Miniature army
The army troops are represented by bases with miniatures on them. Each of these elements represents a unit or individual such as a commander or hero. The rules were written for 15 mm miniatures, but other sizes can be used as well.
You will need an element for each of the units, monsters, commanders, etc. that are in your army. For full details on setting up an army for ‘For Reign or Ruin’ go to the Army Design page in the Rules section.
Miniatures
You can build your army using any miniatures that you like that are representative of the type of troops you want to use. The picture shows miniatures of 18 mm, 15 mm, 10 mm, 6 mm and 2 mm. A list with manufacturers of 15 – 18 mm fantasy miniatures is available, but anything you feel is appropriate can be used.
Basing
Most units will be 8 cm wide by 4 cm deep, but as shown in the picture, different bases can be used to accommodate different models. Artillery, chariots, monsters, etc. can be based on 4 cm wide by 8 cm deep. For units the bases are always multiples of 4 cm . As the base size has considerable influence on play, base frontage is specified in the army lists if not 8 cm. If 8 x 4 does not fit your models, go larger such as 8 x 8 or 8 x 16 as shown for the dragon model. Individuals are based as appropriate for the model as they have no ‘size’ in the game.
The number of miniatures on a unit base is not specified in the rules as it has no impact on gameplay and depends on scale and models used. However, it should adequately represent the formation (skirmish, open or close) as an indicator for your opponent and as a reminder to you. For commanders and heroes you can use banners or musicians to indicate rank or status.
Trying the rules
Without immediately committing to building an army, you can try out the rules simply by cutting out the example units for the tutorial game, or you can cut pieces of cardboard of the right size and write the unit stats on them.
If you already have a miniature army you can also use those. The unit size is not critical as long as both sides use the same size and they are reasonably close. Alternatively you can use 8 x 4 cm card pieces as movement trays for any type of alternative basing, possibly with small pieces of double-sided tape to temporarily keep them in place. The picture shows examples of unit elements build from DBM and HOTT bases.
Larger scale miniatures
If you want to use 25-30 mm miniatures for your army, you can either put those on 8 x 4 cm bases as shown on the left, double all distances in the game resulting in 16 x 8 cm bases for units, as shown on the right, or go from centimetres to inches resulting in 8″ x 4″ (20 cm x 10 cm) bases/movement trays. The only downside is that it limits the size of the battles to fewer bases on the average table.