Thursday, 23 November 2017

The Worst Job in the (Wargaming) World

OK, this could be many things, but my vote is rebasing. Why?
# You're revisiting a project that you once thought was finished rather than making inroads into the lead mountain.
# You risk damaging the paint job on the minis.
# And it's tedious.

I've recently been looking at my old collection of 15mm figures as part of my Five Year rule.
A long time ago I played Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 15mm and built up quite a collection of several different armies.  I also collected some historical armies for Warhammer Ancient Battles.  Eventually I moved back to 28mm and gradually sold off the armies, keeping a few of the bits I was most pleased with (including my Empire army) and the usual gamer's box of part- and un-painted lead.

When Mantic released their Uncharted Empires book I saw the opportunity to re use my Empire as League of Rhodia, if only I could work out what base size to use.

I wanted something that was easy to calculate, didn't need much in the way of new measuring, and gave bases large enough to fit the recommended number of minis on.  The small scale Kings of War Facebook group has recommended sizes (half the 28mm dimensions), but these seem to be mostly used for 10mm or 6mm (with lots of extra minis).  The few 15mm I have seen at their size look cramped, and/or short of minis.  So I would have to come up with my own.  As long as my friends had the same size, it should be fine.

Much experimentation later and a size of 3/5ths the 28mm dimensions seems to look good.  It's easy to calculate and looks good with full figure count units.  It does mean making measuring sticks, but you can't have everything.

A regiment of spearmen, based as two troops.  I think the minis (Essex) look just right ranked up like that.

A troop of handgunners.  As they stick out more because of their guns, they do need a little bit of offsetting, but I'm OK with that.

Some more of my rebased troops.  I've still to texture the bases, but it shows how a small infantry force looks.

Since these were already painted, I can't really put them in my monthly totals.  I hope I can get my Vanguard goblins ready soon though.

2 comments:

  1. Looking good so far

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    1. Thanks. I've textured the bases and have just to add some flock. Then I suppose I need to decide if I will varnish or not.

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