Minihammer: A 15mm Warhammer Fantasy Army Project

This Minihammer commission brought a classic Warhammer Fantasy army to 15mm scale, using Forest Dragon miniatures painted in yellow and black. Here’s a look at the finished units, their basing and some ideas for adapting classic WHFB rules to a smaller battlefield.

Why play at smaller scale?

Already with my journey into Warmaster I knew one of the huge benefits would be a mass ranked, impressive looking army occupying very little shelf space (looking at my shelves now all that happened to me was more armies… same amount of shelf used oops!). What’s cool about going up the step to 15mm is having access to many more rules systems WHFB, Fantastic Battles, Kings of War, Mordheim, Frostgrave and so on but still having your armies, terrain and battlefields a manageable size.

You CAN do this with 10mm but whether you should is a different matter. Fiddly.

This commission was a brilliant chance to have a go at working more painted detail into the sculpts. All models shown are Forest Dragon and scale up very easily and the bases are PLA printed as I don’t quite trust resin bases just in case of warping issues on thin flat surfaces like this. The colour scheme was chosen by the client and despite its bad rep I do enjoy working with yellow (my chosen space bro chapter being Imperial Fists.)

Yellow and black gives the army a strong identity at this scale. The yellow helps the drab medieval clothing stand out, while the darker areas provide contrast with the metallics.

There is still room for individual detail, working in some freehand designs on the shields without it being exhaustingly tiny. The shared palette and patchy grassy bases bringing everything together.

What would need to change to play WHFB at this scale?

My starting point would be to keep the chosen edition’s profiles, points costs, dice rolls and army construction rules. A smaller model doesn’t need a lower Strength value or fewer Wounds simply because it takes up less space!

The main changes would concern physical measurements: movement, shooting, spell ranges, deployment distances and templates.

For these particular bases, one option that would be good to test is treating each inch in the rules as 2cm on the battlefield. A 4-inch move would become 8cm, and a 24-inch range would become 48cm. For any randomly generated distance, you would resolve the roll normally, then convert the final distance using the same approach. This would reduce the playing area without making movement and shooting ranges quite as short as a straight swap from inches to centimetres.

The bases used for this project aren’t an exact half-size conversion. Compared with a 20mm square base, a 15mm infantry base is three-quarters of the width. The cavalry bases introduce a different proportion again (we went with 15mm by 35mm for practicality of fitting the sculpts on comfortably). That matters because bases determine frontage, how units fit together in combat and the room needed to manoeuvre. Giving every infantry type the same smaller base could also remove differences that existed between troop types in the original game.

Size comparison between 10mm and 15mm figures

For a friendly adaptation, I would agree a basing scheme for both armies before playing, including larger creatures, characters and war machines. I would then test a few small games, paying particular attention to movement, combat contact and template weapons.

Templates would need thought too. Keeping a full-size template over more tightly packed troops could make it considerably more effective. Shrinking templates by the same factor as distances would be a sensible starting point, although the mixed base proportions mean it would still need testing and honestly I would love to print a collection of tiny blast and flame templates.

Block of archers in a custom wee sized movement tray.

Having sold a fair few over the years I know the 15mm scene is very alive and well! Thinking about starting your own smaller-scale army? Browse the range of fantasy miniatures, or get in touch to discuss a painting commission.

Have you tried Warhammer Fantasy with smaller miniatures? Which edition did you use, and how did you handle distances and bases?