Still Undecided?
The figures looked good on the 20mm bases. Light cavalry, close-formed and open- order infantry may even have looked better on 20mm than 25mm bases. But 20mm bases didn’t tick all the boxes. Guns would have to be mounted on rectangular bases – not at all what I had in mind. And three heavy cavalry couldn’t fit on a 20mm base. Of course, I could have mixed up base sizes. But then I would have had to have gone back to the drawing board with figure and ground scales.The Deciding
Factor
Is there a wargamer who doesn’t want everything? How to choose between two basing schemes that both have merit? If I needed a deciding factor then I think I found it in the first rule of wargaming: safety first –
remember how long it took to paint the little blighters. For wargames-table real estate,
small is king – your stretch over the wargames table covers more virtual kilometres.
On the other hand, as far as handling bases goes, big is beautiful. Perhaps the deciding
factor should be the safeguarding of the painted playing pieces.
At this scale, muskets and
bayonets are a tad
delicate and the muskets
of firing figures
worryingly overhang
20mm bases like willing
participants in a bend my
musket competition.
25mm bases, on the other
hand, give the figures
enough space to be set
back from the front of
their base, limiting
possible threats.
So that was decided. I
would go with 25mm
bases. Absolutely.
Definitely. Well, for the
time being.
Pendraken French line infantry nice and tight, trying out and
worryingly overhanging a 20mm-square base.
The same line infantry playing loose, trying out and safely within a
25mm-square base.
POST 37
37
