Sabot Bases for Dux Britannarium
We’ve started up a Dux Britannarium campaign at the South East Scotland Wargames Club and four of us are trying to get a game in every couple of weeks. So far it’s all been going the way of the Saxons. Despite the fact that they’ve lost more battles than they’ve won they’ve managed to amass a small fortune in gold and their leader is just biding his time until he declares himself a Warlord and tries to take over some land for himself. So how has this happened? Well the British keep winning victories, but they’ve been Pyrrhic victories in which they suffer a lot of casualties. The Saxons have been recovering quicker than the British and have managed several months raiding without opposition.
Up until now we’ve been playing with the toys on single bases, but we decided to go for sabots to make moving them easier. This was complicated by the fact that people at the club have their Dark Age troops based in three different ways. Jack used to play a lot of Warhammer Ancient Battles and has hordes of troops based on 20mm square bases. I never really liked WAB and like to base my skirmish troops on one pence pieces. A lot of people have Vikings, Saxons, Welsh or Normans based on the 2p pieces we decided to use for Saga – a game that’s been little played since Dux Brit appeared on the scene. Richard of TooFatLardies promises us a Viking supplement sometime, “Easter” has been mentioned as a release date (an in-joke in the TooFatLardies Yahoo Group, that means it will be out sometime). So we wanted to get sabots that could be used with these base sizes and which could differentiate the Mass and Shieldwall formations used in the game.
Here’s what I came up with.
Pictured above are standard sabot shapes I came up with that can fit with 1p, 2p, 20mm square and 25mm square bases (nobody’s got any, of them, but I though I’d fit them in anyway) and portray troops in both Shieldwall and Mass. All of them can be made for the standard six man Groups or the eight man groups that can arise when a successful Lord attracts new followers. I got the things made by Martin at Warbases using mounting cardboard for the bottom layer rather than his usual 2mm mdf. This makes them slightly thinner than his standard sabots, which can make troops look like they’re standing on a raised platform.
Here are troops on 1p pieces, 20mm squares and 2p pieces in mass formation.
The same troops on the Shieldwall bases.
I’ve already painted and textured all the bases needed for my starting Pict force, which is based on one pence pieces, and you can see how they turned out in another blog post. Here’s an sample pic.
A word of thanks to Martin of Warbases who listened to my ideas, discussed the details with me and then went on to do the detailed design work that turned them into the final product. I have been involved with him on other projects for custom designed bases (Muskets & Tomahawks for example) and I can recommend his services without reservation.
If you want to get some sabots to these designs for yourself, just ask Martin and I’m sure he’ll oblige.
Great bases, as ever. But I would like to see the shieldwall more closed.
I agree Emilio. But I was constrained in the design because I had to get things so that all the different sized bases can be used. If I ever get to the point where I have both sides for a campaign and can provide all the necessary troops myself I will design new sabots to do just that.