"Sci-Fi Skirmish & Figure Scale" Topic

Interesting that no one nominated 35mm. You can't move without tripping over the scale on Etsy these days. There's stuff I literally can't pay people to make for me because they won't print it out under 32mm.

As an observation there is next to no difference at least to me between 25 and 28mm

Good point about 32mm – may reflect TMP membership

Depends on what the definition of "skirmish" is and what "actual size" means for imaginary units. I consider a "skirmish" to be a relatively small battle, but that battle could involve Ogres (the giant cybertank kind). So the original Ogre scenaro is a skirmish. I believe the miniatures are nominally 6mm?

But Space Hulk is certainly a skirmish. So whatever the scale those things are supposed to be also works for me.

And I've played some SF infantry skirmish games with 15mm figures (though not my figures).

And then there's space combat, which can always be a skirmish, too. And for that I've played 1/224 (I think that's the scale for X-Wing), plus capital ship battles of no real defineable scale.

Imprecise answers for an overly precise yet flawed poll question. And thus "Other."

Space Hulk is nominally 28mm, and a darn good game.

But my favourite right now is 54mm, aka 2-1/8" toy plastic MPC astronauts, for Lunar (for which the official figures are 32mm).

Parzival, in this case, the poll does specify land battles.
Original OGRE (6mm) has never been classified as a skirmish game; Battlesuit (1983) is the skirmish game in that setting where 1 figure = 1 battlesuited trooper.

Interesting that in the pre-poll discussion, there were answers like 25/28 and 28/32. I suspect the overall lesson is that in skirmish/RPG the next larger scale--about another 10% or so--can be tolerated, but the one beyond that is just too far. That's been my experience. I started SF in 25's and I accept 28's, but 32's are just too big to use with my cadre.

Given the perenial wargame "solution" of the half-scale game, I'm sort of waiting for someone to announce he's playing Shatterpoint in 20mm.

Yes, I'm in the 25/28 camp, and 32 is too darn big.

We hateses manufacturers that try to deceive us into buying their scale creeps by calling 30/32 28mm! Make whatever size you want, but label it accurately, grr.

In my sci-fi skirmish games, I try to keep the humans in the 28/32mm size. Being sci-fi, I am very flexible about the aliens being just about any size that fits the narrative.

I have buckets of 1/72 stuff from playing Starguard for years, so that's my first choice. My second choice would be 54mm since I have the aliens apc and figures and I love that genre. Some of my current games have involved 1/18 scale, but I have used area movement and firing like the Classic Traveller rpg. It's either that or move to the back yard. Sometimes I just use the battleboard method from Two Hour Wargames also for the large figures.

Voted 28mm, though I believe the stuff I've used the most lately labels itself as 32mm.

Good point, myxemail. I use 28mm Wookies with my 25mm Rebel Alliance, and Micromachines Jawas and Ewoks, giving me a size range Lucas couldn't achieve.

Well yes, anthrocentric measurement would be the sane default for establishing size relationships, even if not using humans in the game.

My preferred scale at this time is 54mm MPC toy astronauts, but also includes 1/72 Little Green Men (and Pink, and Brown) by Giant brand.

While I have Sci-Fi in 3 scales, 6mm, 15mm and 28mm. 15mm is my choice most of the time.