"Basing question..?" Topic

I am in the process of basing up both Line and Guard artillery for my 18mm Nap. French army, and I am having som indecision trouble here..
Should I do seperate commandbases for the artillery on cicular bases or just integrate the command with the gunners on the square bases??
I feel like basing the command as follows: 1 General of artillery with 1 Horse arty oficer and 1 foot arty officer on a circular base. Maybe aslo add a casuatly figure or a broken gun on the bae as well.

Problem is that I dont know how realistic this would be? Would a general of artillery have officers of both horse and foot arty hanging around with him???
Or should I do seperate commands for foot and horse, that is 1 colonel and 1 foot arty officer, maybe with and adc, and the same for the horse arty. then one for the general of the arty with adcs…arrrrrghhh..

Long post, sorry for the babbling, but seriously, any thoughts here?
I am manliy aiming for realism, not for gaming purposes..

Thanks!
Dr J

Separate bases are always more flexible becasue then you can use them as status markers, etc.

What scale is your game. A gun and crew represents what? One gun? A section? A batteyr?

Well, its not really for gaming, more for showcase actually.
A gun is a gun. 4-5 crew pr. gun. 4-5 guns pr. battery.

It makes more sense to have a separate commandbase each for foot and horse arty I guess…ahh, if it was only for gaming, then it would be easier…

I put civvies, casualties, other supernumaries and irregulars on round bases, to show they occupy no specified frontage in the game. I agree with Extra Crispy that they can be a useful way to signify the purpose of a unit – status marker etc. Look a whole better than brightly coloured plastic tiddlywinks all over the place.

What rules are you playing? What do they say about basing?

What rules are you playing? What do they say about basing?

Well, its not really for gaming, more for showcase actually.

Yeah, I know, its kind of strange, I mostly just collect, paint and look at my minis. I game to seldom to call myself a wargamer…
Every now and then I go nuts and change the basing all around..
I had a difficult period where I decided to base all my minis on seperate single bases (luckily the moment passed after about 30 odd figures…!)

Ok, to give you an idea of how I was thinking to base the arty itself:

Gunners and guns on one large base, limbers and command on an equaly large base behind the guns, then a circular commandbase seperate from that:

‌IMG_7873 by Erik Salvador, on Flickr
For the Guard, I was thinking guns and command on the same large base, with the limbers separate:
‌IMG_7874 by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

‌IMG_7875 by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

Any thoughts..? Does it look ok, or too crowded…?
Remember, I want realism!:)

Heres an example of how I decided NOT to do it (Made these a couple of weeks ago), circular sounded cool in my head, but looks weird en masse…

‌IMG_7871 by Erik Salvador, on Flickr
‌IMG_7870 by Erik Salvador, on Flickr

Minis that nice will look great however you base them!

They look great and realistically deployed. If they are used for gaming, how will you denote when they are limbered?

That would present a problem indeed, since the large bases now take up alot of space and the limbers are more for show than anything else right now.
I guess I would have to put a marker in the corner of the base to denote "limbered" as well as turning the base around (that would look really strenge on the battlefield(!)…hmm.
Maybe I should split them up and put each gun on a 80mm x 50mm base..It still allows for small vignettes to be made out of the bases..must ponder more I realize..

For Napoleonics, I'd put the HQ staff on a round base, guns on a square/rectangular base.

Round bases are my status markers, square/rectangular are combat units.