Conventions are a great place to meet new gamers and to introduce gamers to the concepts and benefits of 6mm gaming. Once the customer sees the figures in the "flesh" so to speak and marvels at the games and demonstration pieces at the stand one question immediately comes to their mind. What rules do I use with these?

Fortunately the answer is fairly easy. Most rules may be adapted for 6mm by using the existing 15 or 25 mm basing standards in the game. Simply add more lead, Larry Leadhead™ would be proud!

I have long sought to play Terry Gore’s series of rules in 6mm and at the invitation of Perry Grey I will undertake to describe how I would approach the challenge of using 6mm figures in Ancient Warfare to start.

Game Scale

Little is know about how ancient troops formed for battle with some notable exceptions. The stand frontage and Romans and Greeks had well documented organizations and tactical methods so for them it is easy to determine frontages to some level of mathematical precision. However the vast majority of armies are not documented to the same degree and therefore while they may have had a formal drill manual we must work on conjecture to evaluate basing.

The Ancient Warfare fast play set offers a standard of 40 paces to a stand frontage and a strength of between 100 and 200 men per stand. As a pace may be defined as the interval between files 40 men on a depth of 5 ranks would allow 200 men. There may be some reduction for small gaps between elements thus 35 or so files with 6 ranks would dovetail nicely with the 200 upper limit. With up to 24 figures on a 40mm base we approach a ratio of 1 figure to 8 men, better than the 1:50 in other scales.

What about Cost?

When looking at cost I use one rule of thumb. I look at the number of 15/25mm figures I have on a base and compute the cost. For example if I have 4 25mm figures at a minimum of 1.25 USD per figure a stand would cost me $5.00 USD. For that money you can buy 62 6mm figures. Now I can only reasonably put 12 figures in the footprint of that 25mm figure so four would only use up 48 figures. I think that you can work out cavalry yourself when you realize one horseman costs about $0.20 USD

Add the time you save painting and well…

Given the desire to ensure that troop types are identifiable to you opponent we have to look at the

various troop types described in the rules and see how we may create bases that reflect the troop types and are easily identifiable to the players.

Type	Armour Type	Game Description	Basing Description - 40mm bases
CAT	Cataphract Cavalry	Fully armoured cavalry on armoured horses in loose order. Roman and Eastern Catafract Cavalry sometimes use close order (See Army Lists for descriptions).	Single rank of 6 horse in an irregular line. It might be good to use lances to distinguish from AC Close Order Cavalry: 12 horse in two ranks
AC	Armored Cavalry	Fully armoured cavalry on partially armoured horses in loose order. Roman and Eastern Armoured Cavalry sometimes use close order. (See Army Lists for descriptions).	Single rank of 6 horse in an irregular line might be good to use spears to distinguish from CAT Close Order Cavalry: 12 horse in two ranks
HC	Heavy Cavalry	Armoured cavalry with breastplate, mail, helmet and sometimes greaves in loose order	Single rank of 5 horse in an irregular line
UC	Unarmored Cavalry	Completely unarmored cavalry in loose order.	A single rank of 5-6 figures. Use obviously unarmoured types, shield less, bare headed, colourful tunics etc.
HCm	Heavy Camel	Treat as HC in loose order	As desired
LCm	Light Camel	Treat the same as skirmish cavalry (SC) below.	4-6 figures spread randomly around the base.
SC/SI	Skirmisher Cavalry or Infantry	Intended for missile fire in skirmisher order. Skirmishers always count as being unarmored.	4-6 figures spread randomly around the base.
LCh	Light Chariot	Count as skirmisher order, (2 figures). Crews are merely representational and count for weapon and fire factors only.	2 figure/ 2 horse chariots
MCh	Medium Chariot	Count as loose order (3 figures). Crew are representational as above.	4 horse chariots,
HCh	Heavy Chariot	Count as close order (4 figures). Crew as above. May have scythes attached (see Army lists).	4 horse chariots add chariot runners to differentiate from MCh
HI	Heavy Infantry	Armored as HC in close or loose order.	4 - 4 figure strips in 2 ranks for loose order, 6-4 figure strips in 3 ranks close order
LAI	Lightly Armored Infantry	Lesser-armored troops in either close or loose order.	4 - 3 figure strips in 2 ranks for loose order, 6-3 figure strips in 3 ranks close order
UI	Unarmored Infantry	Completely unarmored foot in loose or close order.	8-12 figures in irregular lines
EL	Elephants	Count as close order stand (4 figures). Crews are merely representational and count for weapon and fire factors only. May be armoured	Mount two elephants and some skirmishers on 40mm square base.
Arty	Lightly Armored	Count as LAI and for armor. For casualty purposes as the number of figures on the stand. Artillery are considered to be in close order.	One or two arty models and crew on a 40 x 40 base
Supply Units	None	Supply units are considered a movable cache of missile weapons. Supply units do not cause disorder in any circumstance. If contacted by enemy, they are destroyed.	A couple of wagons or pack mules with crew or drivers

Visual Impact

A game played with 6mm figures offers the gamer a stunning view of masses of troops ready to do his or her bidding. For example using the basing above a unit with 10 bases of close order Roman heavy infantry in 15mm would have 40 figures. A fine mass indeed but that unit could have 240 6mm figures in the SAME physical space. Cavalry units or 6 or 12 figures now have18 – 36 figures. Skirmishers look like a cloud of figures in advance of the army.

But the visual impact does not stop with the figures. Terrain is much easier to manufacture. As at 1/300 scale detail is limited large amounts of scenery can be constructed at low cost and an interesting backdrop to your gaming experience may be created with little effort.

Each stand may be made into a diorama, with skirmishers skulking about in the bushes and command stands built to include appropriate aids and escort. The effect can be stunning and there are several examples in this article colour versions of which may be found at

Playing the game.

Well the big surprise is there is no change. Losses are still tracked in hits against stands using dice or casualty figures. Stands are still removed when the appropriate numbers of hits are inflicted. Otherwise the scales for movement and other game mechanics remain the same.

So conversion to 6mm is quite easy. The deciding factor is what do you want your game to look like. I’ll not try to compare 6mm to 15’s or 25’s for detail but I will compare them en masse. If a battle is what you are looking for consider 6mm. They are less expensive, easier to paint and on the table provide a glimpse of what historical commanders saw on the field of battle.

Stewart Gibson is a retired Canadian Forces Topographic Engineer, long time gamer and amateur historian. He is the owner of Milites Minimus, a St. John’s Newfoundland distributor of Baccus 6mm figures and publisher of The Brent Nosworthy Tactical Studies Series published by Ad Signa! Publications

www.militesminimus.ca