Wednesday 20 March 2019

Basing for DBN rules.

I seem to be caught up in a lot of basing at the moment, as I decided after much thought to organise my 40mm Napoleonics for the DBN rules. I purchased a copy and after only a couple of read throughs was hooked. I just think they will work for me, and will allow me to game with these large figures on a modest  size table as movement rates, ranges etc are quite modest. I will expand on this in due course, but in the meantime here are a few shots showing the new basing method. Of course I was not prepared to remove all of these from existing bases, but rather to put them onto sabot bases, which comply with the standard size DBN frontage and make handling these figures so much easier.

DBN stipulates 40mm frontage bases, with the game played on a 2' square board (12 point games. I have gone for 120mm frontage bases featuring 12 foot, 4 cavalry or an artillery battery. The beauty for me is that one can deploy up to 5 bases as a formation- march column, attack column or line- and the figure mass looks really impressive in this scale. A formation can be activated by a single CAP (Command Action Point). I won't go much farther yet, but you get the idea below, I still need to sabot base the cavalry in 4's (120mm frontage). The other thing is that I won't be trying to squeeze these into a grid, I could just not make it work without breaking the units down into too small groups of figures to fit!

DBN :  Ms = muskets, 12 figures   Fs = Foot skirmishers, 7 figures  Jg (Jagers) 6 figures, includes British rifles ...... mine of course are the 60th Regt. I also plan some British Light infantry down the line. cavalry of course are heavy or light.

Finally, how refreshing it is to read a set of rules that don't cost £30 + quid, and are not full of images of beautifully painted figures! The download cost £12.00 and I was happy to pay that for a set of rules that I know I'm going to enjoy using and very easy to cross reference with example diagrams at the rear.













12 comments:

  1. Good work - much better - made me feel damn cold... :o)

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    1. That's the effect I'm after Steve :) The pics are not great though. My idea is to varnish/seal the boards once treated to prevent chipping and give them a slight icy sheen so the tank/figure bases will get the same treatment. On the other sides will be my Peninsular boards, no grid required for DBN, not that I have a problem with grids! The DBN rules will play well with the One Hour wargame scenarios and it's random force generation system, big figures/small games on a modest table are what I'm after here.

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  2. Great work here, the DBN rules work admirably and your ideas re bases sizes etc for 40mm are great.
    That's the good thing re the rules easily adaptable, I really like them

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    1. Hi Graham, great to hear from you, hope you are keeping well. Something about the DBN rules just clicked with me after watching the videos, and the re basing was a simple affair. The collection is now much easier to handle as they are quite hefty (and expensive) figures and I do fear dropping or damaging them. Good to hear that you enjoy them.

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  3. That's cracked it nicely - and no blue required. Particularly liked the 5th Bn 60th Foot figures as I'm just coming to the end of the new Helion book on the unit - they really got everywhere but not any leaving memoirs are left in the shade by more literary 95th.

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    1. Hi Rob, cheers mate. The 60th were painted by another hand and are really well done, I don't know who but other units have the same style and sort of trademark blue eyes that I have tried to imitate with less success!

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  4. Looks rather convincing for a fresh dusting of snow.

    Classic look at the Nap. bases.

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  5. Thanks Ross, I'm still not quite done with those winter bases yet!

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  6. Your winter bases look much more convincing now and your Napoleonic force looks awesome!
    Best Iain

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  7. Cheers Iain, I'm happy I did the right thing with the basing on the 40's, makes them far easier to handle safely.

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  8. Fantastic work. I am a big fan of DBN and going to try out DBACW for ACW.

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