Skirmish games played at 15mm scale

[commandant]

Are there any good games like mordhiem played at this scale?

[Pattus Magnus]

I don’t know of any that are specifically designed for 15mm figures, but pretty well any good game designed for 28mm figures should work by halving all measurements.

[fred]

Any game designed for single based 28mm figures will work just as well with 15mm figure. If the game involves shooting it will probably look and work better.

I wouldn’t reduce measurements, unless you have to play on a smaller table top.

[Pattus Magnus]

Fred makes a good point - games designed for 28mm will work fine as written when using 15mm figures.

When I suggested halving the measurements, I was thinking about keeping game play exactly as originally designed, with everything reduced proportionally. Keeping 28mm measurements while using 15mm figures will also usually work and, as fred says, may actually look better.

The main exception might be rules where 15mm allows more figures to be placed in a small space on the gaming table. Usually that won’t impact game play, but there may be a few situations where it could generate changes in game balance. A hypothetical example would be rules regarding magic that effect an area - more 15mm figures would fit inside a 3-inch circular template than 28mm figures. Of course a player could choose not to bunch up their figures, but that might put them at a disadvantage in close combat if the opponent can place figures close together and benefit from rules on outnumbering enemies.

I expect that most gamers could recognize unintended rule interactions and come up with reasonable compromises when using 15mm figures in 28mm-based rules.

[commandant]

This change would have the impact of powering up magic a little, well area of effect magic if the measurements are not changed

[Elbows]

Yeah, I don't think anyone "designs" skirmish games aimed at 15mm miniatures, but they would all work with a scale conversion.  Either halving or doing the old inches become centimeters change - either one would work relatively well.

Lots of guys on this forum have done "travel" versions of various skirmish games, just downsizing the original games.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Yeah, I don't think anyone "designs" skirmish games aimed at 15mm miniatures, but they would all work with a scale conversion. 

Admittedly a different genre, but Laserburn scenario packs were for 15mm (the floorplans especially).

Either halving or doing the old inches become centimeters change - either one would work relatively well.

It is weird, I think GW's LOTR was the only "recent" set of wargames rules that offered the use of centimetres as an optional unit of measurement - two centimetres is just not so convenient as inches with inch wide bases.

Lots of guys on this forum have done "travel" versions of various skirmish games, just downsizing the original games.

I made a travel version of DBA using centimetres many years ago, we played it at lunchtimes at college.

I am building (and one day painting) some Copplestone (Barbarica and Wiglaf) miniatures for Five Leagues.

[Hobgoblin]

Song of Blades and Heroes was, I believe, designed primarily for 15mm even if it's mostly played in 28mm; the warband lists at the back of the book are based on Splintered Light 15mm figures. It uses different lengths of measuring stick for the different scales (15mm games can be played on a 2' square table while 28mm games used 3' square - but if you have the bigger table, you could use the bigger sticks with smaller figures without any problem). The measuring-stick - and thus movement - lengths interact with the table dimensions rather than the figure size.

[Burgundavia]

Sellswords & Spellslingers explicitly talks about 15mm, using the inches to cm rule mentioned above.

[fred]

Lots of games talk about using inches to cm for smaller scale games - as it’s a very easy conversion. But I wonder how many authors have actually played their rules this way?

Dropping from inches to cms is a 2.5x reduction in distances and really makes small accidental movements of figures significant. You also need to think about the size of terrain items - as area terrain can easily become huge with this scaling. So do consider the practical level in reducing distances.

Some small scale players will make custom measuring sticks - say at 2/3rds distances to reduce the playing area, with dropping all distance to being very small.

[Hobgoblin]

Lots of games talk about using inches to cm for smaller scale games - as it’s a very easy conversion. But I wonder how many authors have actually played their rules this way?

Dropping from inches to cms is a 2.5x reduction in distances and really makes small accidental movements of figures significant. You also need to think about the size of terrain items - as area terrain can easily become huge with this scaling. So do consider the practical level in reducing distances.

Some small scale players will make custom measuring sticks - say at 2/3rds distances to reduce the playing area, with dropping all distance to being very small.

Yeah, that's exactly what Song of Blades does for 15mm: the measuring sticks are smaller - 2/3rds - to allow a 2' x 2' table to be used instead of 3' x 3' (or rather, the 3' x3' is scaled up from the 2' x 2'). In that game's case, I think the inspiration was in part DBA/HOTT, as there's a strand of that DNA in the SOBH combat system and the table scaling is the same.

[boneio]

Any game designed for single based 28mm figures will work just as well with 15mm figure. If the game involves shooting it will probably look and work better.

I wouldn’t reduce measurements, unless you have to play on a smaller table top.

This ^

The Five Leagues/Five Parsecs author plays at 15mm I believe, so while the game doesn't make any specific concession for 15mm, it's not really necessary.
Ground 'scale' vs figure 'scale' - two different things. One only needs to change ground 'scale'* in order to change the size of the playing area.

*Neither figures nor measured distances are in any way to any sort of scale in 99% of wargames