Inches or centimetres

[Dolnikan]

One thing that I've always found striking about wargames in general is that a vast majority of them uses inches, even if that's not the measurement system most gamers actually use in their day to day life. The historical reasons for that make sense, but it does make me wonder, what do people here think about using inches, and would there be advantages to a game using centimetres (except for tape measures in some countries being easier/harder to find)?

And, of course, what do you all prefer?

[Ogrob]

You know I don't think I've ever played a wargame that used centimeters. In fact I learned what an inch was from wargaming.

At this point I am pretty happy to keep on using inches, if nothing else because it feels like proper wargaming. It would take some getting used to having centimeters instead. I think tape measures with inches on them might be becoming rarer and rarer, so switching over would have that advantage, but no big deal really, would just create a market for wargaming tape measures.

[Will Bailie]

Here in Canada, we switch between inches and cm quite often.  Most of my tape measures are marked in both.  Most if not all my gaming has been in inches, but I would not have any problem with games in cm, and often rulesets will suggest switching to cm measures if using smaller scale figures or if necessary to fit a game onto a smaller table.

There are of course some popular rulesets that prefer to use bespoke measuring sticks, that are not specifically Metric or Imperial, but rather an arbitrary distance in units such as basewidths!

[sultanbev]

I've been used to mixing units of measurements since the 1980s. I'll do tank speeds in kmh, vehicle weight in tons, armour in cm, ranges in metres, aircraft speed in mph, but range in km., wing loading in pounds per square inch, gun calibres in mm, etc.

And this extends to the wargames table. For our 10-28mm Napoleonics and colonial we use inches, but base the models in metric sized bases - for tank battles I use 1mm = 1m ground scale so measure everything in mm, so it's easy to read of a distance of 350mm as 350 metres for the gunnery charts. And then sometimes call it yards! But I do the vehicle speeds in cm, as this relates to 1cm per 1kmh of real world speed.

Confused yet? Arrrgh

[Mammoth miniatures]

I write all my rules using CM. I also remember the games workshop lord of the rings system provided rules for using both inches and CM and inquisitor used yards, then told you to decide how big a yard was (which is kind of great now I think about it).
to be honest I haven't really found a system where the unit can't be swapped, Very few of them use half inches or MM.

[Codsticker]

... inquisitor used yards, then told you to decide how big a yard was (which is kind of great now I think about it).

That sounds quite innovative...

[Sparrow]

For many years I’ve played games with the same rules opting to use inches for 28mm (25mm) and cm for 15mm. It just, sort of, worked for me. (I’m sure I had very profound and clever reasons for doing this when I started but these  are, now, largely forgotten!).

[Elbows]

As an American I obviously use inches - and from a wargaming perspective they tend to make more sense.  All that CM's offer is a tiny bit more granularity which is generally not necessary at the scales in which we wargame.  I do like that you can scale games (as the poster above said) by converting inches to CM's etc.  That is a convenient trick that myself and others have often used.

[levied troop]

Been using either imperial or metric and quite often both together (most MDF base sizes are metric) without a problem.

DBA/DBM uses ‘paces’ defined as a standard 50 paces = 40mm in 25mm scale. Or 25mm or 1 inch for 15mm scale.

Are there any tape measures being made solely in imperial these days?

[FierceKitty]

One syllable against four. That's my deciding consideration.

[fred]

I’ve played games that use inches and ones that use centimetres.

Most games that use centimetres tend to use 5cm or 10cm bands, so are very easy to translate to inches.

For bases I nearly always use millimetres, things like 1 3/8th inches mean nothing to me - despite me often using “2 inches” as a colloquial unit of measure.

 

[Yankeepedlar01]

Being one of the vintage who learned all those quaint measures on the back cover of school exercise books - chains, furlongs, rods, poles, perches and the like - I think and game in inches/feet.

[mmcv]

I tend to work with cm, though as mentioned most rules give both or can be easily converted as said elsewhere. I do a lot of smaller-scale gaming and often scale table sizes down so either convert inches to cm, or come up with some sort of appropriate ratio based on whatever the standard measurement of the game is. I had a sheet stuck in the back of one book for a bit when I had a medium-sized table that had cm distances and ranges worked out as around 2/3 of the standard movement inches as that was just about right for the table size. Think it worked out nicely into bands of 5cm which are easy to remember and work with. I only really use feet and inches for people's heights colloquially.

One syllable against four. That's my deciding consideration.

Ah but 2 letters again four for writing...

[SpaceCudet]

For many years I’ve played games with the same rules opting to use inches for 28mm (25mm) and cm for 15mm. It just, sort of, worked for me. (I’m sure I had very profound and clever reasons for doing this when I started but these  are, now, largely forgotten!).

Back in the day, the stats for Space Marine (Epic) were basically the same as 40k but in cm instead of inches. Also, Command Decision used inches for 1/72 minis and, optionally, cm for 6mm.

While the metric system is great for science and engineering, I find feet and inches just more intuitive for everyday measurements. A 6' x 4' table is so much better than a 180cm x 120cm one

[Captain Blood]

Cubits.