"Basing for the War of the Spanish Succession" Topic

I have a couple of 28mm units ready to base for this period but haven't yet made a decision about rules systems.

Looking at diagrams of the major battles, it seems that the frontage of the allied units is typically a lot wider than that of their French equivalents, whom I know formed up rather deeper and used a different firing system.

In rules used for the WSS, do these differences tend to be reflected, with allied units being wider and French deeper? Or are battalions on both sides generally based to a common frontage?

Thanks, Simon

Interesting question. I started a 10 mm WSS army a few years ago and fully intended to base British, Dutch and Danish in 2 deep and Franco- Bavarian 3 deep but with similar numbers of figures in the units. That refkected the diagrams I had seen showing French frontage about 2/3 of the British. Further reading suggested that whilst French official doctrine was a 4 or 5 deep line, in practice many of the colonels actually adopted shallower lines. Duscussion with a wargaming friend who has a lot of academic knowledge of the period ( he has written several books) convinced me that there was no need for different frontages, as it was usuallyp the case that a single battalion engaged a single battalion in firefights. I ended up basing every unit on 60mm x 30 mm bases and playing either Polemos or Twilight of the Sunking rules.
As you have not decided on a rule set, I think you might be best to go for something fairly standard, such as 4 infantry on a 40 mm square base and 2 cavakry on a 50 mm square base. The rules you eventually use may have factors to account for national differences in fire discipline, ranking etc.

In 15mm, I tend to base units with more ranks on narrower-frontage stands, but Dave has a point, even though I'm not rebasing.

In 28mm and rules uncertain, you might want to base individually--probably 20mm square stands for infantry--and use movement trays. This gives you the option of a deeper or shallower formation if the rules call for it.

I'm always for flexibility. Good castings outlive us. Good basing lasts longer than most rules.

A battalion is a battalion. When you start worrying about how many men and frontages you run into situations like 1707 in Spain where the supposedly wider English Bns a long time in the theatre were 400 men strong, but new arrived French bns were nearly full strength 600 man. What then?

Yes. In Ga Pa I think a battalion is 150 paces, and you can make undermanned battallions 100 paces

It's a thorny business. I was chatting with a friend about it who said that the French, although much deeper, may have allowed a wider frontage per man so the difference in Bn frontage to the allies may not have been so great.

I think I shall have to do some reading!

Generally speaking most wargames figures depicting regular H&M armies look better based tightly. Doing this seems to give the unit more presence as it's a more solid mass. If you can get them onto 15mm frontage per casting they'll look good. (I know there aren't any WSS figures in the Perry range but as an example I can get their Sudan British in firing line onto 15mm frontage per casting no problem.)

However, I would try to identify the rule set or set(s) you like the look of so you can see if there's a basing regime that would suit several rule sets. Whatever you do I'd make really sure that you are happy with you basing structure/system before you commit to gluing down the figures, little in the hobby is worse than rebasing.

Few wargamers can do the entire OOBs for the big battles, Ramilliies, Blenheim etc, on a one to one battalion basis. When I formed my armies for Voley and Bayonet I decided on a scale where one foot unit had 2 strength points representing 1,000 men. Now in most cases this meant a unit represented two battalions. But, if say, the 18 British battalions at Ramillies numbered 13,000, then they would have 13 units. If the 6,241 men of D'Artagnan's command around Ramillies were formed in 12 battalions, they would be represented by 6 units.

Mollinary

And remember: if it had any quality of achieving victory it would have been used.

It is totally strange to hearing people argue that french infantry would ignore a battle winning straegy for 12 years!!!
In the thirty years war it took under one year. IF it had any value it would have been adopted.

Thanks all- some interesting ideas.

I do like closely-packed soldiers and might conceivably base allied minis rather more closely than French, with the later deeper.

And I do agree that formations will likely have changed during the period- something to bear in mind!

I use the Horse, Foot and Guns rules, so bases are all 40x20 mm. Spacing depends on what type of unit the base counts as. I don't use exactly the recommended spacing, but the British, Dutch and Danish troops using platoon fire I base as two ranks close together towards the rear of the base. French,Bavarians, and others using the French system are also in two ranks, but with one rank at the rear of the base and one at thefront, to represent the greater gaps between their ranks that the system needed.(The suggested basing is in 3 ranks with a 6 figure frontage. I just found it too fiddly, hence my variation.) Swedes are based as British, and Russians I base in three ranks,which pretty much fills the base. Frontage for all is 8 figures.

I use Maurice and Honours of War rules for WSS gaming with no difference in basing between nations. Differences in rates of fire owing to variances in doctrine and formations are handled by simple "+1" die roll mechanisms and are not reflected in basing. Although Maurice specifies 6 figures per base with 24 figures/unit and Honours recommends 4 figures per base with 20 figures/unit, either basing system works just fine for both set of rules (cavalry is basically the same for both sets of rules). I think that either of these basing standards will also work with Black Powder. Of course, if you use flexible magnetic sheeting material glued to figures and stands, you can easily rebase units for any particular basing standard for the period.

One handy reason for using the same basing for everyone is that you can switch units between sides in a pinch if needed, which works fine uniform-wise because the same colors were used by units serving on both sides: red coats with blue cuffs can be either British or Swiss in French service, grey coats with blue cuffs can be French or Dutch, etc.

Beneath the lilly banners use 3 bases for full strength battalions no matter what nation they come from