6mm Excitement

All Your Base Are Belong To Us... Part 1.

A couple of posts back I started to look at different rule sets available and briefly mentioned the complications that come from basing the minis that we all use to play these games.
Coming from a background of GW games this isn't something I ever worried about and so blindly wandered into painting and basing before I realised this was going to be a thing. this post is about what I've learned so far, mistakes I've made and hopefully a bit of advice for anyone else who's about to make the same mistakes as me. as always any comments that can help me out in this would be great!

Method One: Hail Caesar.

The first thing to mention with Hail Caesar is it is likely to be the system I end up using, the second thing is, huzzah, base sizes don't really matter so long as they're pretty much consistent. Rick Priestley recommends the below sizes although they're not set in stone:

Type of Troops      Standard Size           Large         Small        Tiny

2 deep infantry          16 to 20 models      32 to 40       8 to 12      5 or 6

3 deep infantry          24 to 30 models      48 to 60      12 to 15     5 or 6

4 deep infantry          32 to 40 models       60 to 80     20 to 24     Not Allowed

Cavalry                        12 to 16 models       24 to 32       6 to 8        3 or 4

Light Chariots             4 or 5 models           8 to 10           2               1

Heavy Chariots           2 or 3 models           4 or 5             1               –

Artillery                        2 or 3 models              4                 1               –

Elephants                        1 model                      –                –                –

My Republican Romans are based in pretty much this format as you can see below. Units of 20 bases into three ranks. My opponent is basing to the same standard as this so all is good.

So far in this respect I have the above based and painted and the same again yet to paint with a couple of skirmisher units. Another box of the same troops again and i have a playable force. Success!

Method Two: DBx / Field of Glory.

This couldn't be more different but is also an option I'm looking into. Both systems use the same format for basing. DBA is fairly abstract and uses a 12 bases format per army. Each base has a 60mm set width with different depths per unit type / different amounts of minis per base. The problem arises with there amount of minis you're supposed to fit on a base. As an example, a unit of heavy troops should have 4 models on a 60 x 20mm base. Given the size of modern miniatures this is bordering on impossible so I'm working on 3 per base.

This same principle applies to Field of Glory but without the 12 base limit. The bases are organised into battlegroups, for example 4 - 8 bases of heavy foot forming one unit.

Method Three: Impetus.

This seems to be one of the more popular systems for basing out there but unlikely to be one that I go for now given how I've started. the beauty of this system though seems to be that you can get away with using much less models than others. All units have a certain size which they must follow in the same way as DBx but in this case each is twice as big i.e. 120mm across. Base depth is not critical, nor is the amount of minis per base so you can opt for making little dioramas on each base. I have to be honest, had I known this to start with I would have probably gone with this as an option from the beginning. Ah well!

So that's my potted guide so far to what I've picked up along the way. Complicated right? and this is before we even start to look at how the games actually play...

Noble cavalry charges... Or not.

As I've talked about before my original plan was to go for a GoT Lannister themed army that I could use in 9th age before I quickly got sidetracked down the historical path. 

Not to worry, I thought to myself, the box of mounted knights and men at arms I've found can easily be used for any Medieval English army. 

Yeah, that's not a thing. 

Historical accuracy. This is a big thing for a lot of historic war gamers and something I ran into very quickly. Turns out the picture I had In my head of a majestic charge by mounted Knights across the battlefield a la the Olivier Henry V is not a thing, or at least not a thing so much for the English. This has led to a bit of a re evaluation of my army planning for this period at least. I'd accumulated a bunch of mounted and on foot Normans as well which I intended to use as mounted sergeants or hobilars and general infantry in the same army but quickly realised the shields and armour used very much marked them out as being from a different period. 

New plan. 

It seems that by and large, and with a bit more reading, much the same army as you can see above can be used for both medieval, Agincourt period armies and also war of the roses stuff as well with the cunning use of more specific troop types for the roses period, Bill men and the like based around the same core of men at arms and archers. Success! One army, two periods of gaming with some minor tweaks. 

The Normans, in case you were wondering are going are going to get formed into a crusades army instead, as well as getting used for SAGA, so they're not going to waste. 

If you remember  from a couple of posts back I was trying to work out what periods to play and collect and, in light of the above, trying to keep at least a semblance of historical accuracy...

A decision has been made. I seem to have the start of the armies mentioned above, IE, English medieval / Yorkist war of the roses as there can be a lot of crossover (if I don't glue the banners I can swap and change these in depending on what I need); first crusade English using the Normans I've accumulated; republic Romans, English napoleonic and royalist ECW. I figure this gives me a good spread across most of the common periods played by people and let's me use most of the models I've collected. I'm not the type of person who particularly cares about the right epaulette or hat style for the requisite regiment but I figure this will at least let me play in periods were my armies will at least be recognisable as the forces they're supposed to represent. 

Base Jumping

                                          Some of my Caesarian Romans...

Coming from the world of Warhammer this was a surprise. I'm very much used to one model per base, one man equals one man, gaming. Dead straightforward. Dead easy.

Historical, not so much.

So it seems that every system has its own way of basing although some may have similarities to let you use you your collection across a number of games. But there are so many differences...

The first mistake I made was not doing enough research into his before I started and just piled headlong in. Hence the random sizes and amount of men on the pictures above. what I seem to have picked up so far is so long as there's a consistency across the board then it doesn't really matter all that much unless of course you come up against someone who has specifically based for a certain game. can i play Hail Caesar with my Romans? yep, as the bases I've gone for work fine with that system. can i play Field of Glory? Yes in theory so long as a, my opponent is understanding about what my army looks like or i'm playing someone else using my collection who are based the same. the same applies for Impetus, DBA, whatever really. the only time it will become an issue is tournaments or finding a group who all have armies based in a specific way.

                                My English medieval in movement trays.

I've not found anywhere online yet that can give a good explanation of the most popular way to base up troops; a way that I could quickly arrange my bases to play in any system. I'm beginning to suspect what I need to do is base individually a la Warhammer so I can arrange troops however I want but then this seems to defeat the object of everything I've seen so far.

                                My Roman legionaries in a movement tray with command bases

Things I've learned:

1. There are as many basing systems as there are different games

2. I shouldn't have based up all my troops before I did some reading (but maybe settling on a rules system would also be a good idea).

3. When it comes to painting i need to do the bases first before adding the minis. Learned that one through a very frustrating basing of the legionaries you can see above.

Next time: Medieval English and the frustrating of trying to be historically accurate.

Bending the Rules

Last time I talked a little about what got me here and what this blog is about. This time I'm going to start to talk about rules and the surprises I've had along the way.

I've mainly played GW games up to now, 40K and lately 30K, Warhammer Fantasy and a little Age of Sigmar and I've picked up some warmahordes stuff along the way too. This is before we get into the various card games and board games that I play with the family.

How different can it be I thought as I started to look around for a ruleset that I could use for my great GoT plan. That was my first mistake. After a great deal of digging about I stumbled upon a whole load of PDF versions of what seem to be a lot of the main systems: Field of Glory, Impetus, DBA, Saga, the various Warlord Games books (although I bought a hard copy of Hail Caesar) and some slightly more obscure titles I found along the way. I'm a sucker for a rulebook, especially one with plenty of eye candy and examples for my painting.

...and that was it. My grand plan was out of the window and I knew that historic was the way forward for me.

So now what? Well I still haven't settled on a ruleset as of yet but I'm swinging towards Hail Caesar for my ancients and medieval, Saga, Sharp Practice and Lion Rampant for my smaller war band type games, Pike and Shotte and Black Powder (yep, I've picked up some Napoleonic and ECW as well). I also want to find a copy of The Pikeman's Lament from Osprey and 1644 but I'm struggling with finding copies of those that aren't massively expensive at the moment. This has in itself led to a new quandary around basing and army building but we'll look at that next time.

Things I've learned:

1. So. Many. Rules. Some are really easy to get hold of, a lot are not.

2. I really need to settle on a system (or at least a system per period) and stop flitting around.

First Steps...

Well yep, here's another blog on miniature, and particularly historical miniature, wargaming, and I can already hear, 'why do i need to be reading this when there's many, many other blogs out there not he same subject?'

Well, bear with me here, although I've been involved in tabletop gaming since the early 90's and the original Rogue Trader rulebook it's only recently that I've switched my attentions to the historical side of things... and I'm hooked.

So the point of this blog is to follow this journey with me, maybe learn something and hopefully start a bit of a conversation on the way. i know i'm definitely going to have some questions that come to light on the way and hopefully through here some answers will come to light.

So, where to start. I guess I've stumbled into the hobby through, not necessarily a back door but at least the side entrance. My original plan was to look at how to game Game of Thrones on the tabletop. i had an idea for a grand Lannister army, all red and gold, banners streaming in the wind. My first thought was how to bring that to the table and somewhere in the house i knew I had a box with a mix of random miniatures in I'd never got round to doing anything with. Into the back of the shelves I went...

i managed to find some knights, men at arms, archers and Roman legionaries. A mix of Victrix, Perry and what i think are War-games Factory. Superb I thought and set about gluing ready for painting. I've always had an interest in ancient Rome and thought that could be an interesting side project alongside my other plans... and then I got totally distracted which we'll come onto in the next post.

Things I've learned:

1. Historical wargaming is a MUCH bigger field than I first thought

2. My history knowledge is much worse than I thought!