Hex & Chit Scaling

[tbeard1999]

I’m a BIG fan of 1.5” hexes. I use miniatures and have recently bought a kiloton of the Pathfinder Pawns. They all use a standard 1” diameter base for normal sized figures. 1” hexes are just too small. (The original TFT hexes worked fine with the small 25mm miniatures of 1980; they’re just too small for modern 28mm minis).

[pyratejohn]

Mark me down as one against 1.5" hexes. They'll take up more table space, and more importantly, with a four foot hex and 28/30/32mm figures, your ground scale will not match your figure scale. Mini scale would be about 1:60 while ground scale will be 1:32.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

Mark me down as one against 1.5" hexes. They'll take up more table space, and more importantly, with a four foot hex and 28/30/32mm figures, your ground scale will not match your figure scale. Mini scale would be about 1:60 while ground scale will be 1:32.

The hex scale has never really matched 25mm scale (even when 25mm meant, more or less, 6’). Larger hexes are a simple concession to practicality. As I noted virtually all modern 28mm minis have 1” bases. (Something I personally find disagreeable, but whadaya gonna do?)

1” hexes are simply too cramped for such minis. And in a tactical game like TFT, where movement is very important, cramped playing surfaces are a game killer. 1.25” hexes would’ve been adequate, but I think that 1.5” is a better choice.

Also, many of us have sizable investments in things like the Pathfinder Pawns (a truly stunning line of cardboard minis), that we’d like to be able to use. 1” hexes are too small for those as well.

[Oneiros]

For the "If you want 1.5 inch hexes, just use the playmats" crowd:

Not everyone is getting the playmats. Especially those future buyers after the KS. They and KS backers at less than IWIA pledge level might still want to use their own minis when they play, even the micro-games, for which the 1" scale may be too small.

Even with the playmats, they're going to get kinda limited for a campaign. "Oh, look! Another 14x7 hex room!" Much rather have the Megahex sheets to build hallways and rooms at the same scale.

Steve made an excellent point too in the KS comments that having the extra space around the 1-hex counters allows them to be manipulated easier without disturbing adjacent counters. He noted it's just a preference, but I'm sure many people feel the same.

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

1” hexes are simply too cramped for such minis.

Aren't all the tiles designed to work with D&D 1" squares? Are people complaining those are too cramped?

I'm not sure I can qualify "too cramped." Wouldn't that be a matter of taste? Couldn't I just as easily say 1.5 is too empty?

All I know for certain is this, I'm a miniatures kind of guy, and any terrain I have that is scaled to ~1:60 is going to look very small on these mats.

[larsdangly]

I'm happy to have them scale up all maps to 1.5" hexes (though I'll have to replace my old Chessex mat...). BUT it seems totally obvious that this should be accompanied by an increase in the scale of the chits that is not quite proportional but still significant (perhaps by a factor of 1.25 or 1.33). It will not be satisfactory to have the multi-hex markers look like the are barely reaching across the boundaries of the hexes they are supposed to occupy.

Have we had a response from the company on this issue? They must be aware of it (?).

[Oneiros]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I'm happy to have them scale up all maps to 1.5" hexes (though I'll have to replace my old Chessex mat...). BUT it seems totally obvious that this should be accompanied by an increase in the scale of the chits that is not quite proportional but still significant (perhaps by a factor of 1.25 or 1.33). It will not be satisfactory to have the multi-hex markers look like the are barely reaching across the boundaries of the hexes they are supposed to occupy.

Have we had a response from the company on this issue? They must be aware of it (?).

Yes, at the moment it sounds like their plan is to leave 1-hex counters alone, but scale up bigger creatures. Though the original 3 and 4 hex creatures still "center" properly in the corresponding hexes, it may just be the odd shapes, like 7-hex dragons (that last bit is conjecture on my part).

Edit: also, other backers/posters have mentioned that if you get the PDFs from the KS, you can scale up and print them yourself.

[larsdangly]

I'm glad they are working on it, and that sounds like they could find a good solution that won't be too hard on their production costs. The PDF solution doesn't really appeal to me, as I am not that into the DIY chit idea. But, just getting the multi-hex figures to the appropriate scale and leaving the 1 hexers alone is cool with me. I just hope they are taking the long view on this because an important feature of TFT is the fact that it is not just about books, it is also about the 'stuff' used in play, and if that stuff feels broken in some obvious way it will be a turn off.

[The Wyzard]

I have a 1.5" chessex mat, and let me tell you, I love it a lot more than my 1" chessex mat. I don't know if my personal experience is worth anything to those who are still dubious, but it's much more of a pleasure to use, and it's less likely to cause an issue if the table gets bumped a bit.

Sometimes I set up some of the 2-Hour Wargames stuff on it for a little solo play, because I have an intense and unreasonable dislike of measuring things out with a ruler. I just treat a hex as an inch and play on a slightly grander scale.

[pyratejohn]

My other option.
:)
http://tin-soldiers.org/54mm-miniatures/?page=1

Also, I'm a cartographer in real life, so I'll end up just making my own maps at 1".