"Most Popular 6mm Game Ever? BattleTech!" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

Which game/rule system do you think has been the most popular for 6mm models? Popular here meaning the most games played with a given set with 6mm figures, not rules specifically designed for the scale.

And in the tiebreaker round:

36% said "BattleTech"
19% said "Epic 40K"

I was really interested in this result – I had imagined it would probably be Epic. Goes to show our own experiences are always limited!

A couple of years back, there was a lady who spoke at one of the 'Joy of Six' 6mm shows, commenting on a panel discussion. She (a non-gamer IIRC) said the optimal 6mm would be a game would be one which featured machines of a certain size that were more like 'traditional' toy soldiers (i.e. a 6mm-Mech or aircraft or ship would be roughly in the 30mm – 60mm) because that gave both the individual aesthetic look (in the big items) and the impression of mass (the little hordes of infantry around them). Looks like she knew what she was on about!

Intriguing, though not unexpected result.

6mm scale has a lot of fans, but there's been no unifying game for any of the periods – "Firefly" was the main ww2 rules set, and the Napoleonic have several prime sets, but the SF milieu, not so much. Battletech had a wide appeal across a lot of SF fan bases ( Robotech, Macross, Gundam, and so forth) so brought in interested fans as players.

I'm still sure that one level of appeal is still the ability to use a lot of different types of vehicle – Ships, aircraft, tanks and so forth – in a single game with realistic looks, which is something larger scales lack at the sort of costs most wargamers can afford.

Duh.
I mean, Yes, yes, that is an expected result based on my personal bias. I loved Battletech in the 80's. Still love the 3025 era fluff, just never get a chance to play anymore.

Never played/saw any GW so I've never seen Epic in person but I played BT and it was stocked at the FLGS when rpgs got going.

I'd say hardly a surprise as well. Still fond of it, first played it way back in the 90's, and it scratches the big stompy mech itch, though conceptually some things in the rules do 'trigger' me even now (though I haven't played for awhile).

A good friend gives me birthday gifts from his kicker-stater stash of the new plastics and I think they are very nice. They look good even with mu painting 'skillz'.

I really need to get myself a copy of the alpha strike rules sometime.

I finally took the plunge into BT tabletop gaming at the ripe old age of 61 after decades of nothing but historical gaming (other than a foray into Malifaux). Classic BT is too much for my old weed addled brain but Alpha Strike and the fan based Mech Warrior:Destiny have recently provided lots of hours of fun. There's something about giant stompy robots that's just too much fun to miss and the new range of models from Catalyst are fantastic and at a great price.

My buddy and I pooled our junior-high-level allowances and bought the original boxed set back in 1988. I think what made BattleTech so popular was that it was an easy and accessible ruleset. The most complicated part was tracking heat, but everything else was really quite straightforward and the fill-in-the-bubble record sheets were terrific.

I also love Epic and started playing it a year or so later, but it was more complicated (and more hodge-podge, with models being released that had no corresponding stats or rules) and more expensive, and I think that's why BT found a much wider audience.