Noob question about BG painting

[mdruiz]

Hi,

I am a complete noob for FOG and tabletop wargaming itself. I've played a couple of tutorial sort of games in the past. I've got two armies in the works (one I'm painting—Spartacus—and one that I'll likely pay someone to paint (late Republican Roman).

For some of the troops, such as the 24 bases of mob and the legionaries, it seems that I'll have an opportunity for flexibility in the number of battle groups I use. For example, I could have two battle groups of 12 bases each for the mob, or three BGs of eight bases each. Legionaries could be in BGs of eight with a couple of BGs of four perhaps (as I've seen suggested in another post). Or I might organize the legionaries in some other way in a different game.

My noob question is: should the BGs somehow be identifiable…by color scheme on shields or armor or different flocking of the bases? I would lose that flexibility if I "have" to paint each BG differently. But I wouldn't want any confusion or trouble if I ever end up playing at the local club. I'm thinking it might be confusing to have multiple BGs next to each other that are the same troop type and look exactly alike(?). How do people handle this?

Thanks!

[ravenflight]

Hi,

I am a complete noob for FOG and tabletop wargaming itself. I've played a couple of tutorial sort of games in the past. I've got two armies in the works (one I'm painting—Spartacus—and one that I'll likely pay someone to paint (late Republican Roman).

For some of the troops, such as the 24 bases of mob and the legionaries, it seems that I'll have an opportunity for flexibility in the number of battle groups I use. For example, I could have two battle groups of 12 bases each for the mob, or three BGs of eight bases each. Legionaries could be in BGs of eight with a couple of BGs of four perhaps (as I've seen suggested in another post). Or I might organize the legionaries in some other way in a different game.

My noob question is: should the BGs somehow be identifiable…by color scheme on shields or armor or different flocking of the bases? I would lose that flexibility if I "have" to paint each BG differently. But I wouldn't want any confusion or trouble if I ever end up playing at the local club. I'm thinking it might be confusing to have multiple BGs next to each other that are the same troop type and look exactly alike(?). How do people handle this?

Thanks!

It makes things easier, but not crucially so.

For example, hits are done via each file in contact, but taken as a whole.

By this, I mean let's say you have 3 BG's of 4 bases fighting 1 huge BG of 12 bases. In essence, the 12 BG can roll all his dice together, but now how do you know which ones hit which enemy? You can't. So you have to roll each file (or group of similar files) together. This can sometimes cause problems if you don't know where your BG starts and where it finishes, and in a huge battle line this can be harder than it otherwise may appear (trust me - I run Viking shield walls).

My recommendation would be to have two things:

1 - some way of clearly identifying the bases, but it doesn't have to be by a 'uniform' or such. My Vikings have one guy with a standard on each BG. A 'command' base (for want of a better term). He's the one on the far left or far right. Therefore, if I have a large combat (as above) the standard is the end of one BG and the guy next to the guy with the standard is the beginning of the next BG.
2 - buy a bunch of BBQ kabab sticks, chop off the tip, paint them a nice colour, and use them to identify each BG during the ensuing combat. You just place the start and finish of your BG's (you'll recognize them) and just put down your sticks to say 'this is where it starts/finishes'. Your opponent does the same, and you roll those dice.

With the above there is no way you'll make an error.

Trust me, you WANT to do something like this. There is nothing worse than counting up your bases, and rolling 4 6's and two misses and then your opponent saying 'yes, but there are 3 combats... which hit and which didn't? you'll have to roll them again' only to roll a bunch of 2's.

Hope this helps - if it is confusing please ask for clarification.

Oh, and welcome to FoG.

[grahambriggs]

Generally there's no requirement to paint the troops so they are separately identifiable. In fact, with the mob it would look a bit odd as I doubt they had a uniform as such. One option you could do is paint up 22 bases of normal mob and three bases with a standard of some sort on them. so then if you're doing 2x12 or 3x8 they'd be identifiable. Means painting up an extra base though.

With the legionaries if I remember right the legions of this period all looked quite similar so you could do the one standard per BG thing.

To be honest though, it's easy enough to keep track of who is in what BG. When you get to a long line of melees just putting some matchsticks down between units as suggest by raven often helps. I'd try and avoid units that are very distinctive - you'll find that you'll want to experiment with different army structures and that's easier it the troops look similar.

[mdruiz]

Cool. Thanks to both of y'all. That makes sense. And yeah, the mob definitely needs to look motley. It seems like using sticks of some sort is the way to go. And maybe some banners.

[Eques]

For the Romans you could make the distinguishing feature something easy to paint over, like the helmet plume or the helmet itself (copper/iron/steel etc). That way you can easily change them if you decide on a new configuration.

For the slave army you could perhaps use different manufacturers for the different Battle Groups, or go with different ethnicities. Some of the slaves may have fought in their national style and costume so you could have Gauls, Germans, Illyrians, Africans etc. as well as the more generic peasants with pitchforks.

As Battlegroups often end up in a battle line it can indeed be difficult to tell different BGs apart sometimes, especially at 15mm and under.

Anyway, wishing you a rewarding time with this new hobby.