Prefered camp size?

[Dave Crowell]

I am getting ready to model a few camps, partly for own amusement and possibly for sale on e-bay. With that in mind is there a prefered size for camps?

The requirement of Length + Width being no more than 4 base widths (or 160mm) in 15mm givs a wide range of legal possibilities.

[David Kuijt]

My preferred size is around double what is listed as the maximum.

Seriously!

[Paul A. Hannah]

The requirement of Length + Width being no more than 4 base widths (or 160mm) in 15mm givs a wide range of legal possibilities.Ah, but over-sized camps open up even greater possibilities.

Don't fret going out to 6 base-widths of length + width. No one will ever complain, but folks will oooh & aah over a spiffy diorama display.

Oft-spoken advice on this forum, regarding biggie-sized camps, is that one can always have a slip of paper at the legal size handy to use if need be. Personally, I've never done that. I think that that would cause some grumbling. Imagine: You've marched your Sassanid Levy Speamen (Hordes) all the way across the board, and you're ready to charge the Roman Camp for everlasting bragging rights of Sassanian glory, only to have the Roman player pull a switcheroo and tell you you're really still another bound, and 2 PIPs away, from the camp. Arghh! --And, really, who wants to look as a slip of paper anyway?

So, over-sized camps? If you've got a great idea that begs for some extra room, go for it!

[philistinejim]

My Camps tend to be max size or a bit more. I think one of the great things about DBA is that since you only need 12 elements, that you then have time to devote to the camp scene. In my opinion the camp is what usually gives the army it's personality. In the past I played mostly DBM and most players after painting like 80 elements end up with an after thought camp of a series of tents or even blank bases. But in DBA I am often more impressed with the camps put out there.

SO if you want to go a bit larger then the "legal" size I doubt if any mind too much. One idea if you want to go a bit larger is to make the camp on the max size camp base and then add a palasade or walls as extra pieces. Just tell your opponent the they need to actually have enough move to get to the camp base. You can take the extra pieces off if the bad guys get close. My Etruscan pit stop camp is built that way though I have always just used it as a total oversized camp in games and have never had a problem. Mostly because no one has gotten close enough. If they get close enough they can go for it and I'll give em the extra inch.


I think that since camps are the most fun to model & paint up and that if oversized they only hurt you no one really cares if they are a bit too big.

And if the bad guys get thet close you probably have fubared the game all up anyway.

So let's see that special camp.

Jim K

[lewchips]

I have a couple of legal camps in my collection but the ones I now make both for myself and to sell all tend to be oversized. I found a source for cheap MDF coasters that I use as the base on the majority of my camps. I just trim the sides to make a bevelled edge. Even if I cut the bases out myself, I still tend to make them a little larger.

As previously written, camps are great fun to make and personally if my base ends up bigger, so be it.

[tors]

My new camp for competition is just big enough to fit one element after I got into a sticky situation when I was pushed back agaist a max sized one.

For friendly play they are much bigger.

Kingo

[JamesLDIII]

It seems you are more focused on camps per the official rules, but if you have a roman army here is some food for thought. The average Roman marching camp in Wales is about 500x400 paces, or 125x100mm, or roughly 3x2 element widths. You could make the internal rampart dimensions be 160x120mm, and add 10-20mm of wall and ditch, to give a maximum dimension of 200x160mm, and your entire army can fit on the ramparts of the camp. You better play on 30" boards, however, as your camp is roughly 6x8 inches! Or just stick with the 4x5 inch camp.

Actually, I just drew out a 4x5 camp, and I notice that I if I use only 10mm for the ditch and wall of the rampart, while leaving 15mm around for the wall for troops to man the rampart itself, I can exactly fit all 12 elements inside the camp (of a Polybian army with 2xCv, 2xPs, and 8xBs/Sp). The .4mm per inch will give some wiggle room for imperfectly based elements. I could design a second 50x80mm base with tents to fit inside the larger camp base to represent the camp when the troops are out of it, and then take it out when I want to file my Roman army back into camp--now I want to build one.

I started a heretical camp thread a while back which outlines this and responses in more detail here:

http://fanaticus.org/discussion/showthread.php?t=3258&highlight=heretical+camp

[Maerk]

Being an authority-trusting Swiss Guy, I always (mostly) try to respect rules :-) Accordingly, my DBA camps never exceed or fall below the limits stated in the ruleset.
When I started with DBA three years ago, my first camps were medium-sized; later, I wanted to have enough room in the camp for any element of the corresponding army, may it be a Cv or even an El or Art; so they grew larger and larger and now all my latest camps go to the maximum size allowed, be it an 80x80mm square or an 60x100mm rectangle.

[Phil Bagnall]

Sticking within the legal measurements, mine tend to be 100mm x 60mm dimensions as the extra depth (compared to 120 x 40) gives a bit more scope for creative diorama-ism, but going to 80 x 80 seems a rather ungainly shape

[Stephen Webb]

Most of my camps are 40mm by 80mm. Some are bigger as the ship or tent model wouldn't fit the smaller size.

I usually use the same camp followers who are based as 40mm x 20mm, so they fit within the normal camps.

[Mike Porter]

I usually do anywhere from 40x40-40x80. The largest camps I have are 50x100.

I don't take any particular joy from making camps so I tend to keep them small.

[David Kuijt]

One more note -- my camps are not often rectangular. I make all sorts of shapes, although a common one is hexagonal -- a rectangle with two front corners chopped off.

[Roland Fricke]

40mm by 80mm but I angle the corners. 40mm so it fits in the Plano storage box witht all the figure bases. I've found my big camps don't get to make the trip as much as they're more painful to pack.

[Gregorius]

My bases are either 80x80 or 100x60.

[Mike Demana]

Most of my camps are 40mm by 80mm.

Mine, too. I'll make them bigger, from time to time, but almost never any smaller. As a fellow slave to Plano, it always makes it handy when you can fit an army's camp alongside the figs themselves...

worldwidemike