5 replies to this topic

[paulinthehills]

I’m going to start incorporating infantry and plan to make bases for my minis.  I use my tanks un-mounted and am wondering what size I should make the base for each squad, I just starting to read about it i the rules so maybe I missed this. Thanks  …note I’m using1/285 scale GHQ minis

[paulinthehills]

Disregard….duh found it.  Feel free to delete this post

[Bob Benge]

No worries Paul!

[Mark 1]

No worries indeed.  While not a member of the ODGW staff, I am an avid fan of the Mein Panzer rules.  One of the things I like is the "no worries" attitude.

 

To the point of this thread ... from the Core Rules, Basing, Page 1.2:

 

The table below lists the recommended basing .... If you already
have infantry on a different sized base, that’s fine . . .

 

You will find that the rules play just fine with any of a number of base sizes.  Here is what I have chosen:

 

 

For my standard base size I use US Pennies.  They are a bit more than 19mm in diameter.  So about 4/5in. As the book recommends I place 4 figures to a stand to represent a standard infantry squad.  Here you see a squad of my Romanian Infantry, modeled with 2 riflemen and a 2-man prone LMG team (GHQ figures). This represents the typical rifle squad of about 10-12 men.

 

Here is a Romanian battle group HQ. I put 3 men to a stand to represent full squad-sized special units, such as gun crews, engineering units, etc. Here you see a 3-man command team, representing the 10-man HQ section, presented as a senior officer (his uniform, being of higher quality cloth and seeing less hardship, is not as faded as the soldiers' clothes) and two HQ staff.  I put 2 men on a stand to indicate team-sized (half-squad-sized) units. You can see here a 2-figure medical team and a 2-figure prone communications team with field telephone (some kit-bashing involved).

 

Important to me is that using Pennies as bases gives some real substance to the stands. My penny-based infantry has managed quite well with the rough-and-tumble handling typical of table-top wargaming.

 

Most of my guns are also mounted using Pennies.  I use the same approach of 3 figures to a stand to indicate a squad-sized (ie: 6-12 man) gun crew. I fix the figures to the stand, but not the guns. That way the guns and crews can take casualties separately (as per the rules) and I don't need to make as many stands, as I very rarely use more than one type of gun in a given battle.  Here you see Romanian artillery manning Skoda 100mm howitzers (crews are GHQ and H&R artillery crew figures, guns are from the GHQ Italian line, and do double-duty in my force, serving crew stands of both armies).  The battery HQ stand is a 3-figure stand. The battery also has an LMG team (2 figures) for local security.

Those same stands serve as bases for my Romanian 75mm gun batteries as well, simply by swapping out the Czech howitzers with French 75mm guns.

 

While the 100mm Howitzers also serve my Italian army on different stands (Italian force shown here in continental uniforms).

 

This approach is particularly convenient with AT guns, where some armies have a wide variety of possible equipment.  My Romanians, for example, might come on the board with Swedish-supplied Bofors 37mm guns, Austrian-supplied Boehler 47mm guns, German-supplied 75mm Pak 97/38 guns, or Romanian home-built 75mm M43 Resita guns.  All served by one set of kneeling gun crews.

I have seen others doing things differently.  One fellow I saw had some very nice irregularly-shaped sheet plastic stands. With no corners, and following no particular repeating patterns, the various shapes of the stands in a hunit (hand-cut -- similar in size but no two were identical) really looked good on the game table.  So just ideas.  Your tankage may vary.

 

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

[Tu Tran]

Mark, Thanks for pictures of your stands.  They look great!!  

[Peter M. Skaar]

For sure, Mark does great work!  

I have chosen to use square bases for my infantry and support weapons.  My infantry squads are mounted on 3/4" square thin metal bases by Wargames Accessories at 4 figures per base.  My teams are mounted 2 or 3 figures on 1/2' square bases in most cases but occasionally on 1/2"x 3/4" bases if laying prone such as AT rifles or similar.  For my AT guns, I will use whatever will hold the gun and the crew without too much crowding.

Here are a few pictures of squads, teams, and guns.


American infantry squad.


American bazooka team.

 

Two Russian AT rifle teams each mounted on a 1/2" x 3/4" base.


Four American 57mm AT guns mounted on 3/4" square bases.


German platoon HQ team on 1/2" square base.  I went with 3 figures here.


German company HQ team on 1/2" square base.  I used 2 figures for this one.


German infantry squad on 3/4" square base.


German Afrika Korps 88 mounted on a 1" square base.  Even with the larger base size, things are a bit "tight".