15mm... How do you base?

[Mr. White]

As a fan of 1/72, which I use on single bases for Xenos Rampant and Zona Alfa, I'm thinking I might add a new style of game to my quiver with 15mm Dark Age fantasy using the fantastic Wiglaf and Barbarica figs by Mark Copplestone. I've done 10mm (I think) Warmaster decades ago so am use to multi-basing there, but 15mm seems to be an odd spot between 10mm and 1/72 and could go either way... single or multi-basing.

So, 15mm players...how are you doing it? Gimme your tips!

[Fitz]

I do both: base singly, then use sabot bases for mass movement.
These are actually 10mm Warmaster ogres, but I use them as a 15mm Brute Squad.

[Mr. White]

Oh…. Nice!

What size rounds are the minis on? Where’d you get that sabot base, and do they come with slots for 6 or 12?

[Fitz]

From memory, I think the bases were 16mm steel washers. For human-sized figures I use 12.5mm (1/2") washers. I designed and printed the sabot base myself on my Ender3 FDM printer.

[Pattus Magnus]

That sabot base does look good!

I tried single based 15mm a few years ago and used pennies/ 20mm washers. They looked good, but I never ended up using them (due to lack of players for the intended game).

Recently I have been rebasing them on to rectangles with 40mm frontages (there are pics in my fantasy thread). Still haven’t gotten any games in with them, but now they’re compatible with my DBx collections so the odds improved a bit.

Overall, I like the multi based figures better for 15mm. I have enough 28mm figures for most games using single based figures, though. If starting from scratch and looking for one collection to do it all, single based 15mm (and sabots) would do the job.

[Hobgoblin]

I'm working on a whole load of 15mm fantasy stuff at the moment and am basing everything on 40mm squares (barring a few command figures on rounds or smaller squares for games like To the Strongest and Fantastic Battles).

My rationale? Well, when I used to use 15mm for RPGs and the occasional skirmish game, I based everything on pennies. That's about as small as I'd want to go for individual figures (anything smaller gets quite fiddly), but it's too big for the figures to work with sabots as close-order infantry (or anything other than skirmishers, really). With sci-fi, I do base individually and use sabots, but the spacing out of the figures looks much more natural in a high-tech era.

I should say that Fitz's brutes look great based on sabots - but they're meant to be an unruly-looking mob, and I'm not sure the same spacing would work for legionaries, hoplites or shieldwall troops. (Edit: I see Fitz deals with that through smaller washers.)

But I already have lots of 25mm (and some compatible 1/72) stuff based on pennies for RPGs. So, if I based the fantasy 15s individually, I'd be left with another set of figures with the same 'footprint' - making them redundant.

And if I'm going with element bases, I want them as versatile as possible (15s take a lot of time to paint, I find!). A lot of 15mm game systems use 40mm frontages. And the most popular (HOTT/DBA) allow for greater depth than the recommended sizes. You can legally field any HOTT army on 40mm squares.

Now, we mainly play HOTT in 1/72, using the 25mm+ 60mm frontages. But I can double (or quadruple) up two 40mm elements to scale the game up to 80mm frontages/movement increments for a 6' x 4' table. And a bit of masking tape under the elements keeps them together just fine. That gives a really spectacular-looking game of HOTT, as each unit has at least double the normal number of figures (and four times as much if you want square units of behemoths and beasts).

Also, the 40mm squares can be doubled up for Impetus in 15mm or tripled for the 28mm measurements (again giving a much more spectacular game).

And of course, there are games (Mayhem and Fantastic Battles, for example) that prescribe square element bases.

Conveniently, the 40mm square standard means that all my Kings of War 28mm ogres and trolls fit straight into 15mm as giants. The same's true for KoW swarm bases (orclings/snotlings and giant rats, for example): they make 15mm infantry, and the 15mm infantry make 28mm swarms.

And there are some very large 15mm humanoids that work as goblins, etc., in 28mm. Battle Valor and Blood Dawn orcs are cases in point. With these, I'm keeping a few command figures on 20mm squares so that they can slot in between a couple of elements to create a 100mm frontage for 28mm games. Lots of game bestiaries say that goblins are around 4' tall, which makes the Battle Valor and Blood Dawn orcs just right. I'm also working on a few 'unit fillers' on 20 x 40mm bases (the old Asgard half-trolls for example) so that they can provide more menacing leadership or back-rank support.

The big 15s (not just the orcs but also Copplestone dwarfs and Picts) also work well in 1/72, of course, and so my 15s on 40s and 1/72 on 60s can take to the field together using 120mm frontages (for those games where identical frontages matter).

Eventually, I hope to have enough 15s on 40s to use 40mm squares as 'individuals' in large-skirmish games like Dragon Rampant and Saga. The ranked-up 40mm squares take up around the same sort of space as loosely arrayed 25mm or 30mm bases, and the greater troop numbers look really good.

And even in RPGs, I think 40mm element bases can work OK. We played a bit of Against the Giants at the weekend; I'd planned to use ogres as giants in 15mm and to use element bases for orcs and the like; the orcs weren't going to be fighting to the last humanoid against 10th-level PCs! In the event, we didn't need to use miniatures, but they'd have worked fine (I do have the party individually based in that scale).

[TheBlackCrane]

Likewise I tend to base on 40mm squares - for the same reason of TTS and/or Fantastic Battles.

With the exception of my C16th which I have on 30mm squares as I originally based those for Irregular Wars, and whilst that would work on 40mm square too I don't want to rebase them all! But in general yes 40mm squares seems to be adaptable for a range of rulesets, and still looks good on the tabletop, either in movement trays or not.

That said, I love the sabot base above!

I also like the idea of whole units on single bases, for TTS or Impetus, etc., but prefer the flexibility of having units made of multiple bases.

[TheBlackCrane]

From memory, I think the bases were 16mm steel washers. For human-sized figures I use 12.5mm (1/2") washers. I designed and printed the sabot base myself on my Ender3 FDM printer.

It looks great - I like sabot bases but it is the quest to find them with edges which taper down to the table surface like you have here, rather than flat perpendicular. Just a shame they aren't a commercial base as I'd definitely acquire some!

[FifteensAway]

Can't speak to fantasy bases, mostly due historical (and Star Wars), but I now always use multiple figure bases to facilitate moving forces on the table.  I also tend to have large forces for my games.  I used to use single bases for a select few periods, like French and Indian War, but combination of sizes of collections and settling on Rank and File as my primary (by a large margin) rules leaned me, hard, to multiple bases.

So, if collection is small and going to stay that way, single basing can work.  If a lot of figures or a collection likely to go that way in the future, multiple figure basing.

An aside on sabot basing (can't tell from one seen in this thread), if you go that way please paint the 'empty' spaces within the sabot.  If you don't, in my opinion, they look sort of horrid as figures are removed - I saw one that looked like a mobile crater field.  A simple paint job can avoid that look.

[Mr. White]

Thanks for the feedback all. I'm still hesitant to do multi-basing because I feel it locks the models into army/large-skirmish style games and they would be unable to be used for something like Rangers of Shadow Deep.

Still...maybe that's ok. Maybe I do 15mm Lion/Dragon Rampant on multi-base simply because it would be unlike any of my other projects and make it unique within my collection.

[LeadAsbestos]

My Barbarica are singly based on US pennies. I can do the battle for Arnold Conan's village to scale!

[Mr. White]

My Barbarica are singly based on US pennies. I can do the battle for Arnold Conan's village to scale!

Ohhh…. I’d love to see these. Got pics?

[BeneathALeadMountain]

I (like Fitz) single base on 16mm (I think, I’ll check) washers generally (all my WW2, VBCW). I cover the hole with a small square of masking tape, glue the figure into position (leave it to start drying) then flood the area around with glue and sprinkle sand mix to fill. Then patch and fill any gaps. It sounds fiddly but it’s pretty quick once in the rhythm. All done with Gorilla glue super glue: the base ends up resilient and if the bond does give (only happened under intentional force) the model and tape/basing tend to split cleanly away from the washer. If needed the old basing can be removed cleanly with clippers leaving the model untouched.

For my AWI I’ve based on Warbases mdf rounds so I can use their unit bases for Sharp Practice (I’m slightly worried they may be a little light for standing individually as my mat is textured - probably worrying about nothing). I did ask Renedra (just prior to Covid blip) and they said they were intending to release smaller round bases (smallest currently is 20mm) for exactly such a purpose. Will have to poke them and see if they still intend to produce such a thing.

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks for the feedback all. I'm still hesitant to do multi-basing because I feel it locks the models into army/large-skirmish style games and they would be unable to be used for something like Rangers of Shadow Deep.

Still...maybe that's ok. Maybe I do 15mm Lion/Dragon Rampant on multi-base simply because it would be unlike any of my other projects and make it unique within my collection.

Yes - if you don't have any multibased figures, you're possibly at risk of duplicating what you already have in a different scale.

That said, so many 15mm figures are so nice that individual basing is quite tempting. But you can have the best of both worlds. A lot of multibase 15mm rulesets also allow for individually based command figures on smaller bases. For example, To the Strongest has both generals and heroes on individual bases. Heroic and command figures tend to be quite good for skirmish games as they're usually the most colourful and characterful. So, as you build a multibased force, you can paint up some individuals at the same time - perhaps using a ratio of one or two individuals per 40mm (or whatever) element. If you're painting the figures individually before basing, this requires very little extra thought.

That process would give you enough for RoSD, etc., as a by-product. But you can also combine the individually based figures with the multi-bases in a number of ways:

• As heroes or command figures alongside the multi-figure elements
• As casualty counters for large skirmishes (Dragon Rampant, etc.) - when you remove a base of four or six, you use individuals as the survivors
• As unit-fillers to change frontages (playing a game with 100mm frontages? Add a couple of command figures on 20mm squares between 40mm elements, and you've got a perfect 100 x 40 unit.
• As composite units for when you need extra elements. Four 20mm squares form up as a 40mm square; this works really well with big 15mm figures (Blood Dawn and Battle Valor orcs, for instance) that fill 20mm squares nicely; a strip or two of masking tape under the bases holds them together perfectly well. So you have options for separate command figures or command elements.

At 15mm scale, large skirmishes play much better with multibased figures, I think. In Dragon Rampant, for example, you're moving two or three bases instead of twelve fiddly figures. And you can also base some command stands as 3/2/1 so that you don't add much fiddliness with casualties. Or you can use casualty tokens/strength points until the unit loses a full stand's worth of figures.

[Mr. White]

Hobgoblin - You're insight and experience with 1/72 has been very helpful in years past, so I gotta ask now... what are your thoughts on 1/72 vs 15mm fantasy?