Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Yet another long gap between updates!

So...  what is new?!

In a single word - 6mm.

And here is the story:

I love FoW in 15mm.  I really do!  I can accept the ground scale and compression in the era.  Why?  For me it has to do with the fact that there are all shapes and sizes of vehicles.  You can have Brit Carriers running around.  You can have Panzer I's running around.  You can have Stewies and Greyhounds and Pumas and Shermans and Crocs!  You can even have a King Tiger.  And all these range from small, jeep like vehicles to massive heavy tanks.  And with some infantry on the table, a few buildings, some roads and some trees, you will get a very cool looking result.  So what if a Sherman can shoot 32"!  It just seems to work.

But in modern times, it doesn't work as well.  For me, the start was Fate of a Nation.  With the points structure in that era, the UAR needs a ton of vehicles on the table to have a fair game against the Israelis.  And the result means that there are 32 or 42 T-55 tanks running around, while the Israeli player is fielding 8 or 10.  Have you seen the size of a T-55 in 15mm?  They are big!  Now, think Dust Up and try putting 20 tanks in the corner.  It looks weird.

And then you have Team Yankee.  And you get this...


Does that look weird to you too?  Overlapping rotors?  Like I stated above, I can't quite get my head around this or even adequately explain why I see modern era different that WWII.  But I do.

While this alone was probably enough in my eyes (forgive the pun), it was the expense that did it for me.  I did an article for WWPD on this very subject, so rather than repeat myself, I will just add the link here:

http://www.wwpd.net/2015/10/heroics-and-ros-review.html

So for a fraction of the cost for 15mm, I can get the entire book of FoaN and Team Yankee.  Between my eyes and my wallet, 6mm is the way to go.

How do they look next to each other?  Well...

Israeli Magach in two scales

Magach and S'hots

To help this in 15mm, some people are suggesting playing TeamYankee on a larger table.  And that might work to a degree.  But by reducing the scale from 1:100 to 1:300, you have effectively tripled the size of the table.  And you can get something that looks like this:


Are you kidding me!  Who would not want to play on terrain or a table that can look this good.  6mm allows you to have a much more cinematic feel to the game and still learn the same rules.  Because to make it work well, guess what you need to change in the Team Yankee rules?  Nothing!  Do not change any stats, movement ranges, shooting ranges, rules, templates, etc.  Everything stays exactly the same.

So for less money and better visuals, 6mm is the way to go here.  And if you need terrain, simply take the money you would have spent on a starter box for Team Yankee and buy hills and buildings.  In the long run, this will be the easiest, fastest and most economical way to enjoy the game!