“Why don’t you publish more articles about 6mm gaming?” was the predictable first question I was asked in my capacity as one of the panel at the Joy of Six event which took place in Sheffield, England, in early July. The Joy of Six 2022 Room 1. It was a fair question and one I knew was coming as I (along with two other guests) took part in the annual Q&A section of this gathering of the great and good at the tiny end of our hobby, hosted by Baccus 6mm. I responded with my well-rehearsed (but no less genuine) reply that Wargames Illustrated is a contributor led magazine and we feature articles supplied by wargaming enthusiasts from around the world; if we don’t get provided with articles about 6mm gaming, we can’t publish them. The Joy of Six 2022 Room 2. To dig down a little deeper (as we did during the Q&A), there are various reasons we are not often supplied with many 6mm gaming articles: It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: Readers don’t see 6mm articles in the magazine so they don’t supply them, because they don’t think we print them. It's more difficult to make them ‘look good’: It’s possible to have a dozen well-painted 28mm figures, posed in front of a nice-looking building for the first photo, then in front of fine foliage for the second photo, and so on, until you have half a dozen photos that look cool and varied. A dozen 6mm figures won’t cut it, nor even will a dozen stands. 6mm figures really only look good when you have a full army, and, crucially, this army must be arrayed on well-made terrain. There are fewer people making 6mm figures and playing 6mm games: That doesn’t mean the scale shouldn’t be represented, but it means our pool of potential contributors is at around 1:20 compared to 28mm gamers. We don’t have an extensive collection of 6mm figures ‘in stock’: We probably have 10,000 figures on the shelves here at WIHQ which we can reach for when we want to take photos to decorate an article, but very few of them are 6mm… mainly because people don’t supply us with 6mm articles…. so we’re back to point one! Little (6mm) Little Big Horn. I should say that despite all of the above, we have featured two articles so far this year focused on 6mm, along with several spotlights in Observation Post and Release Radar featuring 6mm products (thanks Baccus for sending us stuff for review!), but I would love to include more. If you are a 6 (or 10, 12, or 15!) mm gamer and have a nice-looking army, please do get in touch.
