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Just looking for a bit of discussion here... so I've started into this hobby about 2 years ago, through 40k, and recently expanded into Flames of War. As I get into it more, I realize I just love the 15mm scale. Here is my reasoning:

Games like 40k, and most 'space opera' sci-fi is all essentially based on WW2 style combat (with 40k having a bit of medieval style melee mixed, but not really). You have tanks and infantry shooting each other in close range. Now, you can have 'hard sci-fi', but honestly, it's 2013 already... and warfare has already nearly progressed to the point of drones shooting at each other from miles away. The style of military combat that really seems to capture people's imagination, is WW2, basically. It's up close and personal, but you still have a lot of cool military toys interacting at that personal scale, which is key. 40k itself is very hard to swallow sometimes. I mean you have these incredibly advanced weapons, why do they need to get so close to each other to work properly?

So we have Space Opera really capturing people's hearts and minds, for the most part (and the influence of Star Wars is huge). A close contender to that would be Victorian/steampunk. WW2 wargames like Flames of War are cool, but I think they will never grow to the popularity of 40k as a wargame... it has the crucial drawback of not allowing people's imagination to run rampant. The greatest strength of 40k is the size and variability of the setting.

Also, has anyone noticed the market for 28/32 mm wargames, and skirmish games in particular is extremely saturated at this point... the market is growing but people are having a lot of choices of what system to buy into. The competition is fierce but in 15mm, there is just Flames of War, historicals, and world of very small and separate companies that all mix and match with each other for any weird sci-fi stuff, that's usually hard or near-future sci-fi.

In any case, the world of 15mm seems to be all historical at this point. Now I am seeing this new kickstarter, "All is quiet on the Martian front" and it looks awesome! Maybe people are finally starting to realize that 15mm offers all these possibilities for a game system that's accessible, but you can have a lot of crazy warmachines on the table in a short amount of time...

You also have the dropzone commander. Huge mistake not making that game 15mm, that's all I've got to say about that. And All is quiet on the Martian front, while awesome... is going to have to fight for survival because It suffers from specificity. It caters to a very specific, earth based, retro or B-movie world... but I think it's worth it just because the minis will be awesome.

I have checked on the 15mm sci-fi stuff out there, and for the most part it's underdeveloped, hard sci-fi, or B-movie stuff. Rebel minis and Ground Zero games have a bit of cool stuff.

My vision of an awesome 15mm 'space opera' sci-fi: Tanks, Laser/ray guns, infantry in gas masks, and an unlimited universe that is somehow regressed to a 'mature stage' of ww2/ww1 tech for some reason or another.... but locked in a constant war for survival... combined with some cool fantasy themes like possibly some undead, and post-apocalyptic stuff in general. And possibly even cooler stuff like mega-tanks duking it out on the battlefield and some kind of limited anti-grav, maybe a rare metal that isn't common enough to make everything fly but is used to make large flying capital ships and some anti-grav tanks

So if I wanted to collect stuff for converting, and begin making my own designs to make a game like this where do I start? I'm a 2D artist and traditional sculptor/converter mostly (not crazy professional) but I figure I can start by collecting some of the cool gas-mask infantry or sci-fi infantry out there, then possibly converting some tank designs or, using the 3D programs to make designs that can be printed out via shapeways. Shapeways is good enough now that you can get a very decent 15mm tank out of it... then if you like you can improve the sculpt with traditional means and send it off to the caster or DIY. Rules are another thing, I am checking out different 15mm rulesets but mostly I'm trying to master the FoW at the moment.

I'm very excited about shapeways, and kickstarter and the combination of the two. To be honest, I believe the combination of digital design, crowd-funding and eventually 3D printing is going to completely turn the world of miniature wargaming around... to the point that 'home-brew' games or small operations can have a lot more impact. You already see it turbo-charging bitz sellers, Coming together to make Kingdom: Death possible, and many others. Also I'm a huge fan of the DIY and open source/peer production ethic. I think that a ruleset for a competitive wargame is something that should be designed by the people that use it, not by a company trying to sell miniatures... the interests conflict.Not to mention, there's a lot of frustration with GW's policies and a general feeling that it's good to experiment with different systems.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what others think.

-Rob

Look up critical mass, sounds very much like what youre after.

Your vision of what would be awesome in 15mm scale has been going on for awhile in 6mm scale (Epic). The problem with Epic is that GW mishandled a major revision with poor support and then assigned it to limbo with its other specialist games.

I really liked Epic, I own very large armies of marines, chaos, squats and tyrranids. I also enjoy FoW and do find the 15mm scale appealing. It seems that the audience that you would be appealing to already is engaged in epic and netepic.

Both 6mm and 15mm scales suffer a bit from the fact that they really are just tokens on a big board whereas 28mm scale is much closer to the figures being models with some detail you can actually see from 3 feet away.

Looking at what happened to warmaster (nominally 10mm) scale I am not sure how much demand there is in the noncollectible miniature market for 15 mm science fiction fantasy. It had outstanding rules, a strong background and really nice mininiatures yet it was not successful enough for GW to keep supporting it in a meaningful way.

Yeah, I'm aware of critical mass games, but the miniatures are basically the hard sci-fi I was talking about and mechs, which is certainly the other direction that 15mm is going. Personally not my thing, although pretty cool and I might look over those rules when I get to it...

JWhex wrote:
Your vision of what would be awesome in 15mm scale has been going on for awhile in 6mm scale (Epic). The problem with Epic is that GW mishandled a major revision with poor support and then assigned it to limbo with its other specialist games.

I really liked Epic, I own very large armies of marines, chaos, squats and tyrranids. I also enjoy FoW and do find the 15mm scale appealing. It seems that the audience that you would be appealing to already is engaged in epic and netepic.

Both 6mm and 15mm scales suffer a bit from the fact that they really are just tokens on a big board whereas 28mm scale is much closer to the figures being models with some detail you can actually see from 3 feet away.

Looking at what happened to warmaster (nominally 10mm) scale I am not sure how much demand there is in the noncollectible miniature market for 15 mm science fiction fantasy. It had outstanding rules, a strong background and really nice mininiatures yet it was not successful enough for GW to keep supporting it in a meaningful way.

6 mm models suffer from being tokens, and clearly are going to lose out to video games these days. I agree. When you start to get as big as 15mm, I start to disagree.

Also, the big part of the experience most people forget with 15mm is the terrain. When you zoom out and look over the table, you are supposed to see a landscape. It's part of the game, a very enjoyable part of 15mm, and it helps create a setting and world that the little dudes are acting out in.

Sure infantry figs lose detail three feet out, but tanks, flyers, and larger mega-tanks of a fictional universe would look great, besides you always will lose some kind of detail the more you zoom out. Not to mention, digital design now allows artists to make far better looking 15mm infantry figs, that are actually well-crafted and collectible in their own right. I mean up until now their faces and detail are a little warped as a result of being essentially sculpted with the head of a pin. Battlefront has just dipped their toe into this with their new plastic figs, but I'm sad they're still making their figs with big-ass heads on them.

So Flames of War suffers from the other way, there are actually well made miniatures available, but since it's historical, there's very little imagination involved.

People love and collect models in small scales. They collect model ships, in smaller scales than 1:100. Also, a tank for Flames of War is compared to a large 28mm fig and is capable of just as much detail, artistry and variation... the problem again, is no imagination. Modelling large war machines for 40k is an activity only for those with $$$ to do it and even then the table just feels crowded and awkward when you cram those big models onto it.

With Warmaster, you can't really compare a game that first of all was made in a different time, had to make a profit or would be abandoned, to now where the market has been expanded (and 15mm is certainly being expanded by Flames of War) and you have these possibilities where it is a far lower entry cost for a niche of gamers to create, fund and regulate a game they want to play.

For more 15mm SF, look at Brigade Models and 15mm.co.uk. And if you like both FOW and SF, look at Clockwork Goblin's awesome alt WW2 range.

I, too, am interested in AQOTMF, but I disagree that all games are basically WW2+. It's easy to look at modern warfare as drone-on-drone, but that's only the case in terms if widely asymmetric engagements. Real future war anticipates conflicts between forces roughly analogous in terms of commitment and resources, at least at the point of delivery.

Tomorrow's War does this extremely well and works at both 15mm and 28mm, and is definitely not a WW2+ game. The reason for parity is that there's an on going arms war between lethal force and defensive capacity. As one improves, the other adapts to overcome it. The adaptations aren't always basic improvements (tactics and camouflage were adaptations to intruded lethal force that rendered personal armour obsolete, and now we see an increasing return to advanced personal armour as lethal force developments have begun focussing on reliability and accuracy over lethality).

The overall effect is that war between roughly-equal combatants will always be mano a mano, for the same resin that we still have tasks and soldiers instead of just aircraft.

R.

GZG, Critical mass and Khurasan fill my bill of 15mm scifi and they are not undeveloped... there are also other companies that make 28mm powersuits and stuff that you can adapt to 15mm... and companies that make some nice vehicles like antenocitii etc.

15mm scifi has never been better in therms of options.

http://miniaturereview.blogspot.com/search/label/15mm%20Sci-Fi

No shortage of scifi figures out there in 15mm scale...

That tends to be a scale though which is held by individual gamers and not married to a company/ruleset. People use miniatures from a dozen different companies and rules which work with the scenario they want to game.

That Firestorm Invasion stuff looks downright fething stunning.

Here is a link to a nice blog of the 15mm Martian Empires game

http://martianwarlords.blogspot.com/

 NAVARRO wrote:
GZG, Critical mass and Khurasan fill my bill of 15mm scifi and they are not undeveloped... there are also other companies that make 28mm powersuits and stuff that you can adapt to 15mm... and companies that make some nice vehicles like antenocitii etc.

15mm scifi has never been better in therms of options.

Granted those companies are great, I have no problem finding a Mech and futuristic looking tank. I do have problems finding something riveted, or with WW1 or 2 style treads and sponsons, I mean basically 40k style, but mixed with cool sci-fi features like energy weapons. I also know there are some gas-mask troops out there but it still takes more conversion to get what I want... most of it is something that either looks like Halo, or the powered armor stuff.

But like I said the All is quiet on the Martian front looks really cool. I don't think I could resist giving into their kickstarter, only for the human forces though.

Also the clockwork goblin stuff looks really cool!

Tomorrow's War does this extremely well and works at both 15mm and 28mm, and is definitely not a WW2+ game. The reason for parity is that there's an on going arms war between lethal force and defensive capacity. As one improves, the other adapts to overcome it. The adaptations aren't always basic improvements (tactics and camouflage were adaptations to intruded lethal force that rendered personal armour obsolete, and now we see an increasing return to advanced personal armour as lethal force developments have begun focussing on reliability and accuracy over lethality).

Yeah, you can always make an argument that defensive capability can advance with offensive in the future. But we will always have high-ranged offensive mixed in. Tanks are lethal from miles away, guided missiles, aircraft drones, and in the future drones or AI could quickly surpass humans in lethality on the ground as well. But you're right the rules are definitely worth looking at.

OP,
First of all, I think you're over using the term "Space Opera" Space Opera is gameable, but by it's nature, it's usually more focused on characters and a narrative and is a more specific genre than what you're referring to which is "Soft Sci-fi" or "Sci-Fantasy".

Also it may be splitting hairs, but calling games like 40k WW2 in space is bringing them too much credit for "realism". 40k is fantasy gaming with squads instead of ranks and guns and vehicles added. The amount of hand to hand combat in 40k hasn't really been the state of warfare since WW1, and it hasn't been an effective method of warfare since the 1800's.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that 15mm space opera is the future, but the 15mm market is expanding with great games many different sci-fi genres. If you like Hard'ish Sci-Fi, then consider Tomorrow's War or Hammers Slammers. They're probably not true-future combat games, but they take a very realistic view of tactics and factors like supression, ECM, etc. If you want Space Opera than check out "Blasters and Bulkheads". However despite this growth, there's nothign to suggest that 15mm is anywhere near being the "future" of gaming.

That all came out a bit more confrontational than I intended, but I do agree that this is a great time to be into 15mm. The range of vehicles, terrain, and rulesets are expanding rapidly.

 Meade wrote:
Just looking for a bit of discussion here... so I've started into this hobby about 2 years ago, through 40k, and recently expanded into Flames of War. As I get into it more, I realize I just love the 15mm scale. Here is my reasoning:

Games like 40k, and most 'space opera' sci-fi is all essentially based on WW2 style combat (with 40k having a bit of medieval style melee mixed, but not really). You have tanks and infantry shooting each other in close range. Now, you can have 'hard sci-fi', but honestly, it's 2013 already... and warfare has already nearly progressed to the point of drones shooting at each other from miles away. The style of military combat that really seems to capture people's imagination, is WW2, basically. It's up close and personal, but you still have a lot of cool military toys interacting at that personal scale, which is key. 40k itself is very hard to swallow sometimes. I mean you have these incredibly advanced weapons, why do they need to get so close to each other to work properly?

So we have Space Opera really capturing people's hearts and minds, for the most part (and the influence of Star Wars is huge). A close contender to that would be Victorian/steampunk. WW2 wargames like Flames of War are cool, but I think they will never grow to the popularity of 40k as a wargame... it has the crucial drawback of not allowing people's imagination to run rampant. The greatest strength of 40k is the size and variability of the setting.

Also, has anyone noticed the market for 28/32 mm wargames, and skirmish games in particular is extremely saturated at this point... the market is growing but people are having a lot of choices of what system to buy into. The competition is fierce but in 15mm, there is just Flames of War, historicals, and world of very small and separate companies that all mix and match with each other for any weird sci-fi stuff, that's usually hard or near-future sci-fi.

In any case, the world of 15mm seems to be all historical at this point. Now I am seeing this new kickstarter, "All is quiet on the Martian front" and it looks awesome! Maybe people are finally starting to realize that 15mm offers all these possibilities for a game system that's accessible, but you can have a lot of crazy warmachines on the table in a short amount of time...

You also have the dropzone commander. Huge mistake not making that game 15mm, that's all I've got to say about that. And All is quiet on the Martian front, while awesome... is going to have to fight for survival because It suffers from specificity. It caters to a very specific, earth based, retro or B-movie world... but I think it's worth it just because the minis will be awesome.

I have checked on the 15mm sci-fi stuff out there, and for the most part it's underdeveloped, hard sci-fi, or B-movie stuff. Rebel minis and Ground Zero games have a bit of cool stuff.

My vision of an awesome 15mm 'space opera' sci-fi: Tanks, Laser/ray guns, infantry in gas masks, and an unlimited universe that is somehow regressed to a 'mature stage' of ww2/ww1 tech for some reason or another.... but locked in a constant war for survival... combined with some cool fantasy themes like possibly some undead, and post-apocalyptic stuff in general. And possibly even cooler stuff like mega-tanks duking it out on the battlefield and some kind of limited anti-grav, maybe a rare metal that isn't common enough to make everything fly but is used to make large flying capital ships and some anti-grav tanks

So if I wanted to collect stuff for converting, and begin making my own designs to make a game like this where do I start? I'm a 2D artist and traditional sculptor/converter mostly (not crazy professional) but I figure I can start by collecting some of the cool gas-mask infantry or sci-fi infantry out there, then possibly converting some tank designs or, using the 3D programs to make designs that can be printed out via shapeways. Shapeways is good enough now that you can get a very decent 15mm tank out of it... then if you like you can improve the sculpt with traditional means and send it off to the caster or DIY. Rules are another thing, I am checking out different 15mm rulesets but mostly I'm trying to master the FoW at the moment.

I'm very excited about shapeways, and kickstarter and the combination of the two. To be honest, I believe the combination of digital design, crowd-funding and eventually 3D printing is going to completely turn the world of miniature wargaming around... to the point that 'home-brew' games or small operations can have a lot more impact. You already see it turbo-charging bitz sellers, Coming together to make Kingdom: Death possible, and many others. Also I'm a huge fan of the DIY and open source/peer production ethic. I think that a ruleset for a competitive wargame is something that should be designed by the people that use it, not by a company trying to sell miniatures... the interests conflict.Not to mention, there's a lot of frustration with GW's policies and a general feeling that it's good to experiment with different systems.

Anyway, I'd love to hear what others think.

-Rob

15 mm has been around for quite some time. You need to go do your homework.

Eilif wrote:
OP,
First of all, I think you're over using the term "Space Opera" Space Opera is gameable, but by it's nature, it's usually more focused on characters and a narrative and is a more specific genre than what you're referring to which is "Soft Sci-fi" or "Sci-Fantasy".

It's a bit hard to determine the best term for it, yes. In any case, it is more about the romanticism involved in the setting. I think of Star Wars as the classic example of space opera, and for instance the fighters dogfighting, the laser guns and helmets, is all very WW2. Whereas a hard sci-fi is about exploring the possibilities of science and their effect on human behaviour, space opera uses space as a setting... and it is not important what makes the lasers fire and the technology level is just something taken for granted as background. Furthermore, the technology is pretty much what 'looks cool' is the most important, and especially stuff that has emotional resonance or mythic dimension for us. 40k accomplishes that, with the gothic and medieval elements to the setting mixed in with WW2 style infantry and tanks.

Also it may be splitting hairs, but calling games like 40k WW2 in space is bringing them too much credit for "realism". 40k is fantasy gaming with squads instead of ranks and guns and vehicles added. The amount of hand to hand combat in 40k hasn't really been the state of warfare since WW1, and it hasn't been an effective method of warfare since the 1800's.

Sure, the combat itself is a mixture of fantasy/medieval, I guess I was referring to the general technology (for Imperium at least) resembles ww1 or 2 generally. An Abrams tank would look too advanced in the 40k universe. The 15mm tanks that I see out there are for the most part, looking very futuristic and would look out of place in the 40k universe.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that 15mm space opera is the future, but the 15mm market is expanding with great games many different sci-fi genres. If you like Hard'ish Sci-Fi, then consider Tomorrow's War or Hammers Slammers. They're probably not true-future combat games, but they take a very realistic view of tactics and factors like supression, ECM, etc. If you want Space Opera than check out "Blasters and Bulkheads". However despite this growth, there's nothign to suggest that 15mm is anywhere near being the "future" of gaming.

That all came out a bit more confrontational than I intended, but I do agree that this is a great time to be into 15mm. The range of vehicles, terrain, and rulesets are expanding rapidly.

I might of come off weird when say 'its the future'. I don't mean as the future of gaming, obviously 28mm is very popular for very good reasons.

And, 40k is very popular for certain reasons as well, more popular than fantasy. Do you think this has nothing to do with it's genre? for example, could it have gotten as popular as hard sci-fi? Would a 28mm WW2 game ever be as popular or grab people's imagination like 40k?

Let me put it this way, I got into minature wargaming through 40k. At the time I wasn't even aware such a thing as 15mm existed. As a normal person, It was hard enough to find games of 40k... now, I am talking about ease of access, about a general level of gaming community, and at present I only see Flames of War being anywhere near there.

And yeah, I'm just not into the hard sci-fi 15mm (the tanks in particular). And any skirmish I'd rather have in 28mm.

 Meade wrote:

Let me put it this way, I got into minature wargaming through 40k. At the time I wasn't even aware such a thing as 15mm existed. As a normal person, It was hard enough to find games of 40k... now, I am talking about ease of access, about a general level of gaming community, and at present I only see Flames of War being anywhere near there.

And yeah, I'm just not into the hard sci-fi 15mm (the tanks in particular). And any skirmish I'd rather have in 28mm.

It's true that the only 15mm game with near GW levels of acceptance is FoW. However, that's pretty much the case for any game outside of 40k, WHFB, WM/Hordes, Malifaux and a few others. For any miniatures wargame other than the big 4 (or 6 if you live in a place with lots of gamers), the onus is on the player to create community/opponents/etc rather than counting on a pre-made community.

As for the models themselves, while hard-sci-fi styled models do dominate the 15mm market, If you don't like hard-sci-fi, there are still quite a few options. Companies like Blue Moon, Proxie (plastic not-leman-rus tanks), Zombiesmith (Quar and others), Khurasan, Rebel minis, 15mm.uk and others make fairly wide ranges of 15mm figures that work well for soft or space opera sci-fi settings.

If 40k is your fav, there are enough ranges out there to proxy a number of different 40k armies in 15mm. Orks. Marines, IG, and even Eldar are doable and there are even possibilities for tau-ish factions and others.

Lastly, for most gamers who enjoy obscure rulesets and miniature lines a good portion of the fun is getting off the grid, DIY'ing and making your own path. It does take more effort, but I assure you it is worth it. Check out the blog in my sig for the adventures my club had playing games and miniatures that many GW/PP players have never heard of.

Eilif wrote:

It's true that the only 15mm game with near GW levels of acceptance is FoW. However, that's pretty much the case for any game outside of 40k, WHFB, WM/Hordes, Malifaux and a few others. For any miniatures wargame other than the big 4 (or 6 if you live in a place with lots of gamers), the onus is on the player to create community/opponents/etc rather than counting on a pre-made community.

That's why my plan is to start with FoW, and then as I find more opponents (particularly those who've gone over from 40) then I start to bring in the DIY stuff. My main point is this, that I see no real reason these days why people enjoy the Space Opera sci-fi in 28mm, but not 15mm (mostly WW2). I think it's merely because people don't have the choice and it's not presented to them. In a way I kind of love that 15mm is all over the place and fluid in terms of rulesets, and there are even some Open Source options out there. I would work from and Open Source ruleset, but possibly be inspired by some other pay-to-play ones.

As for the models themselves, while hard-sci-fi styled models do dominate the 15mm market, If you don't like hard-sci-fi, there are still quite a few options. Companies like Blue Moon, Proxie (plastic not-leman-rus tanks), Zombiesmith (Quar and others), Khurasan, Rebel minis, 15mm.uk and others make fairly wide ranges of 15mm figures that work well for soft or space opera sci-fi settings.

I'm aware of those too, thanks!

If 40k is your fav, there are enough ranges out there to proxy a number of different 40k armies in 15mm. Orks. Marines, IG, and even Eldar are doable and there are even possibilities for tau-ish factions and others.

Lastly, for most gamers who enjoy obscure rulesets and miniature lines a good portion of the fun is getting off the grid, DIY'ing and making your own path. It does take more effort, but I assure you it is worth it. Check out the blog in my sig for the adventures my club had playing games and miniatures that many GW/PP players have never heard of.

 Meade wrote:


Granted those companies are great, I have no problem finding a Mech and futuristic looking tank. I do have problems finding something riveted, or with WW1 or 2 style treads and sponsons, I mean basically 40k style, but mixed with cool sci-fi features like energy weapons. I also know there are some gas-mask troops out there but it still takes more conversion to get what I want... most of it is something that either looks like Halo, or the powered armor stuff.

But like I said the All is quiet on the Martian front looks really cool. I don't think I could resist giving into their kickstarter, only for the human forces though.

Also the clockwork goblin stuff looks really cool!

A small company called Proxie Models has a few things you may like:

http://www.proxiemodels.com/store2/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_29&product_id=71

This one comes with sponson options and options for the main turret weapon too.



At one point he was selling a Hetzer type tank destroyer with a similar rivited design (I have a few). They are pretty cool and are going to work in a 15mm Sci Fi Orc army I intend to work on.

Check out Undead States of America.

15mm zombie invasions.

I have recently found myself moving to 15mm scale. I like large vehicles such as tanks and mechs, and dont care much for large bunches of infantry. 15mm is perfect for this. You can play games that are vehicle focused, field a whole bunch of them, and not overcrowd the table.

Another neat thing about 15mm is it falls in a nice place where you can pull from other scales. 28mm heavy power suits/robots make good small mechs for example.


I would also like to voice support for Proxy Models, he makes a nice product. I have some of his bases, and just placed an order for some 15mm scenery.

15mm is a specific niche IMHO, it is great for large battles, but doesn't appeal to some miniature/painter/converter gamers.

I liked epic's old gamesystem, but would not stop with larger scale figure games.

If you're looking for 15mm rules, check out Gruntz. Entirely customizable, you can use any 15mm miniatures you want.

All army lists are built by you, and you make the rules fit the model.

Very flexible system, and lots of options.

www.gruntz.biz

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
15mm is a specific niche IMHO, it is great for large battles, but doesn't appeal to some miniature/painter/converter gamers.

.

Errrr totally false on both claims! The quality of 15mm is on the rise for some years now and you can find 15mm's that are more detailed than 28mm's... and the skirmish scifi small squad games are todays main trend.

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
15mm is a specific niche IMHO, it is great for large battles, but doesn't appeal to some miniature/painter/converter gamers.

.

Errrr totally false on both claims! The quality of 15mm is on the rise for some years now and you can find 15mm's that are more detailed than 28mm's... and the skirmish scifi small squad games are todays main trend.

That is my opinion and i am sticking with it, the larger the scale the easier to paint and convert, i bought a fantasy 15mm from Germany great quality but no fun to paint.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
15mm is a specific niche IMHO, it is great for large battles, but doesn't appeal to some miniature/painter/converter gamers.

.

Errrr totally false on both claims! The quality of 15mm is on the rise for some years now and you can find 15mm's that are more detailed than 28mm's... and the skirmish scifi small squad games are todays main trend.

That is my opinion and i am sticking with it, the larger the scale the easier to paint and convert, i bought a fantasy 15mm from Germany great quality but no fun to paint.

Your opinion should then stick to your personal preferences and not what other painters/converters and gamers choose to like.

I'm excited by 15mm painting/converting opportunities, mostly only if I get miniatures that have a lot of great detail and don't look malformed. There is no denying that anything done well on a smaller scale is impressive, and personally I love it, but I can understand why most people enjoy their 28mm figs (i do too), there's just more surface area, skin and drama to them. That's why 32mm is a thing now for skirmish... if you're only having like 10-25 figs on the board they might as well not be tiny.

But when you get to vehicles, large armor battles in 28mm just feel awkward on the tabletop. In terms of modelling, armor is big enough that you can pack a lot of great detail and have surface area to work with, but on the other hand small enough that it's affordable and you can manouver on the tabletop. I think people are only beginning to explore how creative you can get with armor, in terms of modelling and converting, because you are limited either by historical ruleset or futuristic designs (although futuristic designs give a little more play), not including mech designs for which there is a lot of awesome stuff out there. Personally I've never been a fan of mechs.

For large Mech battles 15mm is the way to go. Mega-tanks (like baneblades, or massive assault carriers), also anything air... including airships/heavy antigrav air-tanks, I think 15mm is that sweet spot where the common infantryman isn't so small that it just feels like a token, and can interact in a meaningful way with larger war machines... another example why All Quiet on the Martian front is exciting, the models for Martian tripods look really cool, although it is a specialty thing.

Not to mention the terrain... it just seems better in 15mm. Terrain is the largest aspect of any battlefield, so same as with vehicles you get the chance to do some epic stuff, and really allow the miniatures to exist within it, not just crammed into the tabletop.

I really think the only good reason that 15mm isn't as popular as 40k for sci-fi stuff is simply the nature of the beast, that 40k came out first and essentially created the market.... and it's more like the operating system of a computer, the one that comes out first is the one everyone does because with the costs involved it's so inefficient to switch from one to the other. But now you have digital design and access to digital printing for the masses, and kickstarter super-charging all sorts of alternative stuff, that it might just swing the other way.

Navarro and Jehan-reznor,
That's a battle that's been waged for a long time (though more on forums other than Dakka). Lots of folks like the realistic scope that 15mm offers by having more "land" to play on, and the quality of 15mm miniatures can be quite high. However, on the other hand, 28mm is still a scale that offers (on average) better detail, more visible character and much more options for conversion and customization, though you can't realistically fight more than platoon v platoon (infantry) on a standard table.

The fact is, that both scales offer very real advantages and disadvantages. Many gamers gravitate to one or the other, though many gamers also do multiple scales preciesly because some scales are better suited to different genres and scopes of engagement. Due to the detail, character and convertability, I game mostly in 28mm. However putting alot of units on the table has much appeal to me, (and 2nd hand mechwarrior clix are cheap) so my clubmates and I have built large 10mm armies for sci-fi. We mostly play Mech Attack ( sort of an extreemely streamlined Battletech'ish game) and Panzer 8 Sci-Fi (Open source fast play mass battle)

 Meade wrote:
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That's why my plan is to start with FoW, and then as I find more opponents (particularly those who've gone over from 40) then I start to bring in the DIY stuff. My main point is this, that I see no real reason these days why people enjoy the Space Opera sci-fi in 28mm, but not 15mm (mostly WW2). I think it's merely because people don't have the choice and it's not presented to them. In a way I kind of love that 15mm is all over the place and fluid in terms of rulesets, and there are even some Open Source options out there. I would work from and Open Source ruleset, but possibly be inspired by some other pay-to-play ones...


...Definitely. I've always had a fascination with DIY rulesets and stuff. At this point, I've been putting a lot of effort into my gaming in the 40k world. But if I ever write fluff or design models for that world, it still comes back to being someone else's game system, and being dependent on that system to leech off of. I'd rather put work into my own thing.

I don't really care about a 'not-40k' game, and reproducing Orks, Eldar and such, but there are cool elements that I would love to see played out in 15mm! Namely, large tank/infantry battles in a more OTT, apocalyptic setting, that gives free rein to imagination and coolness... in a setting that dramatic.

So yeah, I plan on collecting from these various companies (a lot of them have really great pricing), and like I said... my first order of business is to work in the 3d sculpt programs to design 15mm tanks that can be 3D-printed.

As was suggested above, Gruntz is a good bet, also FUBAR, which is free and fairly fast playing. Have you read "Alien Squad Leader 2.0"?http://15mm.co.uk/Alien_Squad_Leader.htm
It's stand based (all miniatures and vehicles are based) but it's very much aimed at pulpy, soft sci-fi battles. My favorite small scale game is Panzer 8 Sci-Fi, but it's even more streamlined.

One caution about 3d printing though. It's a great way to do prototypes, but the high resolution printing materials haven't come down in price enough to make it affordable for those building armies of 15mm vehicles. However, if you have 3d skills, making a prototype and then having it cast in resin (sometimes with metal parts) has proved a workable method for many companies.

Eilif wrote:

One caution about 3d printing though. It's a great way to do prototypes, but the high resolution printing materials haven't come down in price enough to make it affordable for those building armies of 15mm vehicles. However, if you have 3d skills, making a prototype and then having it cast in resin (sometimes with metal parts) has proved a workable method for many companies.

Yeah, however there might be some rare stuff, bits and conversion parts where it's more economical to use shapeways, if only for ease of access and measuring demand. Mostly for games with an open-source ethic. I'm really impressed with the stuff up there already, and I expect cost to continue going down and resolution to go up. Another possibility is conversion kits meant to attach to popular WW2 vehicles (like just the turret), making them 'sci-fi'.

I agree Meade, but it seems that Navarro can't accept that i have a different view or doesn't know the meaning of IMHO

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I agree Meade, but it seems that Navarro can't accept that i have a different view or doesn't know the meaning of IMHO

Sigh cute!... The moment your opinion starts to make speculative claims about OTHERs preferences then guess what... others may disagree. SImples?

 NAVARRO wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
15mm is a specific niche IMHO, it is great for large battles, but doesn't appeal to some miniature/painter/converter gamers.

.

Errrr totally false on both claims! The quality of 15mm is on the rise for some years now and you can find 15mm's that are more detailed than 28mm's... and the skirmish scifi small squad games are todays main trend.

Agreed. Converting a single 15mm soldier may be tricky due to size, but all other units are big enough to allow plenty of conversion fun.


On the subject of 15mm games...Paulson Games Mecha Front is currently in the play testing stage, and it looks good. Mech minis for the game are also in the works.

Well I think most of us agree that there exist plenty of opportunities for 15mm detail/conversion/modelling, but just to make it into a more objective discussion: what is it that makes for conversion/modelling fun, really? For instance in 40k, I find there is more fun with races like Orks, Chaos. Generally these factions have certain things in common...

1. Fictional... and set in an unlimited (galaxy-scale) universe: this way, no matter what kind of cool conversion you want to do, as long as it fits the general background theme, nobody is going to say that doesn't exist in so and so universe or setting.

2. Variation in production... factions are either extremely variable, or production is haphazard (like orks, post-apocalyptic scavengers) or highly modified by decades of use and re-purposing. Also helps if the fictional universe contains many different worlds that may have different cultures or production methods. In other words, everything did not roll off an assembly line.

3. Ornamental elements... vehicles have a visual element to them rather than being purely war machines. Maybe gargoyles attached, gothic-like ornamentation, or anything meant to demoralize the enemy. This kind of thing might happen in any civilization that exists at a certain tech level for a very long time, so that their tech starts to merge with their culture in general.

-generally all these elements are what I mean by 'space opera'. Focus is very little on technobabble and the consequences of scientific progress and mostly on pseudo-religious, epic, settings/aesthetics and storylines. That is essentially the formula for plastic crack.