The Commander Series Forum

...and what size bases do you use?

So I finally ordered myself an American battlegroup and most of the miscellaneous bits and pieces I need, and now I am about to buy the bases. And replacements for the two bottles of paint that I discovered were the wrong colours...

Thing is that I do not know how large the bases should be, with no model to use as reference.

Most tanks will fit on a 30mm square base, unless extra hug, though gun barrels on moderns will likely protrude over the edges.

Did you want square bases or to go with rectangles? A 40mm long base will fit most things I think.

Squares for vehicles as I like the extra room for decorating the bases. I am not sure about infantry, but I thinking of having squares for them as to avoid having all the infantry in lines.

So... Could this work?
20x20 for small infantry units (MANPADS and ATGM teams)
30x30 for light vehicles and infantry.
40x40 for heavy vehicles.
50x50 for CO, HQ and special units such as the MGM-52 Lance.

40mm square might end up a bit huge - try 40*30 maybe, and then you can have 40mm square HQs still?

It's really going to be all about the look and feel you get which you won't know till you get them, really :/

You are right, just looked at some of pictures on Steve's (sgraham) blog and it certainly will be *big*. So I think 40x40, 40x30, 30x30 and 20x20 sounds good.

Thanks for the help! Pictures will hopefully be up soon. After that I have some 15 mm German and 6 mm Warpact forces to get.

Most of the tanks will fit on 30x30 without guns sticking out. I have perfected a method of cutting the bit that sticks through the tank down the middle with a sharp knife carefully, fitting it through tank and then widening the cut so that the turret will not fall out, will move and can be turned nicely back to avoid breakage in storage or transit. Even old super-glued turrets have been retro-fitted this way. I tried a rubbery paper glue too in the past, which allowed turret movement and the crucial ability to turn them round for storage and transit, though it di work loose.
It is certainly good to ask your opponents how they did their bases, so that they are compatible on the field of battle.

They are pretty small, effectively 5mm, noticably smaller than say GHQ / CinC models if you have seen any of them.

Depending how large you like your bases in relation to the model you might find 40mm bases look big.

I use 30x20 for most of my own GHQ vehicles and only the really big vehicles (or ones with long trailers) need 40mm long bases.
I uses 30x30 for artillery and AT guns though as they need the extra room.

Have you thought about using round bases for the HQ's?
I use a mix of 30 and 40 diameter ones and it makes hq's easy to keep track of.

I also use 30x20 for all my Adler infantry (which are HUGE figures compared to H&R) and comfortably fit 3-5 figures on a base.

If you angle bodies & turrets you can generally fit them on, but it's not always easy...

My 6mm is mostly H&R on 30mm squares and it gets a bit wearing sometimes tweaking the angles to ensure safe gun barrels. WW2 is easy enough but enough of the Moderns stuff is big enough (or just has long enough barrels) to make it awkward enough for comment

I've a fair bunch of Adlers infantry and they mix fine with H&R vehicles but do dwarf H&R's infantry; they all go on 30mm square bases or pennies for weapons teams, sometimes.

Actually, there's a shed load of piccies from the just played through megagame - http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/Content/Forum/Topic.aspx?Page=4&CategoryID=10&ForumID=18&TopicID=17689&ForumPage=1&NewPost=Yes#Post has the links!

Worth a punt to ask people what size bases/whose figures they are for some idea of sizes!

I think the consensus is moving towards as small a stand as the vehicle will fit on. 40x20mm used to be standard for vehicles and infantry, but stands are getting smaller as the terrain gets more detailed. Most of my armour and infantry is on 40x20, but support weapons are going on 20x20s, as will things like light armour and recce vehicles, etc. I tend to still use 40x40 for CO and HQ, 30mm diameter for recce, FAOs and FACs. Things like mortars are on 30x30s. Engineers are on whatever fits - my French Leguans and EFA bridges are on 80x20s.

One of the issues during the game was recognising what units were observers, as a couple of times I came to close assault BMPs on standard bases and they turned out to be observers so could have been overrun.

Cheers, Andy