"Longstreet - Does Artillery and Cavalry base size matter?" Topic

OK so a quick read of available info shows base size not to be vital.

My 28mm units have 40mm square bases per stand so the infantry appears to be fine.

My question is I have artillery where one gun is on 80mm and Cavalry where one stand is 80mm frontage ie Both are two infantry bases wide. Would these suit?

Also are limbers key to the game? My pal has a couple of Perry 6 horse limbers and they take up a colossal amount of table space, never mind the expense! Just like infantry stands in all miniature based games, the depth is way off and their on table foot print is miles to big, so we tend not to use them.

Could you use a marker of some kind for limbered/unlimbered?

If the cav are on 2x wide bases, then you can just treat them as two bases. Since units can have an odd number of bases, you will then need a marker to show if one of your artillery or cavalry bases is one or two real bases. Main problem will be if you want to use your cavalry in, say, a 3 base wide by 2 base deep formation.

Cavalry will generally dismount to fight infantry, so I doubt they will be much of a problem.

I guess if you like the rules you may want to add a few single cav and art guns on 40mm bases to act as change. In fact, a few 40mm empty bases just flocked may be sufficient to try the game out.

Artillery can be limbered or unlimbered – so you just need to tell which formation it is in (I generally just turn the guns around if I am not using limbers). But limbers are so pretty…

I guess I'll have to see how it goes. Obviously as you say, period wise, there shouldn't be a lot of head to head mounted cavalry v infantry combat to fuss about in terms of matching up opposing units.

The idea of a 40mm artillery stand is more than a little tight. If anyone wanted to mount a gun and figures on that size in 28mm, the width of the gun model on its own is 30mm so gunners crammed in behind wouldn't look too good.

I really hate skinny artillery with one gun and a couple of figures stood behind it like you see in some rule sets.

The way I play at the moment the single 80mm frontage with one model and four figures represents a two gun section.

You could use 80mm wide bases throughout the army and simply count two infantry bases arrayed side by side as one base width. All you would need is a measuring stick marked off in 80mm intervals. Of course this would double your base requirements to create a "force"."

"The way I play at the moment the single 80mm frontage with one model and four figures represents a two gun section."

That's how I do it, also, although with a 50mm frontage per gun section. That means a typical Federal battery is three bases, about 150mm (6") wide.

Depends if you're trying to get the artillery frontages accurate or not. My understanding is that a 2 gun section had a frontage of approx. 25-30 yards. 80mm is a little over 3 inches – so let's say it's 3 inches. If you are representing a 2 gun section on a 3 inch wide base, then each inch on the tabletop would represent about 10 yards in 'real life". 30 infantry men in a 2 rank close order line would also have a frontage of about 10 yards. So if you used a 40mm (1.5") base for your infantry, each base would be 15 yards and thus represent 45 actual men…

That's how I do it, also, although with a 50mm frontage per gun section. That means a typical Federal battery is three bases, about 150mm (6") wide.

OK Sam, so that suggests to me that there's not an absolute relationship – remind me, what are you suggesting for infantry base width – I thought I read 40mm, or did I make that up? (I can't remember which bit of advanced info I read about bases and frontages/ground scales on!)

No, I just use 2" (50mm) base widths for all my 28mm figures.

Having artillery on 50mm or 60mm bases and inf on 40mm bases should not be too much of a problem. The artillery will get a slight edge from more often getting to choose a canister target, but their wider front makes them a bit more vulnerable to enemy shooting and charges.

My 28mm units have 40mm square bases per stand so the infantry appears to be fine.

My question is I have artillery where one gun is on 80mm and Cavalry where one stand is 80mm frontage ie Both are two infantry bases wide. Would these suit?

I'd use 80mm as the standard Base Width, even though that doubles the amount of infantry bases you'd need.

Interesting…

Actually, those 6-horse limbers aren't that far off regarding an artillery battery's depth.

Consider that there's a 6 horse limber behind every battery (facing to the front), and then another 6 horse team with limber and caisson deployed further back, around 40-60 yards depending on terrain. Plus there's a battery wagon, a traveling forge, and a medical wagon and/or ambulance back from that as well.

If anything, battery frontage and depth is usually under-represented in game rules.

V/R