"Dumb Question - DBM, DBX, DBA.. basing?" Topic

Heyas,

I've got a bunch of 15mm ancients that I have been *slowly* working on. (Mostly roman, want to put together a greek force of some type - taking suggestions.. ;) Want to go with the Xystron 15mm greeks, I think)

Anyways, I've thusfar been mounting them as 3 or 4 to a warmaster base. The guys I play with generally use Hack rules and aren't horribly particular about basing - so I've just been doing that becuase I like having a plastic base over card or cutting metal and because I have a *TON* of them lying about (found a great sale on bases) The are 40x20 I believe.

What are the different DBx basings - and if I want to use my dudes in other games or with other rules, how am I best served basing them?

I don't have the DBM rules so I'm not entirely sure on what is up with them. I recognize there is a 15, 20, 30 and 40 mm deep base.

Can someone fill me on what I should or shouldn't be doing, or should it be business as usual in this case (with infantry mounted on the long side and cav on the short side) .

And on an unrelated note, can I get shield transfers for 15mm Old Glory romans (I think they are old glory) I am SOOOOO tired of handpainting shields.

Here is an example of what I have to give an idea (I used the pic as a size comparison for someone unfamiliar with the scales)
http://www.network-23.net/gallery/Historical/RomanCompare

DBM uses 40x15mm bases for certain regular close-order troops, like Roman legionaires, Greek hoplites, Macedonian phalangites, and so on. 40x20mm is used for more open order troops -- auxilia, archers, peltasts, and the like. 40x30mm, if I recall correctly, are for warbands, certain fast troops, and cavalry. And I'm afraid I can't recall anything on 40x40mm bases except elephants and artillery.

I use Veni,Vidi,Vici transfers for my Roman shields and have been quite happy with the results. The decal is in two halves so that it can wrap around the shield boss. They go on smoothly; at least, I've never had to trash an attempt like I have with some of the 25mm decals.

Hrm.. so using a 40x20 stand for everything probably won't work then....

I don't think I would take these to tournies - how "uptight" are people about base sizes generally? Or is DBx generally meant to be a standard for tourni rules?

Basically, I want to get maximum milage out of my troops without having to worry about rebasing them depending on what ruleset I might be using (or not have to worry about duplicating armies)

You actually are ok for basing infantry that way IF you opponents don't mind. Personally I don't. Although you are gaining a slight advantage that way, because since your bases are all 20mm deep, they will all recoil the same difference, whereas properly based 15mm deep troops, when grouped with 20mm deep, would end up no longer in a neat even line if all recoiled.

The big problem is of course cavalry and big stuff like artillery and elephants. Thos really should be on 30mm and 40mm deep bases respectively. There is a big difference between 20mm deep bases and 30mm, namely that if the end of your line is flanked, a 20mm base when it turns to face its enemy on the flank will have room to recoil one time without running into the friendly unit next to it in line. 30mm or 40mm deep bases of course don't have enough room and so will be killed on the first recoil in such case.

If you want to get detailed answers, post exactly what kind of figures and from what time period they are, and I can check for you.

I can make bases longer by adding card to give them the proper depth, I think, or cut 40x40mm bases for larger things (like elephants and what not - since they would need to be based larger)

Sadly, I don't think there is an easy way to go shorter. *ponder*

Thanks Ivan :)

some Kn elements (DBA) are 40x60. 6Kn?

20mm deep close order troops (spear, blade, pike, warband (O, S) would give ground more quickly than their WRG suggested 15mm deep equivlants. They would also create larger flanks when deployed in depth. Both of these are potential tactital disadvantages for a player using such basing. As mentioned above, the fact that such troops would be better able to maintain a unified recoiled frontage with support troops (Psiloi, auxillia, bow) would be a potential tactical advantage.

I'd just make sure that you opponent is aware of these factors, and willing to accept them. Shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"Can someone fill me on what I should or shouldn't be doing, or should it be business as usual in this case (with infantry mounted on the long side and cav on the short side)"

This presents much more of a difficulty that slight depth alteration. DBM assumes uniform stand widths (frontage per element). Using the Warmaster narrow basing scheme for mounted troops, where such troops have half the frontage per stand than infantry, will not work. I've also played a lot of Classical Hack, and am fairly sure that if you group is doing such, that they are probably making cav much more powerful compared to heavy infantry, than they should in the classical period. O.K. by me, though, as long as you all agree and enjoy it.

If you guys are using "narrow (frontage) basing" for cav, it will be harder to make the same stands compatable with the way that most people play DBX. It certainly could be done, if you can come up with adaptation rules. The easiest would be to pair up 2 20x40's together to make a single 40x40 cav element. The frontage then becomes correct, and the added depth a slight tactical penalty for your side. The # of figures per base would be off, but that is less critical for DBX, since fighting value is based exclusively on troop type, rather than # of figures per frontage.

that's correct. I don't think there are any 6Kn in classical armies though, the are pretty much confined to a few High Medievals, so aren't something SaintRigger needs to worry about.

As for reducing, I think cutting those Warmaster bases shorter would really just be a pain.

A simplified basing method I would advise is using the 40X20's for all infantry, 40x30's for cavalry, and 40x40 for artillery and elephants.

Skirmishers (rated as Psiloi) are 2 per base.
Light/medium infantry, such as roman Auxiliaries and greek/thracian peltasts are rated as 'Auxiliai', and are either 3 per base or 4, depending on whether the are irregular (3 per) or regular (4 per) if playing DBA it makes no difference, so you might as well just base them 3 per in order to help fully distinguish them from the Blade and Spear elements

Hey John, stealing my ideas again!? First cowboys, now Xyston Greeks!!

Kidding! The Xyston stuff is gorgeous, and I've been doing a small army myself.

As far as the basing goes, I asked the same questiona few weeks back on miniRealms, and realised that none of the dBx games sound like any fun in the least way, so I went w/ my own scheme.

I'm currently trying out a system where I base all my 15mm miniatures individually on steel washers and then make bases out of magnetic sheet. It seems to work best if the magnetic sheet is mounted on something a little more rigid and with enough depth to pick up easily. This allows me to "rebase" stands to whatever depth/witdth needed for specific rulesets.

Stay away from the magnetic sheeting available for inkjet printers, it is to thin and the washers don't "stick" very well.

I'm also thinking of adding magnetic sheeting as a "deck" to scratch-built pirate ships so the washer mounted pirates don't fall over and shift when I accidentally bump the ship.

If you go to Phil Barkers website, he has down-loadable DBMM rules, which use the same base sizes as DBA,DBM, etc. They will tell you what base size, how many figs, etc.

I base all my dbm stuff on 2mm mdf bases from ERM, glue some magnetic sheet onto the base, and transport the whole army in a metal toolbox.

If you pick up the dbm army books, they will list what you can field for what army, so it might save you paainting figs you cant use.

Kreoseus

6x Cv is faily common, Byzantines come to mind, they also field 6x Spears/pikes

"some Kn elements (DBA) are 40x60. 6Kn?"

Yes, these are 'double based' elements, representing Knights in deep wedge formation.

They are usually based 1/2/3 figs and look really good. In DBM, these have their advantages and disadvantaged (dis = they are harder to manoevre and 'both' elements die at once, advantage = a + 1 in combat, making them very dangerous).

In DBA, they hust count as the generic "knight", but are still less manoevreable due to larger base.