"General de Brigade : Advice on 6's or 8's" Topic

As a new player to GdB I'd like advice on what numbers work best for basing British troops.

I'm building a British peninsular force in 15mm and wondering to base in 6's, 8's or do I need both? I was going for 8's with some 4's to make it easier to take off casualties, but reading some older entries on this forum made me unsure if 6's were better . I was thinking of putting light company and grenadiers in their own 4 fig bases, 2x2.

As far as I've seen, the only difference to games that the company size makes is in the width of columns for marching, and how easy it is to field units of different sizes if replicating historical OB. Everything else is dependent on the battalion.

Any advice?

I tried to post this on the GdB forum, but even after registering I could only seem to post titles, not messages.

I have only got the Delux Version and there is a chapter on basing and organisation . IIRC 6 I think is the norm for Brits . Personally I would be tempted to put 4 on a base and perhaps a double or 2 singles to go with it. It will keep you flexible for other systems that way. I have learned from past mistakes to keep as many doors open as possible.

I will check for certain tonight as I have it to hand whilst I am organising my fledgling Austrian force.

I will post here at roughly the same time tomorrow so hold onto the glue for the time being unless somebody else can confirm that I am correct !

K,

PM me on the GdeB site if you're able and I'll see if that can be fixed.

DB

mysteron – thanks for the help – I've been painting but held off basing until I'm sure on the format. I have the delux rules and in there it seems both can be used, I just wonder what people find the best in practice.

DB – thanks I will drop a line tonight when home. When I tried to raise a new post I get the option to have a tsubject title, but not the chance to put any text in.

Dave T aka Kadavar

Don't get hung up on basing, there isn't a "proper" way to go about it, other than being consistent with how many mm frontage per figure. Wellington ordered the formation of Light Battalions from a Division's Light Companies, both in Spain and in the Low Countries, so it's easier, in my opinion to assume that the light company in any battalion will be deployed as part of the Brigade skirmish screen, and work out things from there.

For what it's worth I have a mix. I usually take the view that I'll model a particular battalion as either a 40 (4 skirmishers and 6x6 figure bases)or a 36 (4 skirmishers and 4x8 figure bases). That way you can drop a base from each battalion and be able to field 30s as 5x6 and 24s as 3x8s or 4x6s depending on any oob that takes your fancy, Guards and some Light Infantry could be much bigger, so they would be done as just bigger versions, eg a Guards battalion could be 6x8s or 8x6s and you get the same flexibility to drop bases to get closer to any historical size, like 5x8s or 6x6s etc.

You are correct that the only difference is the type of columns in game play, so weaker battalions have a frontage of a base (8 figures or 6 figures) and fire as Column of Companies/Battalion Square and the stronger ones have a frontage of 2 bases (12 figures) and fire as a Column of Divisions.

Bear in mind that the order the Brigade is under will possibly place restrictions on what Column formations are allowed as well.

As for casualties, it comes down to personal preference as much as anything, but we've been playing GdeB since it first came out and we've never taken bases off as casualties mount (artillery pieces aside)as the casualties will never exceed 50%, formations historically reduced depth to maintain frontage and playing with a large number of big battalions means potentially lots of smaller bases getting piled up/dropped/lost/forgotten/mixed up etc. Use the roster sheets or curtain rings or casualty dials and keep the nicely painted toys on the table for as long as possible, only taking off whole battalions as they disperse or retreat off table with honour.

Yes your are quite correct both can be used. I personally would base them as 6s but using a 40mm square base and a 20x 40 mm base . This would keep things flexible for you. the 20 x 40 can be split further into a couple of single 20s if desired