"Does 28mm gaming have the seeds of its own destruction?" Topic

Over the years, my gaming has gradually moved from 15mm to 28mm in both Napoleonic and ACW. This is mainly due to playing with other guys figures.

They shifted to 28mm, mainly because they like the spectacle are good painters, who enjoy painting and have had the disposable income to build armies of units of 30+ figures.

However, they of course then want to use these handsome armies and "only" having access to a maximum 12ft wide table the footprint of these units soon swallows the available area.

For me this then gives games that no matter the rules or the period, seem to end in dice rolling contests, preceded by some cursory forward movement.

Now you could argue that in these two periods at Division level and below, this was how things invariably panned out but with little or no manoeuvre the life seems to have progressively been sucked out of gaming to the point where the only 28mm games we now play are WW2 skirmish.

Not that they are an anathema but when I think of the thousands of hours and money that now sit in cupboards it really makes me wonder about it all.

Until as few years ago, I was busy doing 28mm Napoleonic units at 1:20, until I realised I would never have more than division a side.

So I rebased them for a set of rules with one stand = 1 brigade, and haven't looked back.

I can do decent battles on a 6 x 4 table and still have room to manoeuvre.

There is a compromise – 12 figures don't look like a brigade, even less so than 30 figures not looking like a battalion.

But then everything we do involves compromise.

28 mike mike is dumb

Sigh.

There is no bad, wrong or stupid figure scale. But if you want to refight historical battles, or at least make the decisions historical commanders of a certain level made, you have to pay attention to table size and ground scale. After you've done that, it's a matter of aesthetics. Footslogger seems to have done that. It isn't the choice I would have made, which would be to fill that stand with more and smaller castings, but it's a workable choice.

Trajanus, pick a big battle--Waterloo, Leipzig, Gettysburg. Pick a table you know you will have available, and work out what your ground scale needs to be. Now, once you've done that, find a set of rules compatible with your group's basing and that ground scale. Fight that battle with those rules. A lot of painted castings may not be in the game, but maneuver should be restored.

Worst thing we do to ourselves is paint horrendous numbers of castings and then insisting on using too many for the table available.

Part of the hobby is imagination, part is collecting, and part might be memories of scarcity.

When we read about colorful battles, many want to recreate them using historical forces and we see ourselves playing the role of commanders moving armies. There is a disconnect between the miniatures armies we want to use to recreate both battles and campaigns and what we will actually be able to either fit on a table or tolerate moving around. This is the difference between wargames of the imagination and the physical reality of gaming.

In terms of collecting miniatures, we also want both the basics AND the exotic or elite troop types. In Napoleonics, the choices are vast and can run someone into trouble. Even for the AWI which, theoretically, should be a small sized gaming period, the sheer number of unit types can cause us to amass large numbers of figures. We start with both the best intentions and rationalizations about having variety and contingent numbers of figures for every situation but eventually, if not fought against, the desire to use everything can kick in.

Then, speaking for myself, there are memories of scarcity. As a kid, I could never afford anything but now I constantly treat myself to whatever I want irrespective of the usefulness on tabletop. Additionally, I am constantly concerned that I wont have enough units to form armies for certain scenarios or campaigns. Scarcity and her memories drive me to gather more units than I'll ever use.

Ojne just has to be strong and realize that a division a side can yield very enjoyable games.

Call me old school. My rule of thumb is I build 25/28mm armies pre-gunpowder (ancients, dark ages), 15mm armies for early gunpowder (i.e. Napoleonics, ACW) and 6mm with the beginning of mechanization. Everyone is free to build what they want, and I'll even game with their troops, but I'm not interest deviating too far from my plan. I don't have the time.

pjm

Spot on, Minipigs. I'm probably in an even worse situation because I built for a group I am no longer part of. I enjoy the collecting and painting, but there are things in my loft that will never see the light of day again, let alone be played with.

Robert has suggested a sensible route too. I would add to that ‘what can you physically control?' I know some people can't get their heads around it, but I'm happy to bathtub. So long as my Napoleonic French army looks like a Napoleonic French army it's good enough for me, even if I don't have the right ratio of cuirassier to Line infantry. As Footslogger says, we already make so many compromises why this should be an issue escapes me. It does depend on the rules, but on average I've found 20 units (Napoleonic) is plenty.

One thing I do now that helps me visualise a force is draw it out using military symbols with coloured sharpies!

Hi Jeffers,

I think we are on similar waves of misery because I get all my stuff painted for me and I like certain things to be done by one hand which means to make sure all my French line look the same I might get 6 more battalions than I'll ever need to ensure against not being able to secure the same painter again.

It does depend on the rules one uses but if you use rules with little figure removal then one has less excuse not to use smaller forces. I use a set of rules where battalions can disappear in the blink of an eye which only amplifies Scarcity's whispers in my mind.

I only use 28mm for skirmish or to look nice in the curio cabinet. 15 for battles with 6 fig battalions or brigades for my small tables (napoleonics) and standard 2-8 figs per stand for ancients. I envy those with the bigger figs and the space to play with them, but I never sacrifice maneuverability for spectacle. That is where the fun for me comes: deciding where units are to fight or not, not to line up frontal assaults and throw dice no matter how pretty the figs.

Aethelflaeda,
———bearing the banner of banned in Boston and TMP Talk——

Fortunately wargaming is so flexible that solutions can usually be achieved.
I expect a really good brain storm will sort it out. Failing that, try a barn storm and see how that goes?
wargamers are inventive types.

"Wargamers are inventive types."

So we are, Martin; so we are. Sadly, a lot of what we invent is rationalizations and excuses. But I think most of what I'm reading makes sense, with special credit for Aethelflaeda. MiniPigs tells us why we do it wrong, but it's still wrong. A few hedges:
--I love a good bathtubbing of a battle as well as the next gamer, but you do have to watch out for range issues, and decide whether the bathtub or the history has priority. I was once shot out of a position in a bathtubbed battle by smoothbores which would have been three miles away in real life--and the more fool me for reading up on the battle when I should have been paying attention to the planned tabletop.
--You can fight horse & musket battles with 28's if you pick your battle carefully, and small scales in ancients can make for serious spectacle.

What I've finally come down to--decades too late, and setting aside some special purpose and legacy troops--is a single pair of smoothbore musket 28mm armies of somewhat mixed period--"Red" army predominantly British in tricorn, shako and Tarleton, "Blue" army largely US with a dab of French for color. Enough 24 casting infantry units and 12 casting cavalry ones for almost any Charles S. Grant scenario, and the right army for Cowpens, Bladensburg and perhaps Barossa, usually on a 4x6 table. When I want to do huge battles--or only have a card table to work with--I break out 5mm and 6mm castings, 24 to a 2" or 60mm stand, which might represent a brigade and are very period-specific.
Same principle holds elsewhere: WWII is 5/6mm on 1" stands, while skirmishes are fought out with 28mm science fiction figures. My fantasy/Renaissance are 28mm--about right for looting the Shire or springing someone from a Border jail--while my 5mm Ancients are classical armies--Greeks, Spartans, Romans, Carthaginians and so forth--16 to a 40mm stand and you can put Cannae on a 4x6 table.

You can do anything you want in miniature warfare--but only any one thing. Every choice you make limits the range of your workable subsequent choices, so you want to be sure to make them in the right order; most important (to you) first. Trajanus and his buddies will be fine once they decide that maneuver is more important to them than maximum castings on table. They appear to have already decided that for WWII.

I came to the conclusion many years ago that unless you work at 1:1 for both figure and ground scale then it was all bathtubbing. That's before you factor in the issues with time, visibility, very, very, very tall generals etc… I just use the history to create meaningful scenarios, but I won't lose sleep that my battle where the British are defending a ridge with an Airfix building in the centre doesn't accurately recreate Waterloo. I use 24 & 12 for my units, too!

Considering I was making 10mm figures back in the late 80s but never actually gamed with them, it shows I have a considerable disassociation with common sense anyway… At least now I am looking at smaller sizes that will fit on my dining table. Especially those that have nice model aeroplanes I can make.

Anybody want to buy my 20mm Cold War collection?😉

I don't know what the worry is. My group games in 6, 15 and 28. At conventions in the US, I've seen no dominance by 28s. I actually felt, aside from the "great golden age of skirmish" we are currently experiencing, that we seemed to be heading into the realm of braille soldiers.

Its easy to paint yourself into a corner. A reasonable scenario for the available table space is one salutation. You can use all those units, exotic or otherwise, just not all at the same time.

The overwhelming majority of figure sales go to collectors rather than gamers. If fact I think the majority of "gamers" are more figure collectors.

We could add the vortexes created by a couple of scales which, interestingly, almost mimic the vortexes created by wargaming periods.

15/18mm and 28mm basically suck the life out of other ranges and the merchants pander to them to the point where everything is always made in those scales. Ironically, the sheer glut of 28mm products offered entices gamers with complete collections to add more or new items which in turn is fueled by memories of scarcity of one form or another.

Someone might have done the Old Guard in full dress but when they're released by another maker in campaign dress, it somehow justifies a 4th regiment. Someone else might have had to cobble together some obscure Confederation of the Rhine unit just to see Perry Miniatures bring it out and demand a remake of that battalion.

A while back on TMP, when I was suggesting some range of figures get made in 40mm (One that exists in abundance in 28mm) someone reflexively said something like "Why 40mm, why not 28mm?" That to me is Scarcity in action; there is literally never enough to satisfy the 28mm appetite. That's why there are so many repetitive ranges in that scale. Does anyone know how many 28mm FIW ranges there are?

It's similar to Wargaming periods. Napoleonics sucks the life out of most wars 25 years before and after.

I agree there is no bad, wrong or stupid figure scale in general terms. The figure scale is only bad, wrong or stupid if it doesn't allow you to do what you want to do with the figures. I like 28mm because there is a good selection of high quality figures, I have a fighting chance of being able to paint them, they look good as individuals and they don't look too skimpy as units. The last two points are clearly subjective. The second is my limitation, so others may be able to do better with smaller scales.

If my ambition was to re-fight Waterloo or Gettysburg then 28mm would not be my figures of choice. In the ACW there were a number of good actions that involved fewer than 10,000 men per side, and some that involved fewer than 10,000 men total. This is doable, especially for those of us who don't mind wargaming on the floor.

@MiniPigs-I don't think AWI suffers from its proximity to the Napoleonic era as much as the European wars of the 18th century.

What wars existed 25 years before or after Napoleonics that are worth playing?

Sure I could indulge in some Carlist stuff or some obscure Russian/ottoman conflict but for the most part there isn't as much repeatable bang for the buck in terms of buying into the line of figs needed for them. I don't think its a case of sucking the life out of them, as much as those conflicts are so small that they never attain critical mass in the imagination that gives return on investment for the outlay in money and painting time needed. Budgets for gaming is finite for most. Hell, I won't even indulge in French infantry in bicornes but just sub in my Spanish and French 1812 figs if I want to fight Marengo. I haven't even begun to exhaust every Peninsular war fight I might game to even think about adding to the lead mountain for Carlist games.

Aethelflaeda,
-----bearing the banner of banned in Boston and TMP Talk----

Really, MiniPigs? What does a period look like after it's had the life sucked out of it? Because when I was getting started and Napoleonic Swedes and Bavarians were tricky to get in 30mm--no such thing as a 15--the Carlist Wars were almost unheard of, and the '98 was a matter of drinking songs, not wargame armies. Now with abundant Napoleonics available I've got 15mm 1798 Irish by the box--and could buy them in 28mm if I wanted--and the Perry Brothers are making the Carlist Wars. Those scanty 30s 20's and 25s have been reinforced by 2mm, 5mm--I remember seeing my first 5mm--6mm, 10mm, 15mm scales, and the available 40's and 54's far exceed what there was. Looks to me more like there are more troops in more scales and periods all the time.

For me it's period specific relative to my size preference. We do AWI in 28mm (Carnage & Glory) as it looks beautiful and with average 16 figure regiments will fit on a 6x12 table with plenty of maneuver room. For other periods, WW3, WW2 (except skirmish), FPW etc I prefer 15mm and I'm thinking of dabbling in 6mm for larger scale WW2.

I tried to convert to one scale (28mm) more due to the requirements of terrain. When I arrived in the area 20 years ago, I was told that EVERYONE played flames of war so I built a couple of companies and have only played with one since. I already had 20mm WWII, then 28mm stuff started coming out.

As a gamer, my nit is the 1000 foot general and I focus on skirmish level games. I get that others enjoy the hobby in different ways.

I think it is safe to say that some of us have gone to 28mm solely because with age some of us can not paint paint or do not want to paint 15mm figures anymore. Yeah it costs more but at least we can see what we are painting. :)

Scale your units down to 12 or 16 man units and problem solved and your units will be on the table in a jiffy. Yes you lose the impact of large units, but you still get to see the detail of your 28mm. Is it a compromise…..well of course it is, but so is everything.
There is nothing to stop you from collecting 6mm on the side for mass effect when you prefer that and it does not take long to paint or cost much in space or money. This way you get the best of both worlds and depending on your mood that day will decide the scale you play.

Christopher

I have found the trick is matching the figure scale to the conflict and unit scale. For periods with huge battles and masses of troops, I do them in 15mm. This would include ACW, FPW and Napoleonics. You could do brigades and reduce the footprint even more. But I prefer regimental/battalion unit scale.

I do the AWI and 2nd Boer in 28mm. Not as many troops and the battles are manageable in regimental/battalion scale. Although the Boer War sometimes requires some really big tables.

I just started 28mm skirmish WWII. My club started it and I have resisted for three years, but I finally got sucked into the vortex.

I think Trajanus answers his own question as to why 28 mm is so popular. And he is right.

When he talks about "line 'em up and fight 'em" syndrome, which many games, especially historic re-fights, do suffer from, I think his point is mute.

Most black powder battles generally evolved into straight forward fights with little grand tactical movement once the armies approached to within 'battlefield ranges'; the sweeping manoeuvres of Napoleonic Corps, for example, was done before coming in sight of the enemy (e.g. off-table). This was largely because once under observation such moves would become fraught with danger.

Consequently, such grand tactical movement, rightly in my view, isn't really part of MOST table games except as the timing and point of arrival of fresh forces onto the table – grand tactical manoeuvre is the domain of board or map games.

I give you this example: This is Zorndorf 1758. The Russians were facing in the other direction earlier in the morning. They have turned around 180 degrees because Frederick II has marched his Prussian army around their flank and deployed in what was the Russian rear. This is the start point for the battle – the grand tactical move is not part of the war game as such – and it's a straight fight now.

In our re-fight we gave Seydlitz (Prussian cavalry, in pic above, top left) the historical military possibility to move his command group from the left wing to the right wing at any point in the battle, a move of about 10 feet. To do so he had to withdraw any or all of his cavalry back over his baseline (removing his cavalry 'off-table') then declare his grand tactical move; after a certain (random) amount of delay he could bring his cavalry back on table on the left wing (to face Demiku and Browne, in pic below). It was a 'map' move which didn't require 'table space'.

Thus with a little game craft, grand tactical moves are possible, but they shouldn't feature as 'generally available' to players. We play Piquet, which is card based, both for turn sequence and army characterisation. Here characterisation was the key, as we gave Seydlitz a stratagem card that allowed him to do this. Random stratagem tables can be made to encompass endless possibilities, but unless you have one you can't simply choose to use them; you need the card, then you need to dice for which stratagem. Fermor, the Russian commander didn't have a stratagem card in this case.

The other way around the table space problem is to play on a bigger table. This can be done by hiring a hall for the weekend, as the League of Gentlemen Wargamers do three times a year to play a two day game. Next up is a Pacific WW2 game in 28mm – it will not be a skirmish in the usual sense! As these weren't a usual WotR or Italian Wars game – the tables, all connecting, being England and Italy (Naples to the Alps), each using several thousand figures.

Here are two of the three 6 x 18 tables for Dresden 1813, there was also a spare (fourth) 6 x 18 table which was set up when the French went off piste by getting into the Allied rear on day two. This 12 player game used 12,000 28 mm figures but, it didn't seem overly crowded or feel tactically limited.

I think Trajanus answers his own question as to why 28 mm is so popular. And he is right.

Actually, I didn't have a question about why 28mm is popular my point was around inbuilt limitations.

When he talks about "line 'em up and fight 'em" syndrome, which many games, especially historic re-fights, do suffer from, I think his point is mute.

I'm puzzled as to why the "point is mute" when you appear to agree with me Historically and add to the point I made by giving a further explanation as to why, in the passage below.

Most black powder battles generally evolved into straight forward fights with little grand tactical movement once the armies approached to within 'battlefield ranges'; the sweeping manoeuvres of Napoleonic Corps, for example, was done before coming in sight of the enemy (e.g. off-table). This was largely because once under observation such moves would become fraught with danger.

Your gaming solution is admirable but for those of us who don't have the number of participants, or the resources available, sadly not practical.

Sorry Trajanus but the "inbuilt limitations" are solely in your mind and the mind of other gamers who either see things exclusively literally and/or only imagine themselves refighting what has already come to pass.

I have rarely been a literally minded gamer but they are not uncommon and though I can see where they are coming from, I note they can rarely see where others are coming from.

There are a lot of gamers who want to play mini-campaigns and fight completely counterfactuaal battles which may or may not result in frontal pushes; much of it comes down to scenario design or random battle/terrain generation.

If you refight Waterloo, expect Waterloo results. But, to Olicana's point, if you refight the 100 days campaign there is more room for maneuver. I believe he was touching on the fact that the fun and color might reside in the strategic and that the tactical reality will often be a frontal slog.

If you want tactical maneuver, I dont see what's wrong with small numbers of large scale battalions. Honestly, apart from that, I dont see what you're trying to come to grips with; you either enjoy the spectacle of 28mm and are willing to sacrifice maneuver for flair or you want tactical maneuver and have to use 6mm figures. However, it seems like you think wargaming should be about "X" and wonder how others can see it as "Y".

Frankly, even if one were able to maneuver on the tabletop and pull off a "Cannae" there would still be loads of dice rolling…at least at some point.

One last point, it depends on the rules you use too. If you use rules with high casualty rates or wildly fluctuating morale,it will cause gaps to open up quickly on the table top.

There seems to be a lot of "glass half empty" people on here. I've been involved in this hobby for 50+ years; we are living in a golden age of figure availability, 28mm or otherwise. Let's be positive for a change?

We seem overwhelmed by greater figure availability, rules, scenarios through the internet, piles of stuff. Back when I had to convert available Airfix figures, our imagination did the rest, and we had a heckuva good time.

Now we all want the thing to 'look' right, given the availability of materials for most periods. And that's great. But let's not lose sight of playability.

For my 28mm armies, I tried using infantry units @ 24, cavalry units @ a dozen, and 2-gun batteries. But they still looked big compared to the terrain.

Downsizing to 16 or 18 per infantry unit, 8 per cavalry unit, and leaving the artillery as is, I found greater space to manoevre, while not detracting from the look of the thing.

Also, using fewer figures per unit (we shoved a dozen Austrian jaegers into the woods last week,instead of 24, and they still did a great job) seems to make them more valuable and appreciated.

What I'm trying to say, after 40 years in this hobby, is that gamers think bigger figures = Bigger units = bigger terrain features, making for a giant punch-up.

I can assure you all that it's not necessary.

Never mind those mouth-watering photos of massive 28mm units marching up slopes in a variety of rule books and magazines. They whet the appetite, yes, but copying this can lead to 'movement frustration' as you find yourself running out of space, because someone plonked a huge building about the scale size of the Waldorf Astoria in the centre of the table, 'cause, well, it looked nice and seemed a bargain at the bring and buy!!
Suddenly, you find yourself contemplating "now, what if I'd bought 15mm instead?"
Gentlemen, give a downsize a try, as suggested above. You'll have more units, but somehow more space. And smaller buildings requiring fewer troops to defend them.
Thanks for reading, troops.

i don't know if it is a 28mm problem…
one of my complaints of the "average" non skirmish c onvention battle…no matter how big the table or small the figures. too many times there are too many figures on the board and your only choice is to go forward or stand there

I like 28s because I enjoy painting them. Gaming is just a means to an end and socialising with like minded friends .

Looks-wise I like 28mm, but the scale is too big for what I think of when I think of a wargame. It's why I don't like, for example, Bolt Action but like Flames of War.

There's been really good contributions on this thread but I guess by way of further information I need to expand a little.

That said, I should mention the recent post from Glencairn touches a number of common points for me.

Some of the difficulty is a "message board" thing coming from my original post.

Whenever we post on TMP no one knows our individual gaming history, or historical knowledge and its not really practical, or necessary (most of the time). Its also hard to sum up a new discussion topic in one line which adds to the confusion.

Like Glencairn I started a long time ago. When all there were to play with were 25/30mm figures until Airfix came along and later the first 15mm from Minifigs – the ones cast on strips.

At that time no one wrote rules that were Army Level, Corps Level, Divisional Level or anything else they were just rules. Most units were a dozen or so miniatures and casualty removal was the norm.

Things have changed a lot since then and in terms of manufacture of our little men, terrain, buildings, paints and the understanding of history applied to games and rules there is no comparison and yes its better.

So, I'm fully aware of the number of ways you can skin any given cat. The essential differences in levels of manoeuvre and most of the solutions that have been proffered.

However, I do find it curious that after all these years I'm being drawn into games that now offer little more than when I started.

This wasn't a perception I had through the bulk of my gaming life which as I said was in 15mm and indeed 25mm in AWI (smaller table top units) or Ancients. The latter always has always seemed more acceptable due to the reality of units having to steam into contact to hack and stab the living daylights out of each other!

And yes, there was often more to it than that but you get what I'm on about, right?

Then also in recent years, or certainly those I have been playing 28mm ACW or Napoleonics, there has been a drift toward rules with "big units", described by me in terms of figures as 30 or more.

Some of these express the unit size in numbers of "stands" but I'm including these, as the figure count often goes up to and past 30, be they mounted in 4's, 6's or 8's or any combination there of. In some cases these are written with 28mm in mind – yes Black Powder I'm talking about you.

Although, I'm loathed to use them or any rules as a case in point, as this generally leads on TMP to replies that are a specific attack and defence of an individual rule set that leaves the general point behind in a heartbeat!

However, they do provide a handy reference in more than one regard to things already mentioned.

If played to the letter, they can address the "overcrowding problem" by units running off, or being disordered all over the place. Although, I have to say I think adopting any rules that do this, because they do so, is a cop out and misses the point.

However, if you look at some of the scenarios in their supplements and I'm thinking of the one that includes Russians specifically, the number of units expected to appear on the table size mentioned (although the numbers are broadly correct to the particular action) is hilarious.

Now its been mentioned that in any game dice rolling is inevitable and generally this is a fact but I'd just as soon not play a game that feels like I'm in charge of the Sentinel Guns in "Aliens" and rushing down the narrow corridor is wave after wave of Napoleonic Russians, rather than rather nasty Xenomorphs!

High numbers of 28mm units on a narrow front – this is were we came in.

Well Black Powder is designed and it is unashamably stated in the videos with Rick as a club type game to be played on big boards. As Rick adds it can be played on small boards but it looses a lot of flavour.

The beauty of the basing system chosen by BP is that its pretty universal now with other systems such as General De Brigade etc. However on saying all of this the Austrian Army I am now building will be played mainly on the club tables until my son leaves the nest.

But yes your right the rules themselves havn't really changed that much whereas the figures ( in all scales) are much better as each decade comes compared to those of yesteryear. I think the standards of the latest figures are breath taking and as a more of a hobbyist type person , I very much welcome them.

I think the standards of the latest figures are breath taking

Absolutely!

God, when you look at those original 15mm Minifigs I spoke of and today's 15mm (well OK some are well on the way to 20mm) its ridiculous! And the same in 25/28mm!

Of course General de Brigade is another set where the larger unit is favoured, as is Republic to Empire.

On the ACW front we used Regimental Fire & Fury, which runs at 40 real men per stand, so the average Regiment at Gettysburg (no I don't advocate fighting Gettysburg in 28mm) comes out at 9 stands. Four 28mm on a stand to make it look like two ranks and there's a large foot print for a unit, just like that!

We have shifted to Guns at Gettysburg but we still use the same 28mm units, so the occupied space remains the same.

When I read your comments Trajanus I think "You would hate to wargame with me", which is fine. What I am trying to get from a wargame isn't what you are trying to get, and what you are trying to get isn't what someone else is trying to get.

When I go to Cons I am knocked out by some of the scenery in some of the games. It is better than what I produced in my model railroad days. I have no desire to duplicate their efforts though, because it doesn't add that much to my wargaming enjoyment. When Glencairn says 24 figure battalions look too big for the terrain, I say "So what". I'd be happy to play with those battalions if the scenery was chalk lines on a basement floor.

It comes down to what works best for each of us individually.

Bill N makes a good point. Different things drive different gamers crazy.

Like Bill N, I am in awe at some of the terrain wargamers create but I prefer a stylized, non-cluttered, non-undulating table that just lets me shove regiments around without the units getting broken up or tumbling around. When I was a kid, we used felt for roads, felt for rivers, felt gulleys, felt covered diorama bases for hills; all on top of a smooth wooden table painted green and that's the way we liked it.

For instance, I dont care about massed, forward firefights, especially with the bloody rules with wildly fluctuating morale that I use. As a matter of fact, I like crowded ACW battles.

But with Regimental Fire and Fury rules, I could never put up with regiments of differing numbers of stands. That would require bookkeeping and it would make me feel like an accountant in a woman's shoe store, alternating between worrying about inventory and brushing my hair over a piece of paper to see if I had dandruff.

Interesting analogy there MiniPigs. Can't say I spend much time in women's shoe stores! 😀

I confess I have some issues with RF&F but bookkeeping wouldn't be one of them.

A small number next to, or behind, each command stand usually kept track of their starting strength and stand removal took care of the rest. We used to color code them for the three troop quality types.

I agree that wild stand up ACW shootouts can be fun. My original point was that the crowded 28mm Games we were having seldom gave anything else!

But you and Bill N will get no argument from me that if you stick five gamers in a room you will get fifty different views of the same style of play.

I suspect that many 28mm wargamers entered the hobby back in the 1970s, when 20mm was the only scale readily available. Since then I have dabbled with many different scales, but always returned to 20/25/28mm.

I have also gone through many different rules sets, and rebased thousands of figures many times. Like many I tried to achieve the "Peter Guilder Look" of 36 figure battalions on a crowded table. Wargamers Illustrated has a lot to answer for.

When I moved to Spain on retirement ten years ago I had a good opportunity to assess just what I wanted to achieve with my wargaming. I started with an inventory of my 6mm, 18mm and 28mm armies. I then experimented with how many could fit comfortably on my 6x6 foot wargames table.

I decided that what I wanted to do was to fight multi corps battles. My initial intention was to use 28mm for division sized games, 18mm for single corps and 6mm for multi corps. I soon found that I much preferred to play with my 28mm figures.

I wanted to create a campaign which would provide endless battles to wargame. To do so I would have to make maps and write campaign rules. That was easy. But to transfer the battles to the wargames table no so easy.

I then realised that the key to the whole thing was the size of table available. In my case my 6x6 foot wargames table would be one days march in the campaign.

Using standard infantry movement rates from my current rules it would take 12 moves for infantry to cross the table. This became the daily movement rate in the campaign. So one wargame move became one hour in the campaign.

The result has been a campaign which has run for ten years and has provided 291 battles to wargame. Each one slightly different and all enjoyable. And some of the most enjoyable have been one corps per side. This is just 32 infantry, 4 cavalry and one gun per side. Masses of room to manoeuvre and huge problems with open flanks.

Here is the problem. If you want to use 28mm figures to fight Napoleonic battles you have to compromise. If you want to fight anything larger than one division per side you have to compromise a lot.

In my case this has resulted in 8 figure infantry brigades and 4 figure cavalry brigades. This allows me to form line, column and square with the infantry. It also allows me to fight four corps per side on my average size table.

I have had immense enjoyment from my 28/25/28mm figures for 50 years. I have collected, and replaced, large armies over that period. But with my current set up a newcomer to the hobby could field two 28mm corps with less than 100 figures.

The most important thing is to play games that you enjoy. It is very easy to become obsessed with collecting for the sake of collecting. And that is fine if your hobby is to collect model soldiers. But if your objective is to play enjoyable wargames you need a clear plan and stick to it.

There is a blog about my campaign which will give you all the information you could ever need, and you can find it here

link

That is very interesting, thistlebarrow2. You have scaled things down to the barest minimum of figures that could be used so that the main infantry formations can be represented. Most grand tactical rules don't bother with that level of detail, as it is beyond the army commander's or corps commander's normal scope of concern. Still, that is an important thing for many Nap. gamers to have in their games. I will copy & paste your rules into a word document and look them over. They look to be pretty involved.

Hello Trajanus!

"units of 30+ figures"

"maximum 12ft wide table the footprint of these units soon swallows the available area."

"with little or no manoeuvre the life seems to have progressively been sucked out of gaming to the point where the only 28mm games we now play are WW2 skirmish."

We (Napoleonic Miniatures Wargame Society of Toronto) hit this same wall on this same table (8x12ft) in the late 70s, in 25mm with 30-36 figure units as well. We even tried reduced units (12 figures) for a while, playing in a board room on multiple tables and once on a gymnasium floor. Nothing really worked.

Finally God sent us his one and only true scale, 6mm. Our first word was "flanks"! It took us roughly 20 years to really understand how to take full advantage of the scale and find a fabulous figure manufacturer, Baccus6mm, who also understood this scale better than anyone else. He established a common basing system for 6mm and a realistic and practical rule system called Polemos, that allowed you to play large or small battles, in a realistic time.

The scale also allowed members to play games at home on their dining room or kitchen tables with a friend or two in an evening. New members could build reasonable armies in a reasonable time frame at a very reasonable price.

However, the most important issue was that our games were now much more dynamic. Players hold a "council of war" before every game to try and hammer out a winning strategy that includes deployment, maneuver, timing, etc. At the end of every game players have a very clear picture of why they won or lost a game. It's never about how many dice was I able to roll or how many 6s did I get. In fact we don't even count casualties. The games are won or lost on army cohesion, often mixed with position and strength. Long gone are those days of long lines of endless units stretching from table edge to table edge.

I still vividly remember attending a convention game billed as a "huge Napoleonic game of over 15,000 15mm figures on a 30 ft plus table". There was a continuous line of figures on both sides of the table and more players and GMs then I could count. It was the most boring game I ever played in my life and it was never really finished.

Our original plan was to only use 6mm for the big battles and 25mm for the smaller actions. Once we started to use 6mm, 25mm was never used again. My collection of 25mm has not been used in 40 years. Our club is in its 54th year. We must be doing something right.

So to answer your question "Does 28mm gaming have the seeds of its own destruction?", absolutely, without any doubt!

Best regards,

Glenn

Hi Coopman

I use line, column and squares because I like the look of them on the table. Also it serves a practical purpose because it takes half a move to form square, and that formation also reduces movement. But most important it confirms that the brigade is ready to receive cavalry. I know that many rules with one stand represents a brigade just assume that the infantry are in the most suitable formation.

My wargame rules are really very simple. They are designed to provide the sort of wargame I like to play. However they are not written to explain each rule, as a commercial set of rules would be. They are rather a series of "idiot sheets" which cover each part of the move sequence.

You could easily replace them with your current favourite rule set, just amend the ratio and ground scale. Neither are important in my rules.

My rules are designed to provide a fast moving and fun game which arrives in a clear win for one side within 12 moves.

It's the intergration with the campaign that makes each game interesting. The corps, the terrain and the objective are all from the campaign. Most wargames start with casualties from previous battles, and at the end of the game new casualties are incorporated in the campaign stats.

Hello olicana!

"the sweeping manoeuvres of Napoleonic Corps, for example, was done before coming in sight of the enemy (e.g. off-table)."

Yes, indeed the manoeuvre itself started off table, but it ends up on the table and you need to have room for it when and where it arrives.

"Consequently, such grand tactical movement, rightly in my view, isn't really part of MOST table games except as the timing and point of arrival of fresh forces onto the table – grand tactical manoeuvre is the domain of board or map games."

A lot of our 25mm games needed to reflect the consequences of a grand tactical movement and we had no realistic space for it on a 12ft table. Their timing and point of arrival onto the table were critical to a lot of our games and we needed to have room for the units when and where they arrived. Which means an empty space is needed at some point if only to simply deploy and we didn't have it. We even tried to overcome this by using side tables. Then came rolling terrain that we could shift the battlefield and add in new pieces. Cute, but we were clearly ignoring the real problem, the scale of battle.

The problem that we had and appears to be the same with Trajanus's group is that the size of the figures, the size of the units and the size of table prohibit games like this. There is simply no room to put any additional troops on the table. In fact your usually looking at compromises just to fit the troops on that are already in play. One of the major ones is to reduce the number of battalions in a Division often to the point that your calling Brigades Divisions or better still calling Divisions Corps. I think a lot of 28mm gamers are doing this and if so they are robbing themselves of getting any type of realistic historical feel in their games.

One of the major concerns on a Napoleonic battlefield was the ability to manoeuvre large formations. Those and many other problems just don't appear when your Corps contain a fraction of the units that their historical counterparts did.

Once we realized that the size of the figures, units and table were forcing us into playing second rate games we knew we had no choice but to change everything and we're extremely glad we did. Long gone are those games where players simply know all they have to do to win is roll often and roll high. Oh and don't worry about anything else, just deal with the guy directly across the table from you. Boring!

We're now able to game any size of battle with all the units present and represent any kind of historical outflanking manoeuvre without having to make any of the compromises that we did when using large 25mm figure units on a 12ft table.

Best regards,

Glenn

Hush, Glenn! Now you've got me checking out the Baccus 6mm website.

I actually grouped my small 25mm into larger units as a space saving measure. It was all a compromise to get as many sexy cavalry units on the table as possible! And represent the Imperial Guard in a meaningful and aesthetically pleasing way. So I blame Napoléon.

I began with units of 12 foot and 6 horse. I then went to 16 foot for Neil Thomas' rules and brigaded two horse together. But the footprint of the foot looked out of place alongside the hoofprint of the horse. So instead of doubling the foot, I increased them to 24. Looked better and reduced overall deployment space needed for an extra 16-figure unit. Now my Imperial Guard has five units: grenadier, chasseur, tirailleur, light & heavy cavalry (chasseurs, dragoons, grenadiers & poles) and attached supporting guns and skirmishers. Looks a tidy force, especially alongside Himself on his egotistically larger than average base, and it's enough to handle on the table.

Because I use 2-rank line & 3-rank column formations it doesn't use much more space than when I used 12 figure units. In my mind, anyway!

But all of this depends on what you want out of the hobby. As was discussed on a different thread, it's a broad church hobby and there are enough splendid figures in multiple sizes to make it work for you.

You're always going to be bathtubbing something. If you have 30-figure 28mm battalions the your "army" is going to be maybe 10 of them, whereas if you have 30 brigades in 28mm they'll all have 10 figures in them. You either bathtub the battalions number or you bathtub the figure count but you can't avoid bathtubbing altogether. In 6mm you're bathtubbing the figures themselves.

As someone has said before, all you can really do is work backwards from your table space. If you are lucky enough to have a ping pong table, 9 feet by 5 feet, then you could perhaps assume that you'll occupy the middle 6 feet by 3 feet with the remaining area to be used as manoeuvre space, reserves holding space, etc.

So your fighting area is 6 feet by 3 feet, which has to serve as Eylau or Waterloo or Eckmuehl or wherever. Historically you'd have an army of maybe 75,000 men per side in such a space. So however many wargame figures in whatever scale can fit into that space are 75,000 men. If you can fit 300 figures in, then one figure is about 250 men which means a battalion is two to three and a brigade is 8 or 10, i.e. you're on Thistlebarrow's scale.

Personally I like to see battalions in lines and columns and squares, so bathtubbing the unit sizes like this wouldn't work for me. I'd bathtub the army instead. This would work for me in other eras, however, where I don't know what I expect to see. So if I were collecting Romans, where a decent army was four legions plus a similar number of auxiliaries, the above 6 foot by 3 foot space has to accommodate 80 cohorts or about 40,000 men. They also fight hand to hand rather than at range so you'd maybe have 400 in that space and we're now at 100 men per figure or about 5 to a cohort.

I've got to the stage where I switch off when somebody bangs on about ‘accurate ground scale'. As I said earlier, unless you work at 1:1 you are always bathtubbing and even then… hang on, I'm repeating myself.

thislebarrow2,
Can you please contact me at coopman827ATyahooDOTcom? I have some questions about your Nap. rules.

coopman,

just in case you haven't seen them, thistlebarrow / Paul's rules are here (he has a separate blog for them): link

plus campaign rules here: link

coopman

sent you email