If you use mini’s do you use a battle mat? If not how do you determine scale? If you do use a battle mat how do you use SR movement rules with it?

My GM has taken to miniatures and a mat, I think he uses 3 Meters per square?

Then you are of course allowed your normal movement on it. It really makes the melee characters twinge sometimes

I have the old Ral Partha line, though you can find some interesting models from the Reaper chronoscope line (25mm scale figs). Though many SCI-Fi and Modern/near Modern miniture lines will do. The hard part is finding the various meta types.


For maps--depends. Some times I free hand draw them, other times I do maps in power point or pull out the sprawl sites book.

For scale I ususally go 1"= 2 meters but use other scales as needed.

Most games we use sketches or just roleplay. Until battle breaks out. Then we use a battle mat, one meter per square. Chips or dice for mini's at the moment.

We use the 1 square (inch) = 2 meters. Since I just looked through SR4A and couldn't immediately find an Interception rule I guess we are house-ruling the SR3 rules for Intercepting movement.

When we use miniatures, the scale depends on the map. If it has squares/hexes, etc. we call that two meters. If no squares/hexes, then 1cm = 1m (makes measuring range faster).

If you have trouble with finding meta-type minis, and are willing to do a little work, you can do what I do.

Find something close and then greenstuff on the ears/teeth/horns. I have a decent 40k ork to troll conversion this way, but he turned out to short. Best one I have is an Incredible hulk to Troll conversion.

You can find a good bit of sci fi like dwarfs on Hasselfree miniatures as well.

I've taken some liberties with distances. I've decided that 1m = 4 feet. I use a battlemat and we just use a six-sided die as mini's. I've adjusted all the movement rates in the game to be evenly divisible by 4 and then we always play through 4 IPs per turn. This means that we are always moving full hexes each turn. I've adjusted running accordingly, so its adding movement per IP, instead of turn. Its all rather straightforward (and I think I've posted these rules before on this forum) and easy to play once things are converted.

As for the fabled 5th IP in the matrix, that doesn't need physical movement, so it works just fine.

Page 161, SR4A.

When we use 1" grid, most of the time it is 1" = 2m

when I GM, I have a 2cm grid (a bit smaller than 1") which allows me to cover a bit more ground when each 2cm square = 2m or give just a bit more detail when each 2cm square = 1m.

We use 1" squares = 2m. I also have some transparency material that I cut out for random direction determination for things like grenade bounce and blast. Since the direction determination is based on hex and we use grid, this is very handy.

As for movement when using a square grid, we allow diagonal movement when there is no obstacle in the way by using the "every other diagonal square costs double movement" rule common in that-other-game.

i.e. first diagonal move costs 1, next costs 2, next costs 1, next costs 2 ... so a move of 4 diagonal squares in a row would cost 6 squares of movement (multiplied by however many meters your squares are scaled at).

When mapped out, it is surprisingly close to circular - at least close enough for gaming standards.

What are the pros/cons of using a hex map in SR miniature combat as opposed to the standard rectangular grid?

For the most part, hex makes it a lot easier to use 1d6 scatter direction rules and movement outside of a straight two-axis pattern. Outside of that, I think it would be personal preference. I prefer square grid because it is more convenient for drawing out buildings. Well, at least the square/rectangle variety. When I need scatter direction, I either wing it or use a transparent hex sheet I made. For range on either, I have a nice 24" transparent ruler I picked up at a local art shop that I marked standard ranges on.

Along with what Chrome Tiger mentioned, diagonal movement on a square grid is sometimes an issue. On a hex grid, its handles movement in any direction rather nicely.

I think the building drawing is a major factor though. I end up using a lot of building schematics I find online and I created a hex overlay that I could layer over the map I found. Even after getting the scale matched up, its still a bit rough drawing it on a battlemat. I am just too American. I think in feet and inches and I draw on maps on a grid. I guess that could be a lot of DnD, too.