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Monday, March 17, 2014

Really Big Models

I got my Warhammer 40k Imperial Knight Titan yesterday.  For those of you who haven't seen it, it is a really cool giant robot, about a foot tall.

This is one of several kits Games Workshop has produced lately that's really, really big, such as the Wraithknight, the Riptide, the Stormraven, and more.  Plastic technology has improved a lot in the last few years, making such kits possible.

However, it does present a game designer, even an amateur one like myself, with a dilemma: are they too big. A standard table is only 4' x 6'.  A 28mm game is already pretty constricted, even if it consists entirely of infantry figures.  Tanks or other vehicles are already looking pretty goofy-large, like some kind of balloon animal.

I notice this especially switching back and forth between 15mm and 28mm.  In 15mm, there is a sense of sweeping movement on the table.  It is common to flank behind terrain or make an indirect movement around an enemy unit.  In 28mm, I find my toys just move straight at the enemy, and none of the terrain seems big enough to matter.  Some of this is a visual illusion, brought on by the height of the model.  For example, the footprint on table of a FoW platoon and a 40k squad is probably about the same.  But the 40k model stands so much higher, it feels like it occupies more space.  Similarly, the footprint of a tank platoon in FoW is probably larger than the base of a 40k tank, but the 40k tank is much taller.

Put one of these jumbo-sized plastic models on the table, and the effect is even more amplified.  A 12" tall model is as tall as one quarter of the table width!  Terrain is largely meaningless, and movement relative to the size of model means you are probably moving it 12" or 24".  Other models are basically locked in a cage match with it.

So, let us assume that now that the technology exists for such large models, they are likely to be permanent parts of sci-fi/fantasy games (even if they are somewhat silly).  What are the best options for representing and playing with them?

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