So, why haven't smaller scales become a bigger thing in wargaming? Gamers clearly have a love of aircraft, mechs...

So, why haven't smaller scales become a bigger thing in wargaming? Gamers clearly have a love of aircraft, mechs, and massive gribblies on the table, but for some reason games like Warmachine and 40k insist on doing it in 28mm, a scale that is absolutely terrible for it. You end up with massive parking lots and barren tables because otherwise they can't fit anything on it.

Obviously there's games out there like Flames of War, Dropzone Commander, Epic, etc. that have embraced smaller scales and as a result can fit a lot more action in on the table, I'm just confused why smaller scales haven't been more widely embraced. The new Halo game seems to be giving a ray of hope that not all game companies are crazy, but just by watching some people's reaction you'd have thought somebody had shot their dog.

Is there something I'm missing here? I mean, you want to throw down with a goofy apocalypse game because you own 4,000pts of models like what used to happen back in 5th ed 40k, I understand. However nowadays with 40k as an example, you're regularly seeing models released that are 6+ inches tall, have massive footprints, and require massive gaps in terrain just so they can move around being considered "standard" units to be used in normal games. I just don't get why when you're trying to push that kind of game, you wouldn't drop down to 15mm (if you want infantry models that still have personality) or smaller like 10mm (if you just want to focus on kickass vehicles and mechs like DZC does)

I get why GW does it, after all they make more money per player that way, I just don't get why gamers gravitate to 28mm scale for battles of that size when they work so much better (not to mention become much cheaper) to drop down to a smaller scale. Are people just scared to try it because of painting or something?

Bigger models can have more detail and are more fun to paint.

You just can't get as pretty a models, and huge games are more expensive. Newcomers look at a table full of little models and want something with less.

I guess I can see that, but is that really true though?

I know a lot of people are scared to try painting anything smaller than 28mm but after painting everything from 28mm to 6mm I have to say the smaller the model gets the easier it is, especially if the model is good quality.

Hell, DZC is a good example. This is the BOTTOM of a walker that's barely 4 inches long and the size of a small apartment complex. It has more detail than most GW 28mm infantry models have just on the bottom.

>just can't get as pretty models

Eh, I don't know about that. Again, this is opinions and all that, but I've seen some stunning small scale armies. Those horus heresy epic armies I see on here occasionally are stunning for example.

>huge games are more expensive. Newcomers look at a table full of little models and want something with less.

Kind of confused what you mean by this. Are you saying smaller scale games are more expensive or less expensive? It sounds like you're saying the latter but I've never seen a 2,000pts Flames of War or DZC army that is half as much as a 2,000pts 40k army. granted some flames of war armies can be the same price if you were insane enough to collect metal and resin conscript tank hordes, never seen one in person though


Of course there's the old "opinions and assholes" saying, its just I feel like people refuse to give it a try because of misconceptions. I never get the "it's harder to paint/more expensive/doesn't look as good" because I play these games and none of those hold true to me I guess. Especially not the price thing.

Well, the smaller models will obviously have less detail. You can have great models like in your picture, but what about the infantry? What about the commanders and really special units? You could paint them well, but you can't make them stand out as much.

As for the latter point, large amounts of models cost more to buy, no matter if it's GW or some other company. Malifaux has gotten really popular in my area just because it's far more of a skirmish game.

Because the models look stale at small scales, and are less impressive in every factor except for technical skill

Planetfall has nice infantry and you can complement them with a larger and more thematic base. 3d software and CAD has allowed some pretty high detail sculpts for very small scale minis.

I have to agree OP. I find 28mm scale doesn't do thinks like tanks and artillery justice. When playing a game of 40k, it's like the infantry already got to your artillery positions. The only things that can work at 28 are mechanized infantry confrontations and even then you lose the whole mobility/redeployment aspect of the game.

HOWEVER, 28mm works great for anything really melee or short range oriented because you can get all the granularity and grittiness of close quarter combat. Saga is a great example, and to me, warmachine gets a pass because they balance lack of potential range with efficiency.

I like tiny minis as much as anyone OP, but I know why 40k and Warmachine are the scales they are.

Games Workshop sees itself not as a seller of wargames, but a seller of miniatures for collectors. This is not speculation, but their explicit statements both in court and in their corporate thingamabob to their shareholders. While they did have things like Warmaster and Epic Armageddon, these things were cancelled for good reason: they're peripheral to the company's core purpose and did not make them much money. A 28mm miniature is not as convenient of a game piece as a smaller miniature for large-scale wargames, but that is not the point: 28mm miniatures make for better display pieces than smaller minis.

Warmachine is a different story: they are intentionally going for the smaller-scale skirmish wargame niche. While you can theoretically make a massive army, that is not how Warmachine is usually played.

Super-scale games like Apocalypse are rarely played: the game only occurs after a long build-up of painting and modeling, and the final result is an hours-long "game" that exists to create a co-operative diorama.

Players do not gravitate towards smaller-scale games because actually PLAYING 40k is not the point.

>So, why haven't smaller scales become a bigger thing in wargaming?
28mm is the mid-point between looking good (32mm, 54mm, etc) and easily playing with large armies (6mm, 10mm, 15mm, etc)

Because GW made 28mm and until fairly recently wargaming was basically historicals or warhammer so when the new games were being made they stuck with scales they knew.

Which game is that? I've never seen that model before.

Drop Zone Commander.

People get really weird about the smaller scales of models. Insultingly weird.
I've seen people just lock up and get super defensive about the idea of playing anything not 28mm.

Honestly, I don't understand it. Each scale from smaller than 1:3000 to larger than 1:72 each has a specific use when it comes to gaming, that can help enhance the playing of a game by having those little visual reference tokens taking up an appropriate amount of board space to allow for interesting tactical play and interactions with the board itself.

Smaller scales than the vague blob of somewhere between 1:48 and 1:60 that '28mm' is are also a real gift to terrain builders, and people who have to store terrain for games.

dropzone commander hades from the PHR faction.

It's upside down so it looks weird. Here's the model rightside up

OP here again, I fully understand the whole "diorama" draw.

What bugs me is that many of the players in my old 40k group were not modellers, nor did they give a rats ass about dioramas. They were tourney players, and would regularly play the hardest and most cutthroat lists they could, usually with primed or barely painted armies.

So at that point, why bother? And it still seems to be a prevalent attitude today judging from what I see in stores when I go to pick up supplies. Is it a kind of "stockholm" syndrome kind of deal, where they've just been with warhammer so long they just can't fathom leaving?

>People get really weird about the smaller scales of models. Insultingly weird.
I've seen people just lock up and get super defensive about the idea of playing anything not 28mm.

I've seen this too. I'd show people Flames of War or Dropzone and they'd look at me like I was insane for playing it. When Halo Ground Wars was announced some people acted like they'd killed the game the moment Spartan said it was 15mm (and who knows, maybe sci fi fans are so inflexible thanks to 40k that it will be a self fulfilling prophecy)

I really hope that attitude changes. The "all 28mm all the time" really seems to be hurting the hobby to a degree from a wargaming and tactics point of view. Yes, 28mm models look cool and have character, but they really start to kill any kind of tactics above platoon level wargaming as you get parking lot syndrome.

>warmachine is a different story, it's normally played small scale

Forgive my ignorance, but didn't they release some absolutely massive (as in Knight titan sized) models a while back? What were those for?

>So, why haven't smaller scales become a bigger thing in wargaming

But they have. 15mm and below is standard for everything from big napoleonic battles to WW2 'micro armor' fights

Try playing something besides 40K

>So, why haven't smaller scales become a bigger thing in wargaming? Gamers clearly have a love of aircraft, mechs, and massive gribblies on the table, but for some reason games like Warmachine and 40k insist on doing it in 28mm, a scale that is absolutely terrible for it
>Gamers clearly have a love of aircraft, mechs, and massive gribblies on the table, but for some reason games like Warmachine and 40k insist on doing it in 28mm, a scale that is absolutely terrible for it

that is, 40k is the mainstream music of miniatures

also see this shit, this is why /mu/ complain with people, they do a musical equivalent of this
shit

I do, I play quite a few games now, including Flames and Dropzone. I'm well aware of how Historicals have embraced it (Flames was what got me to embrace it) I'm just confused why more sci fi (and by that I guess I mean 40k) are so scared of it.

28mm is the kind of size where you can personalise your troops a bit with posing and accessories, but still get fifty odd on the table.

I prefer smaller scale games too, but that's the logic of it.

>that chassis
Dave, pls.

What?

I love small scale games; it looks like an actual army is fighting, and its easier to see the maneuvers and grand tactics of a battle.

One of my favorite wargaming convention scenarios as a kid was a 6mm Iran-Iraq War scenario. It was something like regiment on regiment, and it was amazing.

15mm 40k would be awesome

>What bugs me is that many of the players in my old 40k group were ... tourney players, usually with primed or barely painted armies. Is it a kind of "stockholm" syndrome kind of deal, where they've just been with warhammer so long they just can't fathom leaving?

No, not at all. That category of players play 40k simply because it is the biggest game around. If you are a tourney player, who are you going to play with if there are no tourneys except for 40k?

40k is 28mm because of GW's target marget. Tourney players get attached to 40k because it is the biggest thing in wargaming, so even if they do not actually benefot from the 28mm style, they'll still play with it because that's the only game with significant tourneys.

I just wish 40k had better scaling between different infantry and vehicles

>>Historicals have embraced it
See there what you're doing? You're writing this like it's a new thing! When it's the other way around, really.
GW wanted bigger minis, because they care about looks and collectability. When Ral Partha and the rest where clearly 25mm.
And historicals were there long before any of us were even born...

Because Games Workshop is both incapable of and unwilling to making a decent, tight ruleset. The best option is to grab some 40K minis you like, and grab a copy of Tomorrow's War.

TW is a terrible mess of a set burying a good system, and is a complete headache to get into due to the drastically differnt mindset required by it than that of 40k.

Get Gruntz instead. Or No Stars In Sight. Or Clash on the Fringe. Or Warpath.

I agree, OP. Anything above 15mm js god awful for bog stuff. A 28mm game can have a tank per side, maybe, but that's about as big as it should ever get.

Sadly people continue to buy shit like Riptides, Knights and Colossals so GW and PP keep churning them out and making their games worse and worse.

28mm works great for skirmishes and platoon scale games. No more than say 30 or so guys per side. Nust a shame the two biggest companies in the industry keep pumping out giant, retarded impractical models.

>people buying multiple Colossals
Maybe if they're a braindead Cygnarite.

You'd be amazed. I've seen people who have multiples because they have multiple armies, or they get two because they want giant robots, or run a Colossal and a Battle Engine.

Well, running both of the big fucks kind of actually works for Trollkins. For a following month and half, that is.

>Forgive my ignorance, but didn't they release some absolutely massive (as in Knight titan sized) models a while back? What were those for?

They did (pic related, dude on far right is 30mm), but they're completely optional to field. In fact in most factions you're hard-pressed to squeeze them effectively into a list.

Most people play at 35 or 50 points, and one colossal (in-game size classification of the big models) is 18-20 points. So that one dude is about half your entire army.

It took me YEARS to realize he shot himself. I always thought a sniper got him right before he could say the way out.

what did you think he was doing? Checking to make sure his rifle wasn't jammed?

Ok good I wasn't going crazy, I could've sworn I'd seen those before.

...I want to do lewd things to that hades.

There is almost enough variety in 15mm to play 40k in that scale already. Some of the new BS would be tough to cover.

There really is rule 34 of everything.

28mm heroic scale space marines are cool and you can see how masculine they are because of the guns that aren't afraid of anything

15mm historical french dudes are harder to paint and for neeeerds

40k is the CoD of wargaming

I play many different games at different scales and each has their own merit.

Small scale stuff like epic is great when I want to feel like some commander standing at a planning table moving unit markers with a riding crop. I smoke a corn cob pipe during such occasions.

But I also enjoy big games of 28mm with my friends as I really enjoy building massive terrain pieces and seeing 200+ painted models on a huge warscape.

Yeah, rules get clunky but the action seems far more personal and tactical. Our apocalypse games often are several small battles raging with support fire from artillery units while titans clash in the background.

It just depends on what kind of gaming mood my friends and I are in.

What I don't understand is why there has been such a bitch fest on here as of late over the game scale thing.

Don't like 28mm big battles? Don't play. No one is forcing you. Why people feel the need to huff about badwrongfun always has escaped me.

Tourney players do not drive 40k. The modellers, painters, lore lovers, and casuals do. 40k is popular because of these things, in spite of the rules. Tourney players usually like at least either the lore, or painting or something else about 40k that keeps them interested as well. It's not all about the rules for a perfect tactical and strategic system.

The fact is that 28mm is just better for being creative with, and for making something that is both fairly quick to paint, but also contains a good amount of detail. It's the perfect size for hobbiests.

But it's not only this. There is a dynamic that really makes a great game or hobby. Not a lot of people realize this, even many big companies. For instance it's especially true in video games and sports as well. The most popular sport is soccer. Is it the best or most tactical sport? No. Its Easy to pick up by all, and fun to play. Many of its rules are kind of outdated. Same goes for stuff like league of legends. It's inferior to games like Dota 2 in mechanics and strategy, but more people enjoy it because it's more fun. 40k has that fun in its lore and creativity in the hobby side of it. All it needs is an okay amount of gameability to make it popular. The 'pros' of the game will follow in the footsteps of that games popularity, they don't just go to the best system available.

In addition, a person doesn't just start out a pro player. They usually get interested in something about the game that slowly drags them in. They then gets them more involved, until they get to the point where they are suddenly being competitive about it, because they've grown to love it.

They then get more involved*

For me conversions the nain attraction, so epic and gothic were wortless games in that resoect.