"Ancient/Medieval/Fantasy Basing: It's Chaos Out There!" Topic

ONE BASE TO RULE THEM ALL
There was a time not so long ago that for ancient and medieval gaming there was but one basing option: WRG/DBX. 15mm troops shall be based on 40mm wide stands and 25mm troops on 60mm wide stands.

THE RISE OF WARHAMMER
And then Warhammer Ancients came along with its individually based 20mm wide infantry and 25mm wide cavalry. It got more chaotic after that with other systems using large "unit basing" with a range of options and games such as Hail Caesar using a schizophrenic combination of individual basing and large unit basing. And then there are cross-over armies that could be used for fantasy games such as Kings of War as well as DBx or Hail Caesar.

HONEY, I SUPER-SIZED THE KIDS
Things get worse when one considers the fact that WRG/DBx basing is stuck in the times of "true 25s". It is literally IMPOSSIBLE to use the official DBx basing rules as written since the figures simply won't fit. Heavy infantry gets reduced from 4 figures to 3 figures per stand. Heavy cavalry gets reduced from 3 figures to 2 per stand.

All of which is ok as it reduces money and time costs but when skirmish cavalry get reduced to 1 figure per stand you're getting dangerously close to a weird look that just doesn't convey a sense of large scale battle. IMO DBx plays a bit like a skirmish game anyway rather than a mass battle. The new 28mm figures only enhance that weird skirmish look.

HIDDEN TREASURES UNCOVERED
This issue came up for me because while sorting out my basement and wargaming area this week I came upon a bunch of Foundry late medieval troops that I had not based and painted. And Wargames is running a free shipping discount for the U.S. so I bought some of their excellent Wars of the Roses figures by Perry Miniatures.

TOO MANY CHOICES
The first thought that I had was, "How am I going to base this stuff?" My good friend and DBX aficianado, Tom Thomas, bases his stuff for DBx on 60mm wide bases. A lot of his stuff is also Large 28mm figures and thus he uses the reduced figures per stand approach.

At our local shop, Kings of War is becoming popular due to WHFB's collapse. They use a combination of GW basing and unit basing that isn't always in convenient multiples of DBx basing.

What is your approach to basing 28mm figures for Ancient, Medieval, and Fantasy gaming?

Individual bases like those used for WHFB and Warhammer Ancients?

60mm wide DBX standard?

Large unit bases like those in KoW or (maybe) Hail Caesar?

Or do you combine these?

MISSED OPPORTUNITY: 120mm-WIDE UNIT BASES
Looking at relative frontages and multiples there seems to be a number of LCMs and LCDs for these different approaches. It boggles the mind that the KoW and Hail Caesar folks didn't use them. For example, 2x DBx bases are 120mm wide. A unit base 120mm wide could fit 6x 20mm wide infantry base, 5x cavalry/large infantry bases with a little wiggle room between figures. 3x 40mm wide monster bases, or 2x 50mm wide bases. Why didn't they just standardize on 120mm for unit-base frontages? Would have unified DBX and Warhammer basing at the unit base level! And it looks nice without being too expensive.

Oh well.

GET WITH THE TIMES: DBX 80mm BASES
Another option would have been for the DBX folks to update their basing for today's figures by adding an 80mm wide option. THat would work with Warhammer-style 20mm wide infantry and 25mm wide cavalry bases.

All my 28mm WOTR troops are based on 60mm wide bases, three figures to a base regardless of troop type.

Indvidual figures with magnitized bases arranged on steel trays. I can have any sized units with the purchase of a few new movment trays. Currently, my armies are arranged for Hail Caesar with 160mm x 60mm units. We'll see what the future calls for.

MajorB,

How about skirmish infantry and heavy and light cavalry for your WOTR troops?

All my 28mm ancient figures are based for the DBX system. It is with difficulty, that we're able to put four infantry or three cavalry on a 60mm wide base, but we somehow get it done!

I do this, so that I can play ADLG, FoG, as well. You can put two bases together and have a frontage of 120mm, which can be used for Impetus and Hail Caesar, so I find it to be a very flexable basing system!

Lou

I've recently moved to irregular-edged bases that have a low profile that slopes down to the table but which are nonetheless magnetic. They look more naturalistic than square bases and are just over 120mm wide.

I sell the bases, most of which are on sale this week (finishing tomorrow).

link

Your bases always look great!

BigRed, I've always like your bases. Like little dioramas!

What's especially useful about larger "unit bases" is that you have some flexibility with figure placement.

With 60mm wide bases you're kinda stuck, especially if using troops already on 20mm wide individual bases.

With 120mm wide you can use fewer troops per unit and give them a slightly less regimented look, That's far more appropriate for medieval troops.

Thanks Oldbob! I am currently planning some fantasy bases that should be a riot of colour.

Thanks VIS- 120mm width gives a lot of options. There are some lovely Impetus-based armies out there, and recently some based for To the Strongest!, too.

How about skirmish infantry and heavy and light cavalry for your WOTR troops?

Skirmish infantry as a separate tactical troop type did not really exist in the Wars of the Roses. Light cavalry (prickers, scourers etc.) did exist but did not have a battlefied role and in any case were not that much lighter armed and armoured than the heavier type.

All my ancients/medieval are now on 120mm Impetus style bases.

Christopher

The best solution to this is to just not play 28mm! They look kinda silly when I see them in ancients games any way because the armies look severely understaffed (same reason I really don't like DBA). 15mm is really the most ideal.

I base my figures for Hail Caesar on large unit bases. I am aware of folks who enjoy playing HC with everything from single-figure bases to large unit bases, and sometimes with armies based differently from one another. This flexible approach to basing is a very positive feature of the rule set.

Maverick wins for best description of DBA I've ever read: "Under staffed". LOL!

Today I put some figures on 60mm wide bases in two ranks. I can stomach DBx basing that way. A single rank of spearmen or swordsmen just looks wrong to me. And since I only play DBx with Tom Thomas I know he won't mind. Putting two such bases together for 120mm wide Impetus/WoK/Hail Caesar units looked good too and they're less fiddley than 4 single ranked bases.

I still prefer 80mm wide bases with 8 figures in 2 ranks. That looked best and 3 Cav figures looked nice. But since that doesn't work with any other systems I guess I'm stuck with 60mm wide.

VIS

The idea of 80mm bases 2 deep has attraction – 2 of these would work for Hail Caesar (used by our little coven plays) as well as Command & Colours. For deeper units like pike phalanxes or warbands could double depth the bases.

I like the idea of larger bases as you can be more creative with placement of troops. There was a thread some time ago about someone who used 120mm wide and then added on 40mm wide for when he played Hail Caesar.

I use magnetic bases and movement trays so the move from playing WAB was (largely) painless.

Thanks for getting me to think about things, good to exercise the little grey cells.

BRB bases would be great for skirmishers under HC.

Garry

The grid system of gaming helps overcome the basing nightmare dilemma.

Fantasy figures look great multi based like the ones above too.

I find that 60mm is still fine to base 4 figures on. Some fit easier than others…

The trick is to add to the depth. I use 30mm deep bases for my ancients foot and 50mm deep for cavalry. I really like the look of the unit bases but still need the flexibility between rulesets I have with 60mm bases.

I also increase the depth with 60mm elements; pretty much any mini will fit on the deeper bases. However… I find that the 120mm (or indeed the even larger 180mm) wide element offers better options for vignettes than the 60mm.

There comes a point where a single base is too wide and it looks odd on the tabletop, due to the uneven tilt on terrain and such.

'Tis true. Roads can be an issue too.

The observations on terrain and road issues are spot on.

I've started basing the Foundry stuff on 60mm frontage and, after a few tests, 45mm deep for infantry. They look great! With 6x 28mm infantry figures per stand you have enough mass to look solid but enough space for flexible placement. A few stands have 5x figures due simply to what I have and they look just fine too by using figures such as those thrusting a pole-arm to effectively occupy two ranks.

For skirmish infantry I'm using 3x figures per (deeper) stand. Still clearly open order and more interesting than the official DBx 2-figures per stand.

Placing two stands side-by-side the resulting units look quite nice whether formed or skirmish infantry and they avoid the terrain/road problem.

The only "downside" is that they are deeper than the official DBx bases but I'm fine with that as I've never liked the DBx single-rank infantry. Too bad they didn't simply define 2 HI stands as a "single" element. Would have looked so much nicer.

Thanks for all the advice, I'm very pleased with the result! I shall post some photos once I prime these.

Here's some of my medieval army with the basing that I described above.

A mix of old Foundry, Grenadier and some Front Rank and Essex. You can see they rank up fine.

I base my 28mm individually of 20mm squares and cavalry on 25mm x 50mm with magnets on bottom. I then have metal movement trays and mount them based on the game played. 160mm wide for Hail Caesar, 120mm wide for Impetus, 60mm for DBA. I follow the approach for DBA of having a smaller number of figures on the official sized base.

I base my figures on 120mm Impetus bases. Looks great. Impetus offers the player to make dioramas out of the basing.

I also base with 120mm frontage Impetus basing. I do so like the lookof it.

I have a number of other minis mounted singly, on either round bases for "warband" type units of Celts, Britons, Gauls,etc, or square bases for troops with more disciplined formations such as Greeks, Romans, Macedonians,etc. These are used for WAB and some skirmish games I run. If I need them for Impetus, then I have 120mm frontage movement trays for them.

However, 75% of my troops are Impetus based, and it looks like I'll be staying with that.

I must say I do like the represented look of the irregular form of the movement trays. I'm sold to single figure basing (because I want to remove figures) and therefore make a lot of use of movement trays. I find the Victrix ones very usefull but those mentioned above are beter for the warband-type of units (or irregular CAV). I allways base my figures on steel washers. I have to think of a way to get them on them and be removable. The idea of using magnets, steel sheets and magnetic foils come to mind. Got to think this through…. Very interesting movement trays.

Hi Ray,

It would be easy to make a two-part base in which the top layer had holes the diameter of the mini's washers, and the sheet below had holes cut for magnets. The combined base would be 4mm thick, but with thought the edges could be made irregular and to slope upwards at a 45 degree angle so as not to look too "steppy".

On a totally different note, below is a 180mm wide base; what's good on 120mm can be even better on 180mm!

Impetus couldn't keep my interest as a game, but I liked the basing system so much I started rebasing all my Macedonian/Punic Wars DBx armies that way.

I'm still debating about basing my (15mm) Medievals on 1" wide bases. I really liked the Fire and Fury concept of "generic" stands of line troops gathered into units with a unique command stand, and I think it would apply brilliantly to the Medieval period (at least within a given era of armor/weapon/clothing styles). I have yet to find or finish rules that utilize such a system, but the concept can also be used to create ad-hoc units for arbitrary armies by sticking 3x 1" wide magnetized stands to an 80mm sabot with a nice, thick lip holding them in place.

- Ix

I too have felt a Fire & Fury/Napoleon's Battles basing system would be perfect for ancients through renaissance.

For example, pike & shot units could be 4 stands, 2 pike and 2 shot. The bases would be 3/4" wide x 1" deep with 4 figures in 2 ranks. The stands would be arranged:

SPPS

The most important concept is to keep a 60mm frontage so that elements can line up and are not too large to deal with terrian. Depth less important. I use 45mm for mounted, 20mm for regular foot and 30mm for Fast foot.

28mm works fine and avoids eye strain of 15mm. If you want larger armies use DBA Big Battle which triples the size of armies. Or Giant Battle which covers any table your likely to every use.

TomT

Oh I should mention that I now use Perry Miniatuers for most new armies and have no trouble getting figures to fit as per standard DBX.

I do recommend using 3 figures per base for Blades. But still use 4 for Spears as I like the tight shield wall look.

TomT

And here I thought I was the only one that was faced with this dilemma! I have been painting Roman infantry for the late Republic but the whole project kind of slowed down because I don't have a set of rules that I really like yet.

The scale of games that I would like to play would consist of games consisting of a few cohorts in which centuries could be detached if necessary. I was thinking of mounting the Roman type infantry 4 figs on a 20 X 20 mm base. 6 of these to a cohort.

Final frontage = Combat Value. When your melee system is individual basing, you don't have any of these problems. Each base has its own Combat Value. You roll for results on a base vs base method.

Since virtually all basing is in multiples of 5mm, it becomes equally facile to use figures based for other systems by multiplying the CV for a single base by the element base frontage. Thus, in our game, Heavy Infantry on a 20mm base has 9 CV. A 60mm base with three or more figures on it, as per some other rules set, can easily play in our game by having a CV of three times the 20mm CV. So Heavy Infantry on a 60mm base = 27CV.

Everything goes on 25mm. Everything. Some multi-based 50mm squares, horses get 25mm by 50mm or two on a 50mm square.

I'd like to use 20mm for some things, but I can't handle two slightly different basic infantry sizes, and I don't like the way cavalry are on a different standard. Messes up my neat patterns in a way that hurts to look at (almost as much as my painting).

Large bases look cool but they're not for me, at least until I change my mind in six months' time. 50mm squares for some figures are a nice middle-ground?

Basing is great fun- I spend so much time thinking about basing! Sometimes I fall asleep planning new basing strategies….

@BigRed

I feel your pain! :-)

For the last several years I've been enjoying the peace and quiet of WWII, modern, and scifi gaming. Basing? What's that?

Everyone either puts a few guys together on a base or bases individually. In either case most bases are close enough in size to work with any game. The only challenges one might face is if you're playing 1:1 skirmish games with multiple figures on a base. For the most part basing is not a big deal.

Then I started getting an urge to return to my days of pre-20th century gaming and the nightmares returned! :-)

How many figures per unit? How many bases per unit? What should unit frontage be? How many ranks? AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

:-D

I decided to aim for re-entry with late medieval and early renaissance since that's my favorite period besides modern/scifi. You get a huge variety of unit types and lots of different armor. And until you get deeper into renaissance armies you avoid the complexities of pike and shot units.

I suppose that's why DBX is a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because it hasn't kept pace with figure size over time. It's a blessing because it IS standard that many gamers use.

And now we have the GW/Warhammer standard of 20mm per foot, 25mm per horse, and 40 or 50mm per large creature. Which can be made compatible with DBX by using 60mm wide bases and putting 1 to 3 figures on that frontage (eg 1 gun/crew, 1 chariot, 1 elephant/monster, 2 horse, 3 foot, etc.).

I still think 80mm would be better but I also understand the desire by the DBX developers of not wanting to divide their community or force rebasing.

I'm proceeding full speed ahead with 60mm wide and 40mm to 60mm deep with cav in 1 rank and infantry in 2 ranks. The solid feel is really nice, the stands don't fall over on bumpy terrain, it's close enough for DBX when I play with friends, and the 2-rank infantry look nice. Truly making lemonade out of a lemon! :-)

DBA 3.0 has all measurements using base widths, so you could use any width you want, just adjust the size of the battlefield accordingly

I am experimenting with 4" wide movement trays as the base, so that figures based for skirmish (or Warhammer for instance) can be used. The battlefield now becomes 5'x5'

With 60mm bases, I use the N-1 approach but bug out for light horse and Psiloi and no invisible elephants or artillery. In reality, it does not matter what is on the base, as long as both players can easily identify what kind of troops they are – so Psiloi and LH are still 2 to a base, but clearly skirmishing. There are lots of cases where you can jam more figures together, but it doesn't look right to me. Incidentally, I don't think those warhammer movement trays look right :) Figures that closely spaced would be creating shield walls or phalanxes or something, not look like they will all do their own thing. Or if they were warbands, wouldn't line up so neatly

Larger bases can look fantastic
This is my all time favorite (120mm base)

From link
Honestly I cannot stop admiring this
I might do something similar for a 60mm General base, but one mounted General with two banner men on foot ….

The are two disadvantages to the bigger bases that I see
- how deep does the table now have to be ? DBA with 120mm bases implies a 6' deep table
- big bases don't mix well with uneven terrain, bridges, roads etc.

It may seem strange that the DBA rules mix base sizes in metric with table sizes in feet. Strangely enough, growing up in England, that is how we did things. Rough measurements used old (Imperial) measurements, and anything precise started with metric.

I see so many rules sets being suggested and used, that you have to be flexible with base sizes, or prepared to adjust the rules accordingly

John

That is an absolutely superb base, wow.