The path to madness starts here!

[6mmfan]

Although I’m a 6mm fan I have never gone down the track of individually based 6mm figures and skirmish games with them, until the last few days that is. I was looking at my fantasy figures and thinking about mass battles and it occurred to me that I could use these for skirmish games. I’ve written the idea off before mostly due to the small size and whether or not I could identify them on a table (some of that is due to my eyesight deteriorating once I hit 40). But looking again at the figures I realised they are still identifiable as individual figures and this could be an option.

I decided on Songs of Blades and Heroes which I have played a lot over the years and really enjoy them, but it has always been one off games, so this is a great opportunity to play a campaign.

There's a longer ramble here on my blog
https://6mmwargaming.home.blog/2023/08/24/the-path-to-madness-begins-here/

The first 3 warbands I've started working on are

    Dragon Knights (Perfect Six) with a couple of Baccus Elven archers and a Irregular wizard
    Wood Elves (Microworld) with an Irregular giant eagle and mounted Character
    Evil guys (who need a better name) mostly Irregular Man orc figures with some Microworld samples (Dread Alliance ogres) and a magician on a flying carpet.

The bases are 10mm washer with larger NZ 1 cent pieces for the mounted and monsters.

And some WIP  pictures before painting

Dragon Knights (some were already painted to a good standard)


Evil guys



Wood Elves

[6mmfan]

The first warband of Dragon knights is finished. They were tricky little fellas to photograph with their size and my camera didn't want to get them all in focus. I went with bright colours and even at 2ft away i can tell what each model is, so they will work on the tabletop. I'll be playing on a 1ft square board with these by reducing the 28mm scale for Song of Blades and Heroes down by 1/3rd. I'm making some movement sticks to help with this and for this warband I have given them heavy armour, so lets see how slow they are!

[Inkpaduta]

Great job. And you are not alone doing 6mm skirmish. I have done 6mm Wild West gunfights ect. I am just starting 6mm French and Indian War, again in skirmish.

[LouieN]

They came out good. 

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Excellent idea, and nice work on the figures.

[6mmfan]

I played my first skirmish game on a 1x1ft table (I used trees and fields to distinguish the table edge of my larger mat). The scenario was called The Rescue and the game pitted 300pt forces of knights against 300pts of Orcs, using Songs of Blades and Heroes. I used the fan made Lone Blade supplement for the solo part of the rules.

Just a note on the photos, the table was setup in some direct sunlight so the photos didn't come out very well.

The two rosters were
Red skull orcs
Warchief Q3 C4 Leader, Tough
Shaman   Q4 C1 Magic User, Flying
Man Orc   Q4 C3   Gregarious
Man Orc   Q4 C3   Gregarious
Man Orc   Q4 C3   Gregarious
Bow   Q4 C3   Shooter (Medium)
Ogre   Q4 C4   Big, Long Move



Dragon Knights of the Holy cross
Commander Q3 C4   Leader, Heavy Armour, Short move
Mounted Knight Q3 C4   Mounted
Foot Knight Q4 C3   Heavy Armour, Short move
Foot Knight Q4 C3   Heavy Armour, Short move
Foot Knight Q4 C3   Heavy Armour, Short move
Foot Knight Q4 C3 Heavy Armour, Short move
Retinue Archer Q3 C2   Shooter (Long), Good shot
Retinue Archer Q3 C2   Shooter (Long), Good shot



After setting out some terrain randomly I was planning to play a raid scenario but I went with a rescue scenario from the Songs of Deeds and Glory supplement. A wizard was placed in the ruin temple/church and the warbands were deployed at opposite edges of the table (I realised later that the Orcs should have been closed to their captive).





Turn one and the heavy armour of the foot knights meant that advanced slowly while a couple of Orcs rushed forwards. A human archer tried a long range shot but missed.





The mounted knight contacted a Orc but didn’t have enough activations to attack.



Then the knight was charged by an Ogre, but the Ogre lost the combat and was knocked over (barely escaping a kill).



Turn two and the mounted knight beats the Ogre and killed him with a power blow.



Then more orcs arrived but when the Orc attacked the knight, the Orc was killed by the Knight.





In the next turn the Orc warchief attacked the mounted knight and won the combat, but only pushed back the Knight.



Then a group of 4 knights behind rolled 3 activation successes and charged the Orc leader and warrior.  Against the leader a Knight was knocked down while the other pair of knights killed an Orc. So far it was going well for the knights with a score of 3-0 to the knights.



Shooting was still ineffective with neither side inflicting and casualties all game.
Next an Orc charged the prone knight and dealt him a fatal blow, which helped even up the scores.
In the last act of the game, the mounted knight charged the Orc warchief and with an impressive 3 activation dice attacked with a power blow.



Some more great dice from the knights produced a 6-1 result which ended up being a gruesome kill on the warchief. This triggered multiple morale tests ( Loss of leader, gruesome kill and warband over 50% casualties). At this point the remaining orcs either routed or wisely chose to bail.



In the campaign activities the Knights only casualty fully recovered while the orcs had 2 permanently dead and one miss a game, and their leader was robbed! However the orcs rolled well on the treasure table and had enough money to buy another warrior to replace the dead one.
In the exploration phase the knights encountered a cursed glade which affected one if the knights for the next game. The Orc discovered a shrine during their retreat but their prayers were not answer and they left empty handed.

Afterthoughts
The game was fun and Knights had great dice which made it pretty one sided, especially the mounted knight who killed most of the orcs by himself! Moving and playing with individually based 6mm was not as fiddly as I thought. Playing a game like SoBH which has measuring sticks is great, rather than trying to measuring ranges. I did find that most of my scenery is too big for such a small table and I don't have a lot of small scatter pieces, which is something to work on. I'll also make a foam based board which I can pin smaller terrain pieces into like trees, wall and scatter pieces into to stop them falling over.

I played a second game of the campaign on the same day so that report is coming up

[trev]

This is really very impressive but quite bonkers. 

[Inkpaduta]

What a great, and fun, looking game. Kudos on your effort with 6mm skirmish!

[6mmfan]

Thanks, it was a bit of an experiment and I'm very happy with how well it played.

[zemjw]

I decided to paint up some figures for 10mm dungeon crawls a few years ago. However, after about 10 heroes and monsters I got distracted and moved on.

This, however, is making me think about painting up some more and perhaps opening it up to skirmish games as you have done.

I have loads of 6mm scenery, which should work (tall walls become small walls etc), if I squint enough

[6mmfan]

The good thing is you don't need a lot of scenery for games this size! I was actually thinking about a 6mm dungeon crawl (there was a game called Pocket Quest which was a 6mm dungeon crawl) but I decided at the the time not to bother, but I do think of doing it occasionally. If this goes well I can see myself branching out into other periods.

I decided to paint up some figures for 10mm dungeon crawls a few years ago. However, after about 10 heroes and monsters I got distracted and moved on.

This, however, is making me think about painting up some more and perhaps opening it up to skirmish games as you have done.

I have loads of 6mm scenery, which should work (tall walls become small walls etc), if I squint enough

[Inkpaduta]

I have pocket quest. It is a fun game. The figures are fantastic.

[6mmfan]

And they rules are free which is nice.

https://ablogofwar.blogspot.com/p/pocketquest.html

I have pocket quest. It is a fun game. The figures are fantastic.

[6mmfan]

Game two of my campaign.

The Orcs suffered heavy losses in the first but were able to buy a replacement Warrior and Archer by ditching the Shaman and spending some gold. The magic rules in SoBH is not great so I will use the magic from the Advanced SoBH in the future, but I didn’t have time to read them, as this game followed straight on from the first.

The scenario was called “Burn them out” and the victorious Knights had discovered a wooden tower that had been captured and possibly desecrated by the Orcs, so their mission was to destroy the tower.



The knights enter via the road while the Orcs deployed near the tower.



In the first turn both sides advanced towards each other.



The orc archer fired but missed while the Ogre charged the Mounted knight, but lost the combat and was pushed back



The second turn started with more shooting from both sides which once again did nothing.

An Orc warrior and the mounted knight scrapped and eventually the Orc was knocked down by a foot knight.



Meanwhile a Foot knight raced down the road towards the tower, but was intercepted by the Orc chief.



Another Orc joins in and knocks down the Knight who is then killed by the chief.



The ogre decided to attack a softer target and charges and then killed a human archer



Close to the village the Knight commander attacks the downed Orc in a rather unchivalrous manner slaying the Orc.



Back near the tower, the Orc leader activates and kills the downed foot knight.



The Mounted knight charges the Ogre but it is a draw.



A foot knight lends a hand, but is knocked over.



Some great activation dice means an Orc charges the down knight and kills him. These Orcs are definitely fighting much dirtier this game!



Next the Ogre fights back and knocks over the mounted knight.



Over by the tower another Foot knight is double teamed, losing the combat ad being knocked over and then killed by the other Orc who had not activated yet!



With that kill the warband has exceed 50% casualties and must test



Although most pass their morale the Knights retreat off the table licking their wounds while the Orcs celebrate a well fought victory.




This went very differently to how I was expecting and it was a much closer game. The Orcs shifted tactics and went for the easy kills on prone figures when they could. Also the Knights dice deserted them and they spread out too much, losing the advantage of numbers and group moves.

Post battle the Knights we able to recover everyone except the Archer, but 2 knights were temporarily wounded and their Quality will drop for the next game. While retreating the found a Temple, which they considered to be evil, so they sacked it and got 10GP in loot.

The Orcs only had one figure taken out in the battle and that figure must miss the next game while recovering. During their travels the came across a Blessed Glade and found a charmstone.

[6mmfan]

I managed to taken some slightly better pictures of my warbands after reading up on F-stop settings for my camera. I've forgotten how hard is to get decent closeup photos of 6mm figures.

Also I've ordered some better Orcs from Perfect Six and have just finished some Wood Elves.

Foot knights




Half Orcs


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