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Yeah, I know you're "supposed" to play Warhammer using Mantic models as proxies. I'm looking at doing it the other way around.

So I've recently found my unpainted squigs, a few painted ones, and tonight went digging and found all my painted ones as well as my Squig hoppers.

I've also recognised that I'm not especially likely to play WHFB again, though in a sense I'd like to keep my figures able to do so. However, I want to rebase my figures onto 25mm round bases, because I like them more (aesthetically) and there seems to be less of an issue around non-standard-ly based figures in KoW, as casualties are not removed, people using "unit fillers" etc in the middle of units, etc etc. I've got the IoB boxed set (unopened) in my hobby storage room, and while I don't have any of thec urrent army books, I'm sure I could get hold of whatever I need, though frankly, I'm not that interested.

What I want to do is rebase my O&G army into 25mm rounds for aesthetic reasons and also use them for KoW, but somehow retain the abilty to use them for WFB in the unlikely event that I choose to play it again one day. Probably using something like these for KoW (and WFB?)
http://www.4ground.co.uk/Default.aspx?page=268&pid=242

So the questions:
Can anyone see a real problem with figures based in this way in KoW?
How wide/deep is a block of standard infantry? (no, I haven't actually read the rules and my rulebook is in a moving box somewhere) is it the same for, say, Orcs and also Goblins?
Squigs. I love em, and I've got them painted. Some are even Scarlet. What would these be in KoW? Mawbeasts? Any base/unit size shenanigans I need to know about? Ditto on Squig Hoppers and Doom Divers.

And what about Ogres? Unit sizes (I know it's 3/6 models - I'm talking unit base sizes) I've got an Ogre army making it's way to me, and I'd like to base them on 40mm rounds, and also rebase my little collection of old-school Warhammer Ogres (Jes FTW) on 40mm rounds, and yet have them all be KoW-friendly.

Down the line, I may similar questions for high elves and undead, but one project at a time, eh?

Thanks!

Your idea is excellent and completely workable for KoW.

A 20 man Orc unit would take up 125mm width by 100mm depth. Other armies 20 man units would be 100mm wide by 80mm deep. Ogres, as large infantry, would typically be 40 x 40 mm squares each.

Multiplying individual base size (20, 25, 40) by number of models in a row or any column should give you the dimensions of anything from a Troop to a Horde.
I tend to make scenic bases. For example only 7 mummy models rising out of the sand make up my 20-man mummy unit. I did a similar thing with my elves, using half the unit size or even less to both extend my ability to make units and to convey their elite status (i.e., this many elves handles the same battle space as 20 of your mediocre humans).

Putting the models on appropriate sized movement trays---can be something as simple as cardstock or as professional as the 4Ground stuff you link to are both easy ways to use your other stuff for KoW.

I personally am thinking of using WarMachine stuff based on movement trays to get double duty

Yeah, I thought of that a while ago- using my trollbloods as an ogre kingdoms army.

Seems like it would work, the only problem I see is that Squigs and Gobbos are on 20mm bases so the 25mm rounds would increase their footprint. You'd have to rank them 4 across for fantasy/KoW and I don't know if people would be cool with that or not.

You could easily use squigs as mawbeasts, squig hoppers as fleabag riders (or just more mawbeasts), doom divers would be stone throwers.

As for base size, it doesn't really matter what you do as long as the footprint is correct for the unit size, individual bases don't matter, and the amount of minis on the tray doesn't matter either (within reason).. you can keep them on round bases and put them on a correctly-sized movement tray.

Mawbeasts are 25x50mm bases, so a unit of 5 is 125x50mm. Throw however many squigs you want on to a movement tray of that size and you're good to go.

Same goes for the ogres, as long as the movement tray is the right size, the individual bases are up to you.

Artillery doesn't have a fixed base size, and doesn't have flanks/rear in the game, and neither do characters, any base, round bases, or no bases are fine for those.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'll have some fun basing my artillery in that case.

I guess my next question is how KoW handles unit frontage sizes?

I haven't played WFB with any regularity since 3rd edition (yeah, I know). So my memory is pretty hazy, but I think the minimum frontage for WFB is 5 models? I know in WFB you can go with wider and deeper (well, used to be able to). Though WFB3 had things like cavalry wedges and testudo formations, not to mention I recall doing odd things like summoning skeletons in a single-file line to break up orcish LOS for animosity..., etc,

So what are the minimums, and how does KoW handle deeper/wider?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What from WM works in KoW, out of interest? I guess that's a good idea and I can also draft my forces of Middle-Earth and my Confrontation figures into KoW without too much hassle as well. Who needs consistent scales across different races or cultures, after all?

Well, WM has Trolls who would make okay Ogres (or, you know, Trolls ) and Circle who have some big, beefy werewolves, stone golem type things and big stompy satyrs.
Skorne have lots of weird armoured beasties, I don't think much of their stuff fits with other ranges though I'm sure someone would correct me on that. Blindwater Congregation have large bipedeal gatormen who could work as Ogres or Trolls again, and there are also bipedeal pigs called Farrow that could do service as Orcs I suppose? They'd be pretty chunky and it'd be expensive. Legion of Everblight have some cool looking draconic monsters but again I don't think they fit well with KOW.

The Jacks and so on could be used as Golems I suppose, but I don't think much of the Warmachine stuff fits well into non-steampunk fantasy.

Edit: Trolls I think do the best cross over. Though they are on 40mm bases they are truescaled compared to many other ogre sized models when looking at KOW.
They've got:
Kriel Warriors as basic Ogres/Trolls with shields. These are metal and expensive.
Fennblades as two handed weapon wielders. These are plastic.
Champions as heavily armoured two weapon wielding veterans- I think these were recently re-released in plastic.
Scattergunners are trolls toting small cannons as blunderbusses. Work well as ranged Trolls or Ogres.

You've got lots of support units in there too, and of course the big Dire Trolls and Full Bloods if you want heroes or monsters. I think it could work well.

Ah yeah the Trollblood side works very well - sorry, I'm not that familiar with which ones are WM and which are Hordes (and how much crossover there is exactly) - I thought they were Hordes, not WM, so I was thinking Warjacks and those not-terminator type things that the Khador have.

Trolls are Hordes, the jacks and stuff are WM. But the games are cross compatible, just not within factions.

 Azazelx wrote:

So what are the minimums, and how does KoW handle deeper/wider?

It depends to some extent on the army lists but standard infantry & cavalry units have a frontage of 5 men and usually 2 or 4 ranks (Orx have 3 and 5 rank options). Some elite units can take a single rank of 5 wide. Units that can be taken as hordes have a frontage of 10 men and 4 ranks (some armies have a 3 rank horde option). Monstrous units have a frontage of 3 big dudes.

So your unit dimensions are pretty much fixed to these predefined unit sizes (you can't take a frontage of 6, for example). You don't buy a 10 man unit and then pay for extra men in it, you buy a predefined unit size (there is a decreasing points increment as units get bigger to make min/maxing cheesey army lists really expensive). Since there are standard footprints for all units and they never change within a game it does mean you can make nice scenic units with casualties and bits of included terrain without having to worry about not having exactly 20 guys in your 5x4 regiment.

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'll have some fun basing my artillery in that case.

I guess my next question is how KoW handles unit frontage sizes?

I haven't played WFB with any regularity since 3rd edition (yeah, I know). So my memory is pretty hazy, but I think the minimum frontage for WFB is 5 models? I know in WFB you can go with wider and deeper (well, used to be able to). Though WFB3 had things like cavalry wedges and testudo formations, not to mention I recall doing odd things like summoning skeletons in a single-file line to break up orcish LOS for animosity..., etc,

So what are the minimums, and how does KoW handle deeper/wider?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What from WM works in KoW, out of interest? I guess that's a good idea and I can also draft my forces of Middle-Earth and my Confrontation figures into KoW without too much hassle as well. Who needs consistent scales across different races or cultures, after all?

Azazel,

10 man units are 5 wide by 2 deep.
20 man units are 5 wide by 4 deep.
40 man units are 10 wide by 4 deep.
Large infantry are 40mm bases and rank 1 or 3 wide (depending on 1, 3 or 6 man unit).

Also to help while your rules are packed up, here's direct link to the on-line rulebook. It discusses unit sizes in the first few pages + has 4 army lists so you can see the unit sizes available for a couple of different armies.
http://www.manticgames.com/SiteData/Root/File/KINGS%20OF%20WAR/KoW-MRB-Rules-Web.pdf

Hope that's helpful.

Thanks again guys, I think I'll be rebasing first then coming back to ask/share/show off the updated/rebased figures. Squigs and Wolves to start with, I think (mawbeasts both?)

 larva_uk wrote:

So your unit dimensions are pretty much fixed to these predefined unit sizes (you can't take a frontage of 6, for example). You don't buy a 10 man unit and then pay for extra men in it, you buy a predefined unit size (there is a decreasing points increment as units get bigger to make min/maxing cheesey army lists really expensive). Since there are standard footprints for all units and they never change within a game it does mean you can make nice scenic units with casualties and bits of included terrain without having to worry about not having exactly 20 guys in your 5x4 regiment.

Thank you - good to know - and what I was hoping.

Kings of War uses nice large chunky stands so you can put whatever miniatures you want on them and take the opportunity to do a little diorama thing if you want.

If you want to see painted examples of this approach, do a google image search for "Impetus base". Impetus is a historical rules set that has a similarly large base size and doesn't remove individual figures.




I think it's a much better approach than individually based figures.

That said, you should have no problems finding those round socket bases for all sorts of sizes.

Back2base-ix in Australia makes a good one (available in 3x1 all the way to 10x10):

http://www.back2base-ix.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=90

Though I would probably replace the bottom piece with some magnetic or metal sheet and then get some 3mm thick rare earth magnets and drill holes in the bases and then flush fit the magnets.

 Azazelx wrote:
Thanks again guys, I think I'll be rebasing first then coming back to ask/share/show off the updated/rebased figures. Squigs and Wolves to start with, I think (mawbeasts both?)

 larva_uk wrote:

So your unit dimensions are pretty much fixed to these predefined unit sizes (you can't take a frontage of 6, for example). You don't buy a 10 man unit and then pay for extra men in it, you buy a predefined unit size (there is a decreasing points increment as units get bigger to make min/maxing cheesey army lists really expensive). Since there are standard footprints for all units and they never change within a game it does mean you can make nice scenic units with casualties and bits of included terrain without having to worry about not having exactly 20 guys in your 5x4 regiment.

Thank you - good to know - and what I was hoping.

My buddy rebased all of his Warhammer armies in this fashion: unit based, posing the figures to look good, with a few models on 25mm rounds with a 25mm 'hole' in the unit-base. That way he can remove some of them and use them for skirmishing, or plug them back into the tray for KoW.

I used the same approach with my Helsvakt Horde army. I got Warbases to make 125mm x 100mm trays with ~12 25mm holes. Then I can put 12 Gynnade Krigare into the holes and it looks like a horde of armored bastards... and has the same size as an Orc regiment, so the 12 Helsvakt 'counts-as' a unit of 20 Orcs.