Why Big Battle Reports are a BAD IDEA 

I 100% thought this was a video against long form battle reports when I saw the title, and I was like, 😱

Tabletop Titans did Joytoy scale Kill Team for 100k subs celebration. Looked like a ton of work for their entire team. But it was great to see.

If a 28mm model is of a 6ft (180cm) person then that implies the scale is about 1:64 so to go to 1:18 you need to multiple all the dimensions by 64/18 = 3.5 (near enough). So the 30" x 22" Kill Team table becomes 105" (8 3/4ft) by 77" (6 1/2ft), ie. about double the size of a standard 6x4 table. And all the scenery dimensions increase by 3.5 as well.

Fun fact :A squad of joytoy stuff in China is sometime cheaper than the actual miniatures from gw😂

If you really want to use a 1/18 scale toy, if you also have the 28mm scale version of the same figure, just say you have a mage or psyker that then casts Gigantism or Massive Might of something like that that lasts a turn or two. That would be hilarious to see in a battle report.

As I've gotten older, I tend to lean towards the smaller skirmish games as well. Small "warbands" and smaller playing areas. As a matter of fact, I tend to play mostly solo games these days. 5-Parsecs, Core Space, etc. If someone did decide to pull off the 1/18th battle reports, I'd watch them, but I don't think I would ever play at that scale.

I played 40k years ago and hit the getting older gap that lots of people hit. I thought many times about getting back to it but didn’t actually pick anything up till around 2020 when I realized they had rebooted Necromunda. All your reasons for liking skirmish games really connect for me. I probably have painted an army’s worth of models but that includes 5 gangs and a bunch of scenery and oddments. I enjoy being able to change pace.

After our last gaming covention, we toyed with the idea of playing Bolt Action Firefight using Action Man figures in the garden. We put this down to the intake of beer and quickly moved onto something else.

Relicblade is such a great balance for all these things. Teams are 3-6 units. Game play is about 30 min. Game mat is 2'x2'. Indy studio with great Game and Art Design!

Always enjoy your videos and looking forward to when you release your solo smaller battle reports, as not everyone has lots of space to store items or to have a large table or space to play on either.

There was actually a miniatures game made by Heroclix in the early 00s based on the RPG Shadowrun called Shadowrun Duels that actually had this idea with some figures in the range because there were also normal 28mm shadowrunners. You could buy 6" action figures and they had the heroclix base to them you could attach or keep off, they were posable and they had rules and stuff, and it was not great. The rules were fine, but the game with action figures themselves were really awkwardly sized for things like terrain and for play area. a 4x6 table felt small, especially using your 28mm 40k ruined walls, they were like, hip height at best and looked really odd. I think there's a reason this idea hasn't cropped up super often.

Me going into the video: "I agree, if a battle report is much longer than 25 minutes I'm almost certainly not going to watch it all" Me after watching the video: "hmm, so size does actually matter"

3d printed bases the size of those cement discs people line walkways with or frisbees/lids of protein powders. "Back yard scale". Terrain is thrift store old toy playsets.

When I was in high school, my buddy and I bought a bunch of Epic 40k SM and Eldar...we didn't glue the individual troops to their unified bases, and we played normal 2nd Ed with them. We built a program in his graphing calculator to quickly convert 25mm-scale inches to 6mm scale centimeters. It worked pretty good. I'd have to do the math, but I think our play area ended up being 18"x12". The only downside was repositioning. We ended up each using a plastic hair clip to grab each model out of the unit so we didn't bump the others. Vehicles were fine though.

Lots of great points Uncle Atom. I'm feeling quite burnt out with 40k now and looking to amend my forces to Xenos Rampant instead, which looks simpler and just more fun. I'm also enjoying Kill Team and want to develop narrative campaigns with a friend who is new to the game. I feel like my largish Necron army will never be used all at once, but also feel that's kinda okay for me right now, as games take absolutely ages. As the father of a small child my hobby time is quite limited and keeping up with Games Workshop is exhausting in about every way. Wargames Atlantic and other similar manufacturers have been great as their sculpts are so versatile.

We downscaled our Team Yankee games to 6mm and have been very happy with the change. Works so much better at that scale on normal size boards (6'x4') even at normal point totals.

"Again, you have to be old" LOL! Yeah I'm old so I got all the toy references. Remember well all the problems with 70's and 80's toys. And you are right, this seems like a fun idea, especially to an 80's kid that grew up looking at all these big toy displays they used to put in dept stores and in Christmas catalogs. Right up until you have to buy all the toys, build all the stuff, and store it. Oh well. Thank you for another fun video with lots of giggles.

Take inspiration from Hot Fuzz - use 28mm terrain with you Joy Toy figures and say that they are fighting in a model village/city/hive.

The spectacle of a giant battle report is appealing, but I would argue it needs a different, unique rule set that takes advantage of the action figures and their pose-ability. You need kneeling and prone positions rules, attacks that hit specific limbs so a model can grow wounded and fight less effectively, maybe track ammo so a model has a reason to throw down their bolter and pull a boot knife. A traditional 40K style alive-or-dead game where the minor things are abstracted out in favor of larger maneuvers doesn’t lend itself to a big figure game.

good video, as per usual. I look forward to your 1 player skirmish reports!

GW used to make Epic which had really small marines and giant robots it was as the named suggested.

Me and my friends play massive battles using 6mm and 10mm scale armies that take years to paint because they consist of thousands of miniatures. And it’s AWESOME.

There was me thinking you'd totally regress and have them set up in your back yard... Great when you're10, not so much nowadays! Plus cats. Anyway, looking forward to seeing skirmish battle reports on your channel - keep up the good work!

I still play KT 2018 - not fussed about the new edition but not giving up on it. Thanks for another great video!

I enjoy modeling and playing 6mm GHQ modern and WWII armored combat games. Many armies, tiny little space...

I use Grim Dark Backyard Titan Scale Rules. My Garden Gnome Kill Team vs. The Neighbourhood Cats WarBand. Very spicy and you need a lot of room. Plus those cats play dirty!

I could see it being something that might work for a convention, with a lot of work, but it's hardly practical for home or shop games.

It would be cool as like an exhibition at a convention or something but definitely impractical for a regular game.

Scale up the terrain but scale everything else up too: a huge tape measure, massive dice, etc. Then zoom out to fit everything in frame. Sounds like time well spent!

I’m looking forward to those battle report you have mentioned. Thousand of thank you for your channel. My wife who doesn’t game with miniature aside from Dead of Winter is now glancing over my shoulders when I watch your vids without shaking her head in disapproval like she normally does. Lol

I can imagine converting a bookcase into a ruined building. Yikes!

I'd love to see the small-solo bat-reps! Looking forward to them. 😎

My friend even if a company says that they are 28 mm figures it can depend because some companies use the measurement from bottom of foot to eye, and some use from bottom of Base two top of head, and some use bottom of foot to top of head. Some companies use heroic scale where everyone is on the roster of WWE While others use realistic proportions for ordinary people. Sure some of these can mix but the majority look a little off. As far as mixing scales I firmly plan on using 6 mm figures to represent lilliputians with a 32 mm Gulliver. Or years ago my group used to play a game where one side had a giant monster usually 28 or 32 mm and the other side had a 15 mm Army.

I think it'd be neat to see at a convention. An organizer supplies the terrain, then everyone brings an action figure and gets split into teams.

Remember the game Shadowrun Duels that was done using Action Figures with gear accessories?

Mix distant scales only if you want giants or lilliputians. Would be ideal for Gulliver's travels diorama!

Always interesting. Thanks again

I had that Mos Eisley playset too, @tabletopminions . (Or is it still in my attic? 🤷‍♂) You are not alone. 😄

This is surprisingly insightful. As I was painting last night, I was idly wondering why the models had to be quite so small. Seems obvious now that I've watched this video. (Also, I strangely feel that 28mm models are more detailed than big models, which look flat and dull to me.)

I have actually played a a few games with this scale of model, and I have even done an animated battle report on my channel.

This is totally different than what I thought this would be about but also interesting

Playing the old Inquisitor game with them would be awesome! Loved that game.

I have learned to focus my hobby time on the games that I enjoy more. Otherwise, I don't even have time to read the books or magazines about the games in the hobby that I do enjoy. I spend my time building DIY terrain, I am into 3D creative making with various tools, and I have other hobbies, pets, and even relationships with humans. I also run my own freelance business full-time. Trying to do "all the gaming" was not a reasonable reality for me. Even limiting myself to only the games offered from GW would still be too time consuming. I settled on 40K, KillTeam, and Aeronautica Imperialis. I occasionally play games with Apocalypse Rules using my 40K miniatures, too. I think making the decision to focus has helped my time spent in the hobby to be more relaxing for me and thus more productive than trying to do it all.

So, bases are already made for these...take a look, I saw the link the other day but didn't keep it because I went with heaps of McFarlane Artist Prints so I could paint them first, and they are even bigger than the Joy Toys

Mash potato analogy is on point.

Good vid. I agree. I've found myself drawn more to the smaller warband and skirmish games as it let's me build a small characterful force without having to scale it up into multiples of units and duplicate models and run smaller quicker tactical games.

Damn this seems like such a fun idea. Currently working through a 15mm wargaming series on my channel, but now I'm stupidly tempted to also give this a go 😂Time to fire up the printers!

Tabletop titans have actually done this with the mcfarlin toys if I’m not mistaken

Just found your video about scaling and made me wonder, I should I measure distance for a Chaos Defiler since is one of GW models that don't use bases, and they are kind of massive for a vehicle, I will assume that rhinos, land-raiders or predator tanks can easily use the distance measurement, but now a Defiler, I never understood how could that work.

That was one of the reason I bet why GW’s large-scale inquisitor game never took off. Had that been in normal warhammer scale, that game might still be alive to this day

The other benefit to a skirmish game is you can get the variety of armies for that game and not have to dedicate all your time to just one faction

1/18th to 1/60 (1inch = 5 feet) is roughly 1:3 s linear measurements x3, area x9 and volume x27 so 6' x 4' table roughly equivalent to 2' x 1'4" board - bit small even for Killteam!

I look forward to your future 2x2 'Batreps From A Phonebooth'!

Oh...thank God. I thought the end of this video was going to be "regardless all of these bad ideas... Tune in next week when we do a battle report with them anyways, thanks for watching!" Btw have you ever thought about signing off with "hit the music John"(idk who John is but he sounds like a guy who would hit the music)

I've thought pretty seriously about doing 54mm DBA or 75mm skirmish games. 3D printing makes the minis easy to find (and 54mm is just 1:32 - 1:35, which can definitely be found in plastic). This would be great for a convention game, specifically because of the spectacle. And you can get away with shrinking the horizontal distances (including movement and range) a bit so that you can reach the middle of the table, since those distances are pretty arbitrary anyway. There are even commercial rules for 1:35 models. It's always been the terrain problem that has stopped me. Big terrain is just too annoying to store _and transport_. But I keep thinking about it, because it would be really pretty.

Goes to show how subjective this stuff is. I recently got into MCP and I do enjoy it but I prefer 2000 point games of 40k. I don't even like going down to 1750. I'm not saying either one of us is wrong, I'm saying that people have different taste.

I would suggest Mobile Suit Skirmish or OPR Gundam. The models are 1:144 at about 6 to 7 inches.

I think this would be a good way to get exposure for the hobby at non tabletop conventions, like comic or anime conventions. A gaming club could work together and make a few demo table for such conventions. I know someone who uses chibbi WW2 tanks to demo "What a Tanker" to get people interested in WW2 gaming and miniature games in general. Of course, the people running the demo should also have normal sized miniatures to show how the game is really played. However, the spectacle of a game using such big models should really bring people to the table to see what's going on.

the youtube channel tabletop time is working on making a kill team game with the MacFarlane 40k minis. They've already built the teams but I don't think they've made the table or batrep yet

If you really wanted to do a high production battle report I would play with regular miniatures and then in post insert shots of the big toys posed up to show key moments.

I'm with you on Kill Team; 2018 version was great, not sure why they replaced it so quickly...

Someone is *going to do this.* I want to watch it.

Chaos Marine armor now has "toesies," its canon.

I really like skirmish games also but I really like vehicles and big mechs and I haven't found a skirmish game that includes those. If you know of one like that I would love to try it out!

Pretty funny that GW let someone use the McFarlane Genestealers in a KT tournament at Gencon

I do kind of prefer army scale games to skirmish games, the problem is that a lot of popular army scale games usually involve armies that have too many models, both for buying and painting but also for playing with.

You could have two or three Joy toy marines on either side and then a few squads of cultists on one side and guard on other. Play joy toy guys as attack on titan/ Pacific rim style units.

You would need a room or yard to play it. At roughly 5x the size, a 6 inch move becomes 30. You could do a highway or something fairly easily - tonka trucks or he-man sized things would work.

TableTop Titans big scale battle report. MEGA EPIC! 👍👍 Also, you buy these action figure toys to put on display, when the battle report is done, use the terrain as part of the toy’s display. There is already a decent size community that uses this scale of action figures to make neat little vignettes of action scenes. If you wanted to to a really thematic, narrative battle report, what better way than to have fully possible action figures. You and the Wisconsin crew should put this together.

Any more information on the potential Adepticon demos of Reign in Hell or Space Station Zero?

As long as you already own the figures, this is something that would be fun to play around one's living room, with marines shooting from behind the sofa etc... but for a professional battle report, it's just not going to work.

Heroic scale 28mm is 1/56 scale. So 1/18 is a bit over 3 times bigger (3.11 to be exact). Everything, table, terrain, etc, would have to be 3 times larger to be accurate So something like a 12x18 foot playing surface

What about... You get another action figure of the same line, kitbash it into a Chaos Knight. That could work?

Great video! It has been done. I've been working on a 1/18 scale action figure game for over 5 years now. It's based off rules from Games Workshop Mordheim (best game ever). I did a couple videos a few years ago. But making RU-vid videos is not what I'm good at. Also I'm more focused on the game, taking notes after every game and making sure the rules make sense. But it's just like you said in your video, huge amount of work. It's a big project. But one I've had a blast doing. We play this game almost every weekend for the last 5 years. Play test after play test. The game is a template for any action figure. Star Wars, GI Joe, Boss Fight Studios Fantasy line, Jurassic Park, Zombie survival, anything 1/18 scale. Give it view if ya have a moment.

I thought I saw a Bat rep with McFarland figures?

Does Necla not do bases for the joy toy minis like most of the fugures

1/18 seems to be the same as about 101mm scale, or 100mm for ease. That means 16'x16' table.

It was always the thumbs breaking off with my GI Joes.

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

You wanna talk about robust action figures? Fisher Price had a whole line of adventure figures with motorcycles and boats and other vehicles

This all depends on your definition of "Big" in gaming terms. We play Corps level historical games in 15mm which play out in around 3 hours. Last weekend we did a ACW game with 16 players and at a guess 1600 28mm Figures across a 32 foot table frontage. Took 2 days to finish, much as the real life event did. Does "BIG" mean big figures or big games?

Surprised you didn't talk about the failure that was Inquisitor when it comes to gaming with some large scale models.

I think these joytoy figures would be good for stop-motion short movies like they did back in the day with Lego mini figs

good vid thanks lee

All threw this video all I could think of was 3d printing ftw. But I agree upscaling a 3x3 ft tabel to what a 9x9 ?

If you're going to play Kill Team with action figures, it might be nearly as expensive as Adeptus Titanicus (ha ha) & a similar size too.

You should do a big battle report for space station zero giant terrain and models would be cool marketing, showing the key aspects of your game. Get cheap gi joes to make up the rest of the characters

Its all about printing off 36mm units and terrain. They are so much fun to paint.

Man i just want gw to go digital on all their rules and codexes this would allow me to actually keep as many books as i can or need

Wizkids made a “JoyToy” scale Shadowrun skirmish game…it seemed cool on the surface but was almost impossible to play…

What about playing old school 75mm Inquisitor? I know it's less a "versus" game and more of an RPG with figures, but it would still be cool and introduce a bunch of people to the game. (Also, only 1-3 models per side max)

Uncle Atom runs into the wall that many of us bruised faces look on and wonder why we didn’t stop earlier. Having wasted more time and money trying to build massive armies (number of) of bigger scale (28mm-32mm) I echo the sentiment. photos of massive tables with hundred s of figs makes for great glossies, but poor reality. Necromunda, and mordheim were more fun, even though beating against the wall with 40k and even worse wh fantasy kept going. Did I learn my lesson when I switched back to historicals? Oh no, that would have been too easy. Large numbers of different periods, started the process all over again. The proliferation of skirmish gaming has really made a difference, and games like test of honor, bolt action, lion rampant, pikeman’s lament, are so fun and by the time my limited attention span switches to something else, I have actually played instead of just sitting there with a half built have painted army and project with gamers guilt on my face. I do still enjoy the big scale (numbers of models) games but with much smaller scale minis like warlord epic, and yes you do have to store two scales of terrain but it’s doable if your larger scale is skirmish.

clearly the solution is a game where a squad of normal-sized Marines have to take down the giant Chaos Marine

Lol, just before you started talking about the buffet, I was thinking about how there is no free lunch. You can avoid painting with these toys, but now you need more space and must make custom terrain. You can scale down with custom printed 40k, but you have to print, make terrain, and now you are the only guy around using your special scale. You aren’t going to save time for sure. This concept even applies to rules where the simplified rules that are cheap and easy often leave you to figure out what the rules really are in the middle of a game. Rarely a plus. So there’s a buffet, but no free lunch. I’m going to make a sandwich.

When using terrain for these models, use Sylvanian furniture and houses. Just make sure you have enough wardrobe space. I use terrain that I create for 1/18 scale models in my animations.

this is why my gaming group downsized inquisitor to 28mm

The whole logistics issue of needing a bigger table and bigger terrain (not to mention the cost of bigger models) is one of the factors that killed _Inquisitor._ You had 54mm _pure metal_ miniatures, that didn't mesh with any normal 28mm wargame terrain. Sure, you typically only needed four models per side, max. But that's still a load of work on the part of the players just to make a game with the same aesthetic quality as normal Warhammer. And to what end? _Inquisitor_ was a very complicated, weird system. Not necessarily bad, but not intuitive and necessarily fun for everyone. In the end, the game largely persists among fans at the 28mm scale, with the aptly named Inq28 movement. Because it's a lot easier to repurpose or kitbash models at a scale players likely already have loads of models or spare parts for, and to use existing terrain. _Inquisitor_ illustrates why a JoyToy scale battle report would be impractical. The action figures would be even worse, really. Even larger, and even more expensive than 54mm metal models, somehow. There probably are people out there who have created "True Scale" _Inquisitor_ batreps. You don't really need to do Kill Team with action figures.

„Real bummer“ 😂

One more thing. I am waiting for joytoy to do some tyranids (please not more genestealers) as a source for biotitan conversions.

The JoyToy figures are great for display, but I would never want to play a game with them.