Armor miniatures gaming

[ShotMagnet]

Does anyone do armor miniature wargaming? It's been a while, but I'd like to get into it again.

Shot

[[Nataliia]]

There's Battlefront (15mm) and Micro Armor (1:300 scale) that I know of, I'm sure there's more.

[Keith Heitmann]

I think one of the other guys here beside Nataliia does or did play armor miniature wargaming. I don't recall who though.

I recall a website in Finland where they used 1:48 scale armor to wargame, IIRC. They had a huge game table.

[PUFF88]

i want to get into it again, i cant remember the name but there is also one for 1/76 , which should be the same for 1/72 as well, they have several books all about 15-20 bucks. for the different campaigns. next time im at the gaming store ill look again

[zzjolawr]

I have been playing armour miniature for a few years now using 1/35th scale vehicles and figures based on Panzerblitz/Panzer Leader scenarios with the scale of one vehicle/weapon to one counter (2 for Russian counters) and a set of rules that I developed. We have finished PL1940 and are preparing for the attack on Russia using the scenario 1941 Panzerblitz from the old General magazine. We are using PB counters for the Russians and PL and PL1940 counters for the Germans.

[Keith Heitmann]

I've seen a couple of website for groups playing 1/35 scale too. Recntly some club was selling their "board" on eBay. It seemed be more than just the average flat board and had some sort of electronics. I think they wanted about $12,000 for it at the time.

[zzjolawr]

No our game has no electronics and we play on a table top.
The PB/PL board gives us a broad battle scenario and when the action gets close we convert to miniature wargaming. It gives us a different perspective for line of sight and combat resolution. It also serves a use for my interest in model making.

[Keith Heitmann]

They had a picture of that board they were selling, it was pretty big about the size of an good-sized outdoor patio.

[stormcaller]

I enjoy the 1/35th. There are many good makers of pre assembled and painted tanks in that scale. Its fun to play outdoors with them insted of stuck in some dank basement.

[Keith Heitmann]

stormcaller said:

I enjoy the 1/35th. There are many good makers of pre assembled and painted tanks in that scale. Its fun to play outdoors with them insted of stuck in some dank basement.

I agree. But, they aren't cheap. I assume you've seen the Military Modelling, R/C, & Toys section on my board here. Those pre-assembled models are $100 or more. The problem is that the kits are also getting ridiculously expensive as well. Time was when you could get a decent 1/72 scale kit for less than $4 U.S., but now you'd be lucky to get one for less than $15.

The problem with 1/35 scale wargaming is the size of the space required if you want to run a medium sized battle. You have to keep things resonably small in terms of battle size at those scales.

I few years back when I had my Steel Panthers II webpage running, I had a link to one of the first 1/35 wargaming clubs I had ever seen. The group was located in Sweden or Norway, I believe. They had a nice table setup with a grid pattern and all the roads laid out.

Unfortunately, I have neither the time or the money to spend on such a hobby now. I have to content myself with computer games or break out my old AH or SPI wargame boxes and play a solo game. I can't even leave a game setup for long enough to play a boxed game by mail/email, the wife would allow it. Marriage has its pitfalls.

[stormcaller]

Not to make this a big banner ad. Cause frankly I have that done for me anyway. But Tamiya is of course a big name and really nice models but they arent the only ones doing that sort of thing. Plus that stuff is kinda britlle for outdoors. There are some fine harder plasti, and metal 1/35th that are much less expensive and more suited for outdoors. There visual quality is every bit as good. In fact I put the Tiger from tamyia up to one and it looked identical in almost all respoects. The differience was the tamiya's tow cables and maintance tools were not removable. Also the treads did not move on the tamiya and the turet needed to be seperate on the tamiya to be moved. The others turret were attached and moved. the turret hatches on the Tamia could not be closed and opened as I saw and the others could. They are of course not industructable but can take a few bumps where as a a tamiya I wouldnt want to risk cause of the cost and brittleness. brittleness is a word isnt it? . refresher course anyone?


You can get those plastic and metal 1/35th models for anywhere from 20 bucks to just 42 dollars depending on manufacturer. The soldiers are in packs and are 15.00. Also on my site they are optinaly sold in unit sets with Rules, stats, periscopes, light pens, measuring equipment and a computer assists disk in the package.

Other scales down to 1/285th are also avalible.

We play with 1/35th outside in parks and a guys yard. Even did some in the sand along lake Michigan. if you have a little less space, you could shorten the ground scale to accomandate. usually people go with anywhere from 1 foot to one meter = 50 meters but of course whatever works for you. This makes a decent game for a backyard. In a park you could go to the 1 foot = 10 meters. outdoors terrain is easier and cheaper. Making some large houses out of scrap wood and coustom hills out of chicken wire and paster parice is easy and cheap. With iminagiation anything could work though. you could get big scale train trees or trees from X-mas stores are cheap and look fine for outdoors.. Games workshop makes them too but they are big bucks.


Tamiya model kits for guys that like to build there own though are of course top quality as I see them. For diaromas I display I go with them or Dragon.

Also for winter and rainy days you can go with some Corgi stuff I get them cheap. They sell for about 5.00. They arent the nicest corgi has but they are ideal for gaming. They seem to have less of the notorious Corgi scale inaccuracys. Everything is closer to the same scale but probbly not spot on. for gaming its easily overlooked in our group at least.

[Keith Heitmann]

Tamiy now now has finished models in 1/48 scale, and are probably just a tad less expensive than the 1/35 scale finished models.

I'm pretty sure that I saw some large rubber (injection molded) tanks at one time that had moveable turrets and looked decent enough for 1/35 scale wargaming, but I don't remember where I saw these. It was quite some time ago, probably 2 or 3 years ago. They would need to be painted for realism but would otherwise be a cheap and relatively indestructable replacement for metal and plastic models used for that purpose.

[stormcaller]

The rubber is a bit too poor in visual quailty. And the material doesnt take well to normal paint. I dont handle them as nobody has requested them. I saw some for sale on toy soldier sites and they are 15 to 25 dolars. They are like dime store toy soldier tanks. The turrets move. But they have the little plasitc wheels. Mabye good for the younger kids whom are a bit rough on stuff. But wargaming per se.

21st Century toys and Forces of Valor are a good medium. These companies have two lines of 1/35th each. One cheaper with a bit less detail and one more expensive that are probbly to nice to use a game piece. The cheaper lines stay around 20 to 30 usually. These are modle quilty but durable to a point. usually the guys using these pices as games are careful enough that piece dosnt need to be toy as we arent rough with them. But acidents happend and they of course do get moved around unlike a model built for display.

[Keith Heitmann]

Of course, one could always try paper modelling.

www.fiddlersgreen.net/

[stormcaller]

No tanks or men. Bulidings would be okay for indoors. here in wisconsin summer weather is at premium though. Outdoors is good in summer. but the wind. Wonder if those would fly well. ;D