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3K views 27 replies 5 participants last post by  Dirinel  
#1 ·
Hello guys!

This post is more or less a short update on a project I have been working on with some friends during the last year. I’m talking about a 6mm conversion of the whole Warhammer 40K game. The conversion uses mostly Epic Armageddon miniatures and shrinks the table to a A3-size gaming board (roughly 40x30 cm).

Since we liked the idea and the gameplay so much, we though: why not share it? So I actually decided to start this website with enough information to let anyone make their own games.

Is this post going into shameless advertisement? Yes and no.
Yes because I actually hope to get as many people to know about this project and play the game . No, in my opinion, because the project received so much positive feedback from many people during the last year that an update on its improvement is the least we can do for the Warhammer community.

To keep things short I’ll just say that the conversion is perfectly playable, and shrinking the game is not an issue for the ease of play. Most importantly by shrinking the game no alteration to the rules is needed in order to keep things working.
In the last year of development we played it quite a lot and we have a campaign running. We built/painted fairly quickly various Space Marine armies, as well as Tyranids, Necron, Eldar, Chaos and Orks, each probably worth thousands of points by now. And no, we did not drop a nuke on our wallets to afford it.

Now, there is A LOT to say about it, and lately I’m in a very lazy mood, so I’ll just say check out the website. Before any question make sure you check our FAQs first. For a quick look, we have a nifty gallery section complete with battles. For more in-depth info on how to make it yourself the website includes helpful links to the retailers we used ourselves, and thorough tutorials to make the trickiest models.

We try to update the website weekly and we very much welcome:

  • anyone wishing to add his/her contribution to the website Gallery by posting his/her miniature or battle pictures;
  • anyone wishing to actively contribute to the project development.
We do it for the passion we share for this game.

PS: We used to post our weekly updates on this forum before, but we had some technical problems posting again until today. Anyway, we're back!:victory:
 
#3 ·
This Sunday's weekly update we publish two articles:

The first, quite long and a bit complicated, is meant to explain reasons behind rescaling factors, common mistakes, and how we avoided the latters by using the formers.


The second,
much, much easier, is a tutorial on how to produce loads of 6mm round magnetic bases in the blink of an eye!

Enjoy!
 
#5 ·
True. GW won't produce any new designs. Which is why we like to provide tutorial for the unavailable miniatures :victory:

The old design however are still in production and easily available from GW's website or ForgeWorld.


Besides, if the current tendency is towards bigger vehicles and bigger models, it may happen that miniatures previously exclusive for Epic will get included in WH40K...
 
#11 ·
Just saying I love you guys for coming up with this. I have friends who play fantasy and are interested in 40k but aren't interested in investing tons of cash in ANOTHER army. Thanks to this I will be able to afford a few good armies just on my own! Plus, the ability to play 40k on a plane is pretty cool. Plus I bet I could do this for our mordheim games too. (My group likes mordheim but getting together and playing enough with other people in addition to our MTG and board games to keep a campaign going is impossible given the amount of stuff and space you need for it. However if we could do it anywhere it would be MUCH easier.)
 
#13 ·
It took me about 20 minutes to find designs for warmaster buildings to be printed on thick paper. I didn't consider climbing buildings and such but I bet just sticking some normal magnets inside the buildings could let you stick people on the sides. If anything I think making smaller terrain would be easier since regular plastic can be used to make pretty much anything for it. Although warmaster is 10mm so I can't use the rulers you guys made but I bet I can use the rescaling metrics page to make my own fairly easily I think. Also in Mordheim every model is an individual so you need to keep track of that. However I figured if I got the empire skirmisher box and gave them fancy cloaks (maybe a few bitz for other weapons) that would be a good 24 mercenaries. A 8.5"x8.5" board is about the same scale as the 2ft normally used. Other warbands can be pretty much gotten in one $15 box. Even sisters can be fairly represented by witch elves since less detail is needed. One thing you need to be careful of though is some of the ranked models are connected into single pieces for ranks, meaning getting individuals would be a pain. Hmmm I should get started on this!
 
#15 · (Edited)
Well... according to the rescaling article the ratio of model size to inch length should be 1.1 so it should be 9mm=1in but I bet if you used 1cm bases it would work out fine. The models just might be a little short. That is certainly easier than making new rulers though. And I don't even really need templates since only one rare thing uses templates in mordheim. (I don't really remember what but I think I remember reading it somewhere)

I think this really fits mordheim better than the full size models. Mordheim really seems like a board game type thing you should be able to play during a lunch break but because of all the terrain and such that just doesn't work. Like this you could get a board, a few warbands and a good amount of terrain into one box that you can get out and play pretty easily. It won't be quite as compact as the 40k since the models are larger but it should work well. (Also I don't think magnetizing models will be as easy since the models are all larger and metal but that also means it won't be as necessary since they will be easier to handle)

I bet I could even reduce all the regularly used rules into a little booklet so it could all fit in a shoebox or leftover battleforce box nicely.
 
#16 ·
Well... according to the rescaling article the ratio of model size to inch length should be 1.1 so it should be 9mm=1in but I bet if you used 1cm bases it would work out fine. The models just might be a little short. That is certainly easier than making new rulers though. And I don't even really need templates since only one rare thing uses templates in mordheim. (I don't really remember what but I think I remember reading it somewhere)
The only thing that uses templates in Mordheim is the Blunderbuss, and its "template" is a line 16" long 1" wide, which would become a strip of paper 16cm long and 1cm wide. Definitely easy to reproduce.

Like you, I don't think that for Mordheim a difference of 0.1mm in the rescaling would affect much the game. The game has never been perfectly balanced anyway...:scratchhead:
It also depends on the models used.
At any rate, I don't think it would be really difficult to find some 10mm-scale fantasy miniatures other than Warmaster's.

I'm definitely going to try this, or some Necromunda. :grin:
 
#21 ·
This Sunday we have new pictures in the Ork gallery. Ork Flyers.

In addition, we also spent some time fixing our old scenery elements, and building new ones, much more cool, using some bits from 28mm miniatures, and some other stuff. The renovation is still in progress, so more elements are coming as soon as we finish them. You can check them here.
 
#22 ·
This Sunday we make a quite unusual update.
Some time ago we posted a thorough tutorial on how to make and print 3D models using Tinkercad, taking as example a Necron Monolith.
https://sites.google.com/site/pocketw40k/home/3d-computer-models/6mm-necron-monolith

Sadly, the Tinkercad service was shut down a few weeks ago, so we had to find a more stable solution.
We decided to use Blender, which is a very famous and free 3D modeling software; it's a bit harder to use than Tinkercad, but far more powerful.
In order to make the change as painless as possible, we also decided to make a very short video tutorial that will give you all the informations you need to know to use Blender effectively, pretty much in the same way as Tinkercad used to work.

Enjoy and Like!
 
#25 ·
The first article of May is a bizzarre tutorial for the Space Marine players. This time we decided to make an unusual model, just for the fun. Less than 10 steps to make a 6mm Adeptus Custodes miniature.

https://sites.google.com/site/pocketw40k/home/conversions/adeptus-custodes


We are also planning a three-month long break for the entire summer period starting from early June to early September. This means that there will be three more updates after this week and then we'll remain silent until September 2013.
We will however keep reading mail/comments and we'll still accept submissions. Anything we have before September will be posted during autumn 2013.

Enjoy!
 
#28 ·
This week, we spent some time cleaning/fixing all the work done during this year, and we finally managed to write a handy PDF available for download. The document contains the entire website, without a few pages that would have no reason to be include (Where to buy the models, Campaign, Battles, etc..)

The link to the file can be found on this page (last one of the list):

https://sites.google.com/site/pocketw40k/home/usefullinks

This PDF is actually an improved version of the website: coherent, easier to read and easy to use as reference. I would recommend a quick read through the document to anyone new to Pocket WH40K before going through the website.

The announcement of this Sunday is also the last announcement before September. This means that the PDF is the most updated source of information about Pocket Warhammer available, and it will be so for the next three months.

We are aware that some weeks ago Games Workshop discontinued the production of 6mm miniatures. This however doesn't seem to be a major concern to Pocket Warhammer or Epic Armageddon. Several proxies for many models have always been available (Necron, Tau, Imperial Guard), most other models are easily found on Ebay in big bunches (Space Marine, Orks). Also, several more proxies seem to come up every week since GW halted its production. During the next three months we ourselves will keep an eye on the new directions for the 6mm productions, and we will update the website with links to the new miniature retailers as soon as the new situation will become more stable.

Meanwhile, we're still open for submissions of material and opinions alike, and everything we receive before September is going to be published with the first announcements.

Right now, a good start for anyone searching 6mm miniature should is eBay (or similar), the Tactical Command Forum, or the miniature retailers linked in our website.

Wishing you a sunny and bloody summer,
The Pocket WH40K Team