Base depth - 40mm

[Obadiah]

Hi all,

Just wondering what people's thoughts are regarding base depth. Like many here I have played other systems and have units based according to those rules. I am interested in trying out Triumph, but I don't want to have to rebase troops. So for example, elite foot have a base depth of 15mm but in the other system the equivalent is 20mm. Obviously no one will care if I am just testing out myself at home, but in the future if there was a situation where I am playing in a tournament would it matter if I was using 20mm base depths?

Thoughts?

[Piyan Glupak]

There are several changes affecting armies for conversion. For instance, Bow Levy uses 30mm deep bases. Raiders (who would often be "3Blade" in previous systems) now have 4 figures per base. Some mounted troops who would be "Cavalry" with 3 figures on a base now become Javelin Cavalry with 2.

Must admit that I am not fond of 15mm base depths for 40mm wide bases because they are less stable. On the other hand, I am making sure that 15mm armies converted to Triumph! are based according to the rules. For all I know, someone might start organising Triumph! tournaments in the UK or a country close to Bulgaria in the future.

As there is no current standard for 6mm figures, and almost zero likely-hood of tournaments for 6mm figures, 6mm armies will be based to my own requirements.

Of course, the Meshwesh army lists are not identical to those for previous rules systems. Some interpretations of ancient armies will be slightly different. This is inevitable unless previous army lists are plagiarised. Armies for Triumph! will often be a little larger than those of some previous rules, which means that some people (such as myself) would have to do a bit of army maintenance for Triumph!, irrespective of base sizes used.

[Rod]

So far I would say nobody has been overly concerned about basing depths if you have troops mounted slightly different.

Where it really matters in terms of more competitive play is when something "bad" would have happened had your troops been on the proper depth.

Easiest example would be a fall back result for say bow levy where they need 30mm to fall back and are only on a 20mm deep base. Easy solution is they die if they did not have 30mm behind them, so they are treated as being on a 30mm base for the purpose of falling back.

The other issue which is harder to represent on the wrong bases, is the ability to deploy in tighter formation and closer together... Good example is armies with lots of poor quality troops like my classical Indians which have a large amount of bow levy and horde. The deeper bases make deployment trickier and because all of these troops are only 2MU movers the slightly deeper bases put them a half a move farther back when deployed in depth.

Regarding 15mm deep, I don't like them.... I use them, but I would argue these are the opposite effect, so nobody would really object if you place them on deeper bases because there is no advantage really. The key issue here is identification of your troops.

So as long as you and your opponent have a clear understanding of the troop type present and how you plan to handle the falling back issue I see no reason why base depth should be a roadblock to playing (even in a tournament)... I would encourage people to try the new basing though. I really like my Classical Indian Army on the new bases, it looks huge on the table top fights and moves like a zombie horde too.

[Obadiah]

Thanks...very helpful responses.