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.

Just something I have been contemplating. A lot of historical wargames measure units in Bases of 4 or so models, that often represent hundreds of men. Heck, even WHFB has the Regiments system. But for all the grandeur of the campaigns and stories involved, 40k barely even allows for over a few hundred units on each side for a game, and with the death of Epic, there's no regimental size games possible without years of collecting. Do you think GW should give the Operational level another shot? There's nothing wrong with 40k as it is, but I feel that even Apocalypse is on the small side in terms of unit scale compared to a lot of other games like Field of Glory.

A friend and I actually had this discussion once. We decided that each base actually represents 4-5 real people, depending on the army. Tyranid bases are 8-10 bugs per base. Each space marine model represents 1 space marine

I have always considered the unit bases to be representative of larger units themselves. The ranges for shooting, the game overall seems to lend itself to this - for example, if you consider a ten man squad of orks to in fact represent 100, i.e. one model represents ten, it seems more reasonable to me. One space marine predator is a squadron of predators. 30 termagants is several hundred of the little buggers. This (to me) rectifies the odd '50 foot range assault rifle' weirdness.

The scale is just off, I guess.


...aaaand ninja'd. :p

I kinda considerate to be 1=1

I've always thought that the scale of 40k was a bit small compared to the fluff scale of things. I suppose that's why gw made the epic scale

The scale is fine for what the game started out as - a skirmish squad level game.

When they went to battle format, with up to hundreds of models, the scale ceased to be something appropriate.

40k in its current guise should be 15mm no larger.

Want to play 28mm? Play a skirmish version.
Want to play apoc? Play epic instead. The rules work better.

40k is pretty appropriate on the scale I'd say. A lot of battles occur on the platoon/company size scale, which is exactly how 40k resolves itself. I look at it as a small part of a larger battle, or isolated engagements such as raids on towns with small defending forces, or the like.

The games you play are never battles that decide the fate of planets and star systems.

 captain bloody fists wrote:
I've always thought that the scale of 40k was a bit small compared to the fluff scale of things. I suppose that's why gw made the epic scale

Pretty much it in a nutshell.

They explained it quite well back when Epic 40000 was released, that they see it as Epic covering the whole battle, while 40K represents a snapshot of a small skirmish within that overall battle.

And now Epic is dead.

Yeah, I gotta agree. When I first figured out that the battles in the fluff had thousands if not millions of troops, and related that to playing with merely dozens of miniatures on each side... Well, I forget the exact process since my memories of those years are really fuzzy - I was getting really sick at the time - but I probably went and either browsed or asked the Warhammer 40k forum on the GW site for answers. Regardless of how it happened, I eventually came to believe that the battles we fight with miniatures represented the crucial point when the battle turned or was won, which was how 60 Marines could fight 150 Orks and be counted on the leaderboards as capturing a city for a campaign or whatever.

That said, if you're really interested in the much larger battles, you may want to look into Epic. I believe the rules are free to download from GW's site, and you can still order the miniatures (And after playing 40k, is it REALLY that easy to say no to paying 60 dollars canadian for 10 Leman Russes?), so if you can find someone with a similar interest, it's still doable. I believe that Forgeworld also makes Epic-scale models, though it may just be aircraft.

Edit: Just looked into Forgeworld's Epic stuff. They don't have much. 37 British pounds for an Epic-scale Tau Manta.

My take is the scale is accurate, but what were seeing when we play is only a tiny section of the battle. Like the thickest fighting or some such. Or that super important objective that needs to be seized.

With named characters, 1 model representing several troops is very silly.

That's why I always figured that one model represents multiple units, but the exact number is scaled relative to how powerful the unit is supposed to be in the fluff, so an Imperial Guard army would have each base representing, say, a 5 man fire team, but a single space marine tactical squad is really just 10 space marines. Named characters could either represent just the character, or else the character and a small retinue.

The way it was described to me was this:

The battle your fighting represents a very small portion of a bigger battle. Meaning the squads and tanks your placing are actually part of an army that 1000's strong.

The apocalypse battles represent 1/2 of the over all size of a battle. The battle your fighting is just a portion of what is really taking place.

If you can let your imagination wander abit.....

So that's how I approach the game. I think the scale is fine. I do like playing, and building and painting this stuff, takes long enough as is.

The scale is 1 on 1.
That's why we have to select a mission and not a war.
Missions don't involve the entire army.

I'd say that the scale is about the same as it should be, you're playing a border skirmish, or a mission.. It's not the whole battle (excluding apoc) or the whole war, the thing you're doing is a tiny cog in the machine that is the entire campaign, this is what Rogue Trader was meant to be, but people started playing it on a bigger and bigger scale, so they were forced to make more rules for the bigger and bigger games that people were playing, because combats could take 20 minutes, and the general game mechanic was far too slow, which is why they always try and streamline rules, to give more ease for larger games :3

Like others have said, I've always thought of it as a skirmish/engagement which is part of much larger campaign. The scale is fine with me.

 dementedwombat wrote:
A friend and I actually had this discussion once. We decided that each base actually represents 4-5 real people, depending on the army. Tyranid bases are 8-10 bugs per base. Each space marine model represents 1 space marine

Sorry man, GW pretty much shat on that idea with true line of sight.

As for the scale, I agree with the people saying its a skirmish posing as a battle. The game makes much more sense to me at 1000 points than it does at 2000.

Personally I might even want it to get smaller. Or at least take the emphasis off of artillery and vehicles and put it back on troops and dreads

Yeah i'd say its 1=1, after all modern battles are rarely waged with masssed amount of troops, these are small skirmishes making up parts of a much larger battle.

 djones520 wrote:
40k is pretty appropriate on the scale I'd say. A lot of battles occur on the platoon/company size scale, which is exactly how 40k resolves itself. I look at it as a small part of a larger battle, or isolated engagements such as raids on towns with small defending forces, or the like.

The games you play are never battles that decide the fate of planets and star systems.

Agreed. The galaxy-changing historic clashes are what Epic is for (or rather what Epic was for).

 Fezman wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
40k is pretty appropriate on the scale I'd say. A lot of battles occur on the platoon/company size scale, which is exactly how 40k resolves itself. I look at it as a small part of a larger battle, or isolated engagements such as raids on towns with small defending forces, or the like.

The games you play are never battles that decide the fate of planets and star systems.

Agreed. The galaxy-changing historic clashes are what Epic is for (or rather what Epic was for).

The problem is, that's not the scale 40k represents. If it was just infantry and tanks, then sure, I could see it.

But then you throw in other things, like Special Characters. Just why is Marneus Calgar showing up to a little skirmish? Hasn't he heard of delegating command? Why is the fleet prepared to bombard a position on call from the chapter master (and why is he at a little skirmish)? Why are there forces turning up en masse from orbital insertion?

40k represents the pivotal point of a larger battle, as insaniak said, a snapshot of a smaller part. This is why there's huge amounts of support from off table, massively important characters, and in larger scale games, things like Titans. It's not company level, it's still 40k style 'the world is ending' style, what we're playing is just a small part of the battle line.

Ah yes, I forgot about special characters because I hardly ever use them. So when someone major shows up that would be when the game represents a small part of a much larger engagement (I didn't make it clear in my post that I thought that could sometimes be the case).

I always figured the battles were small fight in the middle of a battle or war

Von Chogg

I agree with the fact that it represents part of a battle, however the gun scales are a bit odd when you realise that a boltgun has like a 500m range...

1. If you want scale, just modify points and pay $55 for 10 models if that
2. I just play the game i dont care

 FenWulf29 wrote:
I agree with the fact that it represents part of a battle, however the gun scales are a bit odd when you realise that a boltgun has like a 500m range...

Not really. The range of the weapons in the game doesn't necessarily represent the maximum distance the projectile travels... it's just the maximum effective range. The SLR that I trained with way back when I was in the army could theoretically drop a bullet a kilometer away... but the maximum distance that you were likely to actually hit anything was around 300m, and most running firefights happen at much shorter ranges than that.

I dunno man... that "hits with zero penalty up to 24" inches and then cannot hit at all at 25" " kind of messes with the idea that GW has any idea of what they're doing here.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I dunno man... that "hits with zero penalty up to 24" inches and then cannot hit at all at 25" " kind of messes with the idea that GW has any idea of what they're doing here.

They know exactly what they're doing in this particular situation. They're creating a shooting system where weapon ranges are artificially capped to force people to think about where they place and move their units.

While modifiers for things like distance, movement, and battlefield conditions are all well and good for realism, that's just not the sort of game GW wanted 40K to be. So it's all abstracted a little in the interests of simplicity. Think of it as the middle ground between an accurate battle simulation and Risk.

I remember a while ago reading that each battle of 40k you're fighting is essentially part of a significantly larger conflict. In this light, a full average game of 40k was meant to be an assault phase in Epic. This is probably hearsay or someone on a forum years and years ago, but I think it's pretty accurate. Considering every artwork of a battlefield in 40k consists of a bunch of screaming people really close to each other and a huge thing in the background, it makes sense that you're only portraying a part of the conflict.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I dunno man... that "hits with zero penalty up to 24" inches and then cannot hit at all at 25" " kind of messes with the idea that GW has any idea of what they're doing here.

Have you ever played a wargame before? GW is hardly alone here. It's an abstraction.

I always considered it to be 1:1 and that we were just seeing a small part of the "greater" battle unfold (unless it was a battle between two relatively small forces).