My group usually uses a standard 1 inch grid chessex battlemat for combat but awhile ago I picked up a much smaller grid one, each square is 1/4 the size of the other (1/4' x 1/4' or about .6cm x .6cm for those in not in the US).

I really want to use this new mat for games since I can have much larger distances for encounters, our current one would only have about a 30 meter range since we use one square equal to 1 meter. It really sucks when just starting encounters many gun's are already at half range, and I don't want to use a tape measure if I don't have to......"so you guys are here on the table, and over on the computer is a sniper, over in the kitchen you see a building" would get annoying.

The biggest problem is finding mini's to use on such a small map, we currently just use the random prepainted mini's from dnd and starwars (we have a huge box of random ones from when me and a friend used to play) but they are obviously 4 times as big as needed.

So basicly I need something with enough variety to represent characters and mobs that are 1/4' x 1/4' or smaller, they don't need to be detailed, just something with enough variety to tell apart, or even some little ones of different colors. Little things I could put numbers on would work too for enemies.

Sorry I just spent the better part of yesterday looking online but coundn't find anything but I realized I have a good source of info/suggestions here.

We already thought of just increasing the scale of the squares on the normal grid but it then gets complicated remembering how far each player was from each other ect. for when an area of effect comes into play.

You can try using 40k epic minis, but 6mm is so small that I'm not sure it's really worth it...

You could try 10 or 15 mm historical minis as well...

15mm would probably be the way to go although they don't come prepainted to my knowledge. A few companies make near 40k 15mm minis. Check out the 15mm.co.uk for laserburn and HOF. If you go to http://dropshiphorizon.blogspot.com/ they specialize in 15mm minis. on the right side there is a list of 15mm mini manufactures to browse through. Hope this helps.

Salcor

I have actually made use of the Epic 40K miniatures for a large-scale Space Hulk scenario in pre- Dark Heresy days.

They work well, and have the advantage that they are a bit quicker to paint

The down side is that the detail is a bit lacking and they're much harder to customize unless you want to go cross-eyed!

besides, you can always rule that (on your lager hexfield) one hex isn´t one meter but 3 or 5 meters. This leads to a little fuzz in movement here and there, but gives you a little wider birth.