What scale should we game in?

I have been in various discussions regarding historical wargaming miniature scales and why gamers choose certain scales.  We should choose the scale we want to.  We all have our reasons for picking a certain scale whether it is for land, air, or naval battles.  I've ended up with all sorts of scale miniatures.

Here are my reasons for picking my scales in order of decision making:

1. I have a battle in mind that I want to wargame.  Do I have some of the miniatures in a scale already?
2. What rules will I use?  Sometimes rules are designed to use a range of scales.
3. Is there a company which supplies all the needed miniatures for the battle.  If only one company has the needed miniatures, then I am stuck with that scale.  If this scale results in too many miniatures to paint or too few, then I probably will not do the battle (examples: Jutland or Gettysburg).
4. What is the size of the battle?  To cover the whole battle maybe painting up 6mm or 15mm will work.  If it is a small battle, maybe 28mm as a skirmish battle will work.  28mm could also work for a big battle, but do a portion of the main battle.
5. Based on the figure count, will it cost too much or result in me painting for years?  If so, then don't move forward with this possible project.

This is my current scale variety in my collection:

Naval

• 1:600 - ACW
• 1:1000 - Russo-Japanese War
• 1:1200 - Age of Sail (2 ships), War of the Triple Alliance
• 1:2400 - WWI, WWII

Air

• 1:144 - WWII, Korean War, Vietnam
• 1:600 - WWII
• 1:1200 - WWII
• 1:2400 - WWII

Land

• 28mm - War of 1812, Philippine-American War, Rebellions of 1837-1838
• 25mm - Aztec-Conquistador
• 15mm - Boer War, Crimean War, Battle of Flodden, War of 1812, Italian War of 1859
• 10/12mm - Vietnam, WWI, WWII, Korean War
• 3mm - Guns for War of the Triple Alliance (1 stand)

I have others unpainted periods that will expand this list.  In the future I can see myself adding 6mm.

I used to have 1:72 / 20mm WWII which I used with Rapid Fire, but decided to bail on that for something smaller (10mm) with Blitzkrieg Commander ruleset.  I found it looked better for the battles I wanted to do.  Also, so much easier to store these miniatures.

What scales would I recommend staying clear of? I think scales smaller than 6mm (land) and smaller than 1:1200 (air).  Naval wise, I think all the scales are fine.  My struggle is when the ship models get large and lack the maneuver room on the table (i.e. 1:1000 Russo-Japanese capital ships).  I guess I struggle getting excited about miniatures I can't tell what they are.

10mm Palm Trees Tutorial

Here's an option for creating your own 10mm palm trees.  I made these up for my WWI Middle East battles.  I'm sure I can use them for other scenarios needing palm trees.

Palm tree leaves.

 

Aquarium plant, toothpick, coffee stir stick/straw, cork sheet.



 Everything cut to size.



 All the pieces put together.

 

 Glued and painted up.

 

Trees in action (Battle of Gaza).

First Battle of Gaza Table

Progress has slowed down on my First Battle of Gaza, WWI scenario.  I have painted up all the miniatures for the game, and I am down to just testing the scenario/rules and finishing the terrain.  In the pictures below you will see the layout with no armies and with hidden movement bases.

I am not happy with the sand dunes at the bottom of the photo.  I'll have to come up with something different.  The palm trees, buildings, rail, hills, cactus hedges and wadi came out not too shabby.  The cactus hedges are on two sides of Gaza.  Note that any Turkish trenches are not visible.  These get placed once certain movement bases are made visible.

WWI Palestine

The "What should I work on next?" poll result has kick started my WWI in Africa/Middle East wargaming.  I do not have what I need painted up and know very little about WWI in Africa or Middle East.  This all started with the purchase of 10mm Pendraken miniatures at a garage sale that a friend put on a year or two ago.

I had read about the war in East Africa in WWI and there are only limited set piece large battles and it was basically a German withdrawal to fight another day campaign.  The Battle of Tanga may still be doable.  I then looked at Egypt with the Suez canal.  I did some testing of the Battle of Romani, but discovered the Turks did not attack with enough troops and were easily stopped and pushed back.  This battle would not be an interesting scenario.  I am now exploring the First Battle of Gaza (1917).  I think it is doable.

 

As part of putting together a scenario is deciding on what rules to use.  My current favorite rules just don't fit with these battles or are not designed for WWI.  Here are the WWI rulesets I have been looking into potentially using:

• If the Lord Spares Us
• Great War Spearhead
• Field of Battle WWI
• Blitzkrieg Command WWI
• Command Decision
• No Mans Land
• Megablitz WWI (Kaiserblitz)
• Big Table Little Men

I discovered that to really encompass a good variety of units in a battle with some interesting terrain, the rules have to cover a larger map area, otherwise there would just be a few dunes on the table and all the figures on the board would look the same.  For me, a pretty boring scenario.  This knocked out most of the rulesets listed above.  I believe I have narrowed it down to Big Table Little Men (a free ruleset) with some help from Megablitz.  The scale is basically 4cm to 1km and each turn being about 2 hours.  The First Battle of Gaza took place over two days and Megablitz takes this into account.  Using this scale, the British for example have four divisions and about two brigades on the table.  I will say that someone could focus just on the town of Gaza and maybe do a skirmish game, but I'm more interested in something bigger.

I used to wargame 20mm North Africa WWII, and figured I would not go back to desert wargaming, but here I am.  Researching the maps of the Sinai and Palestine, it does look pretty bleak.  Gaza does sound interesting with cactus hedges, but outside Gaza there doesn't seem to be very much.  I'll have to see what I can do to spruce it up somewhat.  I have some ideas for palm trees.  Maybe with all the figures it will look better.

 

I'll be using 10mm Pendraken miniatures.  I have been painting up some Australian lighthorsemen.  I look forward to painting up the interesting variety of Turkish, Austrian, British, Australian, and New Zealander miniatures.  There were aircraft over the battlefield, but I'm not certain how to incorporate them.

After I paint up everything, I can do future battles in Palestine and maybe Mesopotamia.  The Second Battle of Gaza has British tanks.

I am not ruling out picking a different ruleset for a different battle in the future.  The First Battle of Gaza will probably work best for me with the Big Table Little Men and Megablitz combo.

Elephant Grass Terrain for 10mm Wargaming

For my Ia Drang Vietnam scenario I read there was elephant grass in the battlefield, so I did my research how I was going to create the long grass.  It seems that the best way to represent long grass or wheat people are using is using faux fur.  I struggled to find faux fur at my nearby fabric/hobby stores.  I ended up finally finding it at a decent fabric store in town (Denver Fabrics).  The sales clerk got a kick out of me buying the fur during a snow storm that day, saying I could use it to keep warm leaving the store.

The fur itself is too long for my 10mm scale battle, so I had to figure out how to trim it.  Also I did not find much help online regarding painting, but figured spray paint would work.  So I gave it a try originally with Krylon Camouflage ultra-flat olive green but found it was too dark.

Below is what I came up with.  I might add some more shades to the current green, but it is start.

Piece of faux fur cut as a terrain feature.



Hair trimmer with a 3/8" attachment to trim the fur.



After trimming.




Krylon emerald green gloss spray paint used on fur.

The faux fur after spray paint.  I did spray a lot of paint trying to cover all beige colour.

It starts to get glossier the longer you spray the fur, which I think is okay because it is supposed to be grass.

 

Elephant grass with 10mm NVA figures.  I might try adding some lighter green spray paint patches to tone down the uniform green colour.