How many 6mm on one 80x40mm base

[Daniele V]

I am thinking to return back to Ancient wargaming in 6mm, after many years, but I sold all my armies so I am starting again.

This time I am designing my own rules (that is part of the fun for me) where one unit is represented by a 80×40 mm base (each army is made by 6 bases on a 60x60cm board)

How many 6mm figures would you use for each base of:

• Heavy Infantry
• Warbands
• Archers
• Light Infantry
• Cavalry
• Heavy Cavalry
• Light Cavalry
• Light Chariots
• Heavy Chariots
• Elephants / Scythed Chariots

Thank you for your advice!

 

 

 

[Mike]

One thing that would determine this for me is what you get in a pack from the company you will be using.
I would work it so there is no wastage in packs.

[willb]

Per DBX basing.   Two elephants/scythed chariots/other chariots,  16 light cavalry, 24 other cavalry (maybe 32 cataphracts),  ranks of 8 light infantry, 16 close order infantry, 12 loose order infantry with as many ranks as desired per base.  Light infantry and light cavalry randomly spaced if possible.  I have Rapier Miniatures phalangites in five ranks of 16 on an 80mm wide by 40mm deep base.

[JozisTinMan]

I have tried this and using Baccus, did 3 ranks of 16 figures (4 strips x 3 strips) for 48 figures.  It seemed weak, I recommend at least 4 ranks for close order infantry.  I would up rebasing to 20mm squares, but I am tempted to rebase, yet again, back to 80mm bases.

Cavalry I did 18 figures is two offset ranks nd it looked pretty good.  Sorry, no pictures to share

http://jozistinman.blogspot.com/

[Mike Headden]

I based my Sumerians on 60mm squares.

Close Formed infantry are 8 wide by 6 deep – should be 10 x 6 historically but Rapier packs are 48 figures. My excuse is the 3D effect – disease, desertion and detachments!

Tribals are 32 to a base, skirmishers 16, chariots 6 and generals are 24 infantry and the man himself..

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Andrew Beasley]

Depends if the strips of figures you buy cut easily or not.

Some of the 6mm figures I’ve had where so close together I could not cut the strip apart to fill the base so went with what would fit!

 

[MartinR]

I’d just quadruple the suggested standard 6mm DBA basing for 40×20 bases. In 6mm I find having varying numbers and formations of figures for different troop types helps remind me what they are supposed to be, and the DBA conventions are as good as any.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Julie Earp]

Why does the number of figures matter? You’ve already decided on the sizes of the bases and what each base represents, so the number of figures will be a personal choice. I’d imagine that comes down to how much you want to spend, how many you want to paint. Impetus?

[Guy Farrish]

I often wonder this.

In the days when 1 figure represented 20 soldiers (or 33 or whatever) in rules, it mattered how many figures were in a unit and you would often have a different number of figures to represent different organisations or campaign wastage etc.

Now we are all ‘element’ oriented and bases are simply expensive counters what does it matter how many figures there re on a base?

Completely irrelevant in game terms really.

A purely aesthetic choice.

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

I often wonder this. In the days when 1 figure represented 20 soldiers (or 33 or whatever) in rules, it mattered how many figures were in a unit and you would often have a different number of figures to represent different organisations or campaign wastage etc. Now we are all ‘element’ oriented and bases are simply expensive counters what does it matter how many figures there re on a base? Completely irrelevant in game terms really. A purely aesthetic choice.

 

^That. The idea that 1 figure notionally equals X real bodies seems to have gone out of the window. I wish it had been defenestrated earlier, I’d have saved thousands…

Although in smaller ‘scales’ the number of figures does help identify what they are – especially 2mm, ask me how I know 😉

Baccus foot generally come on a strip with 20mm frontage and 5mm deep, so I work from that. Theoretically you can cram 32 strips on a 40x80mm base, which would give you a 128 man Roman legion. Might get a bit spendy though 😀

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

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