"15mm Chariots for Circus Maximus" Topic

Hello,

I am considering building a Circus Maximus game in 15mm. I have been looking at the Essex Chariots w/ four horses. I have a few questions that I hope you can answer as I am not very familiar with the world of miniatures.

1. Are there better (read cheaper) alternatives to Essex chariots? (yes, i know they are Ben Hur style)

2. What size base will the chariot need to be mounted to? That way I can determine, ahead of time, what size the squares on the track need to be.

Thanks in advance,
Keith

Don't know if they are cheaper, but Outpost makes a realistic chariot (as opposed to "Ben Hur style").

picture

link

This topic has come up before, it might be worth your while to do a few searches of the old messages.

Thanks for the link. I have done some searching on the site and have read everything I have found. I could not find anything about specific basing size. Right now that is important to me so I know how big of a track I will be making. I have some space issues.

Keith

Most 15mm chariots SHOULD fit on a DBx standard 40mmx40mm base. I say SHOULD because sometimes they are a bit too big. So if you made your bases say, 50mmx50mm, that would probably handle most 15mm chariots. Or you might use rectangles, say 60mm long by 40mm wide.

would 50mmx50mm be for just the chariot? The horses would need to be on a separate base for the game mechanics to work best.

thanks
Keith

Most battle game rules have 2 and 4 horse chariots mounted on 40 x 40 bases. Viking Forge had a circus maximus set for sale. in 15mm.

One thing to consider. Were all cahriots in the CMbasic greek/roman style chariots/ If so they were civilian as not even generals were mounted in chariots on the battlefield.

If you are under the impression that the Circus maximus races were run like gladiator matches where men fought in their native style and arms, (forget hollywood depictions) then their chariots would be that as well. Light chariots could have been gaukic style (add 2 horses) while heavy could have been the boxy Sythe or libyan chariots.

I guess I should clarify a little.

I will be using the Circus Maximus (CM) rules that were originally published in the Circus Maxis boxed game by Avalon Hill. In CM the chariots are depicted by 0.5" counter and the horses are depicted on another 0.5" counter. The track is made up of eight lanes divided into 0.5" squares.

To mock this up to 15mm I need to split the chariot from the horses for purposes of movement. this will also help determine the best size of the squares on the track.

I know that 6mm chariots fit on the original 0.5" counters, so logic (in my mind) would dictate that 12mm miniatures would be 1.0" bases and 15mm would be 1.25" bases. Is that logic remotely correct? I can't see basing the chariot on a 2.0" base and the horses on another 2.0" base. I would love to keep the track grid size to no larger and 1.5", but small is preferred, say 1.0" squares.

This is where I need the most assistance as I have never bought or mocked up anything for use with miniatures.

Keith

It seems like you would be safer just buying the chariots first, and THEN designing the board around them.

I am just leery to spend the money on the chariots and horses only to find out they are too big for the size I want to keep the whole project.

I've never had any difficulty making Chariot (Magister Militum's) models fit on a 40 x 40, and they make wonderfully detailed pieces. All my Biblical armies are from Chariot.

Love 'em.

When I had chariot racing in mind in 25/28mm, I found that they did not quite fit on your standard DBX base. They were a leetle large…
I had two parameters in mind when I laid out the track in AutoCAD. My base size, and my table size.
The table size determined the radius of the turns.
I laid it out with Avalon Hill's Circus Maximus in mind, so had to quite a bit of fiddling and arraying in the turns, so that each inner track was n-1 to its outer one. This was easier than trying to make the cells equal, and probably more "realistic", within the rules.

John

With Circus Maximus in mind, did you have the chariot and horses bases sperately or together? I am looking at the idea of sperate as it was in the original game with the counters. I am not so much worried about the overall size of the track, but I want to keep the square grid size down to a reasonable size. Hence, my desire to use 15mm miniature versus 25/28mm miniatures.

Any idea how big of a base I will need to mount just a chariot, but it must be the same size for the horses too.

I will be printing this on vynal and the more surface area, the more $$ to print.

Keith

I have the four horse team on a DBM base, 60mm x 80mm.
The chariot cab is separate, Since the fit is so loose, ALL are heavily varnished.
The rider is based on plastic card. I found RAFM Illyrians, with separate heads, to be very good for this, as well as Ral PArtha Illyrians, by the way.

Unfortunately, I have lost the CAD file, but I do have the templates printed out, and some 54" wide vinyl rolls. Now, to find the time…

I too would like to offer Circus Maximus in miniature for Little Wars held in Chicago.
I know I can find 25mm plastic minis a-plenty, but transporting a track will be problematic. I like the eye-candy of decently painted 25mm over 15mm.
The base upon which the 1) the team of horses and 2) the chariot are mounted will dictate the size of the track. Therefore,
John the OFM: were your 60x80 bases for the team AND chariot? Are the 60x80 bases for 25/28mm minis or 15mm?
RudyNelson: were the 40x40 bases you mentioned for the team AND chariot? or 40x40 for each part?

I don't have any of the Outpost models -- which are nice representations of the actual racing chariots.

I do have a variety of 15mm chariots from various manufacturers. The 4 horse teams do fit on the 40mm width. A few are a tight fit lengthwise, but can be tightened up if needed, and most will fit 40mm deep without adjustment.

Generally the horses take the most length, and will determine your base size for splitting the team and car into two. For a team of 15mm horses, you'll need 30mm deep base for just the horses. But you could put them on 25mm or even 20mm deep with the back edge of the figure bases overhanging.

10mm Magister Militum or Old Glory chariots, you can fit a team of 4 on 30mm wide and 20mm deep.

miniMo
Thank you for the imput.
I have been scouring the various companies for chariot minis in 15mm.

I was looking at Magister Militum. They have good variety. What I'm concerned about is that the chariots look almost as big as the horses. Furthermore, the rider looks SO MUCH BIGGER than the horses. Is it the catalog pictures? Or, is this the way they are?

Generally, horses were smaller back then. But so were the people…

In the bronze age chariot period, the horses were particularly small, a factor in why chariots were used before cavalry was developed. Grass grazed horses are pretty small. Breeding and a blended diet with oats, etc. gradually brings about larger mounts. But even by Roman times, there aren't big medieval warhorses yet.

Many miniatures companies just make 'horse' with no particular regard for proportional size by era or geography.

Personally, I like the size of the Magister Militum horses for the chariot era, and I think they look about right compared to carvings of Roman chariot horses as well:

The Magister Militum cars are definitely bigger than the cars of racing chariots which are stripped down to a minimum for lightness.

If you go to Outpost link
Ranges > 15mm Gladiators > scroll down and click on Gallery you'll see their racing chariot. The proportions of horses, car, and driver all look about right.

Any non-racing chariot model is fine if you want the Hollywood visual instead, and the cars will be bigger.