A 6x4 table at 10mm scale is how far?

[Raider4]

All rules define their scale in the intro . . .

They do? Huh, must have missed that . . .

Seriously, most (all?) rulesets I have may suggest a recommended scale for the figures to use, but I don't think any of the ones I have suggest a ground scale?

Cheers, M.
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[DanJ]

a 6x6 would surely be square?

Doooh, curse you typoo fungers!

I may have meant 6x4

[John Cook]

At 1:1 I think a 6x6 table would equate to about 350 meters by 240 meters, those with a better grasp of maths may very well wish to correct me, perfect for an intimate skirmish game, maybe up to company or equivalent level but hardly massed battles which is what 10mm excels at.

In my experience, many modern rules specifically don't mention scale distance or time frames, because I suspect the writers don't want players comparing the table scales to real world distances.  The, possibly apocryphal example of this was/is a popular set of WW2 rules where a rifle had a range of 12" which wasn't long enough to shoot the length of a 1:1 model of Pegasus Bridge.

1:1 what?  One foot is roughly 300mm.  At 1 mm = 1 m a 6 foot  by 4 foot table would represent 1800 meters by 1200 meters.  That is the ground scale I use for my modern games using a 10 foot by 5 foot table, and where 1 figure = 1 man - essentially skirmishing on a grand scale.  Most heavy weapons range over the entire table and artillery shoots are from an 'off table' position.

[John Cook]

Surely that will depend on the ground scale of the rules in use.

Yes it will, I would have thought, though ground scale in some rules seems to be less important than it once was.

[DanJ]

1:1 what?  One foot is roughly 300mm.  At 1 mm = 1 m a 6 foot  by 4 foot table would represent 1800 meters by 1200 meters.

Sorry, I may not have made myself clear, by 1:1 I meant that the table scale was the same as the figure scale i.e. a 10mm figure (1cm) represents a 6 foot tall person.  Allowing for figures being slightly more than 10mm and to make the sums a bit easier at 1:1 scale 10mm (a figure) would equal 2 meters on the table, I'm pretty sure would mean that the table scale would be 1:200.  A 6x4 table is approximately 183cm x 122cm so would give and a ground scale of 366 meters x 244 meters (I rounded it to 350 meters x 240 in my earlier post). 

At 1 mm = 1 m a 6 foot  by 4 foot table would represent 1800 meters by 1200 meters

1mm = 1 m is a ground scale of 1:1000, this is a nice easy scale to remember, works well for almost all 10mm games and was the scale I proposed in my first post, although I rounded it slightly to 1750m x 1200m.  Your 10x5 table sounds great, we generally play on 6x4 tables for an evening but have managed weekend games on 8x4 and 12x6.

However at this scale and using 1 model equals 1 vehicle you do start to get into the issue of the vehicle being 5 time bigger than it should be.  To reduce the effect I mount my models on bases and use a vehicle ratio of 1:3 or 1:5 equating the single model and its base as being the area that 3 or 5 real vehicles would take up.  This is of course a compromise.

[Last Hussar]

We use cms instead of inches for Black Powder, and call 1mm 1 pace (WSS) or 1 yard (ACW), which fits the weapons ranges and u it frontage.  That makes a 6x4 1800 by 1200 yards, call it a mile by ¾ of a mile