6mm wargaming is that crazy ex-girlfriend that I keep getting back together with every few years. She alienates everyone else and the two of us just lock the door and spend all our hobby time together. No one else around me seems to like 6mm scale (or 10mm, for that matter, which I like, too), which is a shame as I think it has a lot to offer.

Sometimes I want to feel like a general, you know? I want to look down and see an army of hundreds or even thousands of men on the table, not small huddles of 20 dudes. And I want a battlefield general’s problems – morale, friction, fog of war, command & control. Rules designed with small scale minis in mind tend to be more focused on that sort of thing.

And so I periodically return to 6mm, even if I’m only able beg/cajole/blackmail friends into just a couple games before we go back to 28mm.

As I fished out my armies, I remembered that they were all based in a couple different ways. Here’s how they are currently based:

From left to right, those are Heroics & Ros MAC01 Numidian Cavalry, Irregular E17 Barbarian Infantry Archers, and H&R MAC07 Libyan Javelinmen.

In the same direction, the Cavalry were based on fine sand with three different kinds of flock, the Archers in mixed turf I don’t recognize (I bought them pre-owned and painted/based), and the Javelinmen with Woodlands Scenics “Weeds” turf.

Sand & Multiple Flocks

My favorite of these three. Pros: Looks good. Reads “well” as earth from 3′ away. Covers up the minis bases well. Cons: Lots of different materials and steps. Sand is really the size of fists & skulls at this scale. Numerous colors and textures “muddy” the overall view and it’s harder to read the models from a distance.

Pre-Mixed Flock

Do. not. like. Rebasing ASAP. Pros: I guess it was easy to apply? Cons: Many. It doesn’t look good, looks very fake. Doesn’t conceal the mini bases (to be fair, those are from Irregular, which tend to have particularly large bases that are harder to hide).

Weeds Turf

The best as a “boardgame piece”. Pros: Can’t beat it for clarity — because of the simple mono-color background, it really contrasts the minis, making them very easy to read from 3′ away. Very easy to apply. Conceals bases pretty well. Cons: Boring and unrealistic.

What Else?

So before I jumped back into 6mm, I wanted to get all my armies onto a single basing scheme. But I wasn’t done yet! In addition to the three styles I already had, I wanted to try out some others. After perusing a lot of forums and groups, I decided to put four other popular methods to the test as well:

Air-Drying Clay

Chinchilla Dust

Sanded Grout

Stirland Mud

So here are the results!

All of these are Heroics & Ros, but I’m not sure which packs they’re from. I think the Javelineers (1st and 3rd) are MAF1 Gaulish Infantry, and I think the slingers (2nd and 4th) were bundled in the MA20 Early German Tribesmen pack?

Let’s talk basing: From left to right, they are: Sanded Grout, Chinchilla Dust, Air-Drying Clay, and Stirland Mud.

Sanded Grout

My favorite. Pros: Pretty easy to apply. No warping. Rocks/bumps are scale appropriate and highlight easily with a drybrush. Blended in the mini bases pretty well. Cons: None really, other than the overall “busyness” from the flocking.

Chinchilla Dust

Pros: Pretty easy to apply. Scale-appropriate bumps/rocks. Cons: Slight warping. Surprisingly inconsistent texture – smooth in some places, lumpy in others. Only OK at concealing the basing mounds.

Air-Drying Clay

Pros: Very easy to work with – doesn’t stick to minis. Covers up mini bases great. No warping. Cons: Texture isn’t great, very lumpy/wavy (my wife commented that she’d like it on alien landscape). Slow drying time.

Stirland Mud

Pros: Very nice texture. Cons: Pricey. Heavy warping. Doesn’t cover up mini bases. Hard to work with – as a textured paint, if you accidentally touch a model, you just ruined a paint job.

WIPS

I think the painted bases without any flocking look great. I might dial down the flocking a bit and see if I can’t land somewhere in between.

What Do You Think?

I’ve asked 3 people for their favorites and gotten three different answers! People value realism, contrast, and utility differently. What do you think? Do you have a preference?