""6mm" vs "10mm" ECW" Topic

Fellow Gamers:

Any thoughts on the relative merits of 6mm versus 10mm for the ECW. Pro's and Con's for each, cost variances, manufacturers, best ranges.

Thanks,

Bob Mc

Er … 10mm are bigger?

I'm conflicted on this, but here's my take for what it's worth:

For periods where individual uniform details are important (for me, FPW and earlier) then 10mm is a poor compromise. You have to hit almost as much detail as painting a 15, but you don't get as big a mob effect as with 6mm.

Once you get to WWI and later, uniform detail is less critical. You are getting the right shade of mud in a wash, not the right shade of turnback in a coat cuff. As long as you are centred on infantry not tanks, 10mm is perfect.

If you are a tank nut, especially symetric modern where everyone is in a tank, 6mm is it.

So, if I were doing ECW, I would go 6.

6mm Baccus. 10mm Pendraken gets my money (with some other manufacturers like minifigs mixed in) but there are a number of good choices. Compatability may be an issue between some manufacturers in 10-12. Its no issue at all in 6mm because there just plain isn't any right now.

6mm Ecw is pretty easy to do. I actually have owned and painted both scales. Irregular and Navwar 6mm. Aim 10mm figs. The 6mm are simple to paint. However, I REALLY like the AIM line. I sold all of my 6mm collection which was pretty huge. I think the AIM will look quite nice when done. They are also almost as cheap as the 6mm figs since they are all IMPORTS and fairly expensive compared to a decade ago. You can also buy Old Glory 10mm. The two (AIM and OG) don't mix, though.

Thanks,

John

I like the AIM figures as well. I have both AIM and OG in my collection and actually mix them freely.

I would go with the 10mm figs. You can't really stick that many more 6mm figs on a stand than 10mm figs and they aren't as sturdy, especially the horses.

I prefer 10mm because of the pikes. I hate spaghetti pikes, and greatly prefer to replace cast-on pikes with wire. In the smaller scales it can be difficult to cut away cast-on pikes that are part of or attached to the figure's body and replace them with wire (from what I can tell this would be a nightmare with 6mm pikemen). Old Glory's 10mm ECW Pikemen and cavalry are fairly nice figures, and the pikemen are cast without pikes-so it is relatively easy to drill the hands and glue in wire for the pikes.

On the other hand, I really dislike the Old Glory 10mm ECW musketeers (the skirmishing individual figures are more or less OK, but the marching musketeer strips are awful-a true horror of war). The AIM musketeers are all right, but, as John says, they don't mix well with the Old Glory 10mm foot figures (the AIM cavalry do, however, mix OK with both Old Glory and Pendraken-the Pendraken ECW cavalry are just a bit small, and so I prefer Old Glory and AIM cavalry, and the beautiful Pendraken TYW pistoleers who are larger than teh Pendraken ECW cavalry).

The solution is Pendraken 10mm ECW musketeers. They are compatible with Old Glory and they come in two poses (firing and loading), and in hats, caps, bonnets (Scots) and Smiley Burnett hats (TYW musketeers).

So, my recommendation is Old Glory 10mm for pikemen, most cavalry, dragoons, generals and artillery crew; Pendraken 10mm for musketeers, some cavalry (the TYW cavalry with pistols, helmet and burgonet are beautiful figures); and AIM for some cavalry.

The above, of course, is based solely on my personal and subjective feelings about the figures. The costs you can work out for yourself.

Dennis

Purely a personal taste thing but I prefer 10mm as below that I feel the proportions can get too distorted even if the detail remains. I don't own either but have considered 10mm for mass having seen some extrememly effective pike blocks in the scale with very fine wire pikes. I feel 6mm is a love/hate scale perhaps more than any other.

As always perhaps buy a bag or each and have a go at painting and see which you prefer.

I have the same question however, more for Thirty Years Wae and Late medieval period. For some time I was sure I would go with Baccus 6mm War of The Roses and English Civil War range but Pendraken have many more options for European troops including Polish and Turkish packs if I want to expand. Also 10mm may provide that extra detail although I would loose some of the mass look.

Hi Bob TYW,

I'd go with 6mm…

There is a growing selection and quite a following as well as lots of terrain availability.

…and a secondary market.

10mm's for ECW is still a very new genre… with not much of a secondary market or selection.

You'll also be able to use your 6mm figs and terrain with other genres and periods, which I think is a big bonus.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
6mm-minis.blogspot.com

"6mm figs and terrain with other genres and periods,"

Now, now, there are lots of other periods and genres for 10mm too.

I don't want to start an argument about which came first, 6mm or 10mm, but both (micro armor for 6mm, and Scruby N scale for 10mm) were readily available before I started miniature gaming in the early 1970s. There may be more dedicated 6mm wargames buildings available for micro armor, but I doubt that you want to fight Edgehill in the Stalingrad tractor factory so many of the available 6mm buildings would not be usable for horse and musket periods. And there's a lot of N scale railroad stuff available that could be used for 10mm-as well as gift shop knickknacks that are close enough in scale to be used.

As for non-building scenery, again I don't think there is much of an issue. For most scenery items like roads, trees, and rivers, there may not be much that is labeled by the manufacturer as 10mm, but rivers and so on that are listed as appropriate for 6mm, or even 15mm, can easily be used for 10mm figures In fact, 10mm figures may be better sized than 6mm figures to use both 6mm and 15mm scenery.

As for availability of 10m figures, there appear to be at least as many figure companies for 10mm figures as for 6mm figures once you exclude the micro armor stuff. The 6mm companies I know about are Adler, Ros & Heroics and Baccus, and, as I recall, only Baccus covers many periods and only Baccus, so far as I know, has been expanding its ranges of figures recently.

In 10mm, there are half a dozen companies that make ACW, Nappies, and ancients, and Pendraken, Old Glory and Irregular have very extensive ranges of figures.

On large enough bases, 6mm figures can look spectacular. There are some gamers who have SYW figures based for Volley and Bayonet on 3x1.5 inch bases and 3x1 inch 2/3rds scale bases and they look like mini-dioramas. But the 10mm figures don't occupy that much more base area than the 6mm figures and so much the same effect can be achieved in 10mm as well.

The secondary market would only matter if you decide to abandon your project, and that won't likely happen for several years anyway-that also seems to me to be a weak reason to undertake a project-I would consider the resale value of a new car I might buy, but not books or wargames figures. As for the availability of prepainted figures, I know that DJD sells some prepainted Old Glory 10mm Nappies, AWI and (maybe) other periods. I am not aware of any generally available prepainted 6mm non-micro armor. If you want to hire the painting done, check Fernando and PhilGreg, but I believe to cost for painting 10mm figures is close to the cost for 15mm figures, and 6mm is cheaper.

All in all, I'd say research the companies and ranges to see what is available in each scale, buy a few figures and paint them to see if you like them and whether one scale or the other better suites your painting style.

Dennis

Some good points Dennis but you state that only Baccus have a large line however, both heroics and ros and Irregular have very big lines. Heroics and ros stuff can also be easily converted so for instance Prussian landwhear can be painted to look like good 19th century Austrians. You are correct however that baccus does seem to be the only 6mm manufacturer readily expanding lines.

Sorry, I simply forgot about Irregular in 6mm and didn't realize that the Heroics & Ros line was more than just Nappies and ACW. I should have checked before speculating about the extent of the Heroics & Ros range.

It does seem fair to say though, in reply to Maksim's point about the "growing selection" of figures in 6mm, that only Baccus is expanding its 6mm line, while Pendraken (new figures added in July and August, with more lines-AWI for one-promised for the near future) and Old Glory are both expanding already extensive ranges in 10mm. Oh, and Tom Dye fairly recently added the ODGW AWI 10mm range to his AIM 10mm figure range-although I don't know that he will be expanding it any further. And AIM comes close to matching in extent in 10mm what Heroics & Ros has in 6mm.

And the original question was about ECW, which, correct me if I'm wrong, limits us to Baccus and Irregular in 6mm, and AIM, Pendraken, Old Glory and Irregular in 10mm. So, it seems to me, the availablity of figures for that period weighs slightly in favor of 10mm. Not that I think that is dispositive.

Again, I recommend Bob look at the figures (Irregular, for one, has very nice painted 6mm figures on its website to illustrate some of its ranges-Pendraken also has pictures of some painted figures from its ranges linked from its website) and maybe paint a few to see which best fit his needs.

Although I prefer 10mm for reasons I gave above, I have no beef against 6mm. Both scales carry forward the original promise of 15mm-allowing more figures per unit while still having enough open table space to let the armies maneuver.

Dennis

Very good points Dennis. I have little interest in the English Civil War but am looking at the figures in both 6mm and 10mm for Thirty Years War. I like the idea of old glory figures in strips so I can pain pike fast. One note heroics and ros have a good sized English Civil War range. I have many of the figures painted for 30 Years War.

And the original question was about ECW, which, correct me if I'm wrong, limits us to Baccus and Irregular in 6mm,

H&R, now owned by Navwar link

Baccus, among others, produce a line of suitable buildings

I don't have a horse in this race as I don't use either 6 or 10mm figures, but I think you're allowing your prejudices to get in the way Dennis :0)

Kawasaki, you've sussed me out. I'm really a sock puppet for the international 10mm Military-Industrial Complex.

BTW, thanks to you and le2001 for the correction on H&R's 6mm ECW range. The breadth of the range is impressive. If I didn't now have many hundreds of painted 10mm ECW figures, I would give 6mm serious consideration for the ECW.

le2001:

One of the reasons I became interested in the ECW was my earlier interest in the TYW. I plan to have many of my ECW units do double duty, serving in both wars. As for painting the Old Glory strip pikemen-the strips have their good and bad points. On the good side, you can, in effect, paint 5 figures at once, and if your painting style lends itself to that sort of painting then it goes quickly. If you blackprime and are satisfied with dark shadows in those spots your brush can't easily reach, then there's no problem.

On the bad side, figures cast in strips result in places on the strip that are hard to get a brush into and so are hard to paint. If that bothers you (it bothers me, even if I can't see it on casual inspection), then painting can be a bit complicated. Particularly once the pikes are glued in. Once glued in place, the pikes limit access to the pikemen's stockings and sword scabbards from the front.

Also, the width of Old Glory's strips can be a bit of an issue. They are not uniform; for example, the armored and unarmored pike strips are very slightly different in width (and depth, although this is not an issue for me). My only experience with the 10mm Old Glory strips is ECW, but I have read that the strips in some of the other periods are diverge much more in width.

The width of the pike strips is just a bit over 1 inch. If you plan on using bases much wider than that you will either leave space on either side of the base, or fill that space with extra figures. I know gamers who cut figures off of strips in ones, twos or threes and use those extra figures to fill out the extra space on the bases. Personally I don't like that look, and so I use bases that are 1 and 1/4 inches wide. That works for me, but using non-standard bases limits the compatibility of your units with those of other gamers.

Dennis

Thanks for the info Dennis. I am thinking about old glory for thirty years war. They seem like they would be fast to paint. What do you use for pikes? At this point the project is on hold. I have some baccus painted up (these paint fast as well and are cast in strips) and heroics and ros. However, I ran into problems with buccas musketeers and thirty years war. These very much look like english civil war troops. I see pendraken make some thirty years packs. Do you have any pictures of your stuff?

Difficult choice; I went for 10mm from Pendraken after doing a Polish army from their figures. It had to be supplemented from Irregular to fill some gaps, the Irregular figures not so good (tended to be a bit rough and ready in the casting department) but no worries size wise. Hasn't put me of using Irregular to supplement my ECW efforts.

le2001:

I'm afraid I don't have any photos of my figures and am a bit thumbfingered with photography anyway. There is a guy who has done 30 years war tercios in 10mm (Pendraken I think) and has them on the web, but I can't find the site right now (I've changed servers and have lost the link). I think he is a TMP member so maybe you can get his attention by posting a request for photos. I think a bunch of TYW 10mm photos are posted on one of the TYW yahoo groups-Father Tilly I think, or maybe the 10mm group but I can't get access there either right now.

The Pendraken TYW range is very limited, only 4 figure types. The Trooper with Pistol, Back and Breast, Burgonet
is a beautiful figure-I use it for much of my ECW cavalry-with Old Glory mounted command. The musketeer is a basic figure with a Smiley Burnett-type hat (brim pushed up in front) and is ok, but the Pendraken ECW musketeers have much more variety and could easily be included in TYW units I think.

The mounted arquebuser is an ok figure, I'll probably use it as a dragoon. And the mounted croat rounds out Pendraken's TYW range-obviously they intend their ECW range to rpovide most of the figures for the TYW-I think between the Pendraken ECW and the Old Glory pike and cav you can cover most troop types-maybe with a bit of supplement from Irregular-though my experience there is that those figures are a bit-um-irregular-some good, some less so. I've already mentioned my preference for Old Glory pikemen-and with the exception of the Trooper with Pistol, Back and Breast, Burgonet, I don't care much for the Pendraken Cavalry (the horses are smallish and the swords look funny) so I use the Old Glory ECW cavalry-I like the cavalry with helmets the best.

For pikes for the Old Glory pikemen I use piano wire, available at almost any hobby store-brass wire would also work, but it bends easily and you can wind up with bent pikes.

If I can find the link to the photos of the 10mm TYW figures I'll post it-I'm pretty sure there are quite a few on the Yahoo groups though. If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer-either post or IM me.

Dennis

le2001:

The 10mm Miniatures Yahoo group has quite a few photos of 10mm figures, including Pendraken ECW, in its photos. The Father Tilly group has bunches of photos of mostly Pendraken 10mm ECW, including some painted and used for TYW.

Dennis

The guy who has a web page of 30 years war 10mm figures is here:

link

He says his infantry are Old Glory. At least some of the cavalry are also. I recognize the guys in helmets-I have hundreds.

Dennis

I have just started some Baccus 6mm ECW Scots, and I am very impressed by the quality of the figs.

I put a couple of photos up of the first battalia to be completed at:

link