Some of the group play 40k with 28mm figures and some are interested in Bolt Action with 28mm figures - but neither are for me.

With smaller scales it is much more practical to buy and paint big armies. I find painting 28mm figures so slow that I can't contemplate even painting a platoon. Wheres in 10mm or 6mm I can crank out armies in no time.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6OhnVLAcJ7hmZbel1600OPG3t-lk5rAZvP1dZewO5YPGgk11nG6m4hxu1VqX4OwPlrPZFdOeYeahO35rj9oXdHuIXBL2chKoo0TZPEbYKL3fnjgMFKAHIqpQGwYeyDUzen0c9Wk_UojfMxuioJQ7nhkUNrrOmKSflBnoNWNMnaHxEad2HEfPikOZGerIKoSht5K83qWTaL-cxz9CIa3iJIw7FxD8yzBpfE61hcq436X6mNSYJaq5-GJA_M7bJlvES_S3_vd8bsBWaoqtCvRBflh55LAbvSQFhUDTfj30dGTuLWwN9TO4Zw-jyDF2v2Dwhqsj0j8TaW8UtX7PxmvG5H8PQ8g4XNuchD5xLDdc6m80KIOqNgCyYYvGCGygqYNaO8rXwiCVb8H3ij6-PlWXtw2Mbc3b-S0gOZdiMrHRFCfwtQ4uKZGi-Nq1p667HSq80TMw219tdP-xkTRcdXEG-9i5LqusxYaWWbHgIeSPai0k9POE7gctU7piv4FtiUjV36161it5cKRe3h5l_jTVPiWQ7sOcwr4ZEgo2qerze_arTLyTLCsG4TK2_WacYYQ0VzD-pvI9xDrSdrIe_LsI4uGi9IGdhO1UjQqnXHGaSxK2SsMVcgVC705He1kGZXnlLxL94akVjCbR7sWR2Xf7wMMbnEp09DUZL3Q=w1320-h698-no)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Elbows on 01 October 2017, 04:05:13 PM
I didn't bother reading the rant/article...but getting the gist of the content from the responses here, I'd ask: "Who friggin' cares?"

Who cares what scale other people play games in?  How is that relevant?  This has a very "old man yells at clouds" kind of feel to me.  Magazines will cover what is relevant, what's new, and more importantly - stuff people provide them for free.  They have absolutely zero requirement to cover all scales, all periods, all games, etc.  This isn't some government organization playing to a disaparate citizenry...it's a hobby magazine.  They can focus solely on 8mm neanderthal gaming on Mars if they want - who cares?  It's their damn magazine.

Scale, game, etc. If it's good, people will play it.  If it's not, people will not play it.  The expectation that people "should" play more scales or certain scales is asinine.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Gibby on 01 October 2017, 04:11:55 PM
Better than ranting, Baccus maybe ought to get a nice gallery together, make some battle reports, and then share them around a few forums. Or heck, ask the community for some such content for him to put on his website. Negativity within the hobby is a shame to see, and won't do any favours to anyone I don't think.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Captain Blood on 01 October 2017, 05:43:40 PM
"6mm wargames figure manufacturer in diatribe concerning how few people are buying 6mm wargames figures shock!"  ;)

When I started wargaming, oooh, 40 years or so ago (I was a very young child, obviously), back in the days when Airfix figures were the gateway drug to our addictive hobby, and there was no such thing as Games Workshop; wargamers mostly played 20mm WW2, 1/300 (6mm - then called 5mm, so scale creep even there... ) WW2 and 'modern' (that's NATO vs Warsaw Pact), and 25mm Napoleonics and Ancients. A few dangerous mavericks played ECW, ACW, and Colonial - also in 25mm. That was about it in the 1970's and 1980's.

In those days I used to play at school, I used to go to wargames clubs, I used to go to conventions (Northern and Southern Militaire - that was it!)
1/300 or 6mm was always a minority interest compared to 20mm / 25mm.
Heroics and Ros was the ONLY provider in that scale. I still have some.
Then along came 15mm, which attracted quite a following, but never really dented the pre-eminence of 20mm/25mm.

So I don't think it's anything new.

Like I always bang on about, miniatures wargaming is a 3D visual hobby - otherwise we'd all play boardgames with chits and maps.
Perhaps it's just that figures that are round about one inch high provide, and have always provided, the ideal compromise between visual appeal and playability. Big enough to appreciate the aesthetic value of the models; small enough to field a large number of figures in a game.
In short (haha!) the inch high figure has held sway in the world of wargaming for as long as I can remember, and probably always will.

Additionally, I suspect that as a lot of wargamers of my generation get older (even older!), the appetite for 6mm will continue to diminish. If only because as old eyes fail, teeny tiny figures become ever less attractive as a painting prospect...

My guess? The bottom is gradually dropping out of the 6mm market - as I say, always something of a niche interest anyway - and the chap that owns Baccus is simply raging at the dying of the light...
I guess I'd feel the same if it was my business. But it may just be down to demographics...

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Kommando_J on 01 October 2017, 05:51:46 PM
Personally...I wont weep if the tiny scales do die out, this will sound offensive but...I think once you get below a certain scale 'miniatures' end to look like wee lumps.

I love 28mm but I have nothing against 20 or 15mm...my gripe these days is the scale creep with 32mm lol

I like reading about big battles but I don't have he time nor the money to collect a full Napoleonic force...not to mention all my peers that do like the hobby do skirmish anyway...
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 05:54:08 PM
Yes, it's dedicated to the destruction of 6mm historical wargames.  ;)

Ave XXVIII fratrem meum   ;)

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: joroas on 01 October 2017, 05:55:51 PM
Take a look at Yankeepedlar's site. http://talesfromghq.blogspot.co.uk/
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: stone-cold-lead on 01 October 2017, 06:16:01 PM

My guess? The bottom is gradually dropping out of the 6mm market - as I say, always something of a niche interest anyway - and the chap that owns Baccus is simply raging at the dying of the light...
I guess I'd feel the same if it was my business. But it may just be down to demographics...


I don't know if 6mm is dying out or not but I'm sure a modern, vibrant company with the right marketing strategy and good quality models could make something of it.

Regarding demographics, the impression I get is that big historical battles on vast tables are something that an older generation of gamers are more likely to be into. That in itself could put off new and younger players especially if there's any sense of elitism or an unwillingness to engage. To be honest some of the photo's of big battle tables from cons do appear to be played (if they are even) by some rather grumpy looking old men who barely seem interested in the table or one another. It reminds me of those model railway exhibitions that my grandad would drag me around when I was a kid. Perhaps 6mm big battles just need a bit of a face lift?
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 06:21:01 PM

Like I always bang on about, miniatures wargaming is a 3D visual hobby -


I think it's worth picking up on this point.

Whilst I don't wish to diminish the skills of anyone that plays 6mm, I believe you have to be a very good modeller to make 6mm miniatures and scenery "Mesh" - By that i mean, look like a cohesive and some what realistic scene when on placed together.
I'm not saying there aren't amazing 6mm modellers out there, There obviously are! but they aren't as easy to come by as 28mm ones and are much harder to photograph!

Bases and the borders of terrain will always get in the way , But with 28 and 15mm you have a big enough figure to negate some of this and counter the part of your brain that says "I am looking at a figure on a base on a mat "

Whilst 6mm battles may look amazing from a distance, They suffer on close examination. A 6mm base of figures on a table that isn't expressly modelled in very find scale will always look like it's carrying around a very sturdy dias to stand on, and the many brush marks or patches of highlight will stand out above the sculpted detail they're sitting on.
Big swooping shots of battles are fun but make for terrible magazine content, because you end up not really being able to see anything expect some blocks on a board.
It's a shame, But magazines need nice pictures because most of us buy the magazine to look at first and read second, And tiny scales very often don't hold up to that level of scrutiny.


http://lordashramshouseofwar.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/10mm?updated-max=2014-02-15T09:00:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=6&by-date=false
Lord Ashrams house of war has some amazing 10mm images , you can see that an insane amount of effort has gone into making them look as good as possible.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Inkpaduta on 01 October 2017, 07:30:26 PM
For me, I have turned to skirmish style games because of cost and the time it took me to
paint two armies the play with. Got to the point that I would get excited about an era, buy the
figures and then would have to paint for over a year before I got a chance to play the era.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: joroas on 01 October 2017, 07:33:03 PM
Only a year?
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: FramFramson on 01 October 2017, 07:34:57 PM
I have always gravitated to skirmish because I have always preferred a small number of models with the highest quality of paintjob (and sculpting) that can be mustered). 28-32mm is my bag because as I like to say "That's the smallest scale where you can see the whites of their eyes." ;)

As for 6mm or smaller scales, well it will always be less popular, but I don't know if it'll ever die out. Especially if new blood gets breathed into it - for instance what if GW got back into Epic?
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Norm on 01 October 2017, 07:37:19 PM
I don't particularly like hearing anybody say what scale should be played or whether figures must be painted or any of the other self serving laws that we see from time to time ...... But Pete Berry does have a point (though does not do himself any favours by expressing them - apparently!).

I go to quite a few UK wargame shows and I buy all three UK wargame magazines and subscribe to one of them - and I get the sense that both magazines and shows have lost a balance of scale diversity.

The effect is that if you are into small scales, why would you buy a mag or go to a show when the internet represents your interests better (hence Pete Berry gets 8 new customers per week as stated over on his forum thread), the result of that becomes a reduced interest in mags / shows and that drives itself to even lower representation in mags / shows of the smaller scale and so it goes on.

The strange thing is that the small scales are hugely popular and as gamers are often playing at home on kitchen tables and living in small homes in which the scale / storage thing is a big deal, involvement with the little men can mean the difference between doing and not doing your hobby.

However, there are some facts of life. The larger scales do photograph better. Small scales can look nice on the board and the terrain, such as buildings etc can give great effect of whole villages without dominating the table, but the little chaps are somewhat camera shy. Older eyes simply find the larger scale a better prospect to paint. Not enough smaller scale gamers are submitting articles to magazines and the capability of the amateur photographer (well wargamer with a phone camera)to produce the kind of photographs that the editors need is not there and not helped by the nature of their subject.

I know my own small figures can look great during play, but that aspect does not particularly transfer well to photographs (as my blog with attest :-) )

I think the solutions most likely to change things rest with small scale gamers - we need to be putting on games at shows in increasing numbers to show off what the scale can do and we need to be thinking about submitting articles that play to the strengths of the scale, rather than trying to compete with what 28mm does.

LAF does have a bias towards the larger scale, the significant number of excellent painters and modellers here no doubt plays its part - the spin off from that is that the smaller scale gamers can feel a bit less welcome here than should be the case and some of the posts in this thread give at least a hint of that.

So small scalers ... fight your corner, we are probably mostly all lucky that we can buy whatever we want in the scale of our choice. But then I have 12mm on my gaming table now, 28mm on some painting sticks and 15mm models cut off the sprue ready to put together and stuff is over spilling off the shelves onto the floor because I am running out of space :-)
 
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 01 October 2017, 07:50:03 PM
Especially if new blood gets breathed into it - for instance what if GW got back into Epic?

You mean when GW get back into epic....
it'll be 8mm tho, just to annoy mr berry.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: The Gray Ghost on 01 October 2017, 08:20:07 PM
I admire people who game the smaller scales as you can game big battles like I did years ago. But I'm not into smaller then 28mm skirmish gaming anymore because painting them is half the fun for me and with my eyesight I can't do anything under 20mm.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Mosstrooper on 01 October 2017, 08:43:47 PM
Some reasons for the modern trends in gaming ?
An ageing generation of gamers - 6mm are just to small to see (I have moved onto painting 28mm and 40mm figures )
A lot of gamers play  regularly at  clubs , games have to be set up , played and put away in 2-3 hours (?) , skirmish games are ideal for this
How many younger gamers have room for a dedicated wargaming room (modern houses are small) and again skirmish games are ideal for this .
Modern skirmish games are very accessible , paint up 12-24 figures and game , easier than several hundred figures .
The cost of 'Big Battles' 28mm are expensive on masse .
Personally I'm not keen on 6mm - I prefer bigger 'Toy Soldiers' - the figures the thing for me , although I can see the advantages in cost for 6mm
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Dags on 01 October 2017, 09:37:44 PM
The Captain's memories and early experiences very much echo mine.... We're probably 'of an age', although I would add going along to the Model Engineering Exhibition as a nipper as well as the Militaires.

On topic, sort of, smaller scales make sense for some gaming; armour battles especially.

I've painted a fair bit of 15mm over the years but don't particularly enjoyed it.

The main reason, however, for not doing  big battles in smaller scales is the thought of the sheer boredom of painting 100s of identical tiny figures exactly the same way. Maybe that comes from enjoying the painting more than the gaming....
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Connectamabob on 02 October 2017, 03:24:39 AM
I think it's worth picking up on this point.

Whilst I don't wish to diminish the skills of anyone that plays 6mm, I believe you have to be a very good modeller to make 6mm miniatures and scenery "Mesh" - By that i mean, look like a cohesive and some what realistic scene when on placed together.
I'm not saying there aren't amazing 6mm modellers out there, There obviously are! but they aren't as easy to come by as 28mm ones and are much harder to photograph!

Bases and the borders of terrain will always get in the way , But with 28 and 15mm you have a big enough figure to negate some of this and counter the part of your brain that says "I am looking at a figure on a base on a mat "

Whilst 6mm battles may look amazing from a distance, They suffer on close examination. A 6mm base of figures on a table that isn't expressly modelled in very find scale will always look like it's carrying around a very sturdy dias to stand on, and the many brush marks or patches of highlight will stand out above the sculpted detail they're sitting on.
Big swooping shots of battles are fun but make for terrible magazine content, because you end up not really being able to see anything expect some blocks on a board.
It's a shame, But magazines need nice pictures because most of us buy the magazine to look at first and read second, And tiny scales very often don't hold up to that level of scrutiny.


http://lordashramshouseofwar.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/10mm?updated-max=2014-02-15T09:00:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=6&by-date=false
Lord Ashrams house of war has some amazing 10mm images , you can see that an insane amount of effort has gone into making them look as good as possible.


I think I'd go even further, and say that in 6mm the visual strengths completely flip from the figures to the terrain.

Take this with a grain of salt, as I have no personal experience with 6mm, but it seems to me that 6mm completely inverts the terrain vs minis trade-off dynamic of 28mm, and IMO maybe some of the alleged problems of 6mm may stem from a failure to recognize and/or embrace that.

In 28mm, the figures can be very satisfyingly detailed and characterful, but terrain and vehicles are forced to be "foreshortened" in scale due to practical space limits. Even with the forshortening, terrain has to be big in a way that for many people forces detail to be sparse and simplified in order to be time/money efficient. This results in buildings and the like which often do not match the visual weight, density, and verisimilitude of the minis.

In 6mm, the opposite is true: figures are so small that they cannot be easily detailed, realistically proportioned, or individual, but the terrain can easily be decompressed into realistic proportions and sprawl, at a size that allows for detail of the same density of that of the figures to look much more "real" than on the figures, AND to be simpler to execute for a given scale detail than in 28mm.

So my instinct would be that when getting into 6mm gaming, the "visual appeal" focus should be on the terrain rather than the figures. Imagine, say, the city of Mordheim realized in 28mm (or 35, as the case may be), vs 6mm. In 28, you'd be dealing with a handful of individual compressed-scale buildings on a printed or textured mat. But in 6mm, you could do an entire district of the city in true scale, working in modules of blocks rather than buildings. You could easily play games on museum-style replicas of cities or landscapes.

The intent would not be to be cheaper than 28mm, rather you'd take the time and money and ambition you'd spend on the figures in 28mm, and in 6mm spend it on the terrain instead. Likewise, when you showcase 6mm stuff to hype the scale, you'd focus on impressively rendered settings before impressively rendered figures.

This is just the way it seems to me, and maybe I'm weird, but when I see pics like the one Fred posted on the first page, I feel like people are completely barking up the wrong tree by executing and deploying terrain pieces in 6mm the same way they do in 28mm. The philosophy of it feels backward to me, like they're inadvertently getting the worst of both worlds. 28mm knows it's visual strengths and plays to them, while 6mm is handicapping itself trying to play to 28mm's strengths instead of its own.

I feel like as long as 6mm is thought of as being defined by the figures the way larger scales are, it'll always be at a disadvantage in terms of visual appeal. 6mm's native strength is the terrain.

This is all about the aesthetic angle, of course. It's tempting at first thought to believe it's natural to focus on the figures since "it's the figures that really matter, the terrain is an extra", but this is actually false when you think it through. Gameplay-wise it makes absolutely no difference which you focus on aesthetically, since either or both can be reduced to cardboard cutout markers without effecting the pure game.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 02 October 2017, 05:36:36 AM
Probably the wrong forum to post this on as LAF is more 28mm orientated. Plenty of people play 6mm, it's not dying out, a ridiculous theory! Some people like small scales, some people like bigger figures, there is no right and no wrong, it's playing with toy soldiers for goodness sake.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 02 October 2017, 08:06:44 AM
I play 6mm and 3mm but wouldn't bother posting on here to be honest about micro wargaming, there are other forums and groups that are based around these scales that I follow for news and eye candy.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: fred on 02 October 2017, 08:36:43 AM

The lack on non-28mm stuff can be only be for two reasons - either apathy or no one's playing with anything else.


But that's not the only reason.

There is a definite bias towards 28mm on LAF. Threads on 28mm figures get a lot more comments. There are lots of pictures of extreme close-ups of 28mm figures. There are probably more threads on building and painting 28mm figures than there are on playing games with them.

Yes smaller scale stuff does get posted - but generally it is less well received. Therefore as jambo says we post about smaller scale elsewhere, where the audience is more appreciative.

It takes time to photograph figures or games, and more time to write up forum posts - if the audience isn't much interested then people will spend that time posting elsewhere, or painting!

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: fusilierdan on 02 October 2017, 01:29:24 PM
Fred, Jambo1,

It sort of feeds on it's self doesn't it. You post here, don't get much reaction, post elsewhere and get a fair number of comments so continue posting elsewhere. Now here it seems nobody uses 6mm but elsewhere everybody does.

The group I'm in tends to play smaller games because of time constraints, set up and play need to be done in a 2-1/2 hour time frame. Larger games take more time which we only get once or twice a year.

My lead pile is big enough that unless some others in my group or someone comes along are enthusiastic and commited about doing 6mm I wouldn't start a new scale.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 02 October 2017, 03:01:26 PM
fusilierdan, yes it does indeed work like that, I have never seen LAF as a forum for smaller scale stuff, you get the odd post on it but never over much, I don't come on here for 6mm news and pics so never feel the need to post anything about micro scales here. I come on here to look at the skill involved in painting minis which always astound me, I don't game much in the way of fantasy so this is also a reason for coming on LAF. It is a case of horses for courses and as Isaid earlier there is no right or wrong. :)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: SteveBurt on 02 October 2017, 05:16:06 PM
LAF certainly comes across as a forum for larger scale (28mm plus) stuff used for skirmish-type gaming.
Nothing wrong with that, but that image is almost certainly why you don't get many photos of massed battles with small scale figures.

Some of us started out with mass battles and still play plenty of them - this new fangled skirmish stuff came much later!
I'm sure there is lots of big battle stuff going on, but people posting about it on here are in a minority.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Elbows on 02 October 2017, 05:20:42 PM
I'll be honest...it takes a lot of genius to make 6mm or something that scale interesting to look at.  Would I play it if someone hosted a game?  Absolutely.  I also agree that terrain is the thing which shines at that scale if done well.  I've clicked on plenty of 6-10mm scale threads on LAF, but I have nothing to say.  It's often just minimal terrain and microscopic figures I can't really see any detail on.

It's akin to seeing a post about a boardgame to me.  I've seen a few exceptions, but it's rare.  I just don't think 6mm generates interesting discussion outside of "where'd your get your figures" or "what rules did you use?".

I have seen some stunning 6-10mm board set-ups though, so that's always fun to look at!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Plynkes on 02 October 2017, 05:26:53 PM
LAF certainly comes across as a forum for larger scale (28mm plus) stuff used for skirmish-type gaming.


When Lead Adventure started it was never meant to be an all-encompassing gaming site. It was "stuff Alex is into." The emphasis was on the "adventure" part, so story-driven skirmish-gaming was to the fore. Back in those days the boards didn't even have many of the historical categories we have now, as the small LAF crowd wasn't doing those sorts of things.

As the forum has grown in membership it has expanded into other areas such as massive Napoleonic battles and such (because the expanded membership wanted it), and it has become more of a general figure gaming site. While that sort of thing is more than welcome, it wasn't LAF's main focus originally. That's why LAF is how it is, and if there might be a perception that it is a 28mm skirmish gaming site then it's because it is (or at least was).

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Belligerentparrot on 03 October 2017, 09:58:29 PM
The point about terrain/the battlefield as a whole being the eye-catcher in 6mm is a great point - one of those moments where someone else articulates a thought that you yourself also think, but you never really realised that you did  :)

Sorry not to contribute more, but I didn't bother with the original rant. I've heard enough "scene BS" in punk and straightedge circles to last me a lifetime, don't need it in my miniatures hobby too.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Silent Invader on 04 October 2017, 08:20:21 AM
Regarding the impact of terrain, one only needs to look at the excellent works of LAF’s own 6mmPhil.

For example:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=72814.msg1192869#msg1192869 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=72814.msg1192869#msg1192869)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: sukhe_bator on 04 October 2017, 09:19:00 AM
I agree with the good Captain and Mosstrooper and others and I think it's largely a generational thing and dictated by various trends over the years. The explosion in 25mm gaming in recent years can largely be attributed to the rise of plastic multipart kits in an ever increasing variety of periods. I got back into 25mm when GW started producing reasonable priced sets of hard plastics (anyone remember those halcyon days of yore?) Before that, the cost of 25mm metals was already becoming more prohibitive for entry level gamers. Those who did invariably went for skirmish level games requiring fewer figures.
I first discovered the delights of 15mm when I went to Uni. I hadn't really encountered them before. I also saw 6mm for the first time, but the visual appeal was lacking for me. 15mm was more practical to lug around and paint up quicker, but the appreal of mass battles from my old Airfix days was well ingrained. For games requiring 'big scenery' I still favour 15mm, but the dearth of variety in more esoteric periods at the time put me off them for many years.
I got back into 15mm seriously when I decided to use 15mm WW1 and RCW to recreate Back of Beyond so I could go to town on scratchbuilding appropriate scenery, which is where I felt the otherwise excellent BOB figure ranges fell down.
Now that 25mm gaming has been revitalised, there are more metal makers out there tapping into the market with more niche items to add to the mix. Now I'm more settled I can indulge in larger numbers of 25mm with impunity and build upon my collections to indulge in larger scale battles.
It is broadly similar to the development of the Model Railway hobby, with 00 reigning supreme for many years, then along came N gauge, and finally Z gauge. Now pretty much everything you want
is available commercially and you don't have to be a super carpenter/electrician/modelmaker/set designer to achieve reasonable results.
I can see the appeal in 6mm, just as I can admire the intricacy of N or Z gauge, but my modelling gene dictates that I concentrate on 25mm or 15mm. 6mm is excellent to recreate the real sense of masses of troops and for the Kriegspiel-esque aspects of strategy and tactics. However it remains largely out of reach of old timers like myself who see our eyesight failing and the mountain of unfinished projects growing..
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: black hat miniatures on 04 October 2017, 10:56:06 AM
"6mm wargames figure manufacturer in diatribe concerning how few people are buying 6mm wargames figures shock!"  ;)


My guess? The bottom is gradually dropping out of the 6mm market - as I say, always something of a niche interest anyway - and the chap that owns Baccus is simply raging at the dying of the light...
I guess I'd feel the same if it was my business. But it may just be down to demographics...



Actually, I know from talking to Pete that Baccus are so busy they are struggling to cope with business (such as not being able to supply a USA distributor) - Pete's business is very healthy....

I think it is more a feeling, if you read the article and subsequent comments, that the magazines are drifting into their own niche of 28mm skirmish based wargaming and ceasing to cover big battle wargaming...

I don't have any opinions on this as I hardly read the magazines and mostly collect new armies in 54mm nowadays so I'm drifting into another niche... :-)

Mike
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: sukhe_bator on 04 October 2017, 12:41:39 PM
I haven't committed to a Mag for a year or so now. My interests are pretty niche so I've put it down to a dearth of material I like rather than anything else, but there do seem to be on the face of it a lot more skirmishy games featured - they seem to be more photogenic as well which would appeal more to an eye-candy orientated glossy publication...
It could be that the very logistics and scale of staging large scale battles demanding large surfaces generally devoid of scenery actually counts against them... Who has the space to stage such games except at conventions, club nights or in well appointed hobby rooms.
My Ratio of modelling/painting:gaming is probably 99:1. At best I can rustle up a 6' x 4' space for perhaps 1 day a year, but it takes me a couple of hours rummaging around all over the house and loft to find all the bits to stage a game.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: MartinR on 04 October 2017, 01:03:06 PM
I haven't bought a glossy Wargames magazine for years as they don't represent the sorts of things our gaming group or club do. As other people have pointed out, magazines can only publish the material they are sent, and tbh the Internet is a far richer space for inspiration these days, particularly the blogsphere.

Wargaming has always been a broad church, and I really don't care if some branches get more "publicity" than others. There are a few people at the club who do 28mm Skirmish, but by and large we do everything from 2mm to 54mm, little battles, big battles, land, sea, air and on a few glorious occasions, all three at once.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Captain Blood on 04 October 2017, 01:20:20 PM
Actually, I know from talking to Pete that Baccus are so busy they are struggling to cope with business (such as not being able to supply a USA distributor) - Pete's business is very healthy....

I think it is more a feeling, if you read the article and subsequent comments, that the magazines are drifting into their own niche of 28mm skirmish based wargaming and ceasing to cover big battle wargaming...

I don't have any opinions on this as I hardly read the magazines and mostly collect new armies in 54mm nowadays so I'm drifting into another niche... :-)

Mike


Well that's good news. Thanks Mike. I'm glad things are going well for him.

I haven't bought a wargames magazine for years either.  Given the ubiquity and advantages of the internet, I'm kind of amazed anyone still does to be honest.
But I don't think wargames magazines set the trends or the agenda. I think they just reflect what they see going on in the hobby they're part of. So don't really think the magazines can or should be 'blamed' for a lack of coverage of 6mm.
The reality is, popular or not, there are only a handful of wargames businesses making 6mm stuff - and hundreds making 28mm...
Presumably the proportions of people playing those scales is broadly equivalent. Because let's face it, if 6mm was that popular, presumably there would be dozens of manufacturers in that scale. But there aren't.
So I think the market, the magazines, the wagaming websites and forums are all just reflecting what wargamers are actually playing and modelling. I think they are mirroring interests in the market, not driving it. That's what's in their commercial interests.

If one is a huge fan of 6mm, I can see how this would be disappointing, but it seems to me it's not some kind of prejudice against the micro scales - it's just reflecting the reality?

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 04 October 2017, 02:26:32 PM
... just reflecting what wargamers are actually playing and modelling.

Or at the very least what they are writing about and submitting as articles to the wargaming press. Mr Berry has said as much himself and I think he's right.

I actually also agree with much of what he says, not least that the 28mm Big Battles I see at shows look quite cramped and with no room for manoeuvre; plus 24 figures is never really going to give the impression of a battalion of 500 or so men. It is one of the reasons I abandoned 'grand manner' gaming a long time ago; at least my piddling skirmishes look exactly like what they are meant to represent and I don't have the terrain-scale paradox to worry about.

What I can't understand (apart from that some folk simply don't have the space or cash - fair enough) is why so many small scale gamers are playing 6mm like they would 28mm; i.e. the same 24-ish figures (or even fewer) and a flag, still represents a battalion (or even a brigade in some cases) and the same total number of figures grace the typical, but smaller, table. As for DBA with its "these four figures are 250 men" - don't even go there.

If it was me, I'd probably be using 28mm rules and filling up each 28mm-size base with several 6mm figures instead of one 28mm one. Imagine a Lion Rampant '12 figure' unit represented by 12 bases-worth of 6mm figures. Six figures to a base perhaps? More? That's a unit of 72-100 figures - just one unit of five or six. Is that 'big battle' enough?

6mm looks really impressive to me in quantity, but otherwise usually looks like a 3D board game with fancy counters, or like a 28mm game but smaller.

None of the above has anything to do with my slavish adoration of 28mm. ;)   

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: fred on 04 October 2017, 04:07:08 PM


If it was me, I'd probably be using 28mm rules and filling up each 28mm-size base with several 6mm figures instead of one 28mm one. Imagine a Lion Rampant '12 figure' unit represented by 12 bases-worth of 6mm figures. Six figures to a base perhaps? More? That's a unit of 72-100 figures - just one unit of five or six. Is that 'big battle' enough?

We've done this.

We played lots of Kings of War with the 28mm unit footprints - but with loads of 10mm figures on a base.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/jC5lAh6GwSfBB4RuiTv2oTtShsBSUjWhw_lVcXtnrAX5VQ93lD52X8ADsSm-9SHyoYKoM11l5rJz30GXOyuJkGYaRi4yC9g5P7BF1a8fpNaTbaZ1NIn1rSMLGF_9yFQrS95E7v9gD6uT2Kz00gzA4-d6HGg8dFoJonO7M-ThNFgvCaS2qKBn6IqmpBArMYCowUcXH6NCWYddwBxtKe0GZZFMfnLLJ0yj1tzndeHaTuAfDcZby9soj66srgvMQnI5I_raNU0-SJKX7oPa6Ss3xh8-BptaJr-EbDEcCRXZXyoqBwI9pWpvwN192YehmlQp_TmF_nj7gOallc_bmPIpMS0MphRYM7JVk14DUi_7oltT0zd7tNQfpbiyNkbAZwdPaMC3Xt5N_vR9GMowC7N1xIBttWg8k3sXYhfS_2xQ3i2cDBtO66fh_BOk938g6gAW8f2sGR1Mvd2x8gHxfneM2UW1tibScYmHb9sayG9q2kZUkzKPQSY_F4RCqjTJM-H20Ra_MJ_w9Z6VOLqjWSB1n95sUk1tHHB_VEjEgmf4e3djkQaHIxMi5w1dDonjp_aSRyqjQQYdHLavb4BvOhs6wMwwqGvVJGiWlX8CNNX53g=w1200-h500-no)
So a cavalry regiment which would be 12 28mm figures is represented by approx 40 10mm figures, and an Infantry horde, I think about 40 28mm figures is represented by 6x7x4 figures which is about 170 infantry.

I did try a game of Dragon rampant using a single Warmaster base to represent 2 28mm figures, so about 4x the total figures involved.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/j4vHpz6F9FRZ32LIkBWJ580sj5WZGpncF290kLhbAdGrAlmKnodI4Nkjgoccfay6byv1WDHHRREBc5qn3B1nlETciVpxW4FHGhj7fENp6QxjvYNpz9MbDzbFvY5IBfS_N09Q0FaVrewP4TqvL9xUgegZi9ctX6nFjD2lNx2_dpdbd9uYd1HcGjWXu9EF1_JX4qcA1TbKE1JN-lXampRLDZNtOTAHWLk098WrjVB9J8DCLG54IQlo7JrqcyZDkjcO5wqcgABsehdUIST1MhLdLA8nMQ7qz3nlo7SGObFxWOQpSRgc0NeIm871-ZFc50EAGuonSQSkDa5Y_PTiKj5_hM9S95yxSEovcJ2xw1z7VlMpg8DRMOjmPEr7nKoOAGkc9az-kadXP07CsgMlk-T4-A5CVD75Tlms9AyIUgAfjPGnuk65jeM8sQe4YAyTk_xavm_8gfGrwFQeU9snZSgIP7FJtlS9BbzLSugpc6D2bNbUZply7bQC7WcFWWfnmgv0XwVX2cC4p3uzBXs8ZQsYkG5u8cQUWBIKoFlaamzDFZHOMHk1TziKJEz-_p_XKM3tU5hinz4xQ3UgocoRY13_dbMSsVMt8_wRaFrpkLbG11f4KaICOP0a6QMSYXTYLONRgqAGRTFthlYXpXqq8Ww6PAPWJe0S1lKgjSI=w1234-h786-no)
Which worked fine, and looks like a small battle rather than a scrap behind the bike sheds, but DR wasn't a set of rules for me.

I have also seen people doing similar for Dux Bellorum and Saga, basing several 10mm figures on a single base - the same as used by a 28mm figure, then playing exactly as written. Looks good.

I've even used 10mm to play Chain of Command - with all distances as written - this really does give you the feel of the empty battlefield, as the number of troops to overall battlefield space is tiny.

Ultimately it is important to remember this
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg)
That a photo of a game, isn't a game.

I find that once I am playing a game, you rapidly become involved in the game and the simplest of terrain rapidly becomes a battlefield. But this doesn't mean that I am always wanting to improve the look of the game - and have upgraded my terrain mat recently, and want to remake bases for my terrain so they look better in photos. But these are quite low priority over painting troops!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 04 October 2017, 05:10:21 PM
Those and the top one especially, look like 'battles', which is the strength of smaller scales to me.

Certainly the point about CoC played at near true scale (and perhaps Bolt Action in 6mm) should be taken on board too; I could throw a pistol and hit someone over the length of a real Sherman tank, but I risk being out of shooting range at the same distance on table with 28mm figures.

As much as I love them, 28mm players have to make a lot of 'allowances' for their chosen figure size when it comes to playing with them.

 ::)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: FramFramson on 04 October 2017, 08:03:41 PM
I think I'd go even further, and say that in 6mm the visual strengths completely flip from the figures to the terrain.

Take this with a grain of salt, as I have no personal experience with 6mm, but it seems to me that 6mm completely inverts the terrain vs minis trade-off dynamic of 28mm, and IMO maybe some of the alleged problems of 6mm may stem from a failure to recognize and/or embrace that.

In 28mm, the figures can be very satisfyingly detailed and characterful, but terrain and vehicles are forced to be "foreshortened" in scale due to practical space limits. Even with the forshortening, terrain has to be big in a way that for many people forces detail to be sparse and simplified in order to be time/money efficient. This results in buildings and the like which often do not match the visual weight, density, and verisimilitude of the minis.

In 6mm, the opposite is true: figures are so small that they cannot be easily detailed, realistically proportioned, or individual, but the terrain can easily be decompressed into realistic proportions and sprawl, at a size that allows for detail of the same density of that of the figures to look much more "real" than on the figures, AND to be simpler to execute for a given scale detail than in 28mm.

So my instinct would be that when getting into 6mm gaming, the "visual appeal" focus should be on the terrain rather than the figures. Imagine, say, the city of Mordheim realized in 28mm (or 35, as the case may be), vs 6mm. In 28, you'd be dealing with a handful of individual compressed-scale buildings on a printed or textured mat. But in 6mm, you could do an entire district of the city in true scale, working in modules of blocks rather than buildings. You could easily play games on museum-style replicas of cities or landscapes.

The intent would not be to be cheaper than 28mm, rather you'd take the time and money and ambition you'd spend on the figures in 28mm, and in 6mm spend it on the terrain instead. Likewise, when you showcase 6mm stuff to hype the scale, you'd focus on impressively rendered settings before impressively rendered figures.

This is just the way it seems to me, and maybe I'm weird, but when I see pics like the one Fred posted on the first page, I feel like people are completely barking up the wrong tree by executing and deploying terrain pieces in 6mm the same way they do in 28mm. The philosophy of it feels backward to me, like they're inadvertently getting the worst of both worlds. 28mm knows it's visual strengths and plays to them, while 6mm is handicapping itself trying to play to 28mm's strengths instead of its own.

I feel like as long as 6mm is thought of as being defined by the figures the way larger scales are, it'll always be at a disadvantage in terms of visual appeal. 6mm's native strength is the terrain.

This is all about the aesthetic angle, of course. It's tempting at first thought to believe it's natural to focus on the figures since "it's the figures that really matter, the terrain is an extra", but this is actually false when you think it through. Gameplay-wise it makes absolutely no difference which you focus on aesthetically, since either or both can be reduced to cardboard cutout markers without effecting the pure game.

Considering the stuff 6milphil posts (which is great, and I'm surprised he hasn't weighed in on this thread yet), I think this is absolutely spot on.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Jabba on 06 November 2017, 03:22:29 PM
Does this qualify?
(https://i.imgur.com/MVSe744.jpg)

Waterloo, 28mm, Shako II

Lots more pics at

Waterloo 1pm-4pm (https://facebook.com/pg/New-Buckenham-Historical-Wargamers-302874659765417/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1736670633052472)
Waterloo 4pm-7pm (https://facebook.com/pg/New-Buckenham-Historical-Wargamers-302874659765417/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1737482372971298)
Waterloo 7pm-8.30pm (https://facebook.com/pg/New-Buckenham-Historical-Wargamers-302874659765417/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1740488462670689)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: lord marcus on 03 December 2017, 01:27:51 AM
I play 6mm and 3mm but wouldn't bother posting on here to be honest about micro wargaming, there are other forums and groups that are based around these scales that I follow for news and eye candy.

Which forums do you reckon?
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 03 December 2017, 08:59:40 AM
Which forums do you reckon?


I am on three different ones on Facebook, that cover 6mm and 3mm, TMP has a board for Napoleonic 6mm plus you do see other 6mm stuff posted on there also. Facebook is not everyones cup of tea but the amount of wargaming stuff on there is amazing. :)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: thenamelessdead on 03 December 2017, 02:46:35 PM
These days I would avoid playing big games in 28mm. Perhaps a small 40k game at most. Even my current dungeon project is 15mm for the sheer cheapness, ease and without significant loss of character.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: lord marcus on 03 December 2017, 10:11:50 PM
Whelp, I'll just have to Revitalize this forums 6mm fascination. To my elven legions!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 04 December 2017, 08:52:59 AM
Whelp, I'll just have to Revitalize this forums 6mm fascination. To my elven legions!

Huzzah!!! :)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: A Lot of Gaul on 04 December 2017, 09:23:10 AM
All of my wargames are'big battles' with around 150-250 18mm models per side. But IMHO the recent overall trend has definitely been toward skirmish gaming with 28mm figures, most likely for the economic and entry-point reasons given above. For some evidence, just view the "Post a picture of the last game you played!" thread in this forum.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Hobgoblin on 04 December 2017, 01:47:24 PM
Ultimately it is important to remember this
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b9/MagrittePipe.jpg)
That a photo of a game, isn't a game.

I find that once I am playing a game, you rapidly become involved in the game and the simplest of terrain rapidly becomes a battlefield. But this doesn't mean that I am always wanting to improve the look of the game - and have upgraded my terrain mat recently, and want to remake bases for my terrain so they look better in photos. But these are quite low priority over painting troops!

I think this is a hugely important point. And it's why I think that games with a very abstract figure scale work just fine. I really like Hordes of the Things (I've never played any of the other DBx games - I gather that they're almost identical mechanically but somehow different spiritually). And it always feels like a 'big battle' to me, regardless of the fact that there might be just 20 to 30 figures on each side.

One thing I do struggle to understand is why 15mm, rather than 28mm, predominates in the DBx family. You only need 3' square for a 28mm game, so a dinner table does the job amply. And not only is the visual appeal of a 28mm HotT army greater, but the fiddliness is much reduced. That applies both to painting and playing - the latter particularly important in a game so measurement dependent.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: jambo1 on 04 December 2017, 01:57:26 PM
I agree with that, I would play DBA or HOTT but only in 28mm :)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Connectamabob on 05 December 2017, 12:37:43 AM
This thread has me wanting to try an experiment. I want to actually try flipping the figures/terrain dynamic like I mentioned before. I think it should be possible to play a game of Frostgrave in 6mm using the 28mm rules ( rescale the board, but keep the measurements for movement and such the same). On a pure gameplay level, it should work exactly the same, the only difference would be aesthetic.

On the aesthetic level, The visual weight would be inverted. Figures would be easy and cheap; I could even just use colored pins (on the theory that this would be the conceptual inverse of using a painted shoebox as a building). The terrain could be squares of pink foam with buildings made of clay or small carved blocks of foam. At that scale, the time it would take to build and paint a building would be similar to the time it would take to build and paint a figure. A single 2'x2' board would be all that's needed. This would take some time to build, but if one is essentially replacing the time one would spend on minis instead of adding to it, that could be a wash.

The gist of the experiment would be to test whether player immersion would naturally shift to key off the terrain instead of the minis, or if players would find it unimmersive no matter how well developed the terrain was if the figures were no longer the aesthetic focus.

My premise is that people are used to thinking of terrain as an afterthought to the minis, when in practical reality both are equally cosmetic. If I can make the 6mm terrain as visually immersive as 28mm minis (or more so), then immersion should work just as well even if the 6mm minis are only as immersive as "shoebox" 28mm terrain.

Main objection I foresee is that minis may represent characters as much as abstract units in the players' minds, and thus benefit from having more of a metaphorical "face". My proposed counterarguments are that A) places can be characters too, and B) most minis actually represent interchangeable rank and file "mooks", with only "heroes" (wizards, apprentices, and captains in Frostgrave's case) being characters.

I postulate that if the setting is deliberately approached as a character during design/construction, and if the character-ness of the hero minis can be offloaded to say, character sheet/card art, the game will be just as immersive in 6mm as in 28mm.

Additional Postulate: I think this will require a more specific approach to how terrain is designed and constructed. I suspect the level of perceived integration between terrain pieces and the board will have as large an impact if not larger than the level of detail present in the individual terrain pieces. In order to give the impression of place-as-character the board must be designed wholistically, or at least the method of modularity must be chosen so as to produce boards indistinguishable at a glance from wholistically designed boards. I will get more into detail on that if/when I start a thread for this experiment.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Lowtardog on 05 December 2017, 08:15:36 AM
Jesus wept, it`s bleeding toys if he has an issue or if indeed others have issues make your own magazines, create your own forums. It is a broad church . A magazine is a visual luxury, seeing tiny little metal men no matter how good will not have the same eye candy [pop that well painted 28mm would have. Someone earlier mentioned the terrain becomes the eye candy and I think it is right, how many demo games still see a flat cloth or table on 6mm games, the nature of creating the big battalions with 6mm lead to limitation owing to the base. There are the exceptions that prove the rule and quantity has a quality of its own however isn`t going to make me buy the figures.

I did have a 6mm WW2 panzer division, loved spearhead but could not face painting base after base of minis even though they ere Adler and quite detailed from memory. For me gets to the point where they may as well be counters, and board game or if anyone remembers armies made from Hair rollers :-* lol

Vive la Difference :)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Connectamabob on 05 December 2017, 02:28:26 PM
Responding more directly to the article, I definitely think he's barking up the wrong shed in blaming the magazine editors. Like others here, I find magazines in general to be a vestigial organ. These magazine aren't being read by hardly anyone anymore, regardless of scale preference. They simply don't have the influence to be driving trends of any sort.

If I were to speculate anyone was deliberately steering a 28mm trend, it would be figure manufacturers or vendors, not media. Figures are more granular than terrain: easier to sell more of, regardless of scale. Larger scales mean figures that offer more eye candy, and thus sell themselves better to people browsing raw blister packs. 6mm is so small that I can actually realistically imagine many people not wanting to pay money for manufactured figures at all, even if they like the scale for other reasons. Might just as well use map pins, or clip the ends off toothpicks and paint those. So vendors and manufacturers might have an incentive to favor 28mm stock, which in turn would corral new player exposure.

And on the player community's end, there's more and more people these days who are into the hobby just for the gameplay, and have either no interest in or an active distaste for the modeling side of it. "Grey legions" on bare green felt are commonplace, and prepainted minis are an increasing segment of the market. This does not mean these people don't want their games to look good, however, it just means they have no desire to DIY the cosmetics. For these people, larger figures have at least the advantage of attractive sculpting. 6mm figures, by contrast, offer little visual appeal to this demographic. If you think grey legions on plain felt look dry in 28mm, try imagining it in 6mm. And a squad of figures sharing a single base is going to function the same as a single figure on the mechanical level anyway, especially on an empty field, so given a choice between equally good rulesets, the one with the cooler looking minis will have the advantage, regardless of the alleged battlefield scale.

A I mentioned before, I think the aesthetic strength of 6mm is in the terrain not the figures, but this maybe brings up another issue: younger gamers are going to be more open to video games and mixing digital media with traditional systems. There's a popular PC "game" called "Tabletop Simulator" that's basically an open ended toolbox for playing tabletop miniature games in a digital space. You can even DIY your own figures and terrain for it, just like you would with a real world tabletop game. Why does that impact 6mm more than 28mm? Because the advantage of 6mm is battlefield scale, and the virtual tabletop does that much better, wheres the advantage of 28mm is figure detail, which the digital tabletop only does more or less equally.

None of which is to say that 6mm is "lesser" or that people who like it are lesser for liking it. Just that there are IMO plausible real world reasons why it could be less high profile than it used to be, and that has nothing to do with magazines. TBH, blaming magazines seems like a bit of a scapegoat, in that it allows one to frame a perceived decline as having a single source with a totally arbitrary motive, rather than something broader and with maybe more legitimate causes.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: N.C.S.E on 05 December 2017, 04:15:04 PM
Interesting comments Connect.

I'd suggest as well that the elephant in the room (Games Workshop) has made 28mm (or close to it - what are they? 30 - 32mm now or something?) the "default" scale. Everyone (everyone new anyway) starts on it and many people stick with GW for the majority of their gaming career. Thus the scale and techniques for it become so familiar that any movement out of it into a different scale is an uncomfortable leap (where's my paintable eyes? do I really have to brighten my colours to get the figures to look right? etc, etc).  Flames of War is about the only relatively popular game that doesn't use 28mm. The others more than likely piggy back in some respects on GW's hold upon the market.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: lord marcus on 05 December 2017, 04:22:08 PM
Interesting comments Connect.

I'd suggest as well that the elephant in the room (Games Workshop) has made 28mm (or close to it - what are they? 30 - 32mm now or something?) the "default" scale. Everyone (everyone new anyway) starts on it and many people stick with GW for the majority of their gaming career. Thus the scale and techniques for it become so familiar that any movement out of it into a different scale is an uncomfortable leap (where's my paintable eyes? do I really have to brighten my colours to get the figures to look right? etc, etc).  Flames of War is about the only relatively popular game that doesn't use 28mm. The others more than likely piggy back in some respects on GW's hold upon the market.

Some of microworld 6mm stuff is inspired by gw design. I can certainly see the piggybacking aspect
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Kommando_J on 06 December 2017, 06:08:37 AM
Interesting comments Connect.

I'd suggest as well that the elephant in the room (Games Workshop) has made 28mm (or close to it - what are they? 30 - 32mm now or something?) the "default" scale. Everyone (everyone new anyway) starts on it and many people stick with GW for the majority of their gaming career. Thus the scale and techniques for it become so familiar that any movement out of it into a different scale is an uncomfortable leap (where's my paintable eyes? do I really have to brighten my colours to get the figures to look right? etc, etc).  Flames of War is about the only relatively popular game that doesn't use 28mm. The others more than likely piggy back in some respects on GW's hold upon the market.

An interesting insight and to extrapolate on it paired with connectamabobs comments, one weakness I find related to magazines (that GW can alleviate through WD) is that with so much diversity in terms of periods/manufacturers/genres that no magazine could cover even a fraction...and by trying to appeal to many they end up appealing to few.

To elaborate, take the latest WI which was about cavalry, cavalry and the periods most commonly associated with it are of no real interest to may, I almost didn't buy it, something I have done in the past.

To put things another way, GW has raised the bar with expectations so that once you leave it you find that many popular scales/periods don't have a fraction of the support GW and its 32mm have.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: eilif on 07 December 2017, 09:30:01 PM
Interesting comments Connect.

I'd suggest as well that the elephant in the room (Games Workshop) has made 28mm (or close to it - what are they? 30 - 32mm now or something?) the "default" scale. Everyone (everyone new anyway) starts on it and many people stick with GW for the majority of their gaming career. Thus the scale and techniques for it become so familiar that any movement out of it into a different scale is an uncomfortable leap (where's my paintable eyes? do I really have to brighten my colours to get the figures to look right? etc, etc).  Flames of War is about the only relatively popular game that doesn't use 28mm. The others more than likely piggy back in some respects on GW's hold upon the market.
In addition to being comfortable with the scale after experiencing GW, I don't think you can discount the value of a terrain collection in keeping folks from switching scales.  Some terrain is multiscale, but most is optimized for one scale. Once you build a table full of 28mm stuff do you really want to switch scales?  I dabble in 10mm and have built some terrain for it but I did start with GW and 28mm.  Though I've not played a current GW game for several years I've got so much time invested in building 28mm terrain that I forsee it being my main -and nearly only- scale for a long time.

I realize that my biggest KoW battles in 28mm might just be a small engagement compared to a 6mm game, but I haven't the will or desire to swtich.  That said, if I was starting from scratch, 15 or 10mm would be awfully tempting!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 07 December 2017, 11:32:24 PM
You can't really blame GW, the original wargaming scale was 30mm before new-fangled 25mm figures came along. These became 28s in time.

Before GW appeared 6mm was largely the preserve of a relatively small number of micro-armour gamers; its relative increase in 6mm popularity across a number of periods came after GW became established; I'm not even sure the two were connected.

GW's impact was on 25mm if anything and raised the bar as regards battlefield terrain and the sculpting/painting of miniatures. Okay perhaps a drift to 15mm/6mm may have resulted from increased miniature prices, or from those wishing to project something that actually looked like a real battle, but I don't see how the Evil Empire stifled 6mm in any way.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: sukhe_bator on 08 December 2017, 08:55:40 AM
Before GW appeared 6mm was largely the preserve of a relatively small number of micro-armour gamers; its relative increase in 6mm popularity across a number of periods came after GW became established; I'm not even sure the two were connected.
I'd agree with Arlequin, when I took up gaming in the late 70's, 6mm was the province of Kriegspeil types who liked the more strategic and bird's eye aspects of using small figures, or for Micro armour devotees. I had a couple of friends at UNI who liked the relative cheapness. I found this too impersonal and headache-inducing. I could never see the appeal personally, and at SELWG a few years ago there was a 6mm WWII game that was more like 'Where's Wally' or 'Spot the Ball'. Personally I could never go smaller than 15mm. As far as I was aware GW never got their claws into the 6mm fraternity to any great degree.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: N.C.S.E on 08 December 2017, 09:13:53 AM
I'm a young guy so I cannot comment on what was happening in the 70s and 80s. :P

But the uptake of microscales remains an ongoing process - one that I'd suggest the preeminence of 28mm as being the one and only scale for the big names does nothing to help interest in big battles.

Plus - it behooves one to blame all the hobby's ills on GW!
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: voltan on 08 December 2017, 12:21:59 PM

GW's impact was on 25mm if anything and raised the bar as regards battlefield terrain and the sculpting/painting of miniatures. Okay perhaps a drift to 15mm/6mm may have resulted from increased miniature prices, or from those wishing to project something that actually looked like a real battle, but I don't see how the Evil Empire stifled 6mm in any way.
Adeptus titanicus/space marine/epic could even be said to have encouraged people into 6mm.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: sukhe_bator on 08 December 2017, 04:25:43 PM
The only micro-armour I engaged in was Steve Jackson's 'Ogre' and 'GEV' (1977-) which I morphed with Jerry Pournelle's 'Future History' using C20 proxies for the armoured vehicles.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: MartinR on 08 December 2017, 07:56:27 PM
I binned (or at least, put in boxes), all my 20mm stuff in the mid 1970s and switched to 6mm for moderns, ww2 and Napoleonics. Stuck with that until the late 90s when I started getting 15mm stuff. Now I have a healthy range of scales from 2mm to 54mm:)

As for what the magazines print, they only print the articles that people write. There isn't some great conspiracy to force people to play with toy soldiers 'the right way'.




Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: JamesValentine on 18 December 2017, 11:28:23 AM
I no longer have a interest in large games. I used up all that in 40k.
I'd rather buy a box or two of 30-40 28mm models. make 2 small forces and play with that instead.
as much as I love the look of big games of Napoleonic or huge WWII games...I don;t have the time, space or patience.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Norm on 21 December 2017, 08:45:54 AM
I saw figures recently that suggested magazine circulation for the 'main three' was between 8000 and 11000 copies with memberships probably standing at just below 10% of sales. If those figures are true, then circulations must be at the lower end of viability, which is a worry to someone like me who buys them .... mostly because I always have.

The point about content is true. Firstly people have to write for the magazine and by their nature, magazines may only offer a couple of articles that really interest, while the rest of the content can feel so-so. This is because the internet has spoiled us, you can run a blog and get instant publishing gratification (but no money) by putting your article up. The browser can select bloggers who match their own interests and by way of a feed, you can sit down and absorb a magazines worth of content every night ...... though browsers rarely seem to say thank you etc for the work done by others, at least if you write o a magazine, someone pays you your worth as recognition.

Anyway,  it is probably true as stated, magazines are no longer drivers in the way that the internet is and they do need eye candy, but then so does the internet.

I wonder whether over time, as a society we have become more inclined to instant gratification and less inclined to put the hard slog in. I can put a computer game up and not even read the rule manual to start playing, I just feel my way along and if I like it, then I will dig into the rules. We don't spend hours building model kits (yes I know some of us do) and there are now a number of companies that do specific plastic wargame kits that have say just 10 - 15 game parts, because we are just no longer inclined to put in all the work needed to do it the good old fashioned way. Big battles needs a lot of work, there are now so many good looking 'lets make it easy for you' game systems that these just seem to tie into our more modern way of getting to the end point, and a new generation for which this is normal, that it seems inevitable that there will be fewer big battle tables in your magazine or at your show.

But fear not, if you like big battles, you can still play them! it doesn't particularly matter what the trend is.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 21 December 2017, 11:22:45 PM
... at least if you write o a magazine, someone pays you your worth as recognition.

Actually they don't, they pay way below the 'industry average' per word. So far in fact that if it was expressed as an hourly wage rate it would be illegal, especially if the article required any actual research 'off the clock'.

It's nice to see your name in print and the cash (when you eventually get it, often after months of pestering) provides a bit of pocket money. As they rely wholly on submitted articles though, it's by no means an expression of your worth. A magazine makes money off its readers and exploits its writers.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Norm on 22 December 2017, 01:15:39 PM
I have written a few times for Miniature Wargames. Their payment was super promt. I got £20 a page under Henry Hyde, but that has since dropped to £15 a page under the new editor (not his decision I would imagine).

By value / worth, I was making the comparison with blog writing, for which one is largely taken for granted.

My most recent piece on my blog is a fairly substantial piece of work, it is over 5000 words long and as of this moment it has had 1309 visitors, of which 10 have left a comment! If I compare that to getting £45 - £60 from a magazine, then the latter feels the more rewarding / appreciated etc, especially as it takes the same amount of time to write and prepare photographs for both formats.

My most popular post has had close to 12,000 visits ....... it has just 15 comments. i.e. on a post that took me several days to write, only 15 people could be bothered to throw on a line or two of comment (or what is otherwise known as encouragement in any other language). 
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Captain Blood on 22 December 2017, 02:26:41 PM
I wonder whether over time, as a society we have become more inclined to instant gratification and less inclined to put the hard slog in.

I think it's a racing cert. Many wargamers have been conditioned to crave off-the-shelf systems / rules / figures / packages that involve the minimum of creative effort or original thought on their part, and which give an instant way into a new gaming genre.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Plynkes on 22 December 2017, 03:40:05 PM
You say that like it's a bad thing.  ;)  I'm not so sure it is entirely pertinent to the big battle discussion, though. Tangentially, yes, but not on the nose of the point.

For you can (and they do) do big battling with an all-encompassing Warhammer-style "spoon fed" system just the same as one where you researched, wrote and self-published the history of the conflict yourself, designed the rules, sculpted and cast all the figures and hand-built all the terrain.*






*I was going to add "started the war yourself by assassinating a passing archduke" but I thought that might be labouring the point a bit.  lol




Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: nic-e on 22 December 2017, 04:49:11 PM


I wonder whether over time, as a society we have become more inclined to instant gratification and less inclined to put the hard slog in. I can put a computer game up and not even read the rule manual to start playing, I just feel my way along and if I like it ect ect....

Not to dismiss this argument, But plato said the same thing about books, claiming that they made people too lazy to remember things.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 22 December 2017, 05:57:55 PM
Their payment was super promt. I got £20 a page under Henry Hyde, but that has since dropped to £15 a page under the new editor (not his decision I would imagine).

By value / worth, I was making the comparison with blog writing, for which one is largely taken for granted.  

The NUJ guidelines for a small circulation magazine are £250 per thousand words (apx two pages), with £140 per day for original research (i.e. not plagiarising secondary and tertiary sources). Okay many write for far less than that, but not as low as £30-40 per thousand words.

If the rate is far below what you would need if you did it full-time as your main income, then you are being exploited.

But anyway, this has little to do with big battling.

For you can (and they do) do big battling with an all-encompassing Warhammer-style "spoon fed" system ...

I seem to recall Evil Corp tried that, but only the parsimonius established players, who maybe bought one new mini a year* took it up. The oxygen-bearing new gamers generally found the entry cost of buying an actual 'big battle army' from scratch way too high.

* Okay maybe some bought two a year, but you know what I mean.  ;)
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Gibby on 22 December 2017, 06:01:10 PM
I think that we tabletop gamers have been getting more lazy (myself included, to be sure) in recent years when it comes to rules as much as with pursuing creative and original thoughts with miniatures. The desire for simplicity in wargame rules has become a bit of a defining standard in many peoples' minds to the point where I sometimes think people are happier creating beautiful dioramas that they can push models around and roll dice for, with only a passing nod to the flavour or feel of the period being depicted (whether historical or fantasy). I think that [small scale] skirmish games by their very nature are way more tolerant of this, whereas "Big Battle" games often require a deeper level of simulation and nuance to provide the correct period flavour to feel "right". That, combined with the more "instant gratification" habits of our culture today, possibly steers people away from "Big Battling" even before considering the work that goes into painting hordes of figures.

For the record, I'm not saying that simplicity automatically robs a game of period flavour or narrative drama. But when some of the most popular rulesets on the market are just reskinned versions of the same basic engine and yet seek to bring forth the right feel with minimum effort on the part of the designer, I have to wonder if Big Battles nowadays just require too much effort on the part of both the creators and the consumers to meaningfully compete with the small scale, skirmishy games that are in ascendency.

Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: Arlequín on 22 December 2017, 06:10:14 PM
Agreed and indeed, you could pick up virtually any set of historical big battle rules and some appropriately sized painted wooden blocks and call it whichever period you like.

Figures are more visually attractive of course, but you really could use a pencil to cross out and replace terms to alter a number of 'period-specific' rule sets to another.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: FierceKitty on 26 December 2017, 05:13:46 PM
I'll just stick in that I've downscaled in the last decade to 10mm, and with the exception of WWI air combat I never play with fewer than 200 figures a side (that's a very small one, mind you). I am far-sighted and arthritic, and manage to paint a lot of detail (better than the Airfix figures I also suffered with in my salad days), producing spectacles which the seven regular gamers we have in my little group (representing four continents, since our token Aussie went home) all find very rewarding.

In short, I nail my colours to the mast as a big battles gamer, and I don't think I'm the last of my species. I'd say larger figure scales are for RPGs, and (given how many armies I have, from NKE to western desert) for millionaires. And good luck to them; the world is big enough for all of our tastes.
Title: Re: Is Nobody Big Battling Anymore?
Post by: syrinx0 on 28 December 2017, 07:54:26 PM
My gaming group still puts on some big battles in 28mm but they are fewer.  Our largest 28mm collection by far is WWII figures. We often have had large engagements with hundreds of figures a side.

Earlier this year it was around 700 ancient greeks in an all day grinder, followed by a Dacian vs Roman campaign with about 400 figures in several battles. 

Last big GW 40K Armageddon battle was in 2016 and had several hundred IG alone on table (plus tanks) vs over 200 eldar with Titans. To Arlequin's point, I spend quite a bit in terrain as well as on their new books. Being an IG collector there really has not been a lot to get from GW lately as they are obsessed with boring marines of various flavors. I have to admit though most of the others are not adding anything to their GW collections.

Only problem with these big games is the setup and duration of the game.  With fewer people in our club now days and the kids off at college, it is hard to get enough guys who can commit to play large games.