AK-47 with single bases?

[Gunbird]

I'm about to take the plunge into AK-47 (and drag some mates in with me) but I quickly realised multi basing isn't our thing as we prefer skirmishability (is that even a word?). While I don't think it would be a big hassle to play it that way, does anyone here have evidence to support my theory?

[Citizen Sade]

Single basing sounds like a bit of a faff for 15mm. I'd consider sabot basing if I did it in 20 or 28mm for maximum flexibility though.

[Gunbird]

Well, I did single based 15mm for my sci-fi stuff as a penny pinching maneuvre to use less tufts and flock, and be able to use them as indivduals, so it is not like it is more effort or anything. All my 20mm stuff is done the same way too.

[Ahistorian]

One of the gents at our club put texture mix on top of magnetic paper to make his sabot bases. Should be easy enough to fit three 15mm miniatures on a 40mm square base, which isn't much larger than the rules suggest.

That said, my 15mm are a mix of individually based and multi-based and honestly - it makes very little difference. With minidice to track casualties, the multi-bases are easier to use, and I am considering rebasing all my earlier miniatures to make them easier to handle.

[fastolfrus]

Why not just use a single figure as a base?

Some of the PP rules suggest this for eg 28mm instead of 15mm.

The inly issue might be crew served weapons

[Arrigo]

1) "skirmishability" is not a word... I will never play scrabble with you! 

2) Actually single 20mm round (or something like that, like 1 penny...) for 15mm is not that bad, provided you do not have hordes to move and frankly the usual African army will have hordes of militia, you will get crazy (on average your militia units will be around 40 strong)... well you can pretend one single mini is a base but then it will look silly. AK-47 is not a skirmish game. so you will have a company with 10-12 figures... sounds silly to me. Ok you will say it is just a representation and you can call the company a platoon or a squad... but then you will end up with a set of abstractions that does not make any sense. Your militia hordes also looks less like hordes. Remember that your standard army in AK-47 is not that small.



Now... what scale have you in mind? If you are going the 15mm way I would say that even in Skirmish sets multiple figure per bases are not bad. I play CoC this way with only the Squad leaders and officers on single bases. Anyway you tend operate by team and squad. Also in  15mm you usually have quite a lot of stuff on the table and frankly single bases slow down. I think that playing with singles will be a great hassle, plus because AK-47 is using bases for everything (some distances, command organization, casualties removal) it will greatly hamper the game play with question like "what group of singles I have to remove?" "who got hit?" "where is my command coherency?".

20mm... well this is probably the best suited to sabot basing.


If you are going 28mm... well I think it is silly, but if you have space and money just make sabot base and no one will care and just drool.  I have some sabot bases for my 28mm just in case... I realized that moving more than 15-20 single miniatures is a stupid way to spend my time, also because I do not care about individuals anymore...

3) of course is your game so you decide... but  well I think it is nice to warn you of previous bad experiences.

[DeltaBravo]

I have some individually based 15mm figs mounted on a sabot base for AK47 (magnetised), which works.

Having the 30x30 bases helps with things like the grouping rules etc (and the practicaliies of moving the figures...), but you could do it without as long as you're happy moving them all individually.  3 figs on 15mm round bases touching as a mini triangle gives you your 30x30 groundspace for each 'base', so just move everything in groups of 3s and measure from the centre point or something.  As long as everyone is consistent, AK47 is a very forgiving system.

[commissarmoody]

I see no problem with this. We played a camping using 20mm liberation mins in the early thousands using the Ak-47 rules. With no problems

[Gunbird]

Thx for all of the replies guys, thank you for your time!

I see no problems in basing as singles and making 30x30 magnetic sheet cards to put them on later if it becomes too much of a hassle.

[Arrigo]

good, keep us posted and post piccies 

[Gunbird]

Somewhere between next week and six months time there should be pictures