"Universal ECW basing?" Topic

The only answer that always works is individually, but I won't be doing that here.

For most units, my musketeer "sleeves" are 12 figures a side. My initial thought was to do three 1"x1" bases of four figures each (S are Sergeants):

MM|MM|MM
SM|MM|MM

Any reason I shouldn't (leaving the pikes alone) make the muskets 2 stands of six instead per sleeve?

MMM|MMM
SMM|MMM

Road march, of course it had to happen, but for games these were mostly still gentleman's deployment, right?

I also like the aesthetics of a 6 figure base.

Edit – I can't get the diagram to work out here but, there are redundant attempts of you're not clear what I meant.

I always do what you're suggesting which is to base to what I think looks the best. So yes go for it.

The only potential issue you may face is if you are using rules that work/count in bases rather than figures. This way your units will have fewer bases and depending on how the mechanics are weighted you may find that smaller units are more or too brittle in play.

Equally you may find the rules require the same (or roughly the same) width base for horse and foot. Have you worked out how many horse you can fit on the same frontage as the six figure foot base and does it look good?

What rules are you using?

I would consider 30mm square bases. "Irregular Wars" turned me onto them and Peter Pig's rules as well. I think they are a good compromise of size & handiness.

you could do 3 x 2 sleeves, and mount two horse with the same frontage.

Your choice of basing style has to influence/ be influenced by rules you choose. We play Black Powder with 15mm. Figures are 4 to a 20mm square base for musketeers and the pike are similar bases but in two rows of bases. We tend to use sabots to make movement easier. I also game ECW in 28mm, using 40mm square bases for infantry, with 4 figures per base. We gind these base sizes give flexibility of formation and look good.

That's kind of what I'm getting at Dave – what formation flexibility is required for ECW?

I'm a novice in the period but everything for musketeers I've read says line of varying ranks. No columns, no march columns, or anything like that. Pikes are a different story so 4 on a square is fine for me there.

I'll have separate units for skirmishers and firelocks.

I should've stated at the outset that this is an 18mm (Blue Moon) project.

ECW troops marched in very long columns often on the narrow lanes of the day. Whether you need to depict that on the wargames table depends on the scope of your games.