"Basing militia" Topic

Most of my 15mm AWI armies have been acquired second hand and this has resulted in the need to make some compromises regarding basing.

I have a large force of men mounted two to a base one inch wide by half inch deep (open order). I have a large force of troops mounted three to a base one inch wide by 3/4 inch deep (close order) I have started basing some men 4 to a base in two ranks. The base is one inch square so it matches the basing of the first set of men when they are set up one in front of the other.

I treat two of the old bases as one stand of figures so my stands have 4-6 men to them and are treated as the same for game purposes. They all have the same frontage.

Here are pictures of the troops in battle: link

I opted to mount my jaegers two to a 1 by 3/4 stand so they can look like skirmishers or be pushed together to represent formed troops.

I am not sure how to mount my new militia. Other than Lexington and Concord are they ever really in a single skirmish line in any battles? Even there it is my understanding most of the time they fought more or less in ranks, but utilized cover. I could mount them like the jaegers, but there will be so many of them it seems inefficient. I suppose I could mount some of them two to a base (1/2 stand) to be pushed together as needed to be formed troops and some of them four to a base.

Does anyone have any idea how often I would need militia in single rows for most scenarios? Would one regiment (20-24 figures) be sufficient to supply all my single skirmish line needs for most battles or should I just base them all four to a one inch square stand like the line troops? Any thoughts from you more experienced players?

I am going to face the same dilemna in basing my lights.

I have two types of basing for my games.
For regiment size unit games, I base ALL of my 25/28mm infantry on 2" x 1" bases. It makes no difference if they are grenadiers, LI line troops or militia.

For skirmish games, I base them all individually.

Don't get caught up in the wargamers' belief that militia somehow had some magic skirmishing ability that "regulars" lacked, merely by virtue of being untrained.
You can count on two fingers the times that militia acted by our "hiding behind trees and shooting the stupid British" myth.
When they fought in battles, they fought as ranked units, just like the regulars.

Nor were Light Infantry "skirmishers" in the Napoleonic sense. British LI were invariably used as fast elite line troops, and not in clouds of Sharps and Harpers.

Jaegers never fought as a formed unit, so no need to worry about that.

Militia tried to use period drills, which were all in ranks of three or two. I am not familiar with a single rank formation.

I have all my militia in ranks of two, but in the rules I use (BG) they often call for skirmish type units of all types. BG mounts lesser skirmishers three to a stand.

Light should be mounted like regular troops, but allowed to fight at the various open file formations.

I think it also depends on what rules you are using and how they portray that.

Like John said, I would mount them like everybody else.

HG brings up a good point about the use of either two or three ranks.

I do what John does, though all my stuff is now 25mm, in that my figures are single figures, and I make movement trays for multiple figure units.

I would go with two figures, as you previously have, and double the bases for denser formations (ie one behind the other). The other option is to do a one inch square base, but with only three figures per base…

That being said, what rules do you use?

Eric

Militia that skirmished were generally of the backwoods "over the mountain" type and tended to have a lot of rifles. Generic local militia were musket armed and tried to fight in line. They were best formed up behind cover. In the open they had a propensity to run away when charged by regulars.

Thank you gentlemen. I have opted for 4 to a base, but will probably do riflemen 2 to a half base so they can be doubled up as needed.

As to rules I have used Black Powder and Wilderness Wars.

BG rules. :-)