Fantastic Battles in 6mm

 The fantasy rules 'Fantastic Battles' has been an instant favourite amongst my friends and I since we first discovered them 3 years ago. We really like how you can take the basic troop types given and by adding 'traits' create the fantasy army of your choice. The rules are also very well designed giving a thoughtful but fun game. Since buying the rules in November 2020 I have created three armies in 15mm (Ice Elves, Barbarians and Wood Elves) and more armies in 10mm (Elves, Barbarians and small LOTR themed forces for Rohan, Dwarves and Orcs). 

One of my gaming friends Chris considered 6mm figures for Fantastic Battles using the Irregular Miniatures 6mm Fantasy range a while ago but nothing really came of it...until recently. Chris came across some rules we had written for 6mm Fantasy games way back when (his loft is an Aladdin's Cave of gaming stuff from the mid 1970's onwards) and the discovery of these has prompted us to revisit the 6mm idea but using Fantastic Battles this time. 

We have re-thought the basing for the smaller scale as each strip of the Irregular Fantasy range is a fraction under 25mm wide, so 25mm square bases it was. We also decided to use an inch (25.4mm) as the unit of measure as what is 0.4mm between friends? 

I used to have Elves, Dwarves, Centaurs etc... for 6mm gaming but sold them off some years ago. Happily Chris had given me some Dark Elves so these became my first 6mm army for Fantastic Battles. I got so keen on the idea that I even created my own gaming mat from some left over material that had been gifted to my wife. It only needed to be 30" x 20". It was a piece of dark green felt and by using spray paints followed by acrylic paints I soon created the mat in the photo below (with a few painted companies of Dark Elves for scale and some 10" rulers I made). 

The next photo shows my Dark Elf army so far, 22 companies and seven characters with more to come. One of the worries we had about the 6mm range was would there be sufficient variety of troops? 

Here we have three companies of Witch Elves at the front, crossbows at the rear left and Dark Elf Warriors on the rear right. 

Four companies of lizard riders and one company of skirmishing lizard riders made from two mounted heroes plus a mounted command stand. 

All seven command/character stands plus four bases of 'Shadow Elf' skirmishing missile troops made by cutting up strips of Dark Elf Crossbow men. 

Top secret painting project, (should I be letting Chris see this???) a black dragon next to the witch elves for scale. This is a Reaper Bones baby black dragon but seems ideal for this scale. There are also two large ballista which I forgot to take close ups off so plenty of troop variation available with a bit of imagination. 

Finally for now is a Giant Lizard with Howdah. The crew in this look like lizard men close up but with a bit of filing and painting in my dark elf warrior colour scheme they look OK.

I still have more characters, crossbowmen, warriors and also some chariots to do but I am already over 1,000points. How many more companies do I need? 

Chris is currently working away on creating a dwarf army supported by centaurs, early progress photos look good and I can't wait to get a game in with these figures soon.