"Latest blog post on basing choices" Topic

Starting to turn my thoughts towards what basing convention to use for my napoleonics adventure. My thoughts so far are here .

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Cheers

Simon

Black Powder units with 25/28mm figures usually have a frontage of 24cm (24 figures mounted 4 to a base, with each base 4cm wide). If you are going to halve all ranges then you really want to aim at units having a frontage of ~12cm. Wider than that and you will find that you run out of space rather quickly.

Option 2 works the best for French 6 company organisation, but option 1 gives better compatibility with cavalry basing (same base width with 2 figs)

It is what you feel gives you the most:
1) Looks good
2) compatibility to the most rules ( when there is not a specific one your club plays).
I am in a similiar place except, I am also trying to resolve the issue between forces that fought in 2 rank vs those in 3 and presenting that difference on the table.

To me 3 rank troops were about shoulder to shoulder and crowded- it looks napoleonic ( and less amount of & time adding all that flocking to the base, which is best).
I am contemplating a similar to your OPt1 by placing 6 on a 25mm x 20mm base and 2 rank, 4 on a 25 x 14mm base.
Like Fire at Will said, it works best with the cav., 2 on a similar size base width.

MG

Thanks,

I was erring to 40mm x 30mm. 8 figures a base. As per lassale 32 figures looks impressive and works with black powder.

But now I'm not sure, will 16cm frontage be too wide for my table.

Interesting decisions

ADV to 24 fig unit
1) Looks better for march column and att col. with smaller width to depth per base.
2) more units on your table size.
3) Can make more units at 24 vs 32, for qty of Figs painted.

MG

I use some basic principles when determining basing widths of units. Most importantly, the closer together your figures and smaller the width of your base, the "larger" your tabletop will be. So I begin by determining how close together I can base 3-rank infantry figures. That will determine your ground scale.

Secondly, if you base your figures in 2 ranks, you essentially double your ground scale. But this only works well with 15mm or smaller figures in larger numbers. I would say a minimum 24-figure battalion (or "unit"). This, of course, will drastically increase the depth scale distortion, but it matters less with the smaller figures.