Inspired by a fellow instagrammer Hyvemynd I’ve been thinking about extremely small scale wargaming. Hyvemynd created Roman Legions by using 1mm thick card cut into 4mm squares. Painting was the main issue and they couldn’t figure out a way to paint the card to look convincingly like groups of Romans.
To be the sort of oddball that would never back down from a challenge I started thinking about how to make forces for such small scale gaming.
I knew it had to be a case of gluing down some kind of granular material… sand, grit, I then started looking through the cupboards at different types of sugar.
Demerara was actually my first thought, but the grains were far too large. They might have been okay if you very carefully placed each one using tweezers, but I think way madness lies.
In the end I settled on your standard granulated sugar, good for a cup of tea and good for a horde of barbarians!
Thinking that the illusion would be broken if I used sand on the base I stippled on some home made texture paint, which consists of no more nails, wall filler and paint. I then glued down my sugar with Mod Podge and painted it all black.
I attempted a Saxon/ Viking shield wall kind of base, and a Roman group of squares. Not being able to get the sugar to match the precise nature of certain historical formations you may well be better off using this technique for dark ages or fantasy. You could maybe use a credit card to get your lines of white powder properly straight, make sure if you do to have a hobby session in a night club or pub toilet.
And here’s a base done. I think I’ve managed to create the illusion of a horde of humans (although could be Beastmen). After the black base was dry I drybrushed the hordes with silver and then using a fine detail brush dotted on flesh for faces, and red and blue for shields and that was it.
Does it work? Kinda. Is it an idea worth developing probably. You can get a pretty huge hoard out of a bag of sugar!
Deathzap 
You’re full of nifty ideas.
I rather like those. I’m now wondering what other things might do for titchy tiny people.
Thanks very much! I’m now trying not to fall down the rabbit hole of making my own mass battle fantasy rules for my own fantasy universe… I’ve already got the bag of sugar after all.
LoL!!! 🤣
Absolutely fabulous as they say!
This summer I posted about 2mm ancients but mine were just trash card blocks – if I do more then your idea looks great – mine were chariot era armies….
I would strongly advocate for this wonderful small scale. I have recently ordered tiny nail art beads. My preferred scale is 2mm, so these will be “hordes”, vampire bats, spiders, rats etc. distributed between 40mm bases and ‘flying’ bases.
That sounds great!
let’s hope so. Just need to fund time to pull the concept together. Don’t rule out sea salt trolls and ogres!
Brilliant idea. I may have to try this 🙂
you should! Life is too short to paint eyes and buckles… The scope to repurpose other scales is great, whether it’s 15mm elementals, towering 40 feet above the battlefield or 6mm battle suits which act as terrible walkers.
Attempting a 1mm scale modern to futuristic platoon would certainly be interesting! Individual granules of sugar spread out like that! Would it work?
I think it’s possible. Most of my fantasy are a ragged bunch, undead, orcs, tatty militias, etc. I think the sci fi challenge is that everything is a bit more manufactured, so you expect a more angular and uniform appearance.
I suppose a conscripted or civilian contingent might work very well. An expendable multitude. Everything else can be found in Vanguard miniatures superb 3 and 6mm ranges.
cheers, John