"Wanting to restart my ww2 moving on from 6mm" Topic

Greetings,
I dragged out my 6mm the other night and realised that while the vehicles are ok I cannot even see the infantry figure anymore. Im thinking of restarting but I need to decide on the scale. This will be for larger style games with company elements as the base. So division per player . Looking for recommendations on scale. Is 10mm just going to present me with the same problems looking infantry?

FM

No, I don't believe so. I have a bunch of 10mm for different period and you can easily make out who is who.

Investigate both 10mm and 1/144.

Right now the only sources of 1/144 infantry I know about are all called "12mm" by Victrix, Anschluss, and Minifigs, but there seem to be more releases every month.
Victrix vs. Anschluss
Victrix vs. Minifigs

Here are some threads about choosing between 10mm and 12mm:
TMP link
TMP link

There isn't a huge objective size difference between 10mm and 1/144, but the difference is quite noticeable. I have a lot of Pendraken 10mm figures and vehicles, and they definitely look diminutive near my 1/144 gear.

10mm miniatures vary in scale from 1/150 to 1/160, and also vary quite a bit in proportions, style, stature, etc. It can be build a collection that looks consistent.

1/144 is an actual scale, and vehicles tend to look so similar in size and proportions that they can freely intermix.

I never considered 1/144 and looking at the Victrix stuff they are really nice. Might go this way

Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, there is only one true scale for WW2, 20mm!

Tally Ho!

Who else does 12mm vehicles?

If you are getting to 'that age' I'd plan on my eyes getting worse. So, go for a scale larger than one you can see right now, then you don't have to contemplate changing scales again in 5 or 10 years.

Personally I'd stick with 6mm and get better glasses, it will be a lot cheaper.

I think Gildas has a point. So does Murvihill. Before I gave up on painted, based armies, I'd
(1) get reading glasses suitable for the size of my board.
(2) mark one base edge with a standard color for each army.
(3) put a suitable symbol on the stand with each crew-served weapon.
(4) put the troops on bigger bases.
I'll be 72 in October, had cataracts surgery and can still play with 6mm and even 2mm troops. But I'm careful about these things.

Failing that, if you're going to go to base=company, I'd start asking things about how big a board you can count on, and therefore what's the biggest base you can use. Then I'd recommend the biggest castings you use and can still convince yourself they represent a company up to about 28mm. I don't know of anyone not legally blind who can't distinguish 28mm.

I don't know of anyone not legally blind who can't distinguish 28mm.

That is genuinely good to know. Although most of my stuff is 6mm, I was wondering if I should have a small collection of 28mm battle stuff done now (I am in my 40s), in case my eyes go somewhat and I need it later…

Not a bad idea, Whirlwind. I've done most of my gaming in smaller scales for years, but I do keep individually mounted 28mm in Renaissance/Fantasy, Horse & Musket and SF. Working now on skirmish/RPG rules in case in my last years I won't have access to a full size table. (And the answer to that next question is that if poll results are to be trusted, you can almost always get access to a 3'x3' card table.)

But as regards scale, I once got a call from a friend complaining that a 20mm Napoleonics game had to be stopped while everyone looked for a missing British Rifle battalion. The participants were around 45 at the time. So I regard 28mm as safe, but I'd be very careful about thinking some slightly smaller scale was almost as good.

I'm 60 and my eyes have stabilized for now. If you don't want to just upgrade your glasses and mark your stands (cheaper and faster) then you need to go at least 20mm. Even in 15mm I can just tell armies apart but paras or infantry? No chance. So I still need a marking system.

@ Whirlwind. I have over 30 years on you and most of my games are with 10mm figures these days. I do have 15/18mm and 28mm but don't have any problem in working out which of my 10mm are which. Having cataract operations has been a game-changer for me.

I still want to know what size bases we're talking about. Not figures: bases. WWII Infantry are supposed to blend into the terrain, after all. I've been fooling around lately with WWII 2mm on 3"x 1.5" bases with a small national symbol in one corner. You need a larger board of course. But things look surprisingly good. I'm worried Field Marshal will try to put bigger castings on the same small stands and not gain much--at least, nothing he couldn't gain by putting the existing castings on bigger stands and saving a lot of time and money.

Who else does 12mm vehicles?

Off the top of my head:

Victrix
Anschluss
Butlers Printed Models
Day of Battle – Print on Demand (DOB-POD)
Plastic Soldier Company
Scalefiend
Minifigs (metal)
Dark Horse Hobbies

I know I'm forgetting some. I'll kick myself later.

Keep tabs on the TMP boards 1/144 (under General boards) and 10mm (under WWII – Land).

If you have a 3D printer, look for STLs. There are more all the time. The STLs by m_bergman (sold on Wargaming 3D) are the most common, but tend to have exaggerated or minimized details (e.g. oversized barrels, undersized treads, etc.). I just discovered Night Sky Miniatures (also on Wargaming 3D) which look phenomenal – but are scaled for larger sizes, and may be fragile when scaled down.

You can sometimes still find the old pre-painted models from Takara, F-Toys, 21st Century Toys, and others. I find these through eBay, but less and less all the time, and they long ago become more expensive than they're worth.

There are a few 1/144 3D printed model ranges available only on eBay. I have a few of the models from Kamiya, and except for a little bit of layering, they look pretty good. I also have my eyes on the eBay seller SSMODEL, but I haven't bought anything from them yet.

Also check Etsy once in a while. Last year I bought scads of 1/144 m_bergman models from a temporary Etsy seller super-duper-cheap (but also somewhat rough – so a lot of work to put together).

…Running in waving hands up in the air…"Don't forget that AIM just released over 40 3D printed vehicles in the past 40 days! 1/144th scale and now packed in blister boxes and foam to help ensure safe delivery. link

Not sure it matters, Dye. Field Marshal seems to have dropped out of the conversation.

Doesn't hurt to try, Robert Piepenbrink. Maybe someone else this might be news to who might be happy to know about it.

v/r
Tom

Sorry I'm still following I'll check out the AIM stuff. Postage to Australia can be a barrier though.

As for the bases most rules are pretty flexible so I'm open to any and all suggestions

Rules can be flexible, Field. But often doubling the frontage doubles the needed table dimensions. And it bears on scale. If you're OK with a single casting being a company, you have more scale options than a wargamer who wants a company base to be at least 5-6 figures.

Trust me, I was a staff NCO. The more the boss told us about his interests and requirements, the easier it was to give him useful briefings.

Bases I'm thinking some sort of rectangle with 3-6 depending on scale on each base representing company. Single tanks and vehicles representing a company. I'm very much enamoured with the 12mm vixtrix stuff and may go that way.

If you can live with six infantry as a company, 12mm sounds like a very reasonable solution. You probably need a base around 40mm so it doesn't look as though they're standing in ranks.

But I'd still rebase some of my microscale, marked as I mentioned, on 40mm bases to see how they looked before I went out and built whole new armies.

20mm is my larger ww2 scale of preference.
Huge variety in price and quality available.
Go find some pictures of ab infantry.
Or there's cheap n cheerful plastics – some of which are also very good.

I like my AB/Eureka 20mm a lot. I can see details considerably better than 15mm. I've used them for Chain of Command initially and recently based them on FoW bases for use with O Group. Although that's smaller scale that you are talking about, 1/72-20mm vehicles and terrain options are in abundance.