"WSS problems at brigade and higher" Topic

Hi all,
I'm looking for ideas about how people represent infantry brigades on the tabletop in WSS games.
First of all, I already know and accept that is it impossible to represent true scales on the table. If unit frontage is used as a criteria then the depth of the unit on the table is going to be terribly, terribly over scale. For other time periods this is not as much an issue because there are different formations and self supporting arrangements of the brigade unit. i.e. in Napoleonic you could use a 60cm x 30cm base to represent a brigade without too much problem because there are columns and self supporting lines.
BUT…as I am learning from some previous threads that I have posted, the infantry brigades in WSS seem to have been universally deployed as a single VERY long line of battalions. This makes the idea of having a unit on the table representing an infantry brigade a little problematic for me. The distortion of unit depth is much more of an issue now for me because I want to represent the supporting brigade that was typically 100-200 yards behind the first brigade. A large part of the period flavor for me is in the use of these supporting lines and I would like to represent this.
One idea that I have had is that instead of having each unit represent a brigade, I could have each unit represent TWO brigades, one behind the other, but that kind of removes the idea of gaming with supporting lines. Does anyone have any ideas about how to represent this literally on the table and in the rules?
FYI I am playing with a self doctored set of Twilight of the Sun King meets Might and Reason meets Polemos. (I'm an inveterate hacker). Please feel free to recommend any rule set for the period that you think works.

Twilight of the Sun King suggest representing the brigades as two thin elements – these can then be deployed as:

a single line
supported line
march column (end-end)

it works very well.

In fact it works for Napoleonics too (as you can do squares and attack columns as well).

Yes, I liked that idea very much at first, but then it seems that historically a single brigade in supported line formation was never done.( I'm SURE there are examples of exceptions, but in general…)
Am I being too trifling? It seemed important to me that the lines have separate commands. Although I guess I could take it up to a higher command level of abstraction and say the "division" commander is the one committing lines to support. This would rationalize the "supported line" unit formation.

Rule that the base depth, covers the 100yards behind and the 30 or so yards in front of the actual line.

Yes the WSS was very linear in that way, other than for marching, no kind of column seems to have been used, with as you say brigades deployed one behind the other. (except in siege work and other special occasions).

It is not helped by the fact that the main protagonists all started with different battalion frontages as well. (British/Dutch in 3 rank, French/Spanish/Bavarian In 4 Rank and Austrian in 5 or 6 Ranks deep).

The issue in the WSS was the lack of Divisional level command, you jumped from Brigade command to overall in command of the wing including cavalry and artillery.

Sometimes a group of Infantry Brigades were given an overall commander (Churchill and Coutts at Blenheim) but they answered to the wing Officer (for want of a better term). I am trying to avoid the term Division as they were not mixed arms nor were they a fixed size, a commander of multiple Brigades could have 6 Brigades of 4 or 5 battalions under his hand.

Understood about higher level command FreddBloggs. That is why I used "" around division. I was just trying to think of any commander above the brigade level that might be the one to decide that a second line brigade needed to move forward into the fray.
I like your idea about the depth distortion. That has potential…

"Yes, I liked that idea very much at first, but then it seems that historically a single brigade in supported line formation was never done."

Well, yes there is that, in which case you need to deploy the infantry as two lines (and your brigades can be one or two elements side-by-side).

There is a sort of concept of a 'division' in the WSS in the apparently semi-random collections of battalions, squadrons and batteries under individual commanders but e.g. Charles Churchills 18 battalions at Blenheim were in two lines but it is unclear what the brigade divisions were.

Interesting that both Clausewitz and Jomini take is as read that infantry _always_ deploy in two lines, if not more and that anyone who does any different is completely bonkers. Our rules often don't seem to reflect the benefits of doing so.

"Brigades" were generally larger than those of, say, the Napoleonic Wars. They might be more or less the size of a Napoleonic Division. WSS definitely is married to the concept of Brigades to Wings with 3 wings (like the Medieval "Battle") and 1 or more reserve lines. The steps between levels of command were much larger than that of the more modern wars.

Yes, I liked that idea very much at first, but then it seems that historically a single brigade in supported line formation was never done.

You are quite correct. Multi-line brigades were not done very often. However, you must consider that the two line formation is still part of the same wing and, therefore, under the command of that wing commander. So, in another sense, they are related. As there are a few examples of multi-line brigades in the WSS, it could be up to the wing commander to order such formations and that would not be so unusual.

We play Twilight a lot, using 10mm figures, and have found no great problem with using 2 Polemos sized bases (60mm x 30 mm)to represent a brigade of around 2000 infantrymen or 1000 cavalry. We tend to use the rules for "refights" (done Blenheim twice and Ramillies, as well as some GNW battles) so there are a lot of bases on the table and the overall impression is very much of an attacking line supported by one or two more lines.
I understand OPs issue re depth of bases, but we tend to regard that as representing the " Zone of Control" of the brigade.

Another vote for 'Twilight' (without vampires) here; the overall visual effect is pretty good.

Depth distortion is a given in Horse & Musket gaming, you just have to realise (or rationalise) that the base is not the unit, but the unit's footprint including regulation intervals for manoeuvre which no other unit would trespass on. In that sense the real problem may lie not with base depths, but with overly generous ranges for musketry? In 'Twilight' that's just equal to base depth, but many rule systems allow several times as much.

The Corlears Hook Fencibles played Twilight of the Sun King a lot. We banned supported lines because it looked better with one brigade supporting another.

We used 4 stands per brigade, each 1" wide. Our figures were 15mm.