"28 mm basing for DBA?" Topic

I'm painting up a Warring States Army using DBA rules and was wondering what the basing convention is since the DBA rules for basing 25 mm figurines is insufficient for 28 mm. miniatures.

I'm not a tournament player but was wondering what the convention is for basing 28 mm. figures.

I've seen chatboard forums in which people associated with DBA have acknowledged that there's a basing problem. They also indicated their reluctance to come up with new basing sizes for 28 mm because this would upset gamers with 25 mm. armies who would then feel compelled to rebase their armies.

If you're a DBA player with 28 mm figures, how have you based your troops?

For the most part, people use the standard by-the-book basing and just gripe about it. DBA 3.0 loosens the depth requirement and many want to, or are, abandoning the 60mmx20mm bases for heavy infantry in favor of just the 60mmx30mm bases for most infantry. The two big gripes are that you can't put 4 infantry on a 60x20 base, or 3 heavy cavalry on a 60x40 base. I now use 60x50 for mounted figures.

I've got scads of 28mm DBA armies. I've never had an issue basing.

Normans
Scots
Welsh
Feudal French
Vikings
Anglo-Saxons
HYW English
HYW French
Multiple WOR Armies
French Ordnance
Burgundian
Swiss
German Medieval
Italian Condotta

The issue I have seen is with some folks that use GW figs for Medievals and folks with lots of Cataphracts. War Wagons may also be on issue. The new deeper basing in DBA 3 may solve this.

Joe Collins

One solution is to use N-1 figures on the base, so LH or Ps would only have a single figure. This keeps the base width consistent so that you have more opponents

What figures are you using ?

John

Just put fewer figures on the base and increase the depth if required. Neither is crucial in DBA. But the 60mm base width is, so don't change that.

Put 3 foot figures on the base instead of 4. It really doesn't matter as long as the players know what the stand represents.

In the DBR rules, Phil had the figures based on 60mm frontage (25-28mm) as N-1 as noted by jwebster. This worked out quite well. I have many armies so based.

My DBA armies are all from the DBA2 era so mostly 25mm with no problem using the DBA 3 conventions.

Thank you all for your replies. I like the60mmx30mm bases for most infantry and the 60 x 50 for mounted.

While I appreciate the idea of using less figures, my background is that of an old Napoleonic 15 mm. gamer in which we'd field hundreds of miniatures in closely packed shoulder to shoulder formation. It was an awesome sight, especially during campaign games where several French players would take on the allied forces of Austria, Prussia, and the thrice hated Russians.

I wasn't big on DBA when it first came out primarily because you didn't need a lot of figures to play. The idea of dropping figures to conform with DBA 25 mm. bases doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather go big and since I eventually plan on painting up a Qin army to oppose my Chu forces, at least my basing will be internally compatible.

This would probably matter more to me if I was still into tournament gaming but these days I find that I just like painting figures and designing/creating buildings.

I'm currently working on a Diaojialou style building. This ancient (but still used) architectural style features a home built on stilts. Many of the mountainous tribes in northern China during the Warring States period use (and continue to use) this architectural style because you could use this technique to build a house up a steep slope or across a mountain stream.

In the days before in-door plumbing, can you imagine dropping a bucket into the stream below to get water?

If it is of any use to you, DBMM did adjust for 28mm figures as follows (so I'm surprised DBA3 didn't follow suit):
LH 2 (Same)
Kn, Cv, Cm 3 (Same)
Ax, Bw, Sh 3-4 (Same)
Sp, Pk, Bd, Wb 3-4 (instead of 4)
Hd, Herds or flocks 4-6 (instead of 5-8)
El, Ch 1 (Same)
Art 1 (Same except 25mm & 15mm allowed 1-2(O) or (I) but I've never seen that done)
WWg, Gal, Shp, Bts 1

With a few exceptions I haven't noted since DBA doesn't differentiate (S), (O), (I), (F), (X)

I think some players do the straight N-1 method too. Ensuring your opponent knows should solve any issues.

PS. Can you point me to any online sources for Chinese dwellings in the warring states period or earlier. I have a Spring and Autumn Annals army on my wish list.
Cheers,
John

DBMM? I'll check into that. Thanks!

Regarding Chinese dwellings, I'm not aware of anyone who does this. I've found some plastic sets for Japanese farm houses which might be suitable but since there seems to be a dearth of appropriate buildings, I've been making my own.

3D Alien Worlds makes plastic Japanese farm houses with accessories like wells, rice storage, and fences.

I bought mine through eBay.

They also sell gate towers and stone walls which could pass for Chinese. They pretty much look just like the ones I've seen in "Warring States," a Chinese movie with English subtitles that I streamed through Amazon.

Whoops … I just scrolled down to check out their pricing. Apparently these are all 3 D printed products which I should have guessed from the company's name: 3DAlienWorlds.com

28mm DBR always made available the N-1 basing, and many followed it (not everyone, but quite a few did), and to my group it just didn't look right—especially the single horseman on a LH base. Increasing the depth, and/or dropping the 4-per-base heavy infantry count, should be enough. Some systems use "close order" as opposed to "heavy infantry" and the only foot troop types based 4 per stand would be pikemen and maybe spearmen, and the poses for these figures often allow 4 figures to fit on a 60mmx20mm base.

If you are not going to play in tournaments, then you might want to consider 80mm basing (or basically 2x the 15mm basing.) We've gone in that direction and play on a 6x4 table.

We are also strating to do some gaming wiht 4x15mm stands on a 80mm base. This is closer to the original intent of 15mm figures so looks cool and you still only have 12 stands per side or 36 for a big battle. (If you have 36 stands to do a big battle, just 12 more stands gets you to the number you need.)

Bill