Last weekend I was at the excellent Battleground show in Stockton and took the opportunity to have a chat with my old friend, David.  While he was there I had a two different people come up to the display units and trot out variations of  the traditional. ‘I don’t know how you can paint something so small’, and ‘I’d go blind painting these’.    I am sure that a lot of you based in the UK have been present at the Baccus stand when I’ve had to answer these sort of statements, and what my likely response was.   At the end of it David pointed out that he’d been hearing me say pretty much the same set of arguments in the same way ever since he’d known me, going back nearly two decades.

Now, it is pretty obvious that 6mm as a wargaming scale has grown enormously in popularity over the last twenty years, it has gained a lot more acceptance in the wide wargaming community and that we have become more adept at presenting ourselves in a positive light.  Despite all this, I know that I will have to face such questions on a regular basis at every show that I attend.

So here are the knotty questions.    Given all the positive progress that 6mm has made over the last few years why is such ignorance so widespread?   Secondly, what do we, as a community, do to address it?

I started on 5mm Napoleonic blocks a long time ago... got back to painting Napoleonic 6mm... a bunch of mates joined in with inky ine having problems getting back to 6mm & is slowly working forward. (Not a 6mm issue, just painting in general) i started with ancients whike starting the pandemic....now have the better part of two armies, started ww1, started War if spanish succession & now have ordered acw.... the more i paint the easier it becomes..picking up a trick or two in the way.      Found myself teaching a friend in northern Alberta how to paint a suddenly discovered old baccus Persian 6 mm pacakage ge never knew he had.     In general in western Canada & the US NW states whike 6mm figures exists it is few & far between. You don't usually see that scale at conventions locally...but slowly is starting to change.  And seing some of the great games emerge from Joy of six or through little wars tv has helped....  no idea about the US east coast or mid est states...its seems to be a slow process.

Well I am short sighted with glaucoma plus shaky hands and at 70 years old I can paint the little blighters no problem. I think the answer is the same as ever. Don't try painting them using the same technique as 28mm. The intention is to give an impression of a battle, not a dozen re-enactors out on the lash. Flesh, headgear, main body colour, leg covering colour if needed, footwear, pack etc, cuffs depending on period, weapon. Job done! Importantly for me is white undercoat. 

There is also the perrenial problem of British politeness and beating round the bush, i.e. the unwillingness to say, "I'm just not interested in this scale." Living in the Netherlands I now see this as perfectly normal.

Well said dourpuritan!

Coming back into the hobby over various lockdowns - after nearly thirty years away - I found myself horrified by the idea of painting all the detail on 28mm figs that people seem to expect these days. Not only would I go blind, I'd struggle to finish armies, or even whole units before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Which is what appealed to me about the mound of 5mm and 6mm lead I rediscovered in a corner of the loft.  I now have a production line in place which means I'm starting one unit and finishing another every time I sit down to paint.

And discovering Baccus has been an absolute joy. Thanks Peter.

"Given all the positive progress that 6mm has made over the last few years why is such ignorance so widespread?" - because the two statements can both be true simultaneously: 6mm has made great strides, it gets covered more often, there are more manufacturers, the blogosphere/social media has shown what I suspect was always true, that in the matter of actual games on actual tables, 6mm was never as marginal as it was sometimes considered; but it is still a small subset of the model gaming community, and a community which places a large premium on artistic skill on individual models.

"Secondly, what do we, as a community, do to address it?" - Just keep on encouraging the current trends. At a Q&A at a JoS a few years' back, one woman made the point that the best 6mm models were things of a certain size: robots, tanks, aircraft, small ships, dragons, dinosaurs, demons, giants whatever, so emphasizing them might not be a bad idea.  More support for a change in mindset about terrain, more of the affordable  scatter terrain items to make set ups look better, more area or even battle-specific terrain, and magazine/online articles to support the above.

I also think a couple of things can be said about small scale figures:

1. Short of space - look at smaller scale figures on a smaller table. 10mm down to 2mm can enable gamers to fight a traditional 6x4 wargame on a 3x2 with substantially large armies, terrain that does not overwhelm, with reduced movement/ranges providing a satisfying game.

2. Want to fight a large historical battle on a normal 6x4, or even a 5x3, then again use smaller scale figures. Rules systems such as Altar of Freedom, Bloody Big Battles, Strength and Honour,  and of course Polemos, have really shown how 6mm and 2mm figures can enable large and impressive battles to be gamed.

I introduced using 6mm figures in my previous club in the UK for ACW and the Wars of German Unification, which resulted in a take up of those rules and figures and requests from other club members to stage again battles such as Seven Pines, Langensalza, Champion Hill and Spicheren using 6mm figures. Indeed one of the members is still churning out ACW units for Altar of Freedom, so word of mouth and hands on seem to be a good way of getting the message across.

"but it [6mm] is still a small subset of the model gaming community, and a community which places a large premium on artistic skill on individual models." - Whirlwind

This. And it will likely always be true. 

That said, I also agree that continuing to grow an online 6mm community with quality content that people can learn from and truly enjoy is crucial to dispelling the notion that it is an inaccessible, difficult scale to get into. Newcomers often don't know where to start, and so being able to access beginner resources like painting tutorials and guides that point you in the right direction is enormously helpful. The Baccus forum threads, of course, feature many painting guides and conversations that I used to get my first project off the ground. This is a great place to start, but I also look for help and inspiration from creators/channels on Youtube that provide slick, well-shot, well-edited videos which really showcase the potential of 6mm. AARs and battle reports; convention vids; brief tutorials on how to paint a 60x30 unit, for example. As Whirlwind pointed out: immersive, beautiful battlefields with scatter terrain; well-lit and shot with a decent camera (so that you can actually see and appreciate the minis!) and with crisp audio. This stuff promotes the scale and gets people curious and excited. The problem is that there just isn't enough out there; as compared to larger, more popular scales (think 28mm), at least. 

Well, as the originator of the comment, I suppose my tuppence ha'penny might not hurt.

There are various difficulties, I think.

1. Inherent conservatism. Most wargamers of a certain age expect a certain scale (25 mm). I recall when 15 mm was regarded sniffily. It takes a generation for such prejudices to assuage.

2. Wargaming generally is a bit fragmented, with each wargamer or group doing their own thing in their own scale(s). Stepping outside that can be psychologically difficult, but not impossible. 

3. As already observed, the 'can't possibly paint something that small' response is silly but widespread. As a physicist, I am shocked at how little people understand about optics and lenses. But I shall try not to start ranting.

What to do about it? 

I think there are a number of responses, most of which are underway and have an impact, albeit not as quickly as we might like.

1. Painting is not difficult. Anyone who has tried it knows that, even me, who is a rubbish painter.

2. There are two advantages of 6 mm figures. First, you can have units that look like units. As I said to someone at the show regarding some Saxons on Peter's display 'That looks like a shield wall, not a skirmish line.' Secondly, you can dabble in a huge variety of periods with a small number of figures.

3. The scale of your games and table count. You can play huge battles on your 6' by 4' table, or you can play conventional wargames on something 3' square, that still looks like a battle, not a skirmish. This, of course, relates to #2 above.

I dare say I have missed out a good number of other problems and advantages with 6mm figures; prejudice is very hard to break down. I think we have seen a shift over the last 20 years, but it is incomplete. As my grandmother was wont to say 'There is none so blind as them that won't see.'

Not sure what we should do as a community, but a personal level I tell them to "**** ***, *** ***** **** **** ** **** ******* **** !"

They are kind of right though, my eyesight is now ******.