Art De La Guerre

[76mm]

I'll be building some armies which feature optional pavise units. What is the best way to base pavises? I would hate to have to resort to two bases for a unit, one with pavises and one without, but any other approach seems rather fiddly (basing pavises on a separate stand in front of the unit, etc). Any suggestions?

[KevinD]

The key thing IMO is that your opponent should be able to keep track of which of your units have them and which don’t.

Do you plan to have some with pavises and some without in the same army? Maybe paint 1/2 the bases with pavise and 1/2 without. Say 2 with and 2 without if your planning on doing 4 units. Then if you have a mix in your army you will have some that look correct for each type. This is the “hard case” as your opponent needs to be able to keep track of which are which and your mix of units types will make this easy for him. If you decide not to use any pavises in an army just declare them to all be without pavises when you put them on the table. Since your opponent knows they are all the same it will be easy for him to keep track of it; but do remind him periodically throughout the game, especially if he seems confused @bout thus. Conversely, if they will all have pavises, just declare them to all have pavises when you place them on the table.

If we are talking about crossbowmen, you might also consider getting a mix of two different styles of pavises - one are the large freestanding ones that sit in front of the men where they would duck behind them; the other are the somewhat smaller version carried on their back where they would turn away from the enemy to reload. If you have a mix of each type it’s reasonable in any given game to say the ones carried on the back do or do not count as actual pavises….

Still, once you settle on the list you like it might be worthwhile to just paint up a few extra stands to make them whatever type they really should be.

In the end I would focus on what looks aesthetically appealing for your army (a lot more is forgivable if your army looks sharp than if it’s an ugly hodgepodge of poorly painted deformed figs standing in for various troops they only vaguely resemble) with an eye towards making it easy for your opponent to keep track of, especially when you have a mix of troop types in your army. (I dislike “the guys with green hats are Mediocre while the ones with white or blue hats are Elite while those with red hats are Impact” sort of thing because there’s no logic to it and it puts the burden to look at your detailed painting to figure out what everything is and then remember your arbitrary convention. But all one way or all the other, or ‘those with clearly better equipment (or more figures per base) are Elite/Armored/Pavises while the guys with lesser equipment are not’ is easy enough to remember.)

FWIW, except in pretty specialized cases I don’t think pavises are really worth it. If I knew I was facing a longbow army or maybe even against a bow cavalry army I’d probably buy pavises, but in general they are not really worth the cost IMO. But maybe I’m wrong about this….

[76mm]

Thanks a lot for your response, it covers all of the aspects I was considering! I'm new to minis wargaming, so the gaming etiquette issues are a total mystery to me.

Given that any given army wouldn't have more than a couple of pavise units, I suppose I'll just create separate units, but perhaps split them into standard DBx styles bases (ie, two 40mm x 20mm bases instead of one 40mm x 40mm base), and just swap out the front base for one with pavises when/if necessary.

But all of this remains subject to change! I'm still trying to figure out basing in general; it is the hardest part of this stuff to me.

[Dickstick]

Once I started using pavise on crossbow in medieval armies there was no going back. Experience overcame perception.
Easy enough to go back and retrofit free standing pavise on the bases. Until then fix a pavise on a coin to put in front of those equipped as a marker.
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