"How useable is 40mm as a figure size?" Topic

I have recently seen mention of 40mm figures and I was wondering how viable a scale people found this for their games. 40mm would surely need a lot of table space for a game of any size. I was wondering if people had tried using this scale for big skirmishes of about fifty figures a side. Is that too big a game with that scale?

Dan

You may find this of interest link

The games I have seen with 40mm have been based as per 28mm figures just less to a stand. I'll see if I can find the blog that had the Sash & Sabre figures and games detailed for you.

Andrew
Main site: blog.kings-sleep.me.uk

I've seen games with > 100 54mm figures.

The viability is pretty much the same as 28mm as far as the figures themselves go. The 40mm figs might need to go on a 25mm frontage vs. a 20mm frontage but often you can even put them on a 20mm frontage.

So for a straight up game perspective it really isn't that different.

Some of the problems come from outside-of-game logistics. The 40mm figs are going to be a lot heavier than 28mm figures as volume goes up cubed as the size increases.

Also finding accessories like terrain and stuff for them might be a little bit more difficult depending on how much of a stickler you are for that sort of thing.

There are some 40mm buildings and such available, trees and hills work just as well for 40mm figs as for 28mm figs so no change is needed there.

Overall if you like the 40mm figs I don't really see any major impediments to gaming with them. They are not currently quiet as convenient as 28mm for the reasons given above but over all it is a scale that can be almost as easily used for mass battles as 28mm.

I make my own 42mm wooden toy soldiers. Here is a blog entry of the skirmish game I put on at MAG-Con II: link

The figure density is really low for this game, as people were learning, but could have easily been much higher. The game area was 50" by 60".

Very doable. I have been buying wooden bird houses at Michael's Crafts that are shaped like wooden houses, log cabins, etc. for buildings. They are cheap, especially when you can get a coupon. Things like fences can be made from wooden dowels and stone walls from foam peanuts or even little pebbles (although that can get heavy). I buy model railroading trees and use carpet samples for patches of grass.

There are people that play with more mass in 54mm, such as ATKM: link

Dale

40mm is my main scale, some in detailed wargame style, others in toy soldier style, skirmish games but also battles. A group of us (HAWKS) staged a Lobositz game at Cold Wars 2 years ago with about 2,000 40mm homecast minis.

various pictures:
lochsloy.ca/wargames/awi.htm
link
link

Ross Mac
gameofmonth.blogspot.com

Mt current AWI project is 40mm and I love them. They don't really take up more tabletop than 28mm, cost me about the same as high end 28mm (yes, I know about the OG army, I'm talking Perry etc.)

If you like 40mm figures they are fine to game with. Just as if you like 2mm, 54mm, 10mm, 20mm plastics, etc those are fine to game with.

I have found that I prefer 40mm to 28mm, just as I prefer either 6mm or 15mm to 10mm.

Like most things in this hobby it's horses for courses.

As mentioned above, 40mm is similar to 28m, and just liek 28s you can do anything from skirmishes up to 'proper' battles depending on your ground scale, figure ratio etc.

There was beautiful FPW 40mm game at Triples a couple of years back, IIRC division sized, maybe Corps

40mm is the bomb! I use to do ACW in 40mm and if I ever get back into ACW that is the way I would go. Also Sash and Saber miniaturers are the best 40mm around. There are a few others of note as well. I use JRIII with modified charts and Bucktails and Butternut rules.

VR
James Mattes