I was born in East Orange, raised in Bloomfield, and went to school somewhere around Newark until my parents launched an exodus across NJ. I have been lucky enough to travel abroad. I read, play a couple of musical instruments, like movies, and do what I can to improve a rapidly aging body and mind. I currently work in Texas and live in Florida. I have moved over two dozen times in my life. My tiny armies and navies have followed me on my march across the US. Eventually we hope to end our nomadic existence and settle in one place.
Romans in 6mm. The beauty of the 6mm scale is that it is possible to crowd a huge number of figures into a small space. With such a small size, individual details are swallowed up and one simply sees a mass of figures. This works well with ordered ranks of Romans. It becomes possible to use a smaller table space while crowding each base with masses of figures. Here, there are 20 figures to each base for a total of 80 figures, what you would expect in a century. However, for sanity’s sake, each block represents a cohort, each colored shield group a legion.
This is an old paint job on figures by Heroics Ros. I always mean to get back and do some more but that is the history of figure painting for me. The best approach for figures like this is an almost mechanical application of paint in broad colors with a minimum of detail. Still, with a little more time, errors on the shields could be corrected and some simple design applied. But in some respects too much detail would take away one of the pleasures of this scale that fine detail is imperceptible during gaming. We see the serried ranks of soldiers and little more even if every feature is finely detailed.
Time passes and the Romans have increased in number to just under 300 figures.Now, over 400 figures. It is getting difficult to find more packs of Romans in the boxes still unpainted.
No surprise here, Battletech moves readily between miniatures, boardgames, and computer games. Below are some of the maps produced for use with Battletech. One side of the map focuses on a particular type of terrain, the other is a hexagonal grid on white. Cardboard cutouts were used to display things like office buildings and houses.
The Mechs of course stood up straight and tall and towered over everything around them. Why not? Every other piece on the board was flat. Nevertheless, the game looked good even with just cardboard. In some ways, the often amateurish scenery that appears in games is not as compelling as the scenery on the attractive boards.
For those unfamiliar with the game, playing pieces are giant piloted robots packed with weapons. Their Achilles Heel is their susceptibility to heat overload. The robot can fire weapons, take hits, and move but it pays the price by building up heat. Heat and battle damage, weapons systems and their ammunition are tracked on an elaborate chart much like warships in naval wargames.
Advanced Squad Leader was certainly one of those games that came close to a miniatures game. As the rules blossomed into multiple volumes and were finally consolidated into a huge 3-ring binder, Avalon Hill developed a series of larger game boards for use with miniatures. Below is one of the boards from Hedgerow Hell, one of the two deluxe modules.
Like almost all RPGs, Traveller uses miniatures but Traveller also relies heavily on boards for conflict resolution. Below is a nice example from Fasa’s hotel complex.
Based on the climactic assault by James Bond and assorted ninjas and intelligence operatives on a secret rocket launching base hidden in a volcano in Japan, the game pieces seem pretty generic and some miniatures would definitely spruce things up. The game seems made for that kind of conversion. It uses a chit-activation system and supposedly can be played solo.
The game was actually part of a larger James Bond role-playing system which offered under license an impressive range of components. The game was apparently successful but when the license lapsed in 1987, the game went out of print.
Vehicles from the still available Laserburn 15mm SF series. Here the top portion of the vehicle is the same while a separate bottom piece is used to generate wheeled or ant-grav propulsion.
Laserburn was a set of rules and miniatures for science fiction figures in 15mm. The rules were written by Bryan Ansell and figures apparently sculpted by him as well and sold under Tabletop Games banner. The vehicle range is limited but reasonable. The vehicles have a comic book flavor to them and are still available online. These do not have the fine machined surfaces of vehicles like the GHQ line but work well with Traveller which also initially used 15mm figures.
Mega Force vehicles by Kenner. These are part of a larger series of vehicles for two opposing armies. Small vehicles are metal with plastic detail. Larger vehicles were plastic. These can still be found for sale at nominal prices.
On some occasions, a toy company produces something unique and Kenner’s Megaforce toy series certainly qualifies. Two countries, V-Rocs and Triax are represented by equivalent ranges of vehicles (alas, no infantry) from tanks and helicopters to enormous command bases and flying platforms. Series 1 was released in 1989 and another series was meant to follow but the line languished and ended up on the racks of Kaybee Toys and Hobbies where old toys went to die.
The smaller vehcles are diecast metal, larger are plastic. All were packaged with some sort of bonus piece. The vehicles seem to mesh well with 6mm figures though I have yet to do much with them. Vehicles can still be found for sale at nominal prices even in the original packaging. For someone looking for a quick inexpensive armor force, these are ideal. All are prepainted and marked. It is one of those nice instances where wargamers can make ready use of off-the-shelf toys.
Not quite contemporary, a bunch of Israeli armor by GHQ. GHQ has dominated the microarmor market since its inception in the late 60s. My recollection is that they were buoyed by a government contract to provide models for the military.
These tiny slightly out of focus ships are as small a scale as I have encountered for gaming so of course it was immediate unconditional adoration. They do not have the level of detail one could hope for in this computer age but the scale makes them just right for some of the Clash of Arms games where counters show vessels at 1/6000.
The small scale also allows their use in older games like Jutland or Battlewagon. It would even be possible to incorporate them in something like SPI’s The Solomons Campaign. At a scale this small, there are a lot of possibilities. Just do not try it on a thick carpet.
Figurehead Miniatures has had a number of distributors in this country so it is a good idea to check The Miniatures Page for whoever is selling them at the moment. Prices for these tend to fluctuate with some people selling them as if they were cast in gold so it is a good idea to purchase through the distributor.
The Houston Quilt Festival just passed. It is an enormous festival dedicated to quilts and quilt making. It fills an monstrous convention center in the heart of downtown Houston. I visited in 2009 and the crowds were overwhelming. I have never been to a gathering of hobbyists as large.
Miniatures wargaming will never achieve that level of support and acceptance. HMGS conventions may seem big but they do not come close to the quilt festival. My own sense is that quilting affords a level of respectability and relevancy that miniature soldiers lack. A finely made quilt is a work of art or at the least a display of quality craftsmanship. It affords its users a facility for expression whether it be through abstractions or sad eyed cats. Quilting is a form of communication.
Miniatures wargaming is a rather bizarre form of conflict clinging to the most violent forms of physical interaction while summarily distancing itself as much as possible. Supposedly, there was a club that once tried to simulate war by smashing any figure that became a casualty. The experiment ended quickly. Violence, real violence has no place in wargaming. Miniatures wargaming is about play. One can admire the brightly painted armies, the historical accuracy, the flights of pure fantasy or simply the madness of being in a room with thousands of toys. But violence is viewed from a very safe distance and the casualties swept up from the table are lovingly packed back in their boxes to await the next conflict.
There is one odd thing about the quilt festival. Almost all the people visiting were women. By contrast, if one strips away the RPGs, wargame conventions are mostly visited by men. Perhaps this is a holdover of sexual stereotypes imposed by a culture that places too much stock in them. Hard to say. I cannot recall a time when I was not attracted to toy soldiers but even now could not sit through a football game. I do not feel myself bound by any cultural constraints on my behavior. It is also unlikely that I will start a quilt anytime soon.
