"Basing figures" Topic

How many figures do I put on a base for crossfire? I have just begun to game and clueless on this. Thanks ALL

2 or 3 will work.

Thanks,

John

Basing for any rules system is up to you; however, the CF rules suggest:

3 figures for a rifle or SMG squad on 1-1/4" by 1-1/4" base
2 figures for an HMG stand on 1-1/4" by 1-1/4" base
Company commanders, 2 figures on 1-1/4" by 1-1/4" base
Platoon commanders, 1 figure on a 5/8" by 1-1/4" base

I personally use 1-1/2" by 1-1/2" bases for my 1:72 stuff and usually put only 2 figures on a base – I find this looks more believeable as far as spacing goes and I'm too lazy to do the extra figures if I were to do three to a base. I use copper clippings around the base to represent machine gun stands:

MG stand and a Company Commander stand: picture

Behind the Stug is a company commander (left) and a smaller platoon commander stand (I just cut stands to be smallish for PCs, I don't bother to measure the size): picture

From left to right, a Soviet SMG squad, a plaatoon commander and an MG stand: picture

You'll need to be able to distinguish what stands belong to what squads. The rules recommend labels on the top of the base. I felt this detracted from any mini-diorama look so for years, I used to use coloured stickers underneath the stands to mark what squads belonged to what platoon, company. I now prefer to use the edge of the base as per: picture and here's an example of that, see the British stands to the left: picture

All these pics are from my web page at ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal which has loads of battle reports with loads more pictures of my squads.

I usually base with an eye to using the same figures with as many rule systems as possible.

All my guys are on 30mmx30mm, weapons teams are weapons teams (MG, mortar or whatever plus crew), rifle/SMG groups usually have three figs on a base. HQs and special things like engineers with flamethrowers usually have two. I have a bunch of leaders individually based on pennies, which make good PCs in Crossfire.

As Tim says, for CF you need to keep track of platoon/company affiliations. You could write on the base, colour code the edges, put bits of flock on etc.

As I like to be flexible I usually put a small bit of magnetic strip on every base, and then I can make whatever id markers I need out of steel paper and just stick them on. I also made up a ton of generic coloured markers out of steel paper in various colours, which work in most situations (yellow platoon, red platoon etc etc).

I would like to try PBI2 but have figures based for FOW.
In particular I have a FOW US Para Company. All the figures are based in fours (apart from commands) as in FOW they are teams. They are mixed in that they have rifles, carbines, SMGs and .30 calibre LMGs on the bases.
I note that PBI2 has distinguishing bases for rifles, SMGs, carbines and LMGs.
Howa can I represent each type of base in PBI when all my FOW bases are essentially the same looking?

extremely nice website and painting Ditto Bird, refreshing to see good WWII that is not "fow" styled