"WAB in 15mm?" Topic

a while ago, I posted a question about wargaming on the college budget.
After talking with my friends, we have decided that we are all familiar with the warhammer system, because we played fantasy in highschool.
We have discovered the glories of Old Glory 15s, and how cheap they are, and how good they really look.
Have any of you played WAB in 15mm before?
how will the basing work? will we have to scale it down?

I have also tried to post this a few times…. it may pop up elsewhere multiple times: I'm not sure. It has been a pain to post, probably my internet connection..

Thanks
Austin

I've only considered it in 15mm, not played, but if you are familiar with Warmaster that can definitely be played in 15mm.

Fopr basing, you can cut all the base sizes in half and even go with WRG base sizes. It would work pretty well I would think.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I can definitely relate to a lateral shift to a more-or-less known quantity for historical rules. That was my big draw to WAB when it came out.

I would mount all my heavy and medium infantry on half-inch steel bases- Wargames Accessories makes some, I'm sure others as well. Renaissance Ink is closed for the time being.

Use thin basswood or ply covered with thin adhesive-backed magnetic sheets for movement trays. I use some intended for backing business cards I got as an office supply for a reasonable price. They have never peeled up on me, though I can't say the same for some of the bigger sheets I got at a hobby store chain.

Individual basing sounds like a pain, but it's GREAT for painting; I mount the minis, sand-flock them, prime them, and put them on a magnetic surfaced- wooden slat to paint them. You can turn them, move them around, very handy.

I considered WAB in 15mm and was planning on mounting 3-4 figures on a 2 x 2 inch stands and then 2 for mounted figs. Leaving the measurements and everything the same though.

I have tried this several times, and finally settled on the solution below. Notable is that it doesn't save money, but it does look good.

1. If using 15mm, you want to use DBx basing. Just about every ancients rules set EXCEPT for WAB uses these basing standards. Just in case you aren't aware, base size is 40mm wide, and 15mm, 20mm, 30mm or 40mm deep depending. Most common basing is 40mm x 15mm with 4 figures for heavy infantry, or 40mm x 30mm with 3 cavalry. This is important so you can use your figures in other rules such as Impetus, DBA, DBM, FOG, etc.

2. There are three options.

a. Use a 15mm figure instead of a 28mm figure. In the end, you can halve all distances. So you end up on a 3x2 table. The problem with this is that DBx basing doesn't quite match. A 28mm figure is on a 20mm x 20mm base -- halve that and we get a 10mm x 10mm base. But DBx basing would have a 15mm heavy infantry figure on a 10mm x 15mm base. So units end up deeper. Which has a big impact on flank attacks, and really alters the way the rules play.

b. Use a 15mm base instead of a 28mm figure. I.e., use 4 15mm infantry instead of a 28mm infanty figure. So now we are going the other way -- instead of shrinking the battlefield, we have to double the size -- playing on a 12x8 table. This looks fantastic. But again, the unit depths are distorted -- now units are too thin, and flank attacks are less devastating (because you can get fewer units on to the flank, and flanks become easier to hide or protect with terrain.

c. What I finally settled on. Use a 6' x 4' table. Count every two 15mm figures as one 28mm figure. Using DBx basing, two heavy infantry end up on a 20mm x 15mm base – not too far off the 20mm x 20mm base size you would use for 28mm. This seems to keep the game reasonably balanced, with just enough manoeuvre room and just enough exposure of flanks etc. However, it doesn't save you much money, as with plastics, there isn't much difference between one 28mm figure and two 15mm figures. But since I have a large 15mm figure collection, its the only way I can play WAB -- I am not going to rebuild in 28mm.

We tried this a few times, using washers for bases and business card magnets as movement trays. The base size was the *only* thing we changed, since we were concentrating on Shield Wall and thus had no AOE weaponry. The bases were 12mm OD washers for infantry and 15mm OD for cavalry (using two).

For WAB (and WFB, for that matter), there are two pairs of measurements that must be kept in correct ratio for things to function right.

If you change base size, then you also must change template weapon sizes.
If you change movement, then you also must change table size.

We chose to alter only one of the pairs, and it works great.

I gave some serious thought to this a few years back. My solution was to use 2-3 15mm minis to a single 25mm base, and count each base as a single 25/28mm mini. You end up painting a lot of minis, but it DOES look good, and you don't have to futz around with the rules.

And you can easily play a nice game on a 4X6 or even a 4X4 table if needs be.

So best of luck, and think about the simple solution. One plastic base with "X" minis on it and it represents 1 25/28mm mini. No rule changes.

Nick's Option b is not quite the way to do that. TKIndred is right about how to do it.

Put 4 figures on a base, count it as one "figure" in WAB terms.

So one base of four celts is 5 pts. Your unit ends up being twice as deep.

Ultimately you'll have units that are 6x4 20mm bases but each base has 4 figures on it (or 3) so instead of 24 figures in a unit you will have 96 little men counting as 24 figures in WAB terms.

You won't have to change a thing rule wise and it will look spectacular.

Four 15mm figures cost the same as one 25/28mm figure I imagine.

How about keeping the usual base sizes and dropping down to 6mm? Are Baccus strips < 20mm?

I started playing WAB in 15mm… One model = 1 figure. It worked great!

Guy

I've played WAB in 15mm many times and it works perfectly with almost no changes. For me the best way was to mount each figure individually on a 1/2 x 1/2" metal base, then use a movement tray with magnetic sheeting stuck to it. Units of 25-30 look like real units and you don't spend nearly as much money as you do by using 4 for each one 28mm model. The game plays the same and i believe we changed nothing but the range for panic tests.

We started playing WAB (when WAB was the newest thing…) with 15mm figs based for WRG.
And we played one model = 1 figure (like Gecoren did).

Never had a problem with it and lots of fun with more and larger units than our 28mm armies.

Nick Bowler wrote:

"Just about every ancients rules set EXCEPT for WAB uses these basing standards."

Well, and War & Conquest and Clash of Empires, both of which are WAB successors and both of which use individual figure basing iirc :)