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Terrain is set in a scale of N, O and OH scale. So I'd like to know which is right for gaming

40k is very roughly 1/60 scale, give or take.

You can go to 1/50 for larger, more playable buildings, and things will be fine.
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Note, this is simply answering "what looks OK" - GW doesn't specify a proper scale ratio, because model scale, movement, and ranges / distances don't work.

Now I'm gonna ask you to convert the ratio scale to the letter scale...

JP wrote:Terrain is set in a scale of N, O and OH scale. So I'd like to know which is right for gaming

These scales are primarily for model railroads, right? Unfortunately, Warhammer 40k and Fantasy are 28mm, and don't fall exactly into any of the railroad scales, as far as I know. You might be able to use some of it, but I don't think there is a railroad terrain scale that will match Warhammer minis perfectly. For things like buildings especially, you're probably better off building your own, or buying terrain from a company that makes terrain specifically for 28mm wargaming.

GW figures for 40k and WFB (but not LotR) are generally agreed to be sculpted at a "heroic 30mm" scale. GW take this to mean a "normal" human is approximately 30mm from his feet to the top of his head (Although some manufacturers quote to eyes for model height - which circumvents the problem of headgear!)



GW are notoriously lax when it comes to size comparability within ranges though, so you get the Vestroyans who are about 34mm tall for instance and tower over "normal" humans, and even Marines! Also, over time there has been considerable scale creep and the current models become a lot bigger and chunkier over time. Compare Abaddon to a current Chaos Terminator for an example.

Now, height is not the only issue. I also mention "heroic". This means that certain features are exaggerated so that at the small scale of the models, they look more impressive. Blow up a plastic Catachan model to 6' tall and the result would be some monstrous caracature of a human being with overly massive arms, hands, musculature and head. Also, weapons generally are sculpted many times "realistic" size, for the same reason.

This is one of the main differences between GW (and many other fantasy) models and (for example) many historical models, which tend to be a little more restrained in this regard (although some manufacturers such as Foundry do still tend to oversize hands and weapons of their historical models for increased effect, slthough perhaps less so than GW do)

Overall this "heroic" nature tends to make models look larger than they "are". So at a nominal 30mm/6' ratio, a scale of 1:60 is apparent, in reality, the combination of the model standing on a base and its extra "chunkiness" or "heroic scaling" means that terrain or vehicle models of 1:56 or even 1:48 can still look appropriate and 1:60 terrain or vehicles will look too small!

There's a useful discussion of scale here: http://www.io.com/~beckerdo/minis/miniother/ScaleComparison.html

Weetoysoldiers.com also does some useful inter-manufacturer scale comparisons here:
http://www.weetoysoldiers.com/wp/?page_id=167

'S' gauge is close to 40k scale.
Smaller than 'O', larger than 'HO' or 'OO'.

'S' gauge may not be common in your area, though. I have a brother-in-law with a mate who runs a model railway store, so I'm set.

Wikipedia has some good articles on model scales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_modelling_standards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scale_model_sizes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_figure_(gaming)#Scales

As JohnWangDD said, the GW figures are roughly 1/60 scale. But in selecting models to go with them you need to take into account the 'look' of the model and its practicality on a wargame table.

1/35th scale works well for vehicles. The chunkiness of 40K figures makes them look too large for 1/48th scale vehicles.

Since aircraft are so much larger than vehicles, 1/48th scale works better, otherwise it's practically impossible to deploy an aircraft on the tabletop.