"WWI Scale?" Topic

What scale do you run your WWI games in? What scale do you think has the most WWI stuff available? Just curious.

15mm is what I've done but I've been seriously tempted to redo in 6mm.

We use Through The Mud And The Blood by TFL. Big skirmish in 28mm. About 50-75 figs per side. Great War Miniatures makes killer figs, IMHO.
I make Trench terrain, BTW.
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Peter

That is some very nice terrain Peter.

For large actions I'd be tempted by Pendraken's 10mm, or possibly 6mm.

Pendraken is super tempting. Big enough to base individually but still very cheap to make big unit bases.

Thank you, Sam. I just started my little business venture. Glad you like it!
Peter

i will mention Peter Pig if that is not too much crass commercialism? There are over 600 unique sculpts in the PP WW1 range. Plus heads and models.
I really enjoy WW1 gaming in 15mm scale/size. Of course i am biased toward 15mm figures. Simon plays square bashing with 10mm figures and it looks great too. The PP 15mm range has a few hundred packs in it although there are many nations we still do not do!
The Russian Civil war makes an excellent extension to WW1 gaming. It gives terrific scenarios and stories.
Square bashing assumes each player is commanding a large formation such as a division. Square bashing is a nice dame because there is no measuring and units act in groups (by the square) . Uses D6 with a typical fight using 8D6 per player.
Good gaming.

martin

I have some of the minifigs, but they were kind of weird. Some packs had a ton of poses, some only had one or two.

Nice figures though.

I do WW1 in 6mm, 15mm and 20mm.

If starting over I'd do the lot in 15. Or maybe 6…

6mm is very forgiving.

"i will mention Peter Pig if that is not too much crass commercialism?"
Definitely not, Martin ! I love your figures and 15mm is a great scale. Now only to find a rule set that accomodates hundreds of figures on the table (and find a space that can have them ;-))).

15mm, my armies are a mixture of Peter Pig, Minifigs, Irregular and some QRF vehicles.

Much depends on what you want to do, for skirmishing 15 – 28mm, for larger actions 6mm to 15mm. I suspect that the 15mm ranges have most stuff available.

15mm primarily Peter Pig. Some Eureka and Minifigs for my Turks. All for Great War Spearhead.

15mm for larger scale games using PP and mini-figs. Skirmish scale The Mud and the Blood by TFL and Great War rules using plastics by HAT, Emhar while venturing into supplementing with metals.

BTW no one mentioned Khurasan miniatures OUTSTANDING early war ww1 figures.

I have 18mm Blue Moon figures for AustroHungarians vs. Italians – using the German figures and French figures with paint job substitutions.

Then I also have 10mm Callistra early war French and Germans, very nice figs!

Finally I have 15mm Peter Pig figures for my RussoPolish War using all sorts of packs from the Pig's WW1 and RCW collections.

I like variety!

Seems like most folks out there do 15mm. Anyone doing 54mm?

Don't forget that a lot of the 15mm stuff mixes pretty well with each other.

28mm, large skirmish, mod. Force on Force.

25/28MM figures, mostly Old Glory.
Beautiful Terrain Peter.

1/72 scale plastic. I can find everything i need for late war skirmishes, even A/t rifles and MG08/15. Try Hat and caesar.

Also tempted by Baccus 6mm for larger actions, waiting on tanks.

Thanks Tom!

Some the Funny Little Wars crowd do WW1 in 54mm, Armies in Plastic and Emhar do a ton of suitable figures.

15mm 1914 Germans -French and 1915 -18 Anzacs – Turks. I use Over the Top by GDW (WWI version of Command Decision 1)

All my 15MM WWI are from Bloodaxe Miniatures, sold by Historifigs.
bloodaxeminiatures.com
They only do German and Russian but are nice miniatures at an amazingly good price. They even file the bottom of the miniature, so I don't have to file them before basing. Of course, I use them for my ImagiNation South American 1930's armies, with their Interwar Vehicle Range with Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames and WWII Wargaming and Introduction rules.

My 6mm are predominantly Irregular.

15mm is mainly Peter Pig, supplemented with Minifigs, Irregular (particularly artillery) and QRF.

20mm is mainly plastic – HaT, Emhar, Revell, Airfix plus some IT Miniatures metals. Vehicles a wide range, plastic, metal, resin, diecast toys, cardboard….

Having built one card model, never again.

We have been adding quite a bit of WW1 lately

Early War: 28mm

East Africa: 20mm

I use 28mm, for small-scale late-war battles.

I play Great War Spearhead II in 6mm Irregular – tons of options for figures and I'm surprised how good they come up with a lick of paint.

I play (or, will play) If the Lord Spares Us (Gallipoli, Sinai and Palestine etc.) and use Eureka 15mm – some limits to the range but great minis.

I've not (so far*) been tempted to game WW1 at larger scales (e.g. anything less than 1 unit = company)

*never say never

'Scale' has several potential connotations in this context. With respect to figure scale, the key scales of 6-, 10-, 15-, 20- and 28mm all have very good ranges of figures from a variety of manufacturers. There really isn't any major difference now between the ranges, apart from some minor hiccups here and there.

Aesthetics will therefore factor into scale choice, more than range of weapons systems available. Many like the bigger figures, which look impressive. 28mm works really well for 'skirmish' games, though there are some fundamental problems that plague this type of game. Unlike WW2, small units were far more compressed on the battlefield in WW1. Beaten zones of small arms and/or artillery fire could be applied to an entire unit, wiping it out in minutes. Such fire would often be directed from hundreds or even thousands of yards away – i.e. many tables distant from the table that the figures are on. If you look at AARs for these types of games then you will often seen equal numbers of attackers and defenders on table. It makes for good games but is not really historical.

FWIIW, my preference is for division- and corps-level games. I have played these with 6-, 10-, 15-, and 20mm figures, so the figure scale doesn't matter at all. I like the 6mm scale best, as the figures suit the ground scale better IMHO. There are some examples of these types of game here:

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Robert

Working on a 54mm German verses Russians circa 1915. Will be running it at SpartaCon in January. Armies in Plastic makes both foot and cavalry.

Way cool. What day is SpartaCon on? I'm in the area and would love to check it out. I haven't been to one in a couple years.

I'm hoping to do the Mexican Revolution 1910-1920 in 15mm using an adaptation of Piquet-Barrage rules. This is a long term project though and could change directions as I move more into it. A stumbling block at the moment is a shortage of 15mm figures specifically modeling the Revolution armies … Likely to start as a map exercise type of game using empty bases as "counters" but even that is some way off while I send my new collection of a couple of thousand 15mm Mexican-American War figures into battle!

Use 20mm ! So many of the figs and equipment can be used for WWII you can save a lot of cash!