To be honest they can act to screen, etc. perfectly well when deployed in 2 ranks even if they don't cover the whole frontage of the Hastati/Principes. If there were more bases of them it would, almost certainly, distort the representation of the army's effect on the table top - and we all know ...

For skirmishers (and elephants etc), the important thing is that the army is allowed the correct number of bases to fulfill their historical role.

So does the Republican Roman army have enough velites to perform their historical role? It appears not, as there are only enough to cover half the ...

Cheers for the thoughts chaps.

Ironhand, I see what you mean now. thanks. The thing is though, as Andy says, I would be handy if there was a stated relative strength between LF and HF. I am presuming the authors did consider the relative power of historical units when writing the rules.

regards ...

Bear in mind too, that FoG elected to use - wisely in my opinion - an existing and standardized base system that predates DBM. So I really think you're tilting at windmills trying to work out the number of ranks to a base.

Sorry Ironhand, I don't understand what the basing standard has to do with ...

I think its worth noting (although i may be wrong), that base depth is essentially a tabletop convention to fit miniatures on and to afford the players a ready recognition of troop types.

Hi chaps,

I agree with this but I wasn't actually thinking of the element base depth at all. I meant the ...

Hi folks,

From previous responses I understand that bases are supposed to represent the same numbers of troops regardless of type. If this is the case then the skirmish base types (LF, LH) must represent more ranks of real troops. i.e. assuming the men of a MF or HF base are ~3-4 ranks deep, then ...

The death of the barbarian quick kill nonsense in a major commercial rule set is certainly a welcome development. The best evidence I could find for it was a comment by an 18thC British officer about Prestonpans. Hardly what you'd call solid evidence. Thankfully I can now stop boring everyone stupid ...

Republican Roman velites have always presented a problem for miniatures rules writers, precisely because their attested numbers per legion match the density of the heavier legionaries, but not that of most other ancient skirmish foot.

Hi Scott,

This assumes the three lines of the triplex acies ...

Thanks for the replies chaps.

I presumed it would be as Scott suggests but I had noticed the velites numbers were then wrong, which was partly why I asked. Presumably then a LF base is meant to be the same number of men as a HF base but deployed deeper and possibly without intervals. However Scott ...

Trev - I wasn't able to access the wab forum for some reason but thanks anyway!

Hi Iain,

Here are the group headings they use:

Forum Information
General Discussion
Tactics
Army Builder
Who and what is online
Modelling
Gallery
Trades & Sales
UNOFFICIAL Army Lists
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Off ...

I was more thinking of a belt and braces approach of having the base touch the unit and also tell the opponent. It should be obvious if they are touching and I doubt it would be necessary to tell an opponent each turn they are. Then again I am not a tournament gamer so I don't really understand the ...

Out of interest, why do the commanders have to be placed in the front rank? It seems unecessary and to spoil the aesthetics. I'd have though that you could easily place a command base in contact with any point of the outside of a battle group to indicate the leader was 'leading'. Out in front when ...

Hi chaps,

Apologies if this in the book, I don't have it with me but I wondering about troop scales and basing.

I know there's not an absolute scale as such but that the book says a base is supposed to represent somewhere around 2-300 men. Is this meant to be for heavy and medium foot? Presumably ...

Hi chaps,

The http://www.wabforum.co.uk/ is divided up quite sensibly. It might provide some useful inspiration.

regards,

Trev

Thanks Richard. I shall check out the rules to make sure I understand.

T

Most Byzantine cavalry - up to the Nikeforian list anyway - will be 1/2 Lancers and 1/2 Bow; although the Tagmata in the later lists will be Lancer, Bow* as they appear to have fought in shallower formations and so the 50:50 Lancer:Bow formations don't appear to be justified. They effectively shoot ...

I don't have any facts about the final list what it looks like. Looking at the rise of rome and storm of arrows i would not be suprised that the early ottomans (ghazi) could be a different list.

From the research I did before, it seems the traditional approach has been to see the early Ottoman ...

No Bow* for the Serbs either - even if some of them did have bows they appear, as far as I can see, to have functioned as shock lancer cavalry and so are graded thus.

Is this the same for Byzantines? I know I got my date of western influence wrong but I was presuming those would be the kind of ...

Hi Pelagius,

Nice to talk to fellow heretic. :)


*A sound list ;-) The only real question is about the Serbs. By 1396 I doubt the Serbs would be classed as Bw* despite a very few diehards as Byzantine influence had faded. The last real show for Bw* might be the Battle of Velbusdh in 1330? A brave ...

Thanks for the corrections hazelbark. I'm a bit surprised about the Timariots being superior but that could be because of relation to other lists and the rest sounds sensible enough. Does the list cover the differences between the early 'Gazi' armies and the later 'Imperial' ones?

Cheers,

Trev