"Ever Played Multi-Scale Food Of The Gods Game?" Topic

Or a Land Of The Giants game? Or a time machine or teleportation accident that took your troops to fight enemies in another time or place, but they and their equipment arrived at a different size/scale?

EXAMPLE: What if one player had a small team of, say, 28mm figures (or perhaps even 54mm) while the other had a much larger force of something like 6mm figures? Have you ever played such a game? How did it go? Which world (terrain) did you play in, that of the giants or the little ones? How did the size difference help/hurt accuracy of shots?

By the way, this next picture is what made me wonder just such a thing, and I hope it inspires some of you guys to do more gaming:

link

Dan

This is the inevitable result of any such folly.

Nice idea. I've used scaling a couple of times for this effect… one of my Champions superhero characters was a shrinker, so I converted a 15mm figure for him. The other one was using a 1/35 scale Fallschrimjager figure as the basis for a (heavily converted) heroic statue of Stalin as a Flames of War objective marker:

Dan,

Have never done that (yet), but we did include a "bugs from space" landing in the middle of a medieval game once. The players basically ignored the bugs and kept fighting among themselves. The bugs won!

I like the last picture.

Jim

Jim,

That's hilarious! I guess that teaches them to band together to kill the bugs first, and then get back to killing each other. :)

Dan
PS. "Have never done that (yet) …"
Lol. Does that mean you might be enticed to do so now?

No. I am only on level one drugs.

There was an old fantasy game that used differnt scales like you mentioned. It was about war between various demonic factions. The rank and file foot sloggers were something close to 6 or 10 mm. The lieutenants were maybe 15mm. More heroic guys were 28 and the big bad guys were 54mm or something. I think it was called Inferno.

In my 15mm fantasy days I used 28mm ogres as giants.

Chuck

I'm using some of the Privateer Press models as mechasuits in 15mm. Dawnguard Invictors as Landmates in a scifi game, and the various Cyclops as Warstriders in a wargame set in the Exalted epic-high-fantasy setting.

Of course, we use 'different' sized insect toys as large foes on the VSF table, but not what you had in mind.

I think someone converted some 15's for clockwork soldiers, but you're thinking organic, as well. ;->=

Doug

PS. "Have never done that (yet) …"
Lol. Does that mean you might be enticed to do so now?

We'll play just about anything at least once.

Jim

Any ideas for what the effect of 6mm rifles or muskets would be against 28mm figures? Or how melee would work between different scales?

Lol. Or a volley of a hundred musket shots!

Or how about a 6mm tank against a 28mm figure? :)

Dan

You could probably look at how skirmish games handle giants and dragons, or conventional infantry assaulting walkers in battletech and other mecha games. The larger unit can probably brush aside a thin line, but small missile fire will still be dangerous in volume and being swarmed by smaller infantry will still be very dangerous. Falling down (although it may also crush some of the attackers) is probably a death sentence.

Shooting at tiny moving targets must produce a lot of wasted shots too, specially when all hell breaks loose.

QUESTIONS
Wouldn't a 6mm man be to a 28-32mm one somewhat the way a full-sized action figure measures up to a normal-sized person?
Aren't action figures something like 10 inches tall?

Dan

Some bit larger; original GI Joe were a foot, and that's one-to-six, assuming Joe's near six. Aren't all heroes? ;->=

6/30, right be 'tween 28-32, is 1-to-five. [Action figures are usually three to four inches tall; original Joe was a doll, though the lads would never admit it.]

Think Barbie's older brother, The Hulk.

Doug

That's what I was thinking of, GI Joes. They were a foot tall? I imagined them smaller.

So a 6mm soldier against a 30mm one (1/5) would definitely be like us fighting a 14-15 inch tall doll* (70/5 or 72/5):

Dan
* A hostile, well-armed doll. :)
Plus the little guys are way better at cover:
link

OK this is probably extremely silly, but anyway…

how about a quick and dirty way to do the cross-scale thing using saving throws/ multiple hits based on height ratio.

So for example a 20mm fig hit by a 10mm fig gets a 50% saving throw ie 4-6, while if a 20mm fig hits a 10mm fig he gets double effect ie 1 hit plus 1 bonus hit.

How about a table:

28mm hit by 20mm saves on 5-6
28mm hit by 15mm saves on 4-6
28mm hit by 6mm saves on 2-6

20mm hit by 15mm saves on 5-6
20mm hit by 6mm saves on 2-6

15mm hit by 6mm saves on 3-6

28mm hitting 20mm gets 1 bonus hit on 5-6
28mm hitting 15mm gets 1 bonus hit
28mm hitting 6mm gets 4 bonus hits

20mm hitting 15mm gets 1 bonus hit on 5-6
20mm hitting 6mm gets 2 bonus hits

15mm hitting 6mm gets 1 bonus hit

Bonus hits being applicable in melee or if firing at a deep target to the maximum number of ranks.

Though I think melee effectiveness would probably be geometric rather than linear.

If you want a quick and dirty rule to account for scale different for ranged attacks, why not adjust the effective range and let the game system's range modifiers cover it?

A figure double the shooter's scale is treated as being at half the range, while one that's 1/6 the scale is treated as being 6 times the measured range.

That works out for effective range direct fire shooting, but I'd apply a penalty of some sort for thrown attacks, mortars and other situations where the actual ballistic path comes into it. They *look* like they're 100m away, but those midget fiends turn out to only be 50m away!

For damage done/resisted, you could use mass as a rough guide to effectiveness; each doubling in scale should scale up the mass by a factor of eight, so a 12' giant would be treated as counting as eight normal guys. Conversely, one normal guy attacking the giant would be expected to to 1/8th the usual damage.

@Timbo W: "Though I think melee effectiveness would probably be geometric rather than linear."

So true! I think people forget that, when something is half the length they are just a quarter the mass.

@mrinku: "A figure double the shooter's scale is treated as being at half the range, while one that's 1/6 the scale is treated as being 6 times the measured range."

You are a GENIUS! That is a brilliant way of looking at it.

Dan

What flavor does your food of the Gods come in? Does it affect their size and temperament? If it tastes like Lima beans I will have to nuke all of them.

@Cacique Caribe: Thanks! However regarding "quarter of the mass" that's the rule for 2D area (which does relate to target size). 3D volume (and thus mass) scales by the cube power, so 1/2 length in all three dimensions means 1/8 the volume/mass.

Unless there some situational thing, such as a superpower involved.

@Bashytubits: Microwaving Lima beans will not help. The only solution is to mulch.

Well since All I do is 6mm Sci-fi now. I use figures from 3-15mm depending on the model. It's Big Galaxy … not all life forms are the same size as Humans !