The View from Germany

I did not know 6mm at all, I have never seen it, never heard of it and never tried it, so I did think that I would not be happy with it..............ohhh boy was I wrong.

What i am saying is: They might have seen it, but they do not know it, so it must be the devil's work.

You will always have someone that will ask the "stupid" question over and over again as long as 6 mm is still not mainstream.

I have a friend, he said to me not long ago "I do not like Army level games in Tabletop War gaming" he never has tried one, he never has seen one...but he does not like them because........they are the Devils work.

Humans are Humans and will not change, in Germany we say "What the Farmer did not eat so far, he will not try in the Future."

So i guess enjoy the Questions *g*

By the look of your latest output there's nothing wrong with your eyesight WingCo - if there's any deterioration at all it will be a consequence of age, not painting lots of the little blighters.  

Peter - are we going to see any more of the excellent promo/tutorial videos from Baccus Showcase? Quite inspiring stuff.

Aah, the wing-commander has far less patience than me it would seem, but I do understand the frustration. I do find some wargamers, particularly at shows, and sometimes on YouTube, to be rather self-important about both the hobby in general and the specific way that they approach it, dragging their various prejudices along behind them. Unfortunately all hobbies seem to have these characters and they are never going to disappear as it is one particular aspect of humanity. I think we should leave them be; let them get on with their various chuntterings, avoid playing them, and embrace the more open-minded, introducing them to this fascinating aspect of the hobby. As already stated, 6mm is growing in popularity and take up, so lets keep targeting that type of wargamer.

At the risk of boring you to death... I am 70 years old as dourpuritan... who seems very balanced and right in his opinions... well done! ... BUT... (sorry Peter)... 6mm has advantages and I love them for big battles (aka ACW) or Napoleonic if I was younger... as it is I devoted too much time of my wargaming life to Bonaparte and that's enough. BUT it is NOT the only way to have fun with Toy Soldiers... I have a lot of Baccus and pester regularly Peter for not doing the effort of doing British Guards in Bearskin for the Crimea... and not adding a proxies range for the Crimea in the Catalogue!.  BUT  getting to the point... I ALSO have an extensive collection of 54mm soldiers REPLICA and DORSET to game with (aka A GENTLEMAN'S WAR)... and I even play with PLAYMOBIL TOY SOLDIERS with my grandchildren. I sold my (big) 25/28mm Collection because it was not here not there... too big to play big battles... too small for detail (NOT Kevin Dallimore am I)... flanks always to table border to table border and reserves aplenty!... and very small numbers of  figures per unit...I have always supported BACCUS but it is not the ONLY scale I am interested in... and fashion wanes and fades and we are full of contradictions too!  So have FUN and do not preach in excess... we all do what we want in the end... BTW I hate both World Wars and the XXth as a whole but find the work of W.C.Luddite awesome!... so there you are. Thanks for your patience. And as for going blind this is simply an urban legend!

Apparently there are lots of interesting ways to go blind, or so the Parish priest used to tell us as youngsters.

We just have to fix it from the ground up.   Pony Wars would be a great game to introduce 6mm to people with.  You can invited friends both wargamers and non wargamers over to play it.  Somebody would have to be pretty daft too not enjoy that!   I am one of those people that likes to play and regards painting as a chore.  So for me the ability to sit down and crank out 6 strips of guys fairly quickly is the appeal.   I dont have to worry about eyeballs and buttons and all the multiple layers of shading and highlights etc.   Peter is right when he says just get paint on them and base them nicely.   Well not sure he said that but in my mind he would!

AND do not forgat the ALL IMPORTANT FLAGS!... wish Peter did more of them (specially for proxies)... it always  "makes" the unit... be that a Brigade, a Battalion or whatever... you can even skirmish in 6mm... JUST ENJOY THE SCALE!

As I said on a FB thread, I've been painting 6mm figs for over 30 years now and haven't gone blind yet. I also work at a college for the Blind and as far as I know not one of the students has ever painted a 6mm figure. Just shows how very wrong some folk can be!  My advice just enjoy what you do, put on a show and demonstrate what can be done with the scale. If folk don't like move on. Theres plenty of folk out there who do love 6mm, simply play a game with them ;)

Hi, I am just starting to look at 6mm and have some thoughts on this.

1) I think I heard you talking about new fantasy minitures. This may help. Warmaster and Mini-hammer is a thing and 6mm fantasy may be a way in. Would be good to have equivalents to standard units in these games. Get people in this way and then they may drift across to historicals.

2) try to get some of the miniatures painting channels on YouTube to have a go. Maybe someone like Duncan Rhodes or Chris Peach (ex-GW but love their historical)?

3) Starter sets available through bigger online retailers with painted armies on the artwork and how to guides inside.

Hope as a newbie to the scale and recent convert to historicals this will help.

I had a very similar comment the other day at a new club I've been going to.  "They are too small for my eyes".  This from someone about half my age.  I tried to explain that they were not different in size to painting the detail on a 28 mm mini but I could see his eyes glaze over as I said it.

I think it is a wargamer protection shield we all have.  If you look at a great looking game then you wants it.  You need to come up with some reason not to (cost, space and time are not valid reasons to any normal wargamer).  Saying 6 mm is too small for you to paint is a way to justify to yourself not to get another army in another scale in another period.  So you don't want to hear reasons why they are not as this just means you'll end up with another load of figures to join your 15 mm, 25 mm, 28 mm and 32 mm collections.