Small scale wargaming

I had hoped to spice up this post with some photo’s but unfortunately they are all stored on a different device. However…

I migrated from Airfix 20mm models to Heroics & Ros 6mm in the late 1970s when I moved into a small furnished flat with only a 4ft x 4ft dining table available.

As an English Civil War re-enactor (not the Sealed Knot) I started with the 17th century range from Heroics & Ros, which I accidentally found at “The Keep” wargame shop in Devizes.

I was roundly criticised for my “open order pikemen” when I used the provided strips without separation and re-basing – and this in the days before the internet opened one’s best efforts to global scrutiny.

Since then I have been gaming mainly in 6mm, but since retiring from work five years ago I have been drifting back to the 20mm Second World War games of my teenage years. I finally could afford and track down a whole forest of “Merit” alder trees, beyond the realms of my pocket money in earlier years. I have also bought up some of the old first generation Airfix WW2 range and some of the later Matchbox range of figures. I am continually searching for reasonably priced Airfix “soft” polythene models of the second world war.

Back to the 6mm gaming. Not for me the vast battlefields with thousands of figures. I am constrained to a 4ft x 3ft board, with occasional resource to a 6ft x 4ft extended table top.

Thus I have been playing games largely based on the “Commands & Colors” stable, with local adaptations. I use home-modified Hexxon terrain tiles, sculpting my own roads and rivers into the basic flocked tiles. I have constructed tiles for both 6mm and 3mm gaming.

For 2mm and 3mm games I also have used 6cm MDF tiles from Warbases, adorning them with forests made of roofing nails adorned with chunks of kitchen scouring cloth, towns built with Langton Miniatures “Toulon” buildings, and varios home-made items like hedges made of dyed pipe-cleaners, walls from thin MDF, etc.

I have also devised my own set of rules for 6mm hexagon-based games, covering 1700 – 1950 with period adaptations. They may not suit everyone, but they work for me. They are largely based around targeting the occupants of a hexagon rather than individual units therein. Units are more often forced to retreat or simply “freeze” instead of being destroyed, which leads to a gradual collapse of the defence and a breakthrough, which is my interpretation of how battles actually happened.

My latest adventure (partly due to the fact that I am living in “Covid-19 isolation” in a caravan in the garden) is an “Unternehmen Seeloewe” mini campaign with 3mm models on 10″ square game boards, based around the Perry Miniatures “Travel Battle” items.

More of this will appear on this site as it progresses.