"Does size matter?" Topic

I have the impression that big wargames aren't quite as common as they once were, with skirmish and low-figure count games seeming to dominate at the moment.

This isn't meant to be judgemental — it's clearly a matter of personal preference — but what scale of game do you enjoy most, and why?

For this thread, I'll define a "big" battle as 200+ figures per side.

Feel free to link your preference to particular rule sets if you wish.

I'm a little tired this morning. Could be just take my usual rant about assuming everyone wargames the same way as read? With bases holding 72 2mm castings or 24 6mils, 200 figures isn't even a decent command.

But yes, most battles these days take place on a card table or smaller, extending to the odd 4x4 table for 28mm skirmishes. It's the opponents. They're mostly too dead for a game, and the live ones are too old. So my upper limit is what I can set up in my study and play both sides.

25/28mm. Why? Just because. And get off my lawn!

Seriously though…
Back in the previous century when I started out, the main 15mm ranges available were Minifigs strips, and Peter Laing. Neither one of which impressed me. Sure, my friend Scott painted fantastic figures, but to me painting 15mm was too tedious.
Peter Laing? They didn't even look like anything!

My only real venture into 15mm was Flames of War. Painting them was a chore, while painting 28mm is FUN!

Our usual game has 4-6 players, each playing a "brigade" of ~5 "regiments", with each regiment having 12-24 figures.
Math is hard. You figure it out!
My current projects are:
Painting 18 figure AWI units for a different friend.
Painting Comanche vs Texas Rangers et al as skirmish.
SYW Austrians, with 15 to 24 figure battalions.

I still enjoy big battles with 6mm and 15mm

For Little Wars I'll be running games using Midgard and To The Strongest. 28mm figures

Midgard: 3 players with 4 units each; 4 player with 4 units each. Its about 100 figures per side. Units are 10 figures each (6 for skirmish).

TTS: 3 players with 5-6 units each. Units are about 16 figures each, which will push the figure count closer to 200.

What your telling me, is that I'm running a medium sized game and need to keep painting.

For private games, the unit count is frequently higher. Its not uncommon to play 20+ units per side.

My preferred scales are 6mm and 10mm for land and 1/3000 for AOS and 1/4800 for Ww1&2, so yes. I prefer lots of little stuff.

Go big, or go home, is my preference. I like lots of miniatures, on large tables, with 5-10 players total.

I have 1,200+fantasy 25mm-28mm figures, tabletop ready. I like to see them on the tabletop, getting action from lots of gamers. I like big, convention style games without the convention.

I also game with 54mm Army Men figures. Again, I like loads of figures on the tabletop (200-300 figures per side), with loads of Players pushing figures around. I will even run a large Army Men game with only two Players. Why? Because it is so much FUN! LOL!

I also play 2e AD&D TTRPG, so I get plenty of "skirmish" gaming in with that. Like I said, I have plenty of miniatures, and I like to get them onto the tabletop. I also enjoy putting on large convention-sized games, without the convention, and I like to see people enjoying themselves with my games.

Unfortunately, life does not allow me to play these huge games very often. Still, when I can, I do. Cheers!

Big battles, about 500 20mm figures on the table is nice (my table is 5 x 8). Fire & Fury plays well, but have used TSATF, too, with less success.

Our 28mm To The Strongest ancients games have around 600-700 figures on a 14 by 7 table, sometimes less than that depending on which armies we're using.

I'm currently halfway through a 10mm Republican Roman/Carthaginian force that will be about 900-1000 or so figures per side if and when I complete the project

I am only able to game with hundreds of miniatures at the conventions. I do not own enough troops to do this at home for any single era. Working on it…

We are mostly 1:1 skirmish gamers but do dabble in the "unit" horse & musket linear warfare.

I do own many hundreds of miniatures but they are scattered over many eras.

Many of my games are played on a 6'*4' table, with 15mm or 28mm figures. Armies will range from 120-200 28mm figures to maybe twice that in smaller scales. I do play a few games on smaller tables – but while Guards of Traitor's Toll has a low figure count, it has a very high terrain density.

Our last ACW battle (15mm) had roughly 1,200 figures. Next Monday we'll be doing the 7YW (28mm) with about the same (1,200) figures so we're still in the big battle camp. Having said that, we also do Pulp Alley with half a dozen figures per side.

Other:

The size of the game is not determined by the number of figures on the board.

The size of the game is determined by the number and complexity of orders given at the turn (individual player) and round (whatever counts as a full set of individual turns) level.

If I have 2000 cavalry on the board, but only issue 4 unique orders, do I have 2000 figures or 4 500-piece figures?

The sheer number of figures on the table makes no difference to my enjoyment of the scenario.

I agree that the trend is to smaller battles on smaller tables. I guess several reasons are at play (no pun intended), to include figure cost when using larger figures, and a lack of free time to paint and to game. When most of us started gaming, computers, cell phones, computer games, DVDs, etc., etc. did not steal our time, so we had more time to game. People's lives seem to be much busier now.

I enjoy games in all periods and at all levels, but my absolute favorite "role" to play is as the overall commander in a major Napoleonic battle. Not surprisingly, our club plays a lot of "Napoleon's Battles" (1st ed, with a number of house rules, changes, and additions).

Tend to enjoy both the larger table and miniature count slightly over the smaller table skirmish actions. Both styles played on regular schedule game days.

Game room has the capability to display a 15x6 table. Most games have 10x6 or 12x6 table in use. Plus I can seal off the game room and leave the table with deployed miniatures standing till another game day if needed. If bigger tabletop surface area needed…there is the covered patio. Been in hobby since the early 1970's so lots of time painting miniatures.

Games: 1) Clash of Empires ancients 25/28mmn have armies of 500-700 painted miniatures per side. Typically about 15-16 units on unit sabots unless skirmishers. Miniature ancients collection has over 20 different armies to cycling gaming eras to pick from.

2). Napoleonic club group rules in use since 1976. Again large collections of almost every nation in Europe plus several outside Europe. Collection total over 26,000 painted miniatures of 25/28mm. Corps sized battles, most are historical format. Typical game has players playing a corps..20-30 units of battalions, cavalry regiment or artillery batteries.

3). War Spanish Succession 25/28mm games. Off branch from the Napoleonic rules with era adaptions. Army sized collections to handle most smaller battles at the moment. Heading towards almost any historical sized battle, including armies of Polish Lithuanian vs. Ottomans.

4). Flames of war in 20mm miniatures. Monthly player group games of 4k or 5k point sized forces on large table format. Some are actual historical actions. Most major powers painted (German, Russian, American etc.) painted and based accordingly for the slightly larger miniatures. Almost completed the Italian East Africa campaign (Italians, Colonist, S African, West African etc.) painted unit requirements. Then will finish the Syria campaign with Early war British/allies and Vichy French units.

4). Blood and Plunder 28mm games. Large collection of 8 miniatures units…2,000 plus painted miniatures and a few ships. Most games a small group of players matched off with 200 point forces.

5). 26th Century HALO Flashpoint and variants. Larger 28mm miniatures and small 3-6 miniature units. Like B&P games small player group of matched off games played on smaller tables like 4x4 or smaller. At recent count 230 miniatures painted.

6). WWII Victory at Sea using 1/700 scale ships played on patio open tiled floor. 10-20 ships per side and historical fleet actions. German, British, American, Italian, Japanese ships etc. in painted collections.

7). Other Games and allied player groups nearby:
Wings of Glory/War
ACW with 15mm
AWI using 28mm collections
Port Royal 1700's

Seems like a lot but been in hobby and painting miniatures since the early 1970's. Been setting up games with gaming friends for years…typically have three per month. Based in Northern Los Angeles, CA

I love big battles but have only small spaces. My solution has been to move to smaller scales. A 20 mm square base representing 750 men allows a huge battle to be represented on a 60 x 120 cm board. With 2 mm scale figures those base look like large groups of men.

I will grant the look is very different to 20 figure units of 28mm figures.

I used to have a 5x8 foot permanent table. on this we frequently played larger battle 28mm games.

These days teh majority of my gaming is in 15/18mm. This is a compromise allowing me effectively larger tables in smaller spaces while still giving me figures large enough to appreciate individually.

There's too many other variables, rather than the number of figures, that determine how much I enjoyed a game, mate. The opponents, the scenario, the period, the rules and even the location all play a part. How many figures/bases/models is secondary, though a table groaning under under hundreds of mini's is certainly visually impressive.

A certain amount of preference for smaller games is balanced with smaller games as an answer to logistical problems: shrinking tables, aging opponents, time pressure, domestic geography, expense & time etc.

Interesting how many solutions involve smaller scales rather than smaller ambitions.

When we meet up face to face we often play big (or even very big) games, but most of our gaming is remote which necessitates smaller tables so people can see what is going on.

We still play large (real) battles but at a higher level of abstraction.

Solo stuff I generally keep smallish as you are playing both sides.

Mox nix. Whatever you enjoy, and I, at least, can enjoy small, big, and in-between.

Interesting response, Martin.

But I'm not sure abstraction maps neatly onto size. Big games abstract individuals but model higher-level decisions, while small games often abstract time, lethality, and behaviour quite heavily. They just do it in different places.

Good people, quick and fun rules, 28mm with a pile of figures. So Big! However, if you're playing with rules lawyers and guys that bog things down, big games are cumbersome. If the group is fun and you make any modifications to the rules you use then it can speed along to a decent conclusion. We use tactics for WOR and we made a few mods. Best being that once a unit is less then 50% it simply comes off the table. We have over 2000 figs on the table at one time. Do similar things for Naps and Marlburians. All in 28mm. I wish I could post some pics. You can see some of our games on YouTube at thedicekeep channel. Good luck and good gaming folks!

For our group we pretty much always play big games – we do a skirmish type Wild Wild West game every December, though!

I like big games as described but not the time to play them.

Regularly we play games with about 120 figures per side. I like these games because they're a nice size for a one on one game, can be played in 2 1/2 – 3 hours to a conclusion and are easy to set up and breakdown. With more figures as you say a big game would need I think we'd need more players and time to get through it.

We play a fair number of skirmish games 10-20 figures per side and these I enjoy as well especially when the action is fast and furious.

I built Armies for wargames. I perfer hundreds of figures in 10's of units per side, it is the 'look' I want.

Skirmish games have their place, but battles need ARMIES and that means MORE figures.

I'm on a quest to NOT accquire more thos year, so far I'm having trouble with this goal

I like big battles with lots of figures, but haven't been able to play any of that for awhile. The people I game with and the conventions I've been to, want to get a game done in 3-4 hours with 3 hours or less being the preference. Unless you are using a large number of figures on a stand, using a lot of figures means using a lot of stands and moving a single stand takes time that can add up fast when there are lots of stands involved. Plus the time for lots of combat resolutions between those figures. The overall result is when I run games, I have had to scale down game sizes to fit this pattern so I usually wind up with less than 200 figures on the table.

Into 28mm skirmish games. Like SAGA and Test of Honor.

I think that the level of the game is key. A skirmish game Esecially WW2 it would be hard to control more than a company

It is hardly a battle until you have at least 1,000 figures on the table. Not unusual for us to play games with 1500-2500 figures. 15mm with large enough tables for depth and flanks.

The size of the battle is unrelated to the number of figures on the table.

Bloody Big Battles is for fighting monstrously big battles in a small amount of time. It's basically a distillation of the Fire & Fury system, which has always used way more figures to represent much smaller battles (especially Regimental Fire & Fury).

DBA is a big battle game, Lion Rampant is a mass skirmish game. Lion Rampant uses more figures than DBA – unless you use IMPETVS or double-IMPETVS bases for DBA, or 6mm figures on 25mm bases, or some other trick to make the elements look like much bigger bodies of troops (an approach I applaud, but rarely see).

I love big armies of hundreds of figures sprawling across tables, but I also like fast-playing games with rich decision cycles. Those are nearly always different types of games with different quantities of figures.

- Ix

If a "big" battle is one with 200+ figures per side, a lot of my wargaming is right around the cutoff line.

(And yes, 200 figures can represent 200 men or 20,000 men. I tend to prefer games nearer the latter scale, but the question was about figure count.)

Our club splits skirmish/big battles by 50/50. It's not unusual to have 1000 28mm figs on the table, but more often than not these games devolve into 4-5 frontal assault attrition battles between two opposing players that bore me to tears. Forty years ago in college we played from 6PM to 6AM. Twenty years ago we played 10-5. Now with the average age of club members in the 60s we get tired after four hours and call many games early. This is one reason to move more towards skirmish battles, however, at this time in our lives we've amassed so many figures there is still the desire to put them on the table even though one could predict the suboptimal results. Yet the improvement in rule systems over college days still allows big battles to be played in an acceptable time if careful thought is given to the scenario.

What if one side has 220 figures and the other side has only 80? I played my peasant's crusade army against an elite Byzantine army. It was an interesting game, but is that a big battle?

I like everything from In the Grand Manner, which the last time I played had about 5000+ troops a side, and Rangers of Shadow Deep which has approximately 6 vs a random number or Silver Bayonet which is 8 v 8. My typical game is around 150 figures a side that can be completed in 3 hours or less.

Not sure I even understand the premise of the question. An battle or action will be pre-set on a ground scale. Dependent on the ground scale to figure scale the number of figures required to represent it varies whenever the number of figures is less than 1:1. This is typical of most battles before the massive rise in firepower where troops "thin out" to prevent unreasonable casualties.

How many figure required depends thus on ground scale and figure scale, and the size of the battle being represented.
The question seems to have gotten confused talking about big and little battles. Is a little battle in this context little because it uses a low number of figures to represent the battles, or that the battle is small so the figures required are fewer given the Figure to ground scale requirement.

Ascetics seem caught in the mix without any rational grounding. I think it implies that for some, figure scale is key and that smallest scale figures are not as acceptable. This seems at odds with the logic that the closer the figure are to the ground scale the more accurate the representation.

Much work has been done by the flats community on how to represent 1:1 formations using flats, so there work would form a good basis fore a logical analysis for standard models.

I really enjoy a big game ( 6 x up to 18ft) with hundreds of stunningly painted Napoleonic figures and terrain.

I enjoy larger games (bigger tables more figs, in 25+mm) But one needs the space for the tables and Larger figures are more expensive. I think JoeHack needs to be given an award, simply for the physical effort he put into putting on one of his con games.

@ UshCha
That's a fair point — if we're talking strictly about representing a historical battle then ground scale and figure ratio obviously become the key variables. In that sense the number of figures on the table could vary enormously depending on the modelling choices being made.

I think the question I was really getting at was a bit less technical: what sort of game experience people enjoy putting on the table. Some players like the visual impact of hundreds of figures, others enjoy smaller actions where individual units or personalities matter more and some (like you, I think?)like the cut and thrust of tactics.

So perhaps "big" and "small" in this thread are really shorthand for different styles of game rather than a precise modelling calculation.

For WWII to modern I prefer a 6x12 foot table representing 1500x3000m using 6mm or 1/144 scale. That gives the right scale and dispersion of units.

The same size table would about represent about 250x500m for 28mm figures and skirmishes.

I have a good collection of 4" hex terrain that can represent 100m to 10m so pretty much any scale.

Wolfhag