A quick question on Impetus basing

[Hobgoblin]

Am I right in thinking that a mix of 120mm and 125mm frontages will make no discernible difference to a game of Impetus?

I'm gearing up to play some Basic Impetus in the coming weeks, using fantasy miniatures but (mainly) ancient/early-medieval army lists. Now, for most of the figures we use for Kings of War and HOTT/DBA, I've adopted a 60/40 basing scheme - so one 60 x 40 unit with a 40 x 40 to complete a 100mm frontage. Most of our KoW/HOTT stuff is 1/72, so the 60/40 split gives me HOTT units usable in 28mm and 15mm. For Impetus, it's ideal - two 60s form a unit as do three 40s.

But the headache comes with the Warhammer-legacy 125mm frontages, for cavalry and orc, lizardmen and beastmen. There's no easy way to make them as adaptable, so I'm just basing them in big blocks.

Reading the Impetus rules, though, I can't see that a 5mm difference will matter at all - especially as units never match up square. The only conceivable problem that could arise, as I see it, is if one unit contacted another on less than 5mm - which would leave a notionally contactable amount of base on the other side of a regular 120mm - thus potentially allowing three units to make frontal contact with one. But that's easily resolved with a "don't be silly!" approach, I would think.

Is this right, or am I missing something?

(Asking here rather than the Fantasy forum because I reckon this is where most Impetus is played!)

[bluewillow]

As long as both armies are based the same and playing with friends, no problems. Tournament play may be different

Cheers
Matt

[Hobgoblin]

As long as both armies are based the same and playing with friends, no problems. Tournament play may be different

Cheers
Matt

Thanks, Matt!

Both sides will have a mix of 120 and 125mm: basically, cavalry on 125s, along with the odd unit of slightly outsized infantry. No plans for tournament play - though I wonder if anyone would even notice a 5mm difference!

The "cannot align corner to corner" rule seems - from what I can see - to stop small differences mattering. I seem to remember that Sword and Spear does the same thing - though in its case, explicitly to allow variation in base sizes.

[Lancer]

Could get a bit tricky when units move together, 5mm doesnt really matter but when it a block of lets say 4, thats now a 20mm difference, as bluewillow says if its against friends then can be worked out, but you might want to think about a rebase, as annoying as that is.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks, Lancer - that's a good point.

But what are the practical implications of that 20mm difference (aesthetics aside)? As I understand it, the four-strong group could always be contacted frontally by up to five opposing elements. But the extra 20mm doesn't allow a sixth element to make frontal contact.

I just tried laying it out on the breakfast table (four 125s vs five 120s), and the difference in the base sizes is actually quite hard to spot because of the mandatory offset.

The other way round, I think you'd just have to ensure that the 125s had more than a 20mm offset at one end (to let the fifth 125 element in).

Rebasing would be a step too far, I think, but if it did matter much, I'd at least have an incentive to paint up the many HOTT/DBA cavalry elements that I have based and awaiting painting!

[SteveBurt]

Won’t the differences in widths stop overlaps working properly?
Could you add 5mm to your infantry bases with sabots so everyone is based the same?

[Hobgoblin]

Won’t the differences in widths stop overlaps working properly?

Yeah, it feels like it should do - but (from a position of complete inexperience with the game!) it seems that it might not. I don't think it would change the number of units that can contact a unit or group unless you had a 24-strong line or something.

It's the automatic offset in contact (so no corner-to-corner lining up) that avoids the problem, I think. As I said above, Sword and Spear (from memory) has the offset specifically to allow a bit of variation in base size; it seems it might just be a side-effect here but one that has the same effect. But geometry and maths were never my strong points, so I could be wrong. Playing around with bases, though, I don't get the impression that small differences matter. It's clearly a very different situation from DBA, for example, where small differences in base size would RUIN EVERYTHING!

Could you add 5mm to your infantry bases with sabots so everyone is based the same?

That's certainly a good solution - cheers! Or it might be that I just have to use doubled HOTT cavalry elements for Impetus rather than KoW ones. The Warhammer legacy basing is always a mild annoyance - it ruined my cunning plan of having 1/72 orcs function as goblins in 28mm KoW and orcs in the 1/72 version! (First-world problems in extremis ...)

One thing in Impetus that might make slightly irregular basing less of a problem, though, is that the bigger bases would probably be spread out among both sides - so group-on-group contacts might very well have the same frontage. I suppose that if you have one unit with an extra 5mm among four or five in a group, you're really in the realm of naturally occurring variations in base sizes that are ostensibly the same.

I know the ultimate answer is "try it out and see if it makes a difference," and I'll certainly be doing that in the near future. I do like to get maximum utility from miniatures, though (hence my 60/40 scheme), so I am interested if there's something bigger I'm missing here.

[Axebreaker]

It shouldn't be a problem if both players are being flexible and want to have a game, otherwise you can simply cut out paper to size and place underneath units for a quick fix.

Christopher

[Hobgoblin]

Yup - that would work, and I've got plenty of spare 125mm MDF bases lying around.

I'll try the first couple of games just using a mix of 120s and 125s (and report back). I won't mention the discrepancy to the other players and will see if it crops up or is noticed.

The one downside of setting 125 as the standard, of course, would be movement in 62.5cm increments!

[Pattus Magnus]

The movement distance bit is easy to fix - just make a few movement sticks marked in 62.5 mm increments. Or do like the Song of X games and have a set of sticks that are cut to the correct length. (I expect you’re way ahead of me regarding pros and cons of potential measurement solutions…)

[Hobgoblin]

Ha - no! I'm well behind! But that's a great idea - even if I go with 6cm, as I probably will, at least to start with. A longer stick with the 6cm increments coloured in on it is probably the best thing, given that there's no Song of Blades-style leapfrogging, so I'll make some of those before our inaugural game.