CAV Infantry Questions

[roebeast45]

Hi everyone,

I just picked up three packs of 24536 Heavy/PA Infantry and had a few questions.

1. Are the four minis on each sprue grouped to go on each base?

2. Are all infantry bases made up of four minis? 

3. How many bases of infantry will a normal battlegroup contain?

Thanks in advance!

[Vil-hatarn]

Infantry are typically 3-5 to a base; the exact number is up to personal preference and can be useful for signifying special abilities or other differences between bases. I personally mount three to a base for two reasons--the models go a bit farther (always nice with the cost of pewter), and the Adonese military is organized in groups of three, with infantry squads made up of a sergeant and two grunts.

 

As for numbers, I can't comment on CAV:SO but in CAV 2 I would commonly field half a dozen bases in a mid-sized game (usually two sections of three armored drop teams with AT-23s).

[ThatDeadGuy]

I have played every version of CAV that has ever been put out over the years, and the basing guidelines mentioned by Vil-hatarn are spot on. I would add that IF you are adding any special/heavy weapons upgrades to a squad using the 4th model is a great way to represent that - especially if you do a minor simple conversion on the gun. In CAV SO Infantry squads are composed of 4 -12 bases (with SA: BULKY count as 2 bases for each base - power armored troops). I would suggest loading the squads up to MAX (12 bases) or as close as possible if you want them to be even remotely effective offensively. As far as how many are "typically" contained - that is up to you....I'm not too sure there even IS a typical. For example In my very aggressive gaming group not a single one of my players (myself included) use infantry. Hope that helps, and MAN am I glad to see someone else playing this game. I was afraid the time delay on the Kickstarter minis killed it!

Edited January 24, 2016 by ThatDeadGuy

[Sergeant_Crunch]

If I decide to take infantry in a CAV2 game I'll take a section of six bases of light drop infantry with AT-23s, a section of three heavy infantry bases with assault and satchel charges in fast transports, and a mortar section of three bases.  All told 12 bases, and a couple transports.  Depending on the size of the game it can put a crunch on points available for CAVs. There have been situations where the CAVs I had couldn't stand up to the ones the opponent brought and the infantry didn't get the job done (had some really bad dice rolls and the targets moved out of range).

[Dark Horse]

I have them mounted 4 to a base - I guess when I got my infantry during the first releases, way back when the galaxy was a free-for-all, not a lot of info was out there... maybe it's time to get some more and go with the 3 figures per base, then I can use these for SA as mentioned by Vil-hatarn and ThatDeadGuy. ;)

[Vytau]

I'm seconding just about everything here - I mount three to a base because I'm a broke student, and increasing the value of each blister by 33% is too good to pass up, even if the units look a little sparse as a consequence. 

 

Because of the mind-boggling array of options, I'm still working out a good way to separate and identify units.  At present, I'm pretty happy just lumping everything into super-broad classes:  Light, Heavy, and PA, further sorted into rifle, heavy weapons, and mortar sections.  I'm not making a distinction, visually, between models armed with missile launchers versus grenade launchers, or models armed with medium mortars versus light mortars.  There are simply too many options for me to get that picky.  Plus I have five armies, and that's going to get *expensive*! 

 

With three to a base, I can designate one sergeant per stand and tag them with a uniquely colored helmet, then I can just note which squad has what, e.g. "blue squad is a FIST squad" or "Red squad has the heavy mortar while purple squad has the light mortar" and so on.  

 

That's the plan, anyway! 

[Vil-hatarn]

Great suggestion on color-coding squads! Even outside of tracking upgrades, seems like it would greatly ease identification in-game. For missile launchers, I've split mine up between the two rocket launcher models (empty and loaded launchers, IIRC) for anti-tank and anti-air, though you could color-code those pretty easily as well.

[Chrome]

For missile launchers, I've split mine up between the two rocket launcher models (empty and loaded launchers, IIRC) for anti-tank and anti-air, though you could color-code those pretty easily as well.

 

The ones w/pointy warheads are AT-23's, the others are the AA-52's (anti-aircraft).

 

Remember: pointy = Piercing!

[Dark Horse]

You can always identify units by writing with a sharpie on the underside... All of my Reaper hex bases have ridges underneath that basically keep the writing from being scratched off by movement on rough surfaces (if you write in the textured area between the ridges) - or you can paint a portion of one edge (or the whole edge) of the base a particular color to designate squads - similar to what Vytau said above, just not on the helmets. 

[Girot]

Personally, I prefer to use 4 models per base for non-powered infantry, 3 models for the powered infantry, and 2 for mortar infantry.