Developing a 15mm collection (for playtesting)

[EZPAINTER]

Hey all, i've began developing a small 15mm collection for our new game which is shooty based. We will share game design updates as they come.

We are using 15mm WW2 to playtest (to start with) then we'll trial it with gangsters and some other types to. I've began with a small german "army" and a small american one, i've tried to include as many special weapons as the kits i've bought came with (a few different manafacturers) and since our game is designed to played in a small space with a small amount of men we decided to hand pick our favorite sculpts and not build entire platoons. As mentioned in the game design thread we're not really going to historical accuracy, but rather hollywood style (to use a term, but i guess we note that we're generally avoiding precision). This means we can build "squads" up to fifteen or so miniatures with our own preferred mix of miniatures including either multiple gun teams or heavy weapons as preferred and allowed by our points balancing system.

The germans so far:



The americans so far:



And i've started some hedges for the game. I aim to fill the board with vaguely european WW2 themed terrain and i can't wait to get it all on the table and get playtesting in physical format since we're mostly playtesting digitally right now.





If you have any good links for 15mm stuff, opinions on existing games that might be helpful or even pointers on what exatly appeals to you about "squad level" games, let me know, i'd be super interested to hear.

Kind Regards

Arthur

www.wickedwargames.weebly.com

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Your hedges are excellent! I automatically want to tell you that you need more but you did say you were aiming to start playing using small table size. 15mm is charming, big enough to be characterful and small enough to be practical to own/store and can be played on a coffee table.

BALM

[fred]

I do think single based 15mm figures are a good choice for WWII small unit actions. You can pretty much go with a ground scale that matches figure scale, so things look right.

If you can base a bit smaller (looks like you are using 1p coins, so about 20mm) that would be no bad thing - then the figures can get closer to terrain etc.

Forged In Battle are worth a look for figures, and Plastic Solider Company are great for vehicles

[EZPAINTER]

@beneath a lead mountain - Yeah the hedges did come out very cute, i am even considering changing my roleplaying set up to 15mm. They where so easy to make and finish. I'll post more pics later.

I do think single based 15mm figures are a good choice for WWII small unit actions. You can pretty much go with a ground scale that matches figure scale, so things look right.

If you can base a bit smaller (looks like you are using 1p coins, so about 20mm) that would be no bad thing - then the figures can get closer to terrain etc.

Forged In Battle are worth a look for figures, and Plastic Solider Company are great for vehicles

Agreed on the basing but before we changed the rules (early developmental choice) to use 15mm exclusively we where thinking of a universal basing size for all scales. I think a good game is a good game and i reckon people will scale it up if they want. As per these guys i think maybe i'll think about that in the future but for now the pennies are very strudy (and plentiful as i work as a street performer in my other job).

[fred]

The cheapness and strength of 1p bases can’t be beaten!

I do sometimes buy 20mm and 25mm MDF bases - and have to convince myself too each time, as they cost way more than coppers!

[EZPAINTER]

The cheapness and strength of 1p bases can’t be beaten!

I do sometimes buy 20mm and 25mm MDF bases - and have to convince myself too each time, as they cost way more than coppers!

indeed, it's occoured to me that they magnetic to! which works for an idea i have for "battle in a box" transportation for taking this to clubs and conventions.

I should say though i do love a sturdy mdf base.

[EZPAINTER]

Updates! So last night inspiration struck and we decided to commit (for now) to a smaler board, at this thought i decided to grab some scrap wood and made a little playtest board to use with the hedges which i also finished. I added some germans and some trees i have from a big bag of trees i got from china for a few pics.



I put borders on it for the game cards to sit in, to make tactical planning easier and make it so that people don't need to hold their cards.








I also did some work on the americans for the playtests.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

That’s looking excellent. I really love my 15mm chaps and I’m trying to break/diminish my love for my 30yr old 28mm collection of Sci-Fi as there’s so much more space and possibility in the smaller scale (if I need a model that I can’t find anywhere then sculpting or converting a replacement is relatively quick and simple generally) and the quality can be very good.

My 15mm WW2 are based on - I think - 16mm M4 washers (little bit of masking tape over the hole, good gorilla superglue and sand bond the miniature to the base. If it does fail usually the miniature and base top come away clean as one and can be instantly reattached (only happened twice when dropped from great height). They are stable, stand well in teddy bear fur terrain and on hills, can fit together and in small spaces well. My newest 15mm is AWI and they’re based on mdf of similar proportions (but they’ll mainly be in matching movement trays).

Good to see you’re making progress, definitely need to pencil in some hard cover like walls to the build list. It’s always very pleasing when you start to make a proper little piece of a world/setting, everything’s painted and the games always feel so much more immersive to me.

Keep up the good work,
BALM

[EZPAINTER]

Hey all, a few updates on the ww2 game. I bought some tiny jenga blocks (like the smallest!) and i made some easy spray painted walls for barricades and to add some variance to the types of cover as the game destinguishes between "breakability" of a piece of cover. I also finished the amercians and dug out some 10mm buildings i had from ages ago that work as placeholders for the the buildings for playtesting right now.

You can see the new walls here:



And a bird eye view of next weeks playtest layout properly, we're going to play a kind of capture and hold objective in the village, perhaps the orchard:



The germans with heavy machine gun, mortar and flame thrower:



The americans with heavy machine gun, sniper and mortar:





We'll move back to the smaller playtest board when we've established the rules a bit better and maye just for quick dinner table skirmishes etc.




More updates soon.

[manic _miner]

 That is a great little board and set of miniatures and terrain.

[EZPAINTER]

Hey bud cheers, i reallyu enjoy this project, the game is immensly fun, i playested it against my non gamer friend and he had a blast, at one point he actually ran around the room when my flame thrower managed to miss his two command figures and he emulated ducking behind the boxes and then running with joy. It was funny. And the game bought a real feel of energy and flow to us. Lots of games fail that, i am super proud.
Some pics from the game (not a battle report, we where playing to fast to keep track but some narratives):



The sniper on the americans side, a secret best character in the game, sneaking about and sniping off the germans.

Supressing fire mechanics worked well but we tweaked the rules during the game and the new draft has the best ones yet, miniatures now have "revealed" and "concealed" status. I will explain more later.

My non gamer friend invented a few rules, which was really cool. The best one was "disperse", when a covering unit is fired upon from a direct location the covering team must disperse, meaning they must use their next action to move at least one walk toward the nearest cover from thje new firing location.

The aforementioned failing of the flame thrower...at almost point blank.

Grenades where brutal, as intended.

Now some progress on the development.
I took the circular "smoke screen" card and put some fluff on it. I was thinking we could put down the template, note who is under it then put down this template until the smoke disperses, which would look pretty cool.



Also i picked up some color themed dice, as the game often requires quite a few, which is fun, rolling lots of dice (in my expericne) seems to be a really good failsafe way to make a wargame "fun". This game definitely feels more fun for this reason.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

This is looking brilliant and the obvious enjoyment you’re getting from it is a pleasure to read. Now I’m slightly obsessive about trying to make my table as pretty/aesthetically pleasing as possible and yet I’m looking at your table with the wood block houses and I’m in heaven. Well done that chap!

What is next up in your plans?

BALM

[EZPAINTER]

I am similar usually but as i get older i realise how much time i spend building versus time playing is beginning to become mroe and more anxiety inducing, i think at least for the time being we will stick with simplistic terrain for this game.

The block buildings are from a "village in a bag" from waterstones years ago, i repainted them but i can't recall the process. it was similar to this
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133852266813?epid=570371671&hash=item1f2a37813d:g:y~IAAOSwfuZhPt8Z

[BeneathALeadMountain]

EZ I think you’re doing it right, the game is important and just playing helps to inspire my hobby productivity. I need to play some small games to keep my mojo aligned correctly I think. Thank you for the inspiration (and I knew I recognised the houses from somewhere).

BALM