Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Many games out there use one model to represent several, sometimes it's defined, sometimes it's vague.

What about 40k and fantasy? Do you think each model represents one trooper or is it more like 5:1 or 10:1?

Does it vary by race where every marine model=1 marine while 1 guant=10 guants? That would go a long way towards reconciling the fluff and the mechanics.

Or do you not want to think about it?

1:1. I don't believe a Farseer (who certainly doesn't represent, say, ten Farseers) is capable of killing 10 Gaunts with her pistol and another 30 with her Witchblade.

40k is unquestionably 1:1 scale. It's a squad level game. One Predator equals one Predator.
If you started mixing up the scale, say, 1 Marine equals 10 Marines, things would start snowballing out of control very fast. How many Guardians would one represent? Five? If 1 Marine is 10 and 1 Guardian is 5, how many Wraithlords or Dreads, or Greater Demons would one represent? Then there is the points differential. How would you scale points effectively?

Bottom line is, 40k as we know it, could never be done on more than a 1:1 scale. It would be a vastly different game.

In a game like Johnny Reb (15mm ACW), where a stand of four men (in some cases, three) represents a company or Battlefront (15mm WWII), where one tank represents a three tank platoon, having a single model (or stand of a few models) works to recreate larger battles. There is no reason to adapt an abstraction like this in 40k to represent large confrontations. We have Epic 40k to do that for us. Recently, we have been given Apocalypse for a 40k- scaled large battle game.



Ghidorah

40k could be 1:1 model-wise, but is more fun to think of as individuals.

WFB is definitely NOT 1:1 model-wise. 1 WFB model probably represents 10-20 (or more) people. As the WFB book says, if 1 Elf can kill 1 Goblin, 20 Elves can kill 20 Goblins just as easily. The only oddity is Characters, which I take to include their retinues of bodyguards, advisors, assisants, etc.

And missile weapons. Bows and cannon have the same rate of fire, plus it never occurs to a bowman/elf/goblin to tell the guy in front to kneel down.

I think 1:1 on models is fine - it's distances that skew things. If you changed all the weapons ranges and movement distances so that a realistic number of shots were made before units got in charge range then the game would represent the fluff much more closely - huge hoards of bugs would be needed to overrun marines, whilst fast skimmers would still close fast. Board sizes would need to increase a bit though and foot sloggers might need a points adjustment...

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
What about my fantasy? Do you think 1:1 or is it more like 5:1 or 10:1?

Or do you not want to think about it?

Fixed.

Kyoto we know your all James Bond n stuff over in Red China but asking us the ratio of Chinese women you should fit in your bedroom is not miniature related.

JohnHwangDD:

WFB is definitely NOT 1:1 model-wise. 1 WFB model probably represents 10-20 (or more) people. As the WFB book says, if 1 Elf can kill 1 Goblin, 20 Elves can kill 20 Goblins just as easily.

How does assuming that each model represents more than one individual help? Can't 200 Elves kill 200 Goblins just as easily, too? Or do you mean that Elves, for instance, are 1:1, but Gobbos aren't?

In first edition WHFB it was specifically 1 model = 1 man. This meant entire units would attack on initiative and get a hit in before the enemy. It was a terrible way to run a battle game. The magic and heroes were even worse. That's why I gave up WHFB. I haven't looked at any editions since so I don't know how it has changed.

A WFB "battle" of 200 men per side is nothing. Actual battles of the time would count by *thousands*, so counting by mere dozens is a pathetic excuse of a fight.

You assume that these are "proper" battles and not mere skirmishes. Who's to say WHFB isn't actually a skirmish game, just like 40k?

I also believe that in the rule books for both 40k and Fantasy it says that the battles you fight on the table top are actually smaller parts of a significantly larger battle. So while you only have a couple hundred guys on a fantasy field, it's to simulate a small concentrated part of a much larger confrontation. Otherwise why the hell would a Space Marine Chapter Master or a Slaan Mage Priest run around with a handful of troops to fight battles? They are both 1:1 scale, but smaller parts of a much larger fight.

Given that the WFB6 Rulebook specifically said to assume 10:1 (or greater) model ratio, I think it's GW who's saying that the battle is larger than 1:1 model ratio.

I assume 40k is 1:1, but I can certainly buy WHFB as 10:1 (especially considering JohnHwangDD's quote!)

The designers can say it's any ratio they like. WHFB doesn't have to conform to historical unit organisations.

Historical wargames tend to use a scale of between 20:1 and 50:1. They aim to build units that take up a realistic size footprint on the tabletop. For example, Polemos Marechal de l'Empire uses a 60mm square base containing about 50 6mm figures to represent a brigade of infantry containing about 2,500 men. If you work out the amount of space that four average size battalions need to deploy in line, square or column, plus the room to manoeuvre, some space in front for pathfinders and skirmishers, and short musket range (combat only occurs when bases touch) then it turns out that the brigade square base is just about the right size at the lateral scale of the game.

Since the game is a corps level game the player is not concerned with the minutiae of changing formation, deploying skirmishers and so on. He just needs to know that a brigade occupies a certain amount of space on the battlefield.

The brigade was a fairly common Napoleonic formation and had similar numbers of men in all armies.

Thus it can be seen that the figure ratio serves the concept of the game very well.

Does the figure ratio of WHFB and 40K serve the game concept?

Both WHFB and WH40K have been subject to a degree of revisionism during their histories. WHFB started as a skirmish game that aped big battle games by organising the troops into blocks characteristic of medieval combat. 40K was a skirmish game.

Both games have been inflated since the early editions. It makes more sense with WHFB than 40K.

Part of the reason for the complication of the games now is that they aim to simulate medium scale battles with rules more suitable to skirmishing. (This is probably more true of 40K than WHFB. I don't want to comment on WHFB particularly since I haven't looked at it since about 1986.)

40K could equally well adopt a concept in which a single infantry figure represents a fire team of 2-4 men, possibly carrying a heavy weapon. You could argue that the fireteam does not evaporate because one hit is taken. Then you need to give the figure more than one wound. Ths would focus the game more on infantry, which is where it seems to be heading. It would also give another variable for the designers to play with in balancing troops. IG could have 3 wounds per figure, SMs 5 and so on. But you would pay a penalty in more record keeping. It's probably not worth the extra effort.

In my mind at least, 40k is 1:1. I think a lot of the mechanics break down, at least in terms of suspension of disbelief, if you go any higher (especially with heavy weapons and vehicles and that sort of thing). After all, you are using your points to buy marine squads (for example) not companies. While GW might not explicitly say 40k is 1:1, I think they would stand by that idea in general (after all, they sold a marine company box with ~100 marines for Apocalypse, and a company is supposed to equal ~100 marines.)


Fantasy on the other hand, could go either way. If it is 1:1, I just think of it as a skirmish game that uses blocks. If it's 5:1 or 10:1, it doesn't really change how I think about the game - the idea of the battle just gets a bigger (and characters and magic get deadlier). That said if someone told me Fantasy was supposed to be 20:1 or more, I could definitely buy it.


Oh, and just FYI: A tank in Flames of War does not equal a platoon of three thanks. Flames of War is company-level, and explicitly 1:1, so a single tank is a single tank, and three tanks is a platoon of three tanks.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:You assume that these are "proper" battles and not mere skirmishes. Who's to say WHFB isn't actually a skirmish game, just like 40k?

Please Sir, can you say "WHFB-Apocalypse"

Next big release? Or will it be "LOTR-Apocalypse"?????

lol.

Dice Monkey-
Kid_Kyoto wrote:

What about my fantasy? Do you think 1:1 or is it more like 5:1 or 10:1?

Or do you not want to think about it?


Fixed.

Kyoto we know your all James Bond n stuff over in Red China but asking us the ratio of Chinese women you should fit in your bedroom is not miniature related.

Hilarious...!

I look at it as 1:1, with the battle on the board representing a small slice of a larger battle/war. It's abstract in the sense that these small battles are meant to mirror the results of the larger engagement.

I definitely see 40k as being the focus of the battle... A larger battle may rage on 'off screen' but this is the moment upon which the conflict hinges.

I feel similar to Balance. In fact, I've always wanted to do an end-to-end campaign (the the 3rd War for Armageddon camapign) from BFG to Epic and Aeronautica Imperialis to 40K Apoc to a final showdown in 40K with simiarly themed armies operating in each game at different scales.

I've always seem 40K as essentially a minor skirmish.

As long as it's fun, who cares what the scale is?

In the 40K Epic rules, it even says that an assault action in Epic represents what would normally be an entire game of 40k.

The scale of 40K is 'near enough' 1:1. Though it has been argued that marines, and CSM, are 1:1 other troops are representative of equivalent odds, possibly as high as 10:1 depending on the army and unit.

However the only truth is that scale is ignored.

This is definately true of Warhammer Fantasy. Battles can be 'skirmishes' involving the defence of a small building. La Maisontal for example.

The battles are representative of epic struggles between vast armies. If you read battle report/ story hybrids, say that in the old 5th edition Empire book, it is clear that the battle simultaneuosly depicts an epic struggle, but the units are numbered in terms of what is normal on a warhammer tabletop game.

The only unit we actrually have a defeinate number of is the Lothern Sea Guard, which is numbered at 10,000 strong, or was at least at the time some norse charged them. Even that only depicts the active garrison at Lothern, not those sea Guard serving as marines or accompanying armies elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Lothern Sea Guard could be depicted with a 'large' unit of say 24 models. And remember this unit isnt a warband, or even a company, but is refered to as a regiment.