"The necessity of 15x40mm bases" Topic

I seem to be forever planning my 15mm ancients and not much doing. I swear i'll get some painting going soon.

My latest dilemma is what to do with the heavy foot I'm planning on for Field of Glory and DBA. I am not a big fan of the 15x40 base. I think it's too small. I would much prefer to just use a 20x40 for various reasons. Before explaining in detail my objection, I would be interested in hearing from this community the merits of a 15x40 and the concept of foregoing it for a 20x40.

A few questions arise about using 20x40's instead of 15x40's:

Would that be upsetting to other players?
Would it give me an unfair advantage in game play?
Would it foolishly hinder my competitiveness?
Would it disqualify me from tournament play for something like DBA?
I am I overlooking the virtue of a 15x40 base?

Thanks in advance, and I'll be sure to follow up later.

fu

I agree about the 15x40 base (and it would be even worse in the larger common scale) … but

in DBA V3 it is no longer mandatory (as if it really made much difference) all the the 15mm depths are now 15-20.

in Field of Glory depth makes very little difference other than as an indicator of being heavy foot rather than medium foot so as long as this is clear then it won't make a difference (and some of the writing team from FoG have posted here in the past saying it won't) …

Renaissance brother FoG-R uses 20mm

So this is now mostly just an aesthetic choice. I am now basing on 20mm depth but recently did some on 15mm to match existing figures. That's about it.

Phil
Ancients on the Move

I just had to make this decision for some DBA 3 armies I'm upgrading. Gauls seem to be Solid, not Fast, at least in the Punic Wars period, and I decided to make my Carthaginian allies 20mm deep so they can either be 4Aux or 4Wb (with "relaxed" depth rules).

I left my naked Gaesatae guys on a 15mm deep base though. Probably a bad choice, but it's what I decided to do.

For your case, I'd consider just going 20mm for everything.

Same issue with 60mm x 20mm for 25/8mm figures. The shallower base is just too tight and doesn't do enough to justify its use.

… now 20-30 for DBA V3, Rwphillipsstl … !

Phil

I've started basing my 15mm figs on 40x20mm bases for DBA3 and DBMM. The rules work fine.

Just looking at an unpainted 15mm Tullain Roman army I have, and will most likely continue the trend and put them on 20mm deep bases. Mainly because they are more like 18mm and have the modern "spears akimbo" look, so deeper bases will allow them to fit next to the other bases. Though the "packed ranks" look of 15mm deep figures is good if they are all in the "at attention" pose.

Cheers,
JohnG

Honestly, all my other 15mm armies are based on 40x15mm bases, and I see no reason to change…

Damon.

The deeper base does negate the use of a measuring stick for recoil or pursuit moves (1/2BW).

I have five Blue Moon Early German armies that are grateful for the extra space. Since then all my Spear and Blade elements are on deeper bases.

Cheers,
Robert

Figures on 15mm deep bases tip over on hills. So, a little deeper is much better.

@testhatphil--same issue, if half your armies are one depth, you don't want to rebase and you don't want to switch either.

In two rank units you can get packed ranks by basing half the figures close to the rear edge of their bases and the other half close to the front of their bases.

Republican Romans based like that can swap positions to give a 20 mm gap between the two lines still supporting when they do in the rules but visually with separate lines of figures.

I am only playing in 28mm, but there I dumped all my 60*20mm in favour of 60*30mm bases.

No use having the folks standing so close that they could not move. It looks way better – imho. I have redirected the smaller bases to mount fortifications and obstacles.

From gameplay, I think you only suffer from longer bases, as you offer more range for a flank attack. There is no real advantage to them.

DBA 3.0 solves most of the problems discussed here by allowing foot to be mounted from 20-30mm (similar choice for 15mm – I don't have many 15s).

Only exception was for Bow (and Hordes on really big bases) which still must "officially" be mounted on 30mmm bases.

I actually prefer the option of 20-30mm range for all types as I base Fast on 30mm and the rest on 20mm (allows you to use old Warhammer figures without rebasing).

I allow the range of 20-30mm for all Foot in D3H2 (DBA 3.0 combined with HOTT 2.0).

The advantages of deeper/shallower bases largly cancel out so neither tournament directors or players need to be basing Nazis about this issue.

TomT

Personally I think it would be best to base all infantry on 40 x 20mm bases, with the number of figures on the base indicating the type -
4 figures for heavy foot
3 figures for medium foot
2 figures for light foot.

For most games it won't generally cause problems being on deeper bases. The only exception would be if you want pikes to be four ranks deep, where the difference will be quite significant and you might find the units depth starts to have an effect – bigger flanks, difficulty wheeling in tight spaces, more difficult to move through terrain, etc.

DBA penalizes shallow bases (15mm for smaller figures, 20mm for larger) by destroying them easier. Three shallow bases can be flanked by an enemy element that is 40mm or 60mm wide. The rule for flanked elements is,
"An element that has an enemy front edge in contact with its side or rear edge is destroyed by recoiling, being pushed back, fleeing or being in a column whose front element is destroyed."

Thus a column of 3 shallow elements is destroyed if flanked and the front element is destroyed.

DBA penalizes deeper bases by giving them less recoil room, making them more likely to recoil off the table edge, giving more area for friction overlaps and giving them less wiggle room in tight spaces.

So it roughly balances out.

TomT

On another note 4 figures sometimes don't fit very well in 28mm and in addition dismounted knights (to blades) are now allowed to put only 3 figures on the base so number of figures on a base is a wonky way of showing Fast/normal.

Better to use the 30mmm deep = Fast; 20mm deep = normal (excluding Hordes).

TomT

Tom when you say normal, do you mean "solid."

Solid exists only in Phil Barker's mind. It sounds like a Mod Squad rerun.

Fast is a subcategory of most Foot types. If your not Fast your just a standard "normal" Foot.

The weird "solid" type has no reason to exist.

TomT

Good thoughts Tom, but "solid" also exists in Phil text of DBA 3. If you make up your own terms you will confuse readers/players. Short people have no reason to exist either, according to Randy Newman, but it is a fact of life that both short people and solid troops, in DBA at least exist :)

Moreover calling one class of troops Normal implies the others are not normal. Do we have normal blades and not normal blades or normal war bands and un-normal war bands? Aren't troops classed as fast as normal as those classed as solid? Perhaps the development team should have pressed for "standard" instead of solid, but it's too late now.

Another added distinction is irregular medium foot uses three figures, whereas drilled use four !

Thanks everyone. I'm going to go with 20x40 for all my basic/solid/normal/fast/slow/wAcKY infantry. Your comments were all helpful, I appreciate them. I didn't find any highly compelling reasons to use 15x40. Deeper bases for fast is something to think about. I could see it; less disciplined berserker like madmen closing with the enemy getting spread out a bit as they charge.

I was planning on using 4 figures for both medium and heavy foot (FoG) purely for aesthetics.

My friend the African Metallurgical Politician mentioned that 20x40 would be fine but suggested that I stick with the 'numbers of figures' convention for Field of Glory to distinguish medium and heavy foot.

I explained that I was going to use 4 figures for the medium infantry that was shieldwall like. Persian Sparabara and Immortals in my case. I'll have to come up with something to indicate the medium and heavy. I was going to use 4 for bows as well, I'm not seeing an issue there. I am also working on a Fantasy army and since it is fantasy I don't think it matters.

Thanks again everyone!

This is reassuring to know as I bought a host of 20 x 40 mm laser-cut bases at Cancon for my next DBA project. I'm sticking to a uniform base depth which makes planning and bulk purchases much less fiddley.