"Thinking of getting into 6mm " Topic

I'm thinking of dabbling in 6mm sci-fi (and, possibly, modern) wargaming for various reasons, from the low cost and ease of storage of the minis to the ability to have a significantly larger battlefield on my small table than with 15mm. What would you recommend in this regard? Which rulesets do you recommend, and which miniature manufacturers?

Do you want skirmish or large mixed arms games?

Fubar for skirmish (free)

Dirtside 2 (free), future war commander, strike legion are all awesome….

good links here

6mm.wargaming.info/page9.shtml

6mm is awesome – go for it 8)

Try FUBAR, the rules are free:

link

It requires very little in the way of start up costs and can be played on a 2` x 2` table.

You can get all you need for less than £30.00 GBP and that includes 2 forces and plenty of buildings.

Here is my FUBAR blog:

6mmfubar.blogspot.co.uk

6mm is awesome – go for it 8)

Yeah it is!

Michael.

Epic Armageddon. The rules are both excellent and free. It's a very well known system with the 40K Universe. You can often pick up the plastic minis cheaply, though be careful on eBay. Hugely variable. "Proxie" metal armies from many manufacturers are also available for many of the races. Excellent rules for combined arms with everything from aircraft & huge Titan walkers to artillery, tanks of all sorts, and a wide variety of infantry. Interleafed activations and morale very important.(Yeh, it is my favourite wargame :-)

Thanks for the quick responses!

What I'm interested in are slightly bigger games, probably combined-arms; after all, for skirmish I already have enough 15mm minis.

ruleset – Future War COmmander link
love the flexibility of this for good large battles#

While I am much more tied up with my own ruleset, I have always had fun with Dirtside II and Iron Cow 2013 as far as 'generic' games go (i.e. ones not tied to a specific background such as Renegade Legion: Centurion). However, the excellent Hammers Slammers: The Crucible has made serious inroads into the previous two.

Some people like Future War Commander and I have myself been toying with the Strike Legion lineup. Having never played either I can only say that they seem to be well-produced and popular around these parts.

My standard go-tos for SF microarmor are Brigade Models, PFC/C-in-C, and Ground Zero Games.

There are also some good lines produced (for the budget minded) by Scotia and Irregular Miniatures. Garrison Miniatures and the partially-defunct Ogre Miniatures line by SJG (which will be restarted by next year, hopefully) are a budget middle ground but nice quality.

The top end of the line as far as price goes are Adler Miniatures, Plasmablast, and Zandris IV. If you are willing to extend your scope, some of GHQ's Wehrmacht '47 and supermodern lines make great SF stand-ins as well.

Daemonscape has taken over the old GZG line of resin dropships/spacecraft/scenery line and many manufacturers make various types of buildings and/or terrain features. Our very own Angel Barracks has produced some nice civilians, alien creatures, and now 6mm defensive terrain.

And do not forget about the possibility of cross-scaling. Some 15mm powerarmor/combat robots make nice 6mm mech/walkers. Drone (or manned VTOL) aircraft can be brought in from 15mm drone or 2-3mm lines (the same goes for some micro-scale ground armor).

Short form: once you go 6mm, you never go back!

Thanks Failure16.

Here is a list of 6mm companies I did a while back:

TMP link

A big list of 6mm minis:

link

Rules: as others have stated – FUBAR

I going to try 5150:Star Army from TwoHourWargames with combined arms 6mm minis. Not sure when though.

TooFatLardies will be releasing Quadrant13 soon – scifi combat with a lardy touch. Company level actions.

Striker II is available from Drive Thru RPG, I liked that set a good bit. Dirtside II and Groundside are available from GZG for free now.

Irregular Miniatures has a nice looking 6mm scifi range, at least the not-daleks looks nice, even includes the heavy weapons not-dalek. CinC has the Renagade Legion metal miniatures.

Dark Realm Miniatures has a very nice figure line and a great set of free-to-download rules. Check them out!

darkrealmminiatures.com

Pz8 Sci-Fi is a set free, two-pages rules designed for 6mm, downloadable here:

panzer8.weebly.com/rules.html

Whilst there is a plethora of 6mm miniatures if I were brutally honest there are few that I like a lot, either due to design or casting quality.

There is also a significant element of scale-creep with some 6mm companies tending far closer to 10mm.

I play 6mm to field big armies, so the idea of bigger models and/or putting them on bigger bases, seems contradictory to me. Putting almost-10mm vehicles on to medium FOW bases to play a "6mm" game is a bit nuts. ;-)

However, my first 6mm vehicles were GHQ WW2 and I anticipated similar quality from others. I was dissapointed often.

For the figures and vehicles it is, in my opinion best to buy a few samples form different manufacturers, that way you can see the quality and sizes. Or go to a show (I went to SALUTE) to check them out in person.

Sizes and quality really are all over the place.

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Rules: Future war commander – i didnt like the command system at all at all at all. Lots of lists though, so easy to step into.
Dirtside II – good command system, mechanics mostly sound, but didnt like the points system for building units.
FUBAR – quick, easy, fun but limited in scope (does what it says on the tin)
Strike Legion – currently testing/playing, good so far (but only "so far").

I'll throw in Micro World Games miniatures as also having really nice stuff in 6mm sci fi, and they carry Dark Realm.

even includes the heavy weapons not-dalek

Are you sure?
If so what is the code for it please, I need me some of them.

Looks like I was seeing things, no heavy-weapons variant. Could swear I saw one before, but it is the same picture and they are not there. Lots of other goodies there though.

Phew, thought I had missed out on some sales then!
I think there was a conversion someone did of one on a blog a while back?

It was a one off scratchbuild from the original. Here is a pic of it. (I hope)

link

A little dremel work, some copper tubing, and some sanding and even I could manage that!

that dalek is the business!!!

good work Dynaman 8)

Check out the Tactical Command site for 6mm Sci-fi … link

That is not my Dalek above, I do plan on trying my own later though.

Congratulations on choosing the one true scale. I've enjoyed what I've seen of FWC so far, and DS2 is a great free set. If it meets your needs, I hear great things about FUBAR, and I enjoy Angel Barracks' AARs using them.

Doug

Strike Legion is pretty good and theres a free demo version of it

legionnairegames.com

I would recommend Future War Commander – simple rules that allow for combined ops and the command and control is useful for solo games

FUBAR for the rules, and GZG, Adler, and Renegade Legion (plastics, or metals) for the minis.

PFC. makes the minis in metal, and sometimes you can find the old, plastic Grav Armor vehicle sets for sale, which are a bargain, since you get 54 vehicles in a box – there are two factions, e.g. red and blue, plastic minis, for TOG and the Rebels.

Renegade Legion plastic hover tanks

link

Thanks for the info!

I have my interest piqued by Strike Legion – would you recommend this ruleset?

Strike legion is a really cool ruleset.

Great ideas as with electronic warfare. and it is really well supported with the author updating army lists etc.

What i don't like about is -it's very math heavy. Still only a minor gripe as I love it. Just takes a while to get your head around it.

@earthad – by "math heavy", do you mean that unit design/game prep is heavy in math, or game-play in general?

@Golan2072 –

I'd say in-game it's about as math-intensive as Warmachine; vehicle units will have different offensive/defensive ratings each turn (a function of the electronic warfare system), but it's all basic addition/subtraction and becomes second-nature after a game or two. I've (literally) taught the game to an 8-year-old, who had no problems keeping up after a few turns of his first game.

When designing your own units, there are a number of simple calculations to be made (a few or many, depending on the level of detail you'll be incorporating), but nothing more complex than multiplication with a couple of decimal points. If you don't want to design your own units, there are some 30+ pre-made lists available for free download, not counting the units included with the books for use in the scenarios found therein.

Personally, what I think Strike Legion could really benefit from is a Excel unit creator. A chap was apparently working on one but all seems to have gone quiet on that front for a while. I'm trying to muster enthusiasm to do it myself using the Skunk Works supplement. Hopefully that is the 'last word' on unit design KJ!

Collins355: I hope it is, too – that section took forever to compile from the other books (not to mention incorporating the new stuff)! There may be a few specialty/setting-specific items that pop up in the future, but those will be few and far between.

Also, I don't think Kealios has abandoned the spreadsheet project; IIRC, he's prepping to move house in the near future (early/mid-July) and will probably be back at it once he gets settled in his new place.