"6mm rules?" Topic

Hello All!

New member here.

I spent 7 years in Saudi Arabia as an expat. Since Saudi Arabia is a conservative country, the internet wasn't allowed until the late 90's and it even then there were a lot of fire walls.

With no English language TV and only very limited access to the internet, I passed the time painting 6 and 15 mm. miniatures.

After moving back to the states, my miniatures went into storage. Twenty years passed. I recently bought a large house and with enough space for a hobby room, I've dug out my miniatures.

I've rebased the 15 mm. using General de Brigade rules and now have a corp of French infantry and another of cavalry.

I don't know what to do with the 6 mm. French.

I'm looking for a set of rules that would allow me to base units by regiments. Given how small these figures are, I don't really want to base these as battalions.

I initially thought about General de Armee but after reading the rules, I wonder why if gamers are supposed to be generals; so much time spent with deploying skirmishers? That's a colonel's responsibility, not a general.

I figure that if I can find the right rule set, the basing will follow.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a regiment based set of rules for 6 mm Napoleonics?

Blucher is a fun set…flexible basing too

You are mistaken. Battalion commanders had to get the Generals permission to deploy skirmishes from their own battalions.

Volley and Bayonet would work with regimental bases.

@Mike, I have never heard anyone say such a thing. What is your source?

@Masse de Decision

Yep, I did my 15 years in Saudi & Mideast back in the 1980's with Ma' Fluor. Retained my sanity by playing RPG's with our Phillipino engineering crew.

My personal view is that you should keep to the rules you know and like (GdB) before picking another rule set.

If you do retain the GdB rule set, you have now have two choices. You can use the 6mm figures as 15mm figures, so you end up with really small bases but you can make the battles larger. Or you can go with mass basing where you end up with, say 4 x 6mm figures instead of 1 x 15mm figure. That looks magnificent by the way.

If you decide to go with a different rule set, then the Polemos rules from Baccus are decent. I prefer to use masses of 6mm figures on bases and use the Rank & File rules myself.

Grand Armee would work.

Either Volley&Bayonet or Grand Armee or its' later descendant Blucher would do the trick.

I think that Grand Armee is a lot better than Blucher, but in both a base is a brigade, which is great if you want to do the big battles.

Masse, it sounds as though you've made a decision you're not expressing about how many castings represent a battalion or a regiment.

May I suggest starting with what size stand you want, and--since few people remove individual 6mm castings--how much casualty bookkeeping you're up for? Then we can discuss the merits of the rules which meet those standards.

I find Age of Eagles hits the right balance for 6mm
each stand of 20mm frontage populated with 12 or 8
figures 4 abreast gives the right impression for massed troops.it represents 250 men appox half a battalion. the basic unit in the game is the brigade with an average of 8 stands.if the brigade consists of different battalions eg a highland a british foot and a Portuguese battalion they will accurately and aesthetically represent the brigade.The brigade can also be deployed as line or massed or as battalion squares with stands back to back rather than a brigade in square. As for skirmishers its assumed to have an integral screen doing its job.as for casualties a stand is removed so no book keeping involved

hope it helps
David

Hi,

There are a few sets out there that may interest you, but we use Volley & Bayonet. They produce the feel of Napoleonic warfare, are very playable but with period feel. Additional rules included in the rule set allow their use for other periods such as ACW and Franco-Prussian War.

I have a Volley & Bayonet website with several battle reports which can be found here:
volleyandbayonet.wordpress.com

An outline of the rules can be found here:
link

I trust this of some use.

I made a list of Napoleonic games and their suggested scale, usual formation size a player is expected to command and the maneuver unit (Battalion, Regiment, Brigade). You can find it here. Regimental is a rarely used scale which I find puzzling, given that regiments, from my reading often worked closely together. Field of Glory: Napoleonics has a Regimental scale with 4-6 bases per Regiment. Bataille Empire can easily switch between Battalion and Regiment and has 4 bases to a Regiment but you could easily make it work with just two for the latter.

Blücher is usually Brigade scale but can easily be downsized to Regiment and uses a single base for a unit, which you seem to be after. On top of that it is one of the best rulesets out there in my opinion. Very top down, "I'm the general" approach. No fiddling with skirmishers and formations of individual units.

@79th. Thought that was common knowledge on these boards.

Quoted from an British Lt. Colonel being denied (by the brigadier) permission to deploy their skirmishers from their battalion. The quote, situation, and names are posted on these boards from an officer's biography. Even recently mentioned in a discussion within the last month or two.

Battalion commanders attached to a brigade were more controlled by senior officers, such as divisional and brigade level generals, on when to deploy and what formation was allowed. Maybe an emergency square was obviously an exception. But, a battalion commander was subject to strict oversight. Think of D'Erlon's formation at Waterloo and you want to form an attack column. Nah, everybody falls in line. Even throwing out your skirmishers was a move checked by your brigadier or higher.

Hello Masse de Decision!

Welcome back to the best hobby in the world!

One of the few rule sets actually designed for 6mm are Polemos Napoleonic Rules sold by Baccus6mm in the UK. It's a unique rule set as it actually contains two rule sets under one cover. One is for Division scale games and the other for Armies/Corps. There is a bit of a learning curve for some people but once understood it's a very satisfying game. You can read some of the AARs on this forum. Also see the ones under "Ruse de Guerre", (which I wrote) that can be used for Napoleonics, French and Indian War, American War of Independence and of course the War of 1812.

Even if you don't think the rules are your cup of tea you might want to use the basing system. 6mm basing has evolved since the 90s. The basing system used in Polemos is now what some people call standard 6mm basing. If you search the web it's not hard to find pictures of them and commercial artists sell them on the web as well with figures painted and mounted on mini dioramic bases. The system is about as simple as it gets you only need to use two bases. There is the 60mm x 30mm for infantry, cavalry, limber teams and wagons, etc. and the 30mm x 30mm for artillery crews/gun and officers. Also there is a 60mm x 60mm base used for Brigade games or you just put two 60x30 bases together. I just use the 60x30 base for both versions of the rules.

Aside from the rules it's my belief that you should mount your figures to match the scale not the rules. Rules change and the last thing you want to do is remount your figures every time a new set shows up. Today that's not so bad as a lot of rules are now base neutral. I'm not aware of any current major rule set that can't be played with Polemos basing either as is, or with a couple of simple house rules.

Hope this helps you out.

Best regards,

Glenn

A regimental game *is* a brigade game. In French brigades, the number of provided battalions might easily come from a full single regiment of four battalions but maneuvering/commanding as a complete regiment was't a field level of command in between battalion commanders and brigadiers. Regimental commanders were more administrative in function off the battlefield. .

Happy New Year Glenn.

I've deleted my original message as I was a little bit rude about your favourite basing system.

In any case, I hope you had Happy Holidays :)

Hello Stoppage!

It's truly the mark of a great and talented gentlemen who is able to mend his ways.

My holidays were indeed splendid, thanks for asking.

All the best to you and your family for this year and the future.

Glenn

Ho big are the 6mm units?

(GdA is awesome. If you like GdB I would recommend you try it)

I really regret basing my Napoleonics on 60x30. I discovered very quickly that Polemos was not to my taste and there's no other set of rules that works well for that basing size.

60x30 is an awkward size. Too small to be able to do any kind of diorama style basing except for troops in a line. Too big to be able to use multiple bases in a single unit (except for one behind the other making a square). If you do put two bases together it doesn't look as good as if you just did a single square base to start with (V&B, Grand Armee etc)

So my 6mm naps languish half finished and I went on to 15mm instead where I based on 1" squares and am much happier.

Hello Plessiez!

That's too bad that you found out afterwards that Polemos and its basing was not for you. No rule set fits everyone's taste. Polemos rules are what are called "New School" or "Top Down" rules. They are designed for experienced players or players who want to command armies not battalions.

You state that no other rules work well with 60x30 basing. I'm not aware of any other Division/Army rules that won't work as is or with a few simple house rules. Would you be so kind as to name a few and exactly what is wrong with the basing that makes them unworkable.

The 60x30 base is actually famous for being able to reflect a mini diorama style. Some people mount their figures in columns, squares but mostly in lines so that they can maximize the diorama effect. Most "Old School" or "Bottom Up" design rules that base for 6mm on tiny bases often have absolutely no room for any type of diorama. People who do enjoy Polemos and want to maximize the diorama effect use the 60x60 base. Try and have a look at some of these on the web, they are often stunning.

In "Ruse de Guerre" the latest Polemos rule set shows that you can use this base to represent anything you want such as sections, platoons, troops, grand divisions, half battalions (wings), battalions, regiments, legions or small brigades. Did I miss anything?

Some players who like to show formations for Polemos or some other rule sets that they also play use a three base system. A battalion is shown as one 60x30 base with command and line companies (similar to the basic polemos base) but also has two 30x30 to reflect the elite or wing companies. Cavalry is the same three bases. The only concern is you have to be careful of the scale of your battle as you have effectively cut your table in half.

Oddly enough my collection was based for V&B before Polemos was written. Since V&B was not originally intended for 6mm and required larger basing then Polemos I converted my collection to Polemos basing as it was smaller and allowed me to play bigger battles on my table. It also still allowed me to play V&B if I wanted.

Best regards,

Glenn

A much belated thank you for your replies.

I think I'm going to give Volley and Bayonet a try. One of the things I like about these rules (other than their simplicity) is that they'll pretty much work with any type of basing as long as the basing is internally consistent within the game.

Since I live in a rural area far from any gaming groups, I plan on developing French, Prussian, Russian, and Austrian units.

I'm currently working with an old set of Stone Mountain figurines. I just found out through Adler that Stone Mountain's defunct line were actually Adler figurines that were licensed for sale in the U.S.

I'm still mulling over unit sizes but have backed away from the idea of regiments. Here's my reasoning:

Although the paper strength of a French infantry battalion was 1,000 to 1,200, Napolun.com says that in reality between 1805 and 1815, the average French battalion had a paper strength of 840. In a letter dated 10 Sept 1811 by Marshal Davout, it was the Marshal's thought that battalion of 960 or more men were simply too large to be managed properly.

Napolun.com also says that with attrition, there were many battalions that could only field 500 men.

Even allowing for attrition, at a scale of 1 figurine = 20 men, the number of pieces needed for a regiment would make basing a single regiment sized unit a bit cumbersome. I think I'm better off basing by battalion. The alternative would be to increase the scale with 1 figurine equaling 50 men.

I have a collection of French Napoleonic 15 mm based according to General de Armee. Visually they are stunning to look at. I'm leaning towards doing something similar with the 6 mm.

Thanks much to Shugyosha for taking the time to compile a list of Napoleonic games and their suggested scale, usual formation size etc. This information will be useful and I plan to peruse it over the weekend.

To be absolutely candid, I've never been much of a gamer. The last Napoleonic war game I ever played (with miniatures) dates back to 1985. I'm primarily a painter. I love the uniforms and even though painting units can be monotonous, I find it all quite soothing. The pay off for me is the sight of the massed ranks when arrayed in a display cabinet.

Last summer I also got into designing and building a 15 mm. European village.

Since I'm new, I'm not sure if this will cut and paste from Pinterest but if it does, this was the first building I ever made. It's the White Horse Inn which I was inspired to build after listening to a German song from the 1920's "The White House Inn: Sigismund" sung by Marina Edelhagen.

I don't know if my 6 mm figures will ever "go to war." I do want to base them … but not on a 60 x 30 base.

Ah hah … I successful posted a picture of the White Horse Inn. After constructing the inn, I decided to make a barn.
This is again on a 15 mm. scale. I want to see if I can scale the inn down to 6 mm but that will be project for another day.

MdD

Lovely model buildings.

Some more inspiration for you:

link