Some more thoughts on scale and basing

One of the advantages of a seafaring career is that you get plenty of time to think.  One of the disadvantages is that you can't bring your toys with you, well at lease not in the number that I would like.  That leads to stalking eBay and buying even more figures for the lead mountain.

Anyway, after much thought, I decided to change from 8 figure bases for WotR (and possibly Dux Brit) to 6 figure bases and I have ordered the necessary from Warbases in the UK.  Up until now I have used rectangles of cardboard and blu-tack.  That worked fine to try out the WotR  rules, but was unsatisfactory for fairly obvious reasons.  I wanted the 6 figure bases because I found that the 8 figure bases were too wide in terms of frontage for even my table-tennis table. As most of the LotR foot range is based either on 3 figure metal blisters or boxes of 24 plastics, the 8 figure base either results in having too many or too few in terms of the blisters, or an odd shaped unit with 2 bases forward and one in support for the plastic boxes.  It just didn't look right either way.

The 6 figure bases mean that you can fill one with 2 blisters of metal foot, and you get 4 bases from a single box of plastics.  The four bases for a unit can then be deployed as a block with a 2 base frontage, or as a line of 4 bases, or a 3 base frontage with one supporting in the middle.  That just looks better to me.  Cavalry can stay the same with their 2 figure bases as that works well.

I think it will also work OK with Dux Brit and Hail Caesar as well, although I haven't looked into those rules sets deeply enough to be sure yet.  Something else to do whilst I am away.

So what does that mean for scale?  I have decided to tinker with that as well.  1000 man regiments seemed a little big in the depopulated west (although it might be right for a horde from the East).  Working backwards from BoFA scale with a 600 man regiment on 3 bases (approx. 30 - 36 figures, so figure scale of aprox 20), then the WotR Company of 4 bases (representing a single BoFA base) should be around 200 men (24 figures, so figure scale of approx. 8).  A single WotR base is then about 50 men (a quarter-company detachment - I need a better name for this sized unit) and that is the maximum I would want for a LotR SBG game.  So I think it works OK.

Cavalry ought to be similar.  3 BoFA bases is a regiment of cavalry of about 150 riders (12 figures, scale of about 12).  The WotR Squadron of cavalry of 3 bases (representing a single BoFA base) is about 50 riders (6 figures, so scale about 8).  A single WotR base then is a troop of about 12 riders.  That is again about the most you want in a skirmish game, so that works for me.

As I said at the beginning, I want to use the old SPI War of the Ring boardgame to assist with keeping track of it all.  And I just love the map and want an excuse to use it.

Here is Ithilien and Minas Tirith.  I have added Emyn Arnen is a different font.  Whenever I add stuff to the maps, I will make sure you can distinguish it from the original SPI cartography.

Eastern Gondor, including Ithilien, and the blasted wastes of Mordor

The SPI boardgame uses counters with 'strength points'.  Given the basing and scales I have decided upon, I think a single strength point should equate to a single WotR base or about 50 men/12 cavalry. That means I can have scouting/reconnaissance parties shown on the map with single strength point counters and will enable interesting LotR SBG style reconnaissance skirmishes to play out before the major battles.

On that basis, a WotR 'Company' of four bases (200 men) is 4 strength points, and a BoFA 3 base 'Regiment' (600 men) is 12 strength points.  Looking at the counter mix, i think that works ok.  I will have to be careful to avoid all the 'special' formations in GW's WotR list because they could have a disproportionate effect on the campaign.  I will stick to the base troops descriptions as much as I can.

I think I will scale up the goblins and orcs a bit (perhaps 1200 per regiment), and possibly downscale the elves and dwarves (maybe 300-400 per regiment) but I will cross that bridge when I get to describing those factions.  Maybe it doesn't matter either, as long as the strength point to miniatures base ratio is constant,

 I am still progressing with the Gondor faction description.  I am up to the stage of describing military strength.  I don't want to make Gondor too powerful; the campaign is one of many competing priorities, including home defence.  I think I will work backwards from the description of the reinforcements of Minas Tirth in the Return of the King as an indicator of what each of the Gondorian provinces felt they could spare.

Watch this space.