"Mixing 6mm infantry and 1:600 vehicles (photo request!)" Topic

I'll put the request up-front and the background/motive afterwards in case anyone is interested…

Does anyone by any chance have some 1:600 land vehicles and some 6mm infantry (preferably by H&R) that they could photograph side-by-side for size comparisons? Or alternatively photos of them each individually with graph paper or something for reference? Or even just measurements for some 1:600 tanks and trucks?

I realise that the scale is totally wrong, but I'm trying to get my head around how forgivable it would or wouldn't be to my eyes. Some scale inconsistencies I can happily shrug off (I use 1/72 elephants with 28mm men) but others are just too jarring. From hunting around looking at prices it seems that I could afford substantially more vehicles at 1:600 than at 1:300, which I suppose is hardly surprising.

On the other hand, I'm reluctant to use 3mm troops if I can avoid it, mostly because I'd like to be able to easily model and differentiate different troop types (mostly engineers, snipers, tankhunters, etc). I think using 1:600 aircraft should be fine because they're up in the air and the scale difference almost tricks your brain into seeing it as perspective (even though you're looking from above so aircraft should actually be closer and therefore larger). I'm reluctant to simply ask "will it look ok?" and take people's word for it as what "looks ok" is quite subjective.

For my budget and level of commitment I'm very happy to cut corners and make sacrifices that others would consider heresy. But even I have my limits, and I don't necessarily want 50-foot partisans crushing 4-ton trucks underfoot if they're not watching where they walk…

Why am I pondering all this?

I've been primarily interested in Ancient warfare for a while, but my partner (who I mostly game with) has recently expressed an interest in more modern wars, particularly WW2. We're also both interested in things like the Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, the resistance and partisans during WW2, the Easter Rising, etc.

I said I would look into collecting some miniatures that we could use for those conflicts (and I'm somewhat flexible about historical details) so I'm mostly looking at WW2 Soviets, WW2 Germans, and some less uniform (and possibly some WWI-era) troops or 'civilians' that will serve as SCW Republicans and Nationalists, resistance/partisan fighters, possibly interwar militias and rioters, etc. I'd also like to be fairly flexible about rules system and intend to base them as such.

Ideally I'd love to buy a bunch of beautiful 28mm miniatures for SCW skirmishes and then whole armies of 6mm Soviets on air, sea and land, and so on. Ultimately, though, I have a budget of both time (in terms of what I can assemble and paint, etc) and money, so I'm trying to keep costs down and keep my 'irregular' (not the company) troops nicely mixed and generic so that they could largely be anything from Irish Citizen Army to International Brigades to Yugoslav Partisans.

PS: This is my first post, please do forgive if I've unintentionally violated any etiquette, etc. :)

First thing to mention: troops sold as "6mm" can vary anywhere from closer to 5mm (Heroics and Ros) to almost 8mm (Baccus). The Baccus vehicles, for example, are about 1/250 scale, GHQ are 1/285 and H&R are 1/300. Sp it will matter which infantry you do comparisons with!

I game extensively in 6mm but found the 3mm vehicles too small for my liking so sold off my few packs. I do use 1/600 for aircraft.

Yeah, I think 1/600 aircraft will work with 1/285. But I don't see 3mm vehicles with 6mm infantry. I own both.

Thanks

John

I think that mixing 3mm and 6mm is not a good idea, but it works in some cases, even with other scales: fighting along coast with landing ships carrying tanks and infantry all in 1:600 while the troops on land are at 1:300 or aircraft carrier in 1:2400 with 1:600 aircraft.

I have two links with photos taken especially for comparison between 1:300 and 1:600, for both sci-fi and WW2 battlefields. Hope this helps and maybe I come back with other photos.

link

link

I did not believe it myself, but the difference between the two scales is quite big.

Thanks for your thoughts and in particular the photos!

For both infantry and vehicles I currently intend to pick up mainly Heroics & Ros, but also some Irregular. I may also get some Scotia Grendel vehicles and/or some aircraft from Tumbling Dice if I go with 1:600 for aircraft. I'm leaning towards going with 6mm/1:300 for everything else, although still keen to see how H&R infantry measure up next to 3mm armour (and I am slightly tempted to just scuttle these plans and grab a bunch of 3mm stuff and try to make it somehow more obvious what the infantry all are).

Incidentally, I'm new to scales this small and I'm a little bit surprised and confused* by the fact that many companies seem to sell infantry in 'strips' without clarifying how many are in a strip—and it also looks as if sometimes the same manufacturer puts different numbers of figures on each strip depending on what exactly you're buying…

Is there by any chance a fairly centralised resource with guideline numbers for figures per strip based on manufacturer for 3mm and/or 6mm? Or do I just have to try to find photos of what I'm considering buying and then count by hand (and assume that e.g. 3 rows of men on a base is 3 strips rather than a single strip cut into 3 so that they fit on the base well)?

Thanks again!

* Admittedly no more surprised or confused by how many companies even in larger scales seem to sell miniatures without providing photos of them, among other weird consumer-unfriendly things…