"Micro Armour Newbie" Topic

As payment for a painting contract with a guy in our club, He gave me a MASSIVE amount of Micro Armour both Modern and World War 2. Well after about 3 hours of getting through just the modern, I notice that there was no infantry. Some Russian stands and that was it. So I immediately went looking at GHQ infantry but then a thought hit me. Would infantry actually really have fought in The Cold War gone Hot?

Thanks!

Evan Moore

Definitely, any army has infantry – some mechanized, commandos, paratroops. I have a lot of infantry in my modern micro armor games, I like the GHQ infantry.

Oh yeah….Remember…a tank in an urban area without infantry support is running on borrowed time…

Infantry would have been a major factor on the battlefield in a Cold War gone hot. Many rulesets tend to focus to an excessive degree on armoured vehicles and keep infantry as a sideshow when it should be a real combined-arms operation.

GHQ and H&R have some nice infantry in micro-scale, but the figures are really quite tiny and tend to disappear on the table. I know that I've been tempted to use counters rather than micro-scale infantry figures.

That is what I was thinking, it would make no sense to have tons of Troop Transports to accompany an armoured spear head, and to have no infantry to use the transports or take hold of what is grabbed. Thanks for the information guys!

I was looking at it, and I think I will buy infantry but for a while use counters. Now we move on to rules =). Any recommendations?

I have here a free two-pages set of rules for microarmour, WW2 and 1950-65 (could be expanded to 70's);

panzer8.webs.com

To echo the coments above, most formations were balanced with a mix of armour, infantry and artillery units in various ratios. e.g. a Russian Tank Division had three tank regiments each with three tank battalion and an infantry Bn plus one motor rifle regiemtn with three infanty and one tank Bn (for a total of ten tank and six infantry Bn). In motor rifle units the ratio was reversed.

Rules, well it depends what level of game you are after. I like Modern Spearhead for brigade+ sized actions.

Main decision to make is whether you want to do 1:1 or 1 base = 1 platoon type stuff.

My personal favourite for large-scale modern games is Fistful of Tows, but I have heard good things about Cold War Commander as well.

You can use the same stuff for MSH, FFoT and CWC too, as they are all 1 base = 1 platoon games.

No infantry? That's just crazy talk!

Seriously, if you end up buying any, I highly recommend the GHQ infantry. You can actually see the detail on them, and they're not just shapeless little stick figures.

Thanks for the advice on rules guys! Oh and Mero Mero I will most likely get GHQ infantry they look fantastic online. Basing Is the next problem I guess… It does make more sense to base a platoon because it would be a pain with everything done in singles. Thoughts?

The GHQ figs are lovely but a bit pricey for me.

My 6mm guys just go on standard Spearhead sized bases, 30mm x 30mm. 'Some' figures on each (3-5), or one heavy weapon team. Works OK for most things.

Different numbers of figs and formations for different types of base and different units.

Heroics & Ros (NAVWAR now) make some fine infantry, especially the later packages (M-10 and up) in my opinion, that provide a reasonable source. You get aproximately 50 figures per package for about $5.00 USD (2.5 UK pounds) so you can get two packs for the price of one GHQ package of 60 figures. GHQ's packages are set up for their own game while H&R provide a broader mix with some of their packages.

GHQ's infantry and support packages are closer to 1/250 and their Artillery crews are 1/285th because the figures in true 1/285th scale are really very delicate and don't take a lot of handling by gamers (see the CinC 1/285th super delicate figures as an example). Take a look at the page this link takes you to and you will see some of both GHQ and H&R figures mounted on metal, plastic, and wood bases. link

It depends what you like, and how you transport the figures. Metal bases allow you to protect your figures during transport since they don't move around much.

Take the time to do the figures. You will not be sorry… Will

GHQ infantry are superbly detailed but tend to run a bit over scale. The poses are limited and don't always have the correct support weapons. For example, the US Modern infantry have what looks to be Dragon ATGMs. GHQ also does not lend itself to actual TO&E organization but if you aren't looking at fielding 1:1 units it isn't that much of an issue. But if you want to field a 1:1 infantry platoon, it normally takes several packages of not only infantry but infantry heavy weapons as well to replicate it given the mix of poses and weapons in each blister.

H&R aren't quite as detailed and but are truer to scale. The mixture of weapons and poses is better too; you normally get enough weapons and poses to field a 1:1 platoon in each package. Or at least 3-4 infantry squads plus command elements anyway.

IMHO you can mix both on the same gaming table, but not necessarily on the same stand.

Thanks guys! I know I want to mount infantry on a base, but what about vehicles? Do most rule sets have a base represent a platoon? If that's so then I would base everything on one bigger base the size of a platoon.