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A long while ago in an ACW thread I mentioned the possibility of going with 3mm miniatures. Instead of doing ACW in 3mm, I went the opposite route and started 54mm and did early 18th century horse & musket. I mostly game at a local board game club and hosting hybrid dinner party/gaming nights. I'm just finding the 54mm just doesn't work to take down to the club. It's fine for at the house, but transporting elsewhere is just too much. The metals are super heavy at 54mm and even plastics just take up too much space. A unit of cavalry at 54mm takes up an enormous amount of space to pack in a way that they don't get damaged.

I've also always been inspired by the mass battle look of smaller scales like 10mm, 6mm and 3mm.


(Miniatures from Pico Armor painted by Forward March Studios)

I think it's going to be Napoleonics. That era has been my bane and I have never actually brought a project to completion. I've gotten enough painted to do little partial games, but I've started and sold 10mm, 15mm, 1/72 and 28mm over the years. I'm thinking 3mm will be the scale that sticks because I should be able to avoid what ended up frustrating me even at 10mm-- the space needed for a game.

I also want to be able to run games at events where I can't easily push all the tables I want together for a 10x6 table. I want something where I can fight a full battle at one base = one brigade in a 2x3 or 3x3 area. So the pico armor strips of 10 infantry are going to go on 20mm x 15mm bases, 3 deep.



For the rules, Blucher by Sam Mustafa is looking very promising. I'm a fan of both Grande Armee and Lasalle, two of his previously published Napoleonic rules sets. There are some nice interested ideas including hidden units you need to discover and your opponent rolls for how many units you can move on your turn and reveals the result only after you try to do something that costs more than you have left. So if moving a corps takes a total of 5 and you only have 4 left, your turn ends instead. Your turn also ends if you make a command move with your army leader to move multiple units at once. Sort of a reliable way to finish your turn. The game is designed to play through an entire day of battle from morning to sunset in a 2-3 hours for a smaller battle with 12-16 brigades per side.

Another neat thing it has is that at the beginning of the game you decide how you are going to use your artillery. Whether you are going to keep the brigade and divisional artillery spread out or consolidate it into batteries. And there's this neat campaign system where even for one off games you can use it to give your game some context in terms of who is bringing whom to battle and what the context and goals are for the game.

The game isn't out yet, but definitely will be before I paint up the 30 or so bases of troops I'll need for both sides. Though I've heard that 450 3mm infantry isn't out of line for a long Saturday afternoon of painting.



I definitely like the effect and have my 54mm stuff for the bigger miniature itch.





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Okay, I must admit pictures like this are giving me second thoughts.



I get that instead of a single figure, a base of 30 guys is the equivalent, but this is pushing it even further than 6mm. Speaking of which, here's a comparison shot with some 6mm "giants"



Now I'm 2nd guessing my decision. Good thing I haven't placed an order yet.

I have a large 6mm Napoleonic Russian army based for La Grande Armee/Marechal de l'Empire.

I am seriously interested in using Ozzy Ozmial 3mm ACM model to make a real mass army. I didn't know anyone was making Napoleonics in the scale, but realistically I would do better to complete my French 6mm army than to start a new army in 3mm.

I have some 2mm Biblical armies from Irregular Miniatures. These really are just a block with heads and flags sticking out. The huge advantage is the absolutely tiny size of a pair of armies. It makes it possible to do a mass battle wargame that works like those travel chess sets.

I'm really not sure where to go with my next project. I like all of the advantages of 3mm, but when I see them next to the 6mm figures, I think it's just too far.

Perhaps I need to admit that Napoleonics is one era where I'm not likely to ever be happy with what I go with. I found 10mm to be frustrating because it was just hitting the point where you could see all the elaborations on the uniforms and I wasn't saving any painting time. 1/72 was largely the same, except there's not enough consistency across even a single manufacturer's stuff. 15mm and 28mm had the same issues with painting taking forever, plus they were more expensive. I've already got a 54mm fix with my 1700s stuff and transport (and storage) is definitely an issue.

I've seen 6mm Napoleonics in person at some cons and they didn't do it for me. I found Baccus chubby and round looking for their size and the spacing on the strips was way, way too wide. Adler had big bobble heads. H&R just didn't look good.

3mm seems like the best bet, but after seeing the comparison shot with the 6mm, I just lost all my excitement for them. It may be that Napoleonics will have to be the era that got away. It's funny, but I think I might have talked myself both into and out of this project in a single 24 hour period.


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I like but i think you need a way to have thinner bases.

Yeah, the proportions of the base height to the figure height would be like having 14 mm thick bases for 28mm figures.

EDIT: I ended up deciding I'd take a bit of a break before starting a new project and instead bought a wargaming related book. The Wargaming Compendium by Henry Hyde. It's 520 pages of info about miniature wargaming and it's history. I got a huge amount of 1960s and 70s publications from an estate sale including some general titles like Charles Grant's The Wargame and some Featherstone titles. It's cool to see a similar (but far more ambitious) book of more recent publication.

http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Wargaming-Compendium/p/3159/

I'm sure after I've given it a read I'll figure out whether or not I want to expand an existing army or start a new project. It's might be Napoleonics in 3mm, but who knows?

3mil is like spending lots of money on expensive counters...far too small
lovely board though

I had a ton of 3mm moderns, and loved the way they looked.











I admit, the idea of an infantry based army in the scale intimidates me. The troops can look really good, but I didn't enjoy painting them too much.

licclerich wrote:
3mil is like spending lots of money on expensive counters...far too small
lovely board though

Pretty much all miniatures are just expensive counters. As a 54mm gamer, I see even my 4 inch tall cavalry as counters during a game. Though I do get what you are saying though as they are lower to the table top than larger figures and their height relative to their length and width is close to 2d than most 15mm+ size figures.

Here's Paul M's use of 54mm miniatures as counters for the Command & Colors boardgame scaled up:


You are right though in that there is a huge difference between that and bases where the total height is only millimetres away from printed 2d card stock.


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 CptJake wrote:
I had a ton of 3mm moderns, and loved the way they looked.

[...]

I admit, the idea of an infantry based army in the scale intimidates me. The troops can look really good, but I didn't enjoy painting them too much.

Those turned out great. Given the appropriateness of a broader ground scale for modern warfare, I think 3mm might be very suitable for the era. Just as it is for the huge number of soldiers massed together during the Napoleonic era.

I can totally get not enjoying painting them though. I've done enough 6mm WW2 stuff to know that the tanks are fun but the infantry are less so. I think setting myself up to paint hundreds of 3mm infantry is probably not the best idea.

My 6mm Baccus Napoleonics.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-299-1139_6mm%20Russian%20Napoleonic.html

They either do it for you or not. Personally I don't collect wargame figures for the principal purpose of painting them. They are to me 3D counters.

I think they look good. I think the Russians are some of the best ones Baccus makes. When I've seen the French in person, they looked really round and wide. They were 1806 ones in bicornes though, so that probably had something to do with my impression of them:

The bicornes are maybe a bit blobby but you know, if you have have an army in which one base of infantry has more figures than some people's armies, the individual detail doesn't matter so much any more.

My Russian infantry are based 48 + skirmishers to the 60mm square base. I have about 200 bases including generals and artillery.

"I'm all about that mass."

That's a lot of bases. The thing about 6mm and smaller (and to a degree, 10mm as well) is that a miniature isn't one guy, but a formation. And the impression isn't of a soldier, but of a whole mass of them. Irregular dove completely into this approach with their 2mm line that are actually blocks of troops as a single casting:






GHQ had a similar approach to infantry in 6mm, but I don't think it's all that appropriate looking for WW2 or moderns:



I think their later releases look better:

I have two Biblical chariot armies of Irregular 2mm, not painted, unfortunately.

Except for units like elephants and chariots, you have to regard them as blocks of troops.

I plan to build my armies up as two Big Battle DBA armies using 15mm base sizes, mounting whole blocks in place of individual 15mm figures. That is, instead of four figures of (Reg C, MI, B, SA) Bows, there will be four blocks of Bowmen amounting to probably 200 "figures" on a single base.

Ironically, despite being worse than the O8 3mm Napoleonics, I'm starting to get tempted by the Irregular blocks. I think sub-6mm might actually be better as block casts rather than individual miniatures.

For example, I photoshopped the O8 strip to be shoulder to shoulder as a single block and then quickly put them into a 3 rank deep block:




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I plan to build my armies up as two Big Battle DBA armies using 15mm base sizes, mounting whole blocks in place of individual 15mm figures. That is, instead of four figures of (Reg C, MI, B, SA) Bows, there will be four blocks of Bowmen amounting to probably 200 "figures" on a single base.

I think that'll be pretty impressive. And it still fits on a 4x4 or smaller table, doesn't it?

Magister Militum recently released 3mm Romans & Celts that look part way between strips of individuals and blocks:


http://wargamingraft.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/threes-a-crowd-interview-with-richard-clewer/

They'll be sticking with ancients with more celts and then successor phalangites on the way.

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I love the idea that one brigade is one base. It almost makes Nappies sound doable!

 Easy E wrote:
I love the idea that one brigade is one base. It almost makes Nappies sound doable!

It's a long tradition going back to Charlie Wesencraft's Practical Wargaming (1974) in modern times and Kriegspiel (early 1800s) during the period itself. The first instance of the modern movement tray was by Joseph Morschauser in the late 1950s. The idea of a miniature representing more than one soldier and that such a ratio can be changed or even undefined makes any era work with any number of figures as long as it meets the aesthetic expectations of the participants. Even flat 2d counters are having a renaissance as the internet has opened up hex & counter games to small labour of love operations just like it has for miniature rules. So whether a brigade is represented by no figures, 1 figure or a base of a ton of 3mm figures, it's doable.

3mm or 6mm plus larger brigade bases also provide an opportunity to model the separate battalions that make up the brigade. You can even pop a skirmish line on the base.



And get the checkerboard pattern seen in paintings of battles of the time.



That said, I think my preference, even for 1 base = 1 brigade, is to go more traditional and figure out the base size the gaming area can support and fill each base with figures of the chosen scale.


From Joseph Morschauser's Practical Wargaming (1962)

Myself in the original post wrote: I mostly game at a local board game club and hosting hybrid dinner party/gaming nights. I'm just finding the 54mm just doesn't work to take down to the club. It's fine for at the house, but transporting elsewhere is just too much. The metals are super heavy at 54mm and even plastics just take up too much space. A unit of cavalry at 54mm takes up an enormous amount of space to pack in a way that they don't get damaged.

So the issue that caused me to think about more portable gaming has gone away. We now have access to storage space on site and won't have to transport terrain and whatnot, freeing up space for larger miniatures. I'm in the process of customizing a couple rolling suitcases to safely transport my larger 54mm miniatures.

If you see your own huge 54m as counters why by them at all..use flats and save money!
But you are correct though in saying all figs are counters!!
Its upto the gamer to decide where he wnats to be commander...with a section or on a hill overlooking the whole battle..........
But i still hate seeing big bases with a thin line of troops in the middle, the 3mm ACW ones you done avoided that.

Those were actually painted by Forward March Studios. They did great work but aren't in operation anymore, I don't think.

I have a Large collection of Irregular minis 2mm, originally for a llarge ACW project. Once that was done I turned at first to look at their REnnaisance units - some of the best casts IMO - but then realsied this was an ideal scale to portray the massed fixed blocks of late 16th to mid 17th century europe Now I can field what look like real armies on a comparatively small gaming table.

Rules are a breeze, play as is or half distances if required (an easy way if the rules use inches is to convert to cms).

Okay you get a few weird looks and snide comments but het I remember people saying the same forty years ago when 15mm figures started to make a real appearance.

I love all scales and wish I could have all scales for all eras

2mm and 3mm definitely let you have something on the table that looks like the descriptions from the time period.

Here's some reletively recent artist renderings from Oleg Parhaiev:



As for weird looks and comments, I find I get as many for 54mm as I do when I've played with 6mm in public. Like about how the ranges are too short for the figure/frontage. Even though they generally fit on 30mm round bases and don't really have much bigger of a footprint than 28mm heroic scaled stuff.

Another great use for these small scales - especially the 2mm blocks - which will not appeal to everyone - is as units for map based Kriegspiel games.

Okay some might say it is just "boardgaming" but on a historical map, but it does make you look at wargaming in a different way.

I woould highly recommend the package deal offered by the TooFatLardies for this.

That said we have just played out some ACW battles using 3mm figures using the excellent Altar of Freedom rules - we played smaller battles so kept the base sizes as is, but have in the past halved everthing). The scale brings out the sweep of battle, in my opinion even more than when we used 6 or 10mm figures on the same brigade bases

Good call!

People seem to like this:



That's some of the Blucher cards on a printed (vinyl?) map by cigarboxbattle.com.

I think it would be better if the face up cards were replaced with stands with 2mm or 3mm miniatures for sure. Same goes for this:



I definitely see the appeal of going for a printed surface with all the relevant game information printed right on it. It is how the original Kriegspiel was played in the 19th century, after all. I think replacing strips, cards and blocks with 2mm and 3mm miniatures would make it even better.