Several troops per base?

[TripleBackflip]

Hello everyone,

I'm pretty new to all this, I used to play some games of solo 40k, mainly, I've been painting things and lining them up on my shelf.

Now that I'm looking into actually playing some games, there's something I've noticed that I don't quite understand, it's when people have 3 or 4 soldiers on a single base as opposed to a base for everyone, I guess it could be less fiddly to move them around but then you still need markers for casualties. Is it better to have more than one per base or not?

I guess I'm mainly thinking of this because of the freebie for the next wargames illustrated mag seems to be 20 Samurai or ashigaru, which seems an insane amount of troops to be free.

[Sir_Theo]

It will all depend on the particular rules etc and how it deals with casualties. Some games, particularly element based games, where the formation is more important than an individual figure, will use markers or dice or some other mechanism to track casulties, or morale or whatever mechanic affects fighting effectiveness. Mantics fantasy game Kings of War, as an example of a popular game, uses unit footprints and you track 'nerve' on each unit. Basically a unit is an effective fighting force until it isn't, which is a departure from the Warhammer fantasy style of whittling units down individually. Other games have units formed out of a number if stands (usually comprising a number if individual models). For mass battle games particularly
These approaches can be far more appropriate than having hundreds of individually based guys.

I tend to individually base models as this leave a lot more flexibility to use those models with different types and scales of games. Its easy to use a sabot base or movement tray if you want to group models. That said multibasing can lead to some fun modelling opportunities.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Sabot bases are available for a number of systems (including 40K Apocalypse).
These are for Oathmark.

That means I can use the figures individually for Frostgrave

[fred]

Lots of rules don't use the number of figures to directly represent the number of wounds, or other markers of strength of the unit. In these multi-basing makes lots of sense - stands are easy to move around (and easy to get out on the table), also you can make little dioramas, and position figures much better than on single bases, ranked up.

For skirmish style games then individually based figures are the best option.

And as shown above sabot bases and movement trays allow you to switch between the two pretty easily.

Even if you go with mainly multi-based its often worth keeping some single based figures to use for different rules.

[v_lazy_dragon]

What everyone else said for mass battle games ^

For some larger scale skirmish games (50 ro so figures a side), some people use a mix of single and multi bases to speed up movement. Pikeman's Lament is the one that really comes to mind - units are either 6 or 12 figures, and they recommend using a mix of figures based singly (25mm base), in pairs (30mm base) and in trios (40mm base). The idea being that you can just removed a base corresponding to the number of wounds suffered whilst speeding up movement.
I have also see people use multiple figures per base (usually pairs or trios) and treat the entire base as 'one figure' for some rules sets to give the feeling of larger actions. So suddenly your '12 figure unit' gets 24 models on the table whilst still retaining the same game dynamics/speed of play/etc. (as an aside this seems to be especially popular with people using a 28mm rules set for 15mm)

[Cubs]

I have also see people use multiple figures per base (usually pairs or trios) and treat the entire base as 'one figure' for some rules sets to give the feeling of larger actions.

This is what I do with my Napoleonics. I have 1:72 scale models 4 to a base (2x2) so a battalion of 10 or 12 bases actually looks like a decent amount of dudes. 

[SteveBurt]

For games representing big battles, you need enough bases in a unit to represent formation, but you don't take figures off and in some rules you don't take bases off either. If you are moving a few hundred figures a side single basing is a nightmare. So it is all down to the rules.

[Karadek]

In Warhammer Fantasy 4th and 5th, I had ranks 5 to a base with singles in the front and rear for command and removing casualties.  Aside from Epic and Warmaster, that's the only time I've ever done multiples to a base.