Basing [1] - the eternal question...

OK, so I'm feeling very good about this game system, where it is going, and how well it fits into my present limits of time and gaming opponents or attendees.  In short, I'm coming up with consistent interesting battles against myself or anyone else, or even just hosting, that make me motivated to game and paint.  And that's my present standard for gaming.  It has to be fun and interesting, historical without painful, and fit into may life as a hobby.  

The problem that it's revealing is an old one for my 25mm WRG/DBA bases.  My 25mm figs, despite being the smaller Old Glory ones [as opposed to the super-sized 28mm British style] often don't quite fit onto the bases, especially if they've dynamic poses and leveled spears and shields.  This results in needless wear and tear on the figs from scratches by spears, and loosened and damaged spears themselves.  As I'm planning to replace broken weapons with plastics, this is more of a concern. Finally, I'm just saying to myself...why should anyone touch the figures at all??

Below pic shows that in an effort to have my figures in "realistic" group poses and a bit of dynamic appearance, they themselves and their weapons hang off the end of the base. Horse tails and knight lances are especially vulnerable. These stands are what I'm using for Units with my DA rules. They are 120mm wide x 80/60mm deep depending on how I was using them for DBA and other games. Now, I'm thinking that 5" x 2.5" is the perfect size...

This moves me to consider thicker bases that would be how people move the unit.  Also, having multiple bases just increases the chance of them falling over.  It also takes longer to move them, adding to game time.  Tight space also means little room for creativity - a larger base would permit me to make more diorama - like units and such.

Note the 4-stand infantry Units.  But even the 2-stand knights bang into each other on slopes when they tilt into each other sideways, and I dropped off the table a stand of the Welsh bowmen, bending and breaking a lot of the threaded work I'd done.  Ugh.

All the figures / stands / bases are presently resting upon my solution to the problem.  They are free flooring samples from Home Depot.  "Pergo-Presto" is quite thick at almost 8mm

While "Homeland" and "Trafficmaster" are almost 6mm thick.  You can see a height pick below, with Trafficmaster left, and Pergo-Presto right, my home made base between.  I think I made those about 15-20 years ago, buying cheap slats of wood, staining them with Minwax Cherry, then cutting them in 60mm segments with my dad's bandsaw.

And as they come in machine-cut segments of 3.5x5", they are almost ready for me to use. Below pic has my 4-base Unit of Welsh archers WRG/DBA sized with depth/width comparison of the floor samples.  You can see that they're almost the same size, anyway.  I just don't have as many modeling and protecting options since they're all towards the middle of four small bases instead of one large one:

So with 3.5" being too deep, and also not matching the "synergy" of having bases that are half as deep as they are wide, I decided to see what I'd get out of a 2.5" deep base, especially for the knights:

Side view above is very promising.  Only a little bit of lance is sticking out, would be much better then present situation, especially since the figures would be much farther away from each other.  I'm not worried about the lances touching each other - they're piano wire.  I worry more about what they touch, including my fingers!  

Top-view, below shows that the 2.5" depth, total of 5" deep for two opposing, touching Unit-sizedbases: 

My conclusion is that I'm going to go for this flooring as my course of action.  One-piece bases loses a bit of "posing" flexibility, but these Units do not need to form columns and squares and hedgehogs and whatever.  They will also hang together better on sloped terrain. Plus I'm looking forward to cool diorama-type layouts, including some slopes and dips and dead figs.  It will be fun to do, appealing for the gamers, and as long as I strongly advise and encourage people to not touch the figs, it should allow them to survive longer. Also, as I plan to try some plastics, those are definitely not figs I want people picking up stands by!

More on this situation as it develops - I'm figuring out the removal of figures from the old bases and the cutting even as I write this...