6mm Wargaming - The Attraction of Huge Tiny Battles

6mm wargaming was something I got into as a kid, courtesy of Epic Space Marine, by Games Workshop. I got this game sometime in the mid-90s, when I pretty much wanted everything GW told me to want in White Dwarf.

I use the term “wargaming” loosely because I doubt my friends and I ever played the rules anywhere close to how they were written. However, we did have a lot of battles in that big cardboard city that came in the box.

A few things happened recently which prompted me to write a wee bit of 6mm wargaming. Firstly, I returned to the hobby after a long exile. I was immediately drawn back to the popular 28mm scale, which does remain my favourite.

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However, after a few games of Kings of War – which I love – I started to see how hard it’d be to organise a clash of two large armies over a sweeping battlefield. I don’t have anywhere near the room for a 6’4 table, and my (painted) miniature collection is still quite small.

I decided to pick up some 6mm-scale troops from Irregular Miniatures. I found the company after a bit of Googling. Not the best website, but good value minis and great service.

I like the Kings of War rules so much that I simply converted inches to centimetres. I later found out on Twitter that this was quite normal in 6mm wargaming circles.

A few early games of this worked really well, helping quench my thirst for large-scale battle strategy. Coincidentally, I also ended up back in possession of a huge box of minis from my childhood. Amongst the haul was a small amount of my old Space Marine stuff.

6mm wargaming diorama with old Space Marine minis

Here’s an attempt at a diorama I’d made as a kid. Because these minis were so small and so plentiful, I felt like I had more than I could ever need back then.

I even found some of the sprues, untouched after all these years.

6mm wargaming roughly painted minis from the mid 90s

A handful of my childhood 6mm wargaming forces. I remember there were Space Marine, Ork, and Eldar armies in the box. I also started collecting a Tyranid army for the game. I didn’t find any of those though, unfortunately.

Back to the present day, I had bought a set of two armies from Irregular. Medieval French and English. I split them into two balanced-looking forces, formed them up into units, then stuck them onto bases. The 28mm scale bases I had lying around worked for most, but for the archers, I had to make them with Fimo Clay.

6mm Wargaming Terrain

Initially, some of the terrain I’d bought from GameMat scaled down well enough to provide features to my 6mm wargaming battlefield.

Shortly after, I treated myself to a handful of buildings from Total Battle Miniatures.

6mm scale buildings from Total Battle Miniatures

Whilst painting these up, I decided to try my hand at making trees. I picked up some cones during a walk in the woods, which I think work really well, both in shape, and in scale.

Here’s my full post on how I made trees for 6mm wargaming.

As I was using Fimo Clay as the tree bases, I decided to try and make a little defensive hill position too.

Here’s my full report on putting together my 6mm wargaming terrain collection.

I’ll be looking to add more terrain and miniatures going forward, but this stuff has been more than adequate to get me started in the world of 6mm wargaming.

It was also a nostalgic journey looking over my old Epic Space Marine miniatures. I found a lot of other stuff on top of those, too. If you’re interested, check them out yourself.