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I almost did, it was when back when I was selling the Irregular Miniatures Limited Ancients rules, they were nice and simple but seemed to capture what very little about the period I know.
If I did do 6mm ancients I would certainly try those rules out.
I started down-scaling years back in an attempt to have battles resemble battles. 25mm made way for 15mm, 15mm to 6mm then up to 10mm.
Went back to 6mm
on 40mm wide bases with as many figures as I could fit.Sold the lot and did 2mm instead. The trouble I have is figure scale versus terrain,they never work properly unless it’s a skirmish.The critical moment for me was 300 Huns against 240 Sarmatians on a 5′ x 3′ board, even in 6mm it looked like
a skirmish.
With the 2mm I went for 1:2 figure ratio on 60mm wide bases then just bases then in correct formations,for example 8 ranks for Hoplites and 16 for Pikemen,
Irregulars foot varying from 189 figures to 240.
I’not suggesting you switch to 2mm but perhaps using a similar idea,picture how you imagine the troop formations looked then base them accordingly.
As for rules just adjust movement and shooting ranges how you see fit,with element based rules leave things as they are.Figure scale has no real impact
on play apart from a visual one .
Shelves bulging with rulebooks but not figures,800 bases are in 20 A4 slim box files on 1 shelf 3′ wide,It’s Rally Round The King and Ancient Battleline Clash
for me though Simon’s To the Strongest and Mark’s Sword and Spear are itching to be played too.
I do DBA with 6mm using 40mm wide bases. With infantry and cavalry, I put 4 times as many figures, usually in 2 ranks. For instance, a hoplite element (base) would have 2 ranks of 8 figures instead of 4 figures of 15mm size. For most kids of chariots, artillery and elephants I have 2 models on a base (I could only fit one scythed chariot on a base).
For normal (12 elements per side) DBA games I prefer my 15mm armies. However, for BBDBA (DBA with 36 elements per side) I much prefer the 6mm armies. When I do a new 6mm DBA army, I go for 36 bases per side.
Please excuse the poor painting and photography:-
Yes, our group plays 6mm ancients in a big way. We have been playing Hail Caesar, which works perfectly fine with the smaller scale, but are planning on branching out into Sword and Spear (which looks really exciting).
All our stuff is based on 4omm wide bases which, as said above, can be (and usually are) combined to form larger units 80mm wide. For Hail Caesar, we just convert all measurements to cm rather than inches. Standard size units are 80mm wide, small units are 40mm wide. For Sword and Spear, we’d just use 80mm wide units as well.
Depth varies. All my non-skirmishers are on 40mm depth bases and stand between two and five ranks deep. my skirmishers are on 20mm deep bases and stand in a staggered line. A couple of photos below, or you can check out more here.
http://irregularwars.blogspot.co.uk/
My 10mm stuff is used for Warmaster Ancients and based on 40mm x 20mm MDF bases.
6mm Late Roman stuff is based for DBA on 15mm base sizes, so I can cram more figures on.
My 6mm Mesopotamian Early Bronze Age figures are based on 60mm square MDF bases, 48 close formed infantry/ 32 tribal infantry/ 16 light infantry/ 6 “Donkey Carts”/ a general and either 24 guardsmen or 3 chariots to a base. I’m back to working on a home brew set of rules for these.
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data
@Sane Max – One of the things that I like about 6mm is that I prefer all (or most) of the bases to be the samer depth. I don’t think that I could fit chariots on 20mm deep bases, though.
This year, I re-based nearly all my 6mm ancients armies on to 60mm wide by 30mm deep bases. I am pleased with the results, although they need a slightly deeper battle field. The rules that I am participating in writing would normally want a 36″ deep board for 60mm wide bases, but because all the bases are 30mm deep, with careful deployment, you can get away with a 30″ deep board.
By the way, I tried Warmaster when it came out, and thought that it wasn’t bad as a fantasy game. I haven’t tried Warmaster Ancients, but suspect that there could be worse choices available.
Hi Daniele,
the Sumerians are from Rapier Miniatures (http://www.rapierminiatures.co.uk/) who are, frustratingly, currently closed while a revamp of the website and physical work space are undertaken.
However, they do say Rapier Miniatures will reopen in January 2020.
Rapier’s ordering system, like the mills of god, grind slow but grind exceeding fine 🙂 Never had an order fail to arrive, never had one arrive promptly. Worth the wait IMHO, YMMV!!
They are in scale with Baccus (https://www.baccus6mm.com/) who don’t do Mesopotamian Early Bronze Age but do make many figures that will do to fill the ranks of Sumer’s enemies. I even have some of their Amazons to add some feisty ladies to my “Civil Defence Forces” … gotta protect the real estate somehow 🙂
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data
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