"Unit frontage and depth is maddening!" Topic

I have been "building" Napoleonic Peninsular War units for many years, with no chance to game with them for lack of players. I dread the day I find someone to game with, and my units become totally unworkable!

My units are mounted on one-man or 2-man "stands" 17mm frontage for each soldier, 1 inch from front to rear, and 1/4 inch thick (wooden venetian blind slats). I like to use my French 3 figures deep! and my British and Portuguese 2 figures deep. The French look like 1:1 7YW companies of 36 men!

I envision forming square with my 36 French using only 8 figures, 2" on a side (3 figures occupy 51mm frontage – about 2"). This may actually be too big, for this would include grenadiers and voltigeurs in this space, not reinforcing corners. I foresee doing this, for my figures are on 1 and two figure strands. It means taking 28 figures off the board! But our squares cover much too much ground in the games I see on TMP, and would actually open up the field for enemy units to push forward.

French battalions in line with other battalions had space between each to allow for some guns to move through, or squadrons of cavalry, possibly with single-company frontage. Forming square would open these spaces even more.

I put 2 gunners and one gun on a 2 inch wide slat, about 3/5 to 4 inches deep. These represent a 2-gun section. 4 such slats represent a battery (8 inches wide)equal to the width of one of my infantry battalions, and represents the guns as many yards apart.

I have not yet tried to figure out how to use French infantry, and batteries, in road column! French in line front about 200 yards. 720 men in road column of 6 men wide would be about 120 ranks deep, plus colours, other spacing. Could they be 200 yards deep, and just move the unit sideways!

As I said above, "maddening!"

GdeP

Try General de Brigade. The smaller scale distrances is what you need. For road and attack columns you have to adjust things so that only the real depth of the figures is attackable.

Don't go there! There is nothing but madness! Don't you know that that path is cursed by the Old Ones?

That's something I haven't done in 13 years – looked into a rule set! I must do that!!!!

Thanks for the advice, Alex!

GdeP

It's essentially insoluble.

A 28mm figure typically occupies a space about 13mm square. For the depth to be correct, you'd need to deem that figure to be 3 ranks both wide and deep. It is after all basically square in shape.

So if one figure in line = 9 men, then a battalion would need to be about 60 figures, minimum. That's not impossible to paint or collect, although it's twice the size of the largest units I have ever used. The issue is that drawn up in line, each such battalion would be 80cm wide. If your table's five feet wide, that does not allow you a line even two battalions wide. Some army.

So you can do a couple of things. You can reduce the width of the units by a factor of say four. You get a manageable size of unit, but it's now 4x overscale in depth.

Alternatively you can reduce the size of figure, although only 6mm would get you close, and isn't everyone's cup of tea because from normal viewing distances the figures don't look like anything in particular (and are usually upstaged by the bases).

Or you allow it to be abstracted away by the rules, accepting that as long as no anomalies result, that's as good as it gets.

You pays your money…

Opponents. I had to pull a couple of strings, but I've arranged for 2,000+ historical miniatures players to be in Pennsylvania the first weekend in November. All you have to do is e-mail HMGS east and tell them you need a table at the Lancaster Host Resort. They'll reserve you a table and notify all the potential players.

But as for frontage and depth in a tactical Napoleonics game,4th Cuirassiers has it right. You can do a little better using brigades as your maneuver units, but mostly at tactical you have to be content with "good tactics work: bad tactics don't" and a satisfactory appearance. Don't let it spoil your enjoyment.

Here is an approach using 3mm to get teh ground scale right:

1809in3mm.blogspot.com

It's not an 'essentially insoluble' problem unless you define yourself into a corner, trying to cram ten pounds of lead in a one ounce shot glass. It all depends on:

1. What YOU want the stands to represent.[What does the area of the stand represent?]

2. The rules scale you chose, and

3. The size of the miniatures you use.

I have no problem with either width or depth using 15mm figures with a 75 yard to the inch ground scale representing brigades--and the area they need to function…as well as cavalry and artillery. Most road columns would be three, maybe four men wide, two horses or one gun wide. Because of hidden movement, I don't even have the stands on the table… just a marker for the head of the column and at least 12" deep on the road as a tail.

However, if I did 25 or 50 yards to the inch, it would become a problem.

Well said, Robert!

LFS adapts to your basing, and it makes for an awesome solo gaming experience, too.

Napoleonic formations expanded and contracted their depth according to circumstances – a column was made up of lines, but the lines did not have to be all crammed in together.

But Depth will always be an issue, so fudge it…

Using figures for gaming (as opposed to blocks for example) forces us to compromise on the depth of formed units – and the bigger the figures the bigger the compromise, especially for troops in line. But I always try to remember that a large area behind a formed unit was virtually dead ground which other units needed to be keep clear of. A good set of rules should not allow this unit depth anomaly to distort calculations of movement and casualties.

4th has it. I am doing just such a project in 6mm. My French battalions are 288 figures: 12 figures per stand, four stands per company, 24 stands per battalion. A single battalion is 19" wide by about 1/2" deep (though the bases are 3/4" deep). Even on my 6x9 table a single brigade is all I'll have room for. And ground scale then becomes a problem: my table is only a few hundred yards across in scale. So there will be very limited room for maneuver As a result I'm aiming for very, very simple rules so we can admire the look of the game, but be done in 90 minutes. Maybe switch sides and play again.

Napoleonic formations expanded and contracted their depth according to circumstances – a column was made up of lines, but the lines did not have to be all crammed in together.

The problem is insisting that the stand represent a specific moment in time [usually a closed column or line] for just the rank and file of a particular sized unit. An open column was as deep as a line formation was wide. A supporting line never came within 100-150 yards of the front line for that reason: To give the front line maneuver room. The French for instance, would march in open column until coming into contact range of the enemy.

Then there are the yards between companies and battalions for the same reason. Units expanded and contracted in all sorts of ways. The same is true for cavalry and artillery.

If you have the base represent the spaces that historically were left clear for units to maneuver/change formation, there is no real issue with scale until you get down to the scale EC is describing--without fudging it.

@EC,

There has been a very nice 6mm Peninsular War game doing something very similar at some of the UK shows: link

If you check out my blog (which Extracrispy posted above) you can see some accurate groundscale representation. I spent a long time experimenting with the groundscale issue on paper and on the table. My big take-away was that most figure scales cant really portray what they're trying to portray. It isn't just the issue of frontage, but depth, and not depth of the unit footprint but of the battlespace. A skirmish line might be 300 meters from its parent unit, so if your battalion is 6 inches in frontage thatd be 18 inches, give or take, just to begin. When artillery is factored in it really throws most tactical rules out the window. most 15mm and 25mm games begin inside canister range. Exceptions to any statement can be found of course, but under what most sane people would consider normal gaming conditions its simply difficult to do. 6mm is the largest figure scale you can really do proper tactical games in without crowding the depth of the battlefield.

My big take-away was that most figure scales cant really portray what they're trying to portray. It isn't just the issue of frontage, but depth, and not depth of the unit footprint but of the battlespace. A skirmish line might be 300 meters from its parent unit, so if your battalion is 6 inches in frontage that'd be 18 inches, give or take, just to begin. When artillery is factored in it really throws most tactical rules out the window.

That's why the smaller scales/tactical rules have problems on a table--Assuming that 'tactical rules are under 50 yards or less to the inch. Go to brigade-sized units and the issue can be resolved, even for skirmishers and artillery. A brigade with a 12 inch front will have skirmishers out 4 inches. Going to 3mm is one way of dealing with the smaller-scale issues.