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Hello Lads!

I want to get into the warhammer historical rule sets (especially the English Civil War set) but due to $$ and space limitations, I'm strongly considering 6mm models, such as those from Heroic and Rios.

Any thoughts regarding the plausibility of it at such a scale and the following issues:
- Basing
- Models per base
- Movement Trays
- Measurements/other rules?


I would consider 1/72 scale, but 6mm 1/285 is just SO much cheaper....

Did you have a ruleset in mind?

ECW historical was the prefered ruleset Manchu!!!!!!
The thing about these rules is the basing...how about the same size base with 2 ranks of 4/ 2 of 2 for cav/ and 4 guns but shoter bases for these!!! but on flat card bases.
Movement tray would have to be used..and keep the measurements...realistic distances
As for other rules i would go for Pike and Shot...these have list in them.

 David Hume wrote:
Hello Lads!

I want to get into the warhammer historical rule sets (especially the English Civil War set) but due to $$ and space limitations, I'm strongly considering 6mm models, such as those from Heroic and Rios.

Any thoughts regarding the plausibility of it at such a scale and the following issues:
- Basing
- Models per base
- Movement Trays
- Measurements/other rules?


I would consider 1/72 scale, but 6mm 1/285 is just SO much cheaper....

I believe that Warhammer Historicals assume a 20mm square per infantry miniature. And there are pretty standard formations in terms of x miniatures across and so many miniatures deep. You simply replace the single 28mm miniatures with as many 6mm miniatures as you like. And if you are going to be making armies for both sides and supplying everything needed for the game, there's no reason you can reduce or expand the size to fit your budget and gaming space.

I believe warhammer ancients also has figure removal. The way to do this is to make sure the last row can "make change" Basically if the unit in 28mm would have 20 miniatures (5 wide, 4 deep) then you make sure the last row can make up any number needed. So it might have a couple 40mm bases and a single 20mm base. So if a given row is 100mm wide and contains five "miniatures" worth of combat strength and you lose two, you can pull out a double base and still have "3" figures left, where each figure is a nice formation of 6mm infantry rather than a single miniature.

This also lets you make diorama bases for your front ranks as you won't need to break them up.

Hope that makes sense.

The other option is to go for a rules set that doesn't require removing casaulties a single figure at a time. Maybe a stand is removed when enough damage happens, or a whole unit of stands is removed once the unit routs.

So here's the bigger issue:


The heroics & ros strips (on the left) appear to be slightly more than 20mm wide. So you might have to trim off a soldier off of each to make them fit on 20mm bases. This won't matter for you front rank bases that can be 100mm wide (assuming I'm remember warhammer historicals correctly) as 4 of them will fit in 100mm. I also don't know how the rules work as far as pike & shotte formations go where you'll have pike and musket armed soldiers together.

Other rules are more stand based rather than individual figure based. So you may want to consider going that route if you think you might prefer stand based vs small squares and making change.

In the end the easiest thing to do is to figure out what looks good to you and then adjust the rules to your preferences. For example, if you find you like the idea of 50mm bases of infantry and find out warhammer ancients likes 100mm across the front, you just take two of your 50mm bases and put them together in a movement tray for each row. And you track damage on a roster rather than removing individual figures and only remove a stand when you get enough damage to justify a whole stand leaving.

I'd take some time doing image searches for "6mm english civil war" "heroics & ros ecw" and any other term you can think of and find pictures of miniatures on bases that click with you. That look "right" to you. Then adjust the rules around those.

If you already have a local group of people with existing collections you are going to play this with, then ask them how their collections are organized. I get the sense though, that this is a project that is for you and spearheaded by you, so you'll have to figure out what you like.

Thank you for the reply. I'm not too familiar with Pike and Shotte, but I will give it a look over. At the smaller, 6mm scale, wounds/base removal is my biggest concern -- I've even considered going up to 15mm to try to resolve it. However, your idea of a static front stand and back models to remove is a great idea.

Do you know who makes the models on the right in the picture you showed?

Maybe someone else on here as more experience with Pike and Shotte rules and at different model scales as well.

 David Hume wrote:

Maybe someone else on here as more experience with Pike and Shotte rules and at different model scales as well.

I know my club abandoned WAB ECW in favour of Pike & Shotte...

To be honest I'd consider 15mm to be the minimum size suitable for casualty removal from infantry blocks. For anything smaller, it might be a wee bit of a shock if you're used to Warhammer, moving to stands of models. It was for me. But it's just one of the things that makes other historical games flow more easily. Even just a simple change of units made up of multiple stands of e.g. 40mm bases, compared to 20mm bases.

(Might help to think of them as units made up of unit filler bases. )

David Hume wrote:Thank you for the reply. I'm not too familiar with Pike and Shotte, but I will give it a look over. At the smaller, 6mm scale, wounds/base removal is my biggest concern -- I've even considered going up to 15mm to try to resolve it. However, your idea of a static front stand and back models to remove is a great idea.

I'm glad that made sense. I had no idea if I explained it properly or not.

Do you know who makes the models on the right in the picture you showed?

Those are by baccus. Their strips are intentionally 20mm wide.

https://www.baccus6mm.com/catalogue/EnglishCivilWarECW/

The price you pay if you live outside of the EU is the lower "everywhere else" price as you don't have to pay the local sales tax. A pack of 96 figures on 24 strips of 4 is £5.00. Heroics & Ros is what £2.50 for a pack of 48, so same price per figure? Baccus are bigger and chunkier and have deeper recesses so you might find them easier to paint than H&R, but they look less like normal humans as far as proportions go (as you can see in that picture).

Maybe someone else on here as more experience with Pike and Shotte rules and at different model scales as well.

That's a 60mm x 30mm base with 12 baccus strips on it. You need to figure out what looks right to you. Some like 40x20mm. Others use 20mm squares. Others use 40mm squares. Some 60mm squares.

Also, don't feel like you are locked in as far as rules go. There's nothing wrong with starting off with a rules set that uses less figures and getting a game in before eventually getting enough ready for something like WAB:ECW or Pike & Shotte, which are both actually quite high in figure count.

For example, imagine if you made some simple 20mm square bases and used 3 for a unit for a game like Victory without Quarter (a relatively popular free set of rules):

https://gcooksonblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/victory-without-quarter-rules.pdf

So instead of 60mm square bases for infantry, you use 20mm square and just reduce the measurments in the game from inches to cm or divide them by 3. Then when you have enough 20mm squares to make up a WAB:ECW unit, you can just put them on a movement tray.

Theres always 10mm..oldglory/magiter militum/pendraken
15mm peter pig and my faves....old glory 15s
i would go with pike and shotte

I had an idea of using 20mm square bases, and having six 6mm figures on each and just using the same size units as for 28mm. Thus a unit of 24 models would then become 144 6mm.

As you can guess, I gave up on that idea.

I'm doing an ECW army in 15mm using Pike and Shotte. That's based like Warhammer and I'm basing mine two figures to a base.

My eyes are too old and bent for 6mm.

licclerich wrote:
ECW historical was the prefered ruleset Manchu!!!!!!

LOL my brain must have refused to read that.

Happens to the best of us Manchu!!!!!!!
there are other systems for ECW mentioned in WI mag..
what about Beneath the liiy banners (forum).....warlord sell 28mm ECW boxes with painting guides in..go online to see if you can get them...

At 6mm how ar eyou planning on doign the model removal that any WarHammer system uses? Just remove the base from play?

I think you should just base them larger and keep a casualty marker behind it and just keep all your 6mm guys on the table.

Different Strokes and what not....