"Medieval Skirmish bases: Circles vs Squares?" Topic

I picked up a reprint of Heritages's old Knights and Magick rules for medieval and fantasy combat.

The rules assume relatively small 'armies' of 50-100 individually based figures, which is fine, all mine are on washers. But it also assumes they are mounted on squares so you can tell when a fig is being attacked from the rear or non-shield side. The rules even incorporate corners into this determination.

I suppose I could jury rig temporary square bases, but is this really necessary? A circle can obviously be divided into four 90 degree segments, wouldn't that work just as well for flanking?

A circle can obviously be divided into four 90 degree segments, wouldn't that work just as well for flanking?

Of course. Four small marks equidistant around the base will work fine.

I have never marked my round bases. I played years of "friendly" Rogue Trader with everyone having stated where they considered "forward" on their figures, and never an argument.

55 minis on a side and yet the granularity includes "non-shield side" That's sounds like a pretty crunchy set of rules. Possibly open to abuse also "Ok, put all the lefties on the right side".

That said, if your playing with gentleman, it should be fairly easy to agree on which side a circle based mini is being attacked from

I used to do rounds, but now I put everything on squares because you never know when some members of a warband will need to become part of a larger unit for a game requiring ranking of miniatures. A couple units in my KoW "Bad-Guy" army started out as members of a Song of Blades and Heroes warband (a game where base shape matters not) and I just kept buying and painting more until they ended up being an entire unit.

It is a bit of an oddball ruleset – at first glance it looks like a mass battle game, but then you realize it basically is 1 figure = 1 man. The author even sees it as an alternative to rpg combat systems.

But there's also an epic campaign system, siege rules, even a whole chapter on heraldry! Sort of a 'hybrid/catch-all' system, but interesting!

I don't see rows about facing with my friends, but as a compromise I am considering a small mark on each base to define 'front / 0 degrees'

What I've started doing is to paint the front arc of the base a brighter color than the back arc. In Infinity, that's a 180 arc painted a mid-gray (the same color as my base's basecoat) with the back arc painted a dark blue-black (Coal Black).

For some of my 15mm minis, they got a white front 90deg, and either red (support weapon), yellow (leader), or base-matching (ordinary trooper) back arcs.

While 180 arcs are easier to ID, painting a 90deg arc of a circle isn't too hard.

I'd do the front arc in a light color that matches the base, flank colors a mix of the base color and shadow black, and the rear arc colors shadow black.