"Basing for Fire When Ready rules?" Topic

So, I just received my Navwar fleets for the battle of Lemnos and planned to base them prior to painting. Its been a while since I played Fire when Ready, but recall that bases had angles on the front. I am out of my old, custom bases that I once purchased for this set and don't feel like ordering more.

How do others base for Fire When Ready? Should I just base normally and figure out how to turn another way? Switch to WTJ's Quickfire rules? Thanks for any help!

The cool FWR basing system isn't strictly necessary. My RJW ships are mounted on rectangular bases slightly longer than hull length, rounded up to the nearest 1 cm, because I didn't want to do any special basing for one rule set that might make it hard to play other rules. When using a friend's miniatures based on totally non-standard hand-made bases we just rounded up to the nearest 1cm when moving forward between course changes (e.g., when turning a CA on a 54mm long base, we just moved it 6 cm on each leg of the turn).

Rounding to the nearest 1cm seems to work well enough for FWR, but research shows that turning radius is not related to hull length in such a linear fashion. The hull:beam ratio is a better general rule of thumb (lower ratios tend to turn tighter), but tactical radius can also vary wildly with speed, depth of water under the hull, amount of roll during a turn, underwater hull form, type of rudder, and on and on [and on [and on [and on…]]]. If you could find the information, it would be better to just look up the published tactical radius of each ship and use it as an individual statistic, and accept that this is a guideline based on practical experience and not an absolute measurement. Unfortunately, the farther in the past you go from WWII, the harder that information is to find. This information is difficult or impossible to find for ships of the pre-dreadnought period.

- Ix