I liked the look of the rebased Vikings so much I redid the rear bases of my Saxons (Anglo-Danish in the Impetus army lists). While I was at it, I added a few LBMS banners to the army.
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| Harold's Huscarls -- 10 figures on front base, 6 on rear |
The reason for the change was visual. I originally based this army for a different rule set, where these were not deep units. I've been really enjoying Impetus, and am committed to playing Impetus for a while. My unit bases, the front ones, are 12 cm by 6 cm, and this is standard across all my 28 mm dark age armies. I usually put 10 figures on a close order infantry base, organized in two ranks, and crowded together in the center of the stand. This creates a visual density in of figures, and a buffer to protect the figures in play. When I was using two of these as a deep unit I always saw one unit behind another -- the appearance of a SYW second line in close support. Not good! I went to a dedicated rear base that is 12 cm by 4 cm in size, with the figures organized in one line on the front of the base. I'm not totally satisfied with the look of the deep unit as there is still a gap between the second and third rank, but it is visually a huge improvement. Time will tell if I rebase the entire army or not -- although I've felt very postive about my rebasing efforts so far, I do share the common despair about rebasing. The new look is very good from the front and back (which are, after all, the primary way we see the units in a game), and better from the side than the old appearance of two unit bases.
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| Side view, old deep unit (2 12x6 bases) and new deep unit (12x6 & 12x4 base) |
There has been a discussion of how many figures to but on a 28mm FP (foot pondorous, or heavy foot) base on the Impetus Forum. I use ten 28 mm figures for most of my armies, but for the Saxons I used twelve figures. It does make the unit look dense! I only used ten figures on the Huscarl units, as these are warriors fighting in the Scandinavian tradition.
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| Select fyrd (12 fig/main base) & Huscarls (10 fig/main base) |
Finally, because a picture is worth a thousand words, and ours is indeed a visual hobby, here are more gratuitous pictures of figures!
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| New deep unit on left, old deep unit on right |
Upcoming future posts will include some AARs and photo-presentations of other SPI members (St. Paul Irregulars) 28mm Impetus armies. Your welcome to come back and visit soon . . .
