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Was wondering about distances in other countries.

Given that in the US uses Inches for movement and range and other countries use the Metric system how big a difference does that make in range and movement speed due to conversion? Also do they roll the same number of dice or charge?

Just curious and hoping some of our overseas players can answer the questions.

I'm curious about this too. I'd always assumed that the "English" codex was the same in all English speaking countries, but as I understand, only the US uses the "standard" system (which shouldn't be called standard if everyone else uses Metric). Would be interested to see if those other English countries have prints with centimeters.

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There is only one English-language version of the rules, using Imperial measurement.

The Japanese version apparently was converted to Metric, but (IIRC) everyone else is using inches like the English version.



GW have traditionally always used Imperial measurement for the 28mm games, and Metric for their smaller scale stuff (Epic, BfG, etc).

That's just weird. 28mm scale minis with bases measured by mm should really be measured with meters.

It'd be interesting to re-do all ranges using cm, but not simply by substituting all "inches" with "cm". but by giving specific units individual ranges/movements. Like having human infantry a 10cm move and Space Marines a 12cm move, for example. Charge ranges could still be 2D6, but in cm rather than inches

Ouside of that, you can easily convert. 6" is roughly 15cm

BFG used Metric measurements, using largely the same range brackets as 40k in 6" and 12" increments but multiplied by 2.5 to get a rough Metric CM approximation (thus IN cruiser broadsides were usually like 30cm in range, a hair under 12")

All 40k distances are in inches in the German rulebook. That is not a problem as most meassuring tapes have both inch and cm on them. The only difference is that most tables are not 6'x4' but 180cm x 120cm because MDF boards are usually sold in 120cm x 60cm sheets. 120cm are a bit more than 47'', so I doesn't really make a difference.

 Galef wrote:
That's just weird. 28mm scale minis with bases measured by mm should really be measured with meters.

For what it's worth, GW haven't (as far as I can recall) actually marketed their products as '28mm miniatures' since the mid-90s.


I believe the decision to use Imperial measurement was based on the way it works with the scale. Metric would give them more granularity, but also more numbers to remember... Weapon charts in Imperial, for example, in a system where ranges are generally created in multiples of 6", are much easier to remember than the equivalent distances in metric would be.



Although it's also possibly a holdover from the fact that back when GW first started making games I would suspect that many of the games designers were more comfortable with Imperial measurement, despite the UK being nominally Metric back then. Metric took a while to really take hold, and was never widely accepted by older folk.

As a Swede, living in a country where we use only metric, and with the objective opinion that the metric system is superior in every way with facts to back it up; Inches isn't bad for miniature gaming.

An inch is a little bigger than a cm, which makes the gaming table a little bigger without having to inflate numbers.

It wouldn't be a big deal to change it over to cm, but I haven't met a single person here that has any strong feelings about it.

I even have strong feelings about the metric system, and I still think it's fine as it is.

Either is fine as far as we're concerned.

LotR SBG uses both Imperial and Metric measurements, as in the profiles and rules have both listed. It doesn't really make much of a difference which system you use, as long as you use the same one... either you move your models 6"/14cm, shoot bows at 24"/56cm and use random distances of 2d6"/4d6cm.

The U.K. is officially a metric country, but frankly many of us still work in imperial.

I suspect this is a generational thing, my parents don't really get metric, I can fairly easily work in both, and I expect my generation's kids will be almost exclusively metric.

It'll hang on though, while our horse races are run in furlongs and our beer is served in pints, I doubt we'll be exclusively metric for a long while.

 Azreal13 wrote:
The U.K. is officially a metric country, but frankly many of us still work in imperial.

I suspect this is a generational thing, my parents don't really get metric, I can fairly easily work in both, and I expect my generation's kids will be almost exclusively metric.

It'll hang on though, while our horse races are run in furlongs and our beer is served in pints, I doubt we'll be exclusively metric for a long while.

Some things are just the way they are for tradition, and there's no point in not letting it be. It's an oddity. It's fun. I don't see why they would ever call it anything other than a pint. Look at roman numerals in watches. The roman numeral for four is "IV"... but not on a watch face. There it's "IIII." There's no good reason for it, that's just how it is. It's quaint.

Metric is a superior system for use when accuracy is key.

The imperial system is generally used for "eyeballing" something or at a quick glance just guessing how large something is because it uses units of measurements that are based off the human anatomy. An inch is roughly the distance between the two joints on your finger and a foot is a foot obviously. Clearly having a measuring tape makes the imperial system very accurate as well, but if you just want to play a game of toy soldiers, it's easier to say 48" range than 1200 mm (roughly rounding).

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
it's easier to say 48" range than 1200 mm (roughly rounding).

You wouldn't, though. You'd say 120cm, because everything in the book is mentioned in cm so you'd just continue mentioning everything in cm, or you'd say 12 decimeters.
We usually choose a scale and stick to it until it becomes cumbersome in the context. Then we hop to the next one. We would never use mili for wargaming because there is never any need to go lower than 1cm. The beauty of metric is that every fraction is related to every other scale in the system. Makes it easy to jump between them.

Ok, you can change scale however you want. I work as an electrician, so everything for me is laid out in millimetres.

 Purifier wrote:
[..., or you'd say 12 decimeters.

No you wouldn't. I don't think anyone outside Sweden even knows that decimeters exist.

In Canada we're metric on everything, but about half of all construction drawings and descriptions are in Imperial units. GW's releases, from as far as I can tell, are Imperial units everywhere regardless of the country's standard of measurement.

Don't think it'd matter too much though, since all our tape measures have both Metric and Imperial units on them too.

Metric whippy-sticks also hurt approximately 1.2 times more then the ones calibrated in inches.

 insaniak wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
[..., or you'd say 12 decimeters.

No you wouldn't. I don't think anyone outside Sweden even knows that decimeters exist.

That's a bit of a weird omission to make. Does everyone else also ignore deciliters?

 Purifier wrote:

That's a bit of a weird omission to make. Does everyone else also ignore deciliters?

Yup.


Not sure why, but I would suspect it's largely just because they're unnecessary. It's going back a way now, but I don't recall either one even ever being mentioned when I was in school. According to the Googles, they're a bit more commonly used in countries where metric has established a strong hold, but in the more traditionally Imperial countries and the US (where they use outdated Imperial measurement and call it their own system) they tend to be much less widely used.

 insaniak wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

That's a bit of a weird omission to make. Does everyone else also ignore deciliters?

Yup.


Not sure why, but I would suspect it's largely just because they're unnecessary. It's going back a way now, but I don't recall either one even ever being mentioned when I was in school. According to the Googles, they're a bit more commonly used in countries where metric has established a strong hold, but in the more traditionally Imperial countries and the US (where they use outdated Imperial measurement and call it their own system) they tend to be much less widely used.

In cooking we use deciliters as often as imperial measurement countries use "cups" of something. So you know... incredibly common. Weird to me, but maybe you still cook in imperial units? decimeters is a little less common, as you tend to gravitate to either cm or m instead.

 Purifier wrote:
In cooking we use deciliters as often as imperial measurement countries use "cups" of something.

We just use metric cups...

 insaniak wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
In cooking we use deciliters as often as imperial measurement countries use "cups" of something.

We just use metric cups...

...I had to Google it.

No. NO! This is exactly the kind of bulls*** that we are using the metric system to avoid!

 insaniak wrote:
There is only one English-language version of the rules, using Imperial measurement.

The Japanese version apparently was converted to Metric, but (IIRC) everyone else is using inches like the English version.

The Japanese books use metric, but all the measurements are simply the imperial ones doubled, instead of the full x2.54. It certainly made using English books when Japanese ones hadn't been released yet easy t convert.

 insaniak wrote:

 Galef wrote:
That's just weird. 28mm scale minis with bases measured by mm should really be measured with meters.

28mm is the designation given to 1" (25.4mm) eye level miniatures by people who think measuring to eye level is stupid.

GW's nominal scale is still 1" (to eye level) figures mounted on 1" (25mm) bases, hence the use of inches.

It's not actually that straightforward. Some 25mm minis are measured to the top of the head, and some 28mm or 30mm minis are measured to the eye. But 28mm minis are almost always larger than 25mm regardless of how they are measured, as 28mm tends to be used more for 'heroic' scale, while 25mm and 30mm tend towards more realistic proportions.

Except, of course, when they don't.

It all depends on how the manufacturer chooses to measure them.

 Purifier wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

That's a bit of a weird omission to make. Does everyone else also ignore deciliters?

Yup.


Not sure why, but I would suspect it's largely just because they're unnecessary. It's going back a way now, but I don't recall either one even ever being mentioned when I was in school. According to the Googles, they're a bit more commonly used in countries where metric has established a strong hold, but in the more traditionally Imperial countries and the US (where they use outdated Imperial measurement and call it their own system) they tend to be much less widely used.

In cooking we use deciliters as often as imperial measurement countries use "cups" of something. So you know... incredibly common. Weird to me, but maybe you still cook in imperial units? decimeters is a little less common, as you tend to gravitate to either cm or m instead.

Depends on generation. Most (cooking) things here in Aus come with instructions for both imperial (cups) and metric (mL) and most glassware has the markings for both since Aus only switched over to metric in '66, so there's plenty of people who grew up with Imperial. >99% of people will still use feet and inches for height though, even those of us brought up with Metric as standard and Imperial furlongs/rods/pecks as a quaint bit of history and the vast majority of people know roughly how far a inch/foot/mile/pound is in it's metric equivalent.

We still roll the same 2d6 charge range and measure everything in inches and most of our tape measures have inches/feet on 1 side with centimetres and metres on the other. Makes it handy since ther's still a bunch of stuff that comes over from the US that only has instructions in in/ft. Almost anyone with a trade or who's got any sort of engineering background will be fairly fluent in both metric and imperial though.

 Purifier wrote:
Look at roman numerals in watches. The roman numeral for four is "IV"... but not on a watch face. There it's "IIII." There's no good reason for it, that's just how it is. It's quaint.

That's an aesthetic thing, it balances out the big VIII on the opposite side of the clock face.

 Purifier wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
In cooking we use deciliters as often as imperial measurement countries use "cups" of something.

We just use metric cups...

...I had to Google it.

No. NO! This is exactly the kind of bulls*** that we are using the metric system to avoid!

uh? We use metric cups all the time. Also, noone outside engineers/scientists care about deci-whatever - it's grams/kilograms, milliliters/liters, etc.

 Vector Strike wrote:


uh? We use metric cups all the time.

I get that. And it's completely counter-intuitive to the whole idea behind metric. Metric is based on tens. Every measurement is a tenth of the one above it and ten times as much as the one below it. If we start splitting it into fours, then next we'll start splitting it into 36ths or something.
"metric cups" are a compromise for people that couldn't let go of "cups." It's not a part of the metric system.

Centi and deci are, however.

Also, the metric system allows for direct weight and volume translations. 1 liter of water weighs 1kg. So there is really no need for a "cup" measurement. 1 liter of water also takes up exactly 1 cubic decimeter of space.

The whole idea of the metric system was to make a system that allows for easy conversions between units and that is never fractured into anything other than 10, so conversions between fractions is 100% straight forward. "metric" cups are a thorn in the side of the whole idea of the metric system.

Now as a guy that thinks a duodecimal system is superior to a decimal one, I may not feel that the metric system is 100% perfect, but it's still pretty amazing.

I spent most of my active wargaming days in Dubai and Qatar. The latter had no club ever but the former had 2 in the city outskirts; I'm not sure where the codices and other literature came from (there's no Arabic version of the books (wasn't needed either)) but all the measurements in them were in inches.

Outside of Japan, I don't think any version of the codices publishes in cm or mm.

G.A