"Scale creep!" Topic

I always set out with the best intentions when planning new forces for wargaming and with a rational plan of what to get, but never seem to stick to it. I game WW2 in 15mm and 28mm and decide 15mm was for company level games, so a company of infantry per player with a platoon of tanks in support. 28mm was for a platoon of infantry with the odd tank or assault gun in support. Trouble is I get tempted by all the nice stuff that is available now. Maybe add an armoured car so I can do recce scenarios, but armoured cars generally operate in sections of 2 for mutual support, so I need at least 2. Then you need to add some other recce vehicles like armoured half tracks and of course 1 with a 75mm gun and so on. The end result of this process is I now have battalions worth of infantry in 15mm, with companies worth of support options and companies of infantry in 28mm with numerous platoons of support. Does anyone else suffer from scale creep or do you stick rigidly to your plans?

I'd call that organisation creep rather than scale creep, but I know what you mean…

I think that is pretty common. There is so much cool stuff out there, and you want to have a wider variety of options.

I used to, and worse--though I agree with MajorB that it isn't scale creep. I usually call it "recruiting." Anyway, years too late, I've found a fairly workable solution.

Find yourself a good stack of scenarios suitable for your table size with force lists. Set those lists as your objective. For instance, my 28mm individually-mounted armies are geared around One Hour Wargames: each army consists of four core units and two each of three types of support units. (No more than six units total will show up in any one game.) The battles themselves may be fought out with Lion Rampant or Charge! but this tells me when the army is complete. The armies with more units and smaller castings gear around the Charles S. Grant scenario books, which might get me a 20-unit horse & musket army, for instance. Either way, I reach a point at which I can say "the only way I can ever use that new armored car platoon is NOT to use the one I already bought and painted." This (usually) brings me up short.

This will not keep you from building entire new armies or periods, but it will keep you from having a 6' table and enough German army to attack on a 20' frontage.

Not a problem for me most if the time. I build a sensible force with a specific set of scenarios in mind. So no "two Tigers, a Hummel and pioneers" type forces.

I game WW2 in 15mm and 6mm. The tanks are cool but infantry is boring. No lace, no plumes, just uniforms deigned to look like mud. That said I have nice collections in both scales, but I haven't added to the 15s in 5 years, even though I play pretty often.

The thing I find funny is gamers who own all the kit that would never be in their games – Wespe's for small unit/skirmish for example.

The thing I find funny is gamers who own all the kit that would never be in their games – Wespe's for small unit/skirmish for example.

I have resisted the temptation to buy a Russian 203mm howitzer in 1/56 scale, so I am not that bad! In 28mm I only have sections of 2 cars for the agermans, although I do have heavy and light. I have a platoon of M5A1's for the US though.

Your problem is you are doing everything in two scales. Select one scale and then buy everything!

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

@Fred Cartwright: Except that the big 203mm howitzer was often used in the street fighting in 1945.

So I'd actually say that the 203mm would be reasonable to have in 28mm, but not the 122mm or 152mm guns.

Lion. Very true. I shall have to get one now!

Always two scales, Bunkermeister--a mass battle scale and a skirmish scale. You don't want to raid Rommel's HQ in 6mm, and while you may want to fight El Alamein or Kursk in 28mm, there are technical difficulties.

Neve went to 28mm. We started moderns at 1/72 but soon found that vehicles are unsuitable at any sensible ground scale.

However I was horrified by the amount of 1/144 (12mm) I have. That just gets bigger as the scenarios get more interesting, Mine rollers, engineering vehicles, bridge layers, supply trucks,AA vehicles, boats, para drop vehicles (Wiesels), the list seems endless. Still have stuff waiting for a commission slot at Shipyards for stuff.

For me it is more about the cool miniatures.

Being able to use it in a game is just a bonus.

I call it "the snowball effect". Any project/army I want to do will snowball into something larger than intended. I also have a compulsion to buy "all" the options for any army. That's ok with warband/skirmish sized games but can get carried away on large scale stuff.

It's one of the reasons I don't actually game WW2 even though I really want to and am very interested in the history. I could maybe get away with a decent OOB for canadians in NWE. But then I need germans for them to fight. If I have germans then maybe I could have more than late war. Even at a small amount of each of the main types of vehicles germans would be huge. I'd like soviets as well. Soon I'd have 3 or more huge armies able to do everything excluding the Pacific theater. No ability to say I only need 1 pz 4, I'd rather have a battalion, preferably full strength division with Corps support troops attached.

So far I'm sticking to 28mm fantasy (which also encompasses every historical army I like from ancients to 16th century).

Plan, you have a plan? My life is a series of 'plans' interrupted by a cacophony of "Ooh shiny" moments. Paint what you want and make up an excuse to play with it. Remember, you don't have to play with every soldier every game, they don't get jealous or anything. Except Airfix Churchills, they are evil.

I feel your pain. My WW2 stuff was stolen 20 years ago but about 10 years ago my dad turned up about 50 of my old 1/32 Airfix figures in the loft. These were elements of three sets, 8th Army, Japanese, and Russian. After replacing the missing ones through eBay, I thought Right, what could I game with these?

And I duly started acquiring Afrika Korps, German paratroopers, German infantry, and Australian infantry. Then I thought right, well I will need a bunch of SdKfz 250s and 251s to cart the Germans around. But I'll need double because desert and NWE. Then it was 1/32 Crusaders, Grants, and Shermans for the desert and the 8th Army, Lees to oppose the Japanese, and of course with Shermans you can do late war too, so get some British paras and then Airfix reissued the 17-pounder…it was madness, really.

I am now slimming down to just desert/Tunisia/Crete and 1940 NWE and everything I will just paint and enjoy owning.

Recently I caught myself trying to find an excuse to re-buy a lot of Airfix 1/76 kit. This would simply be going over the same ground in a different scale.

@ Bunkermeister

I look at your stash of kit, and assuming that you have playing space available to deploy all that, I am bitterly envious in a quite vinegary way.

I don't even own a table big enough to line that amount of stuff up on.

We started with a platoon each for Bolt Action (28mm) and have ended up with the teeth elements of battalions…and we do exactly the same campaign with Crossfire in 54mm. We're sad, sad sad individuals. SWMBO is now painting companies of 28mm early war Brits, German infantry and German paras. I dread to think how that will end up.