"5mm civil war ?" Topic

An over load of projects is slowing my 15mm entry into the civil war. Only two and half regiments so far.
Doers anyone here use 5/6mm figures? Which figure line do you prefer? How about terrain esp those snake fences?

The 6mm ACW from Baccus and Rapier are both excellent. Adler are also nice, but the first two mix well with each other, Adler doesn't.

You could also look at 3mm and 2mm figures, respectively.

I've got some of the Heroics & Ros 6mm ACW figures and they are very good. However, for my money, if you want to go smaller than 15mm then GHQ's 10mm line is the best bet. Really nice figures but much quicker to paint than 15s,

I'll second SJ Donovan's preference for 10mm, though I prefer the slightly stouter Pendraken and Perry sculpts. I can paint up 72 infantry in less than three hours, with another hour or two to dip, varnish, and mount. I did a whole brigade from priming to basing in one weekend: link

To me, 10mm paints up in the same time as 6mm, but there is much more detail visible across a table. To my aging eyes, it becomes very difficult to distinguish blue from butternut on 6mm units at greater than three feet.

The Bacchus are good the infantry are in strips 4 to a strip 20mm wide. They are done with 3 in kepi and 1 in slouched hat (union) or 3 in slouched and 1 kepi (confed).
The artillery gunners are very good.

H&R are actually true 5mm – the Baccus are slightly bigger

Both are quite good

The one thing about 10mm, is you can easily put 6 infantry on a stand 1"X3/4" base. Twice the number of 15mm. That seems to be the standard base size for most of the rules out there. That's really as small as you want to go for an individual stand. 20mm tends to get a bit "fidley" when you have big clumsy fingers trying to move a unit on the battlefield.

Pendraken 10mm are really easy to paint, as they have clear and defineable lines. They are available in the US from Great Hall games, which has superior service, and are really cheap compared to other lines. However, they do have a limited number of poses.

While I would suggest that the cavalry all come from the same manufacturer, as the horses vary widely in size, and the same is true for artillery, but I would go with different companies for the infantry. whether you are going with 3 divisions or 3 corps, if you go with individual units each from a different manufacturer, you can instantly spot the differences from 3 feet away.

And take my advice. Don't bother worrying about painting straps or cartrige boxes. When they are on the board, you won't see them anyway. If you need a thousand figures, just do a simple block paint job. You can always go back later and give them more detail.

3mm-PicoArmor

6mm-Baccus

10mm-Pendraken or Old Glory

Another good source for 10mm is Perrin Miniatures. Noble Miniatures put them out. Very clean, easy to paint.

I have Heroics and Ros based in two rows on bases for 15mm. 3, 4 or 5 individual figures in skirmishing poses in a rough line a few 2mm in front of a strip in marching pose. I chose those originally so I could do block painting.

I am steadily replacing these with Adler figures, which I will basing as individual figures, again on 15mm-size bases. Adlers are larger than the 5mm Heroics and Ros, and so have more detail.

There is also Irregular for 6mm – like Baccus, these are based in strips, but seem to be closer to the Adler size.

Terrain – for buildings and rivers, I have bought Timecast, but have not painted them yet. For fences and walls, I use printed paper folded and glued to card strips.

Been using 6mm for ACW off and on since the 1970s.
still using H&R, still happy with their proportions.

Irregular do some nice rail fencing, though its in short lengths (I double them up on a terrained base).

Cheers
David