"Warmaster/HoTT basing" Topic

Hey all,

I think I have this figured right, but just want to check.

People round this way do both HoTT and Warmaster. I've been offered a bunch of 10mm fantasy that someone never go round to painting. As I understand it the basing for these is exactly the same? Am I right?

Also, the 'house rules' in effect here include that the Warmaster games use the different basing for standard and shock cavalry out of the Ancient rules, as well as limiting combat to two rounds and all units to three orders. Seems to me to be a reasonable way to go. Do you guys do this? Anyone port anything else over from Ancients?

Thanks,

Dan

The base widths are the same but not the depths as you have variable basing depth in HOTT just like you do with DBA. Behemoths are 40mm depth, I believe, as an example.

Warmaster bases are all 40 X 20mm.

I have heard the alternative for basing shock works but when I have calculated the odds, the alternative method is not as good as the normal basing method in Warmaster. I certainly saves rebasing figures but it could just as easily be done with sabot bases of some type…

The 3 orders makes sense to some extent. Having said this, if someone can roll well enough to get more than 3 orders, this is amazing luck ;-)

Do base depths matter much in Warmaster? From a quick glance I can't see that they do, and i like the idea of mounting some bigger things on bigger bases.

They matter during flank attacks, but one can fudge around that.

We play the fantasy armies using the Ancients rules, taking mainly the Magic from the Fantasy rules. We still us the Fantasy definition of the Empire's skirmishers (instead of the Ancients rules) & keep Fantasy warmaster basing since we all started playing before the Ancient rules came out.

& then just to confuse things, since Battle of 5 Armies came out after Fantasy, we try to use that to clarify any confusion about Fantasy rules (like monsters, etc).

I don't know about Warmaster Ancients, but original, fantasy Warmaster does not use the same basing as HOTT. In HOTT, all bases are 40mm wide, but vary in depth. In Warmaster, infantry and some monsters are based 40mm wide and 20mm deep (just like HOTT) but cavalry, war machines, fliers, and some monsters are on 20mm wide, 40mm deep bases. This distinction is extremely important to how Warmaster works--the only reason cavalry are stronger than infantry is that their narrow bases allow them to get twice as many stands into contact. When I use Warmaster cavalry in HOTT, I put two stands together to form a single 40mm x 40mm element. (most HOTT cav is actually 40mm x 30mm, but close enough!)

I played Warmaster for years using the DBx basing scheme. Absolutely no problems with it. We allowed mounted to fight 2 stands deep to compensate for the frontage.

I strongly advise against basing shock in the way they do in WMA as this makes them useless for most other systems – base them normally and use the suggested rules in the back of the book.

Pat