"Playing ADLG with Big Bases" Topic

I am a happy Impetus player but I am curious about ADLG. I was wondering how ADLG would play with the big Impetus like bases (12cm for 28mm). Could it work?

As an aside, my one complaint about ADLG, based on reading battle reports, is that the games don't look that great. Impetus games look great with the big dioramic bases.

Thanks for you thoughts.

I like the look of the big Impetus bases. If you have enough of them, you could do an ADLG game with them. ADLG usually runs 20-25 bases per side.

I guess you might need a big table 12x8 if you're using double width bases in 28mm.

Yep, you would need a big table for those size bases.

Personally I wouldn't say that a game would look better in 28mm on 120mm bases, just because of the figures or bases you're using, I've seen armies that have been made up of old figures and painted by a blind man with a wallpaper brush, they looked awful to me, but the game we played was interesting and fun!

I game mainly on a small table (space), with small armies in 15mm(price and painting time) with interesting rules (Triumph! at the moment, also have LADG, Sword and spear, Impetus, Armati 2 and loads more) and good looking terrain.

We all have different opinions on this, but if that's what you want to do, go for it!

Cheers Andy

I don't know. I think a single stand that looks like a unit is pretty impressive:

Agree, those figs look great.

Not everyone's figures look so good though eh? :-)

But it's horses for courses!

If you've got the space, money and inclination, then do it!

Cheers Andy

Yes, you can play it with any base width so long as all elements are based the same. 80mm base widths for 6mm figures allows for some neat little formations on bases.

I think a single stand that looks like a unit is pretty impressive:

Yes those figures look nice but they could just as well have been done on four separate bases, and that would allow the flexibility of playing games with smaller bases.
I've tried using larger bases like these and have found it harder to get the basing material around the figures, and the bases don't fit on and around terrain as easily. So I'm sticking with DBX standard widths and using multiple bases to represent a unit in unit based games.

I think the original question is more about whether one larger unit could represent multiple elements in LADG. In which case the answer is, as far as I understand it from the mechanics of the game, no.
Yes of course you can play using one 120mm frontage unit as an LADG element, but this will require a huge table (twice as wide as a "standard" table (for 60mm frontages in 28mm) and presumably also a lot deeper, even if twice as deep isn't possible).

Hi, yes you can play an ADLG game with 120mm bases instead of 60mm and just increase your playing area to fit the increased scale. Then find an opponent who is doing the same thing.

And, what I've done to make my bases look as good as Impetus by using 2 of the ADLG base of 40 x 40 to make one 'unit'. It looks really good with Romans and barbarians. The barbarians I make into a slight v centring on the middle of the 2 bases.

Hey Marshal, 4 DBX bases do not make an Impetus base. The 120 cm frontage gives the player more options at creating a dioramic effect. I think idontbelieveit's picture really gives a good effect to the Impetus base.

In Impetus 15mm and 25mm scale games play very differently even though they are using the same rules because the table size is kept the same. Not knowing ADLG, a part from the reports, I am still wondering whether the size of the table needs to be doubled in order for the games to work.

HarryHotspurEsq

"80mm base widths for 6mm figures allows for some neat little formations on bases." I wish I never read this,tried it on for size and expect to be in re-basing hell for some time.

@Marcus Brutus

Table size is not kept the same in Impetus. Sure they have 180cm x 120cm as a minimum for 300pt 25mm game but it's the recommended size for 500pt 15mm games. Page 5 section 1.2.1

Hey kodiakblair, all competition games commonly played in Impetus (ie. 400 points) are done on 6' by 4' tables (500 point 15mm games also use the 6' by 4' table size.) There has been significant discussion over the years on the Impetus Forum about the differences between 15mm games and 28mm games. It seems 15mm games have considerably more maneuver because the table becomes twice as large as a result of the two different ground scales. I am wondering about that for ADLG.

Never been involved in competition games Marcus so I was unaware of that. Duly noted so I don't make the same mistake.

I am in the process of mounting 10mm Roman and Macedonia figures on 60mm bases, so in essence, playing on a 25mm figure scale base with 10mm figures. This will allom me to have multiple ranks and create sort of a diorama appearance.

I have been wanting to do this for qui9te some time, but i have been waiting for the right rules to use. ADLG are the rules and it will work beautifully.

Lou

Marcus Brutus – ADLG scales up almost exactly from 15mm (40mm wide bases and movement distances) to 25mm (60mm bases and distances) using the recommended table sizes given in the rules, so its essentially exactly the same game, just with bigger toys.

madaxeman – I don't find the 60mm frontage for ADLG basing (28mm) compelling having gotten used to the larger Impetus bases. So that is kind of deal killer with respect to ADLG for me.

That may be tricky then.

ADLG uses 20-odd units per side, including some reserves, on a table which is 30 unit-widths across and 20 unit widths deep. Impetus – from memory – is more of a 10-12 unit game, so your unit/table ratio is going to be skewed straight away.

So, if your red line is that you feel that you really have to play with units that are 120mm across, you would need a table that is 3.6m x 2.4m to use the rules as written to get the same sort of game as other people are playing using the standard 15mm and 25mm basing conventions.

If you don't have the luxury of that much table space guess you could fudge it with an 80mm movement distance or something if you really wanted, but then you'd get slightly odd figure/groundscale scale effects when wheeling and turning units, and also proportionally less room on the flanks.

For a straight up line-em-up-and-go battle those may not be game-breakers, but those types of games can I guess tend to get dull after a while, no matter what the ruleset is …

madaxeman – Basic Impetus has 10-12 unit games on a fairly small DBA size table. My lists for a typical 400 point Impetus game can have anything from 11 units in a Medieval Swiss army (16 stands) to 19 units (21 units) in a NKE army. These games are played on a 6' by 4' table. So it seems to me that Impetus and ADLG games have approximately the same number of stands and units at play.

Looking at that Impetus-based Roman unit, I was pleased to come across these 2 15mm AdG Ayyubid units placed side by side, and I don't see much difference.

A lot of AdG players base their 2 and 3-deep infantry on single bases which looks slightly better then multiples.

And I've seen multiple AdG 'units' placed beside each other in line that look like much bigger units. Clever use of command figures will assist this.

Cheers

Thanks Snowcat – taken a while for the penny to drop but yes they do look better on single bases. I can see I need to invest in more command figures!

Doubt if I will ever play Impetus so having 80mm wide bases for 28mm figures is fine. They are suitable for Hail Caesar – 2 x 80mm bases is a standard unit's frontage.

An idea with command figures…

If you have 2 bases of the same type (like the image above) and you want to be able to visualise that as one bigger unit, put the command figures – especially standard bearers – nearer the inside ends of the bases so that when put beside each other your command figures of both bases are close together and appear to be in the middle of a larger combined unit.

If you have 3 bases of the same type, put most of the command figures in the centre base, and it will look like one larger combined unit. And so on.

People have been doing this for years before Impetus basing came along, and it just needs a little tweaking to recapture some/most of what the Impetus basing offers.

One thing I'm looking at doing with AdG bases in 15mm is deepening most bases to 40mm. It's a neater look overall, and cavalry will appear more dynamic (the impression of 2 ranks via 1.5 ranks created). 2 ranks of close order foot can be given a little more room in depth on a 40mm base, but still be placed closer together than loose order foot (perhaps with a bit of extra space left in front of the first rank on the base). Light infantry would remain single-ranked on a 20mm deep base.

Cheers

Good idea Snowcat, am about to start on some Victrix Samnites (28mm) and will try that out.

Here's an example of what I mean. This player has these originally for Hail Caesar, but is also using them for AdG.

I'd probably add an extra command figure with the musician, maybe another standard of a different type.

If I played AdG in 28mm, I'd use something similar to Hail Caesar basing, eg 80mm wide x 50-60mm deep for most things.

Cheers

Thanks again Snowcat

Those Romans came up very well – great work on both the painting and bases – I was thinking along similar lines.

My preference is for command figures in the centre of the 8 man base. Like you I would prefer 2 command figures on each small base. Personal preference is for an unbroken front rank of shields so am experimenting with standards and musicians in the 2nd rank. Officer(s) should be up front!

Victrix sprues give you plenty of command figures so could run to Officer, Standard and Musician on each 8 figure base.
May be over the top?

Cheers

Garry

Those Romans aren't mine. :)

If you put your command figures in the middle of the 8 man base, each base will look like an independent unit. I was aiming for 2 bases looking like 1 unit. Or 3 bases looking like 1 unit.

Cheers

If you do put your command figures in the middle of each base, try to avoid leaving bigger gaps between the end figures of each base.

These bases (above) will always look like individual units.

Whereas, if the spacing between figures is consistent across all bases – including the gaps between the base edge figures – it'll look more like one homogenous unit.

See? Better. Like those Ayyubids I posted originally.

Cheers

I realised the Romans were not yours but I did think they were very well done.

Most of my formed units are in 3 ranks of 8 (pikes and warbands in 4) – for Hail Caesar. 3 ranks is preference not compulsory, though I am leaving some earlier units in 2 ranks.

The Burgundians and Ayyunbids are well done and I like the way the command standards are spread out. Agree the need to narrow any gap between figures on the edge. So, overall I think the Samnites, in 3 groups of 8 will work well.

Cheers

Garry

Sounds like a plan! :)

Cheers