"Battalion Sized Units on Single Bases" Topic

I am reworking everything Second World War. I am going to rebase my minis as complete battalions. Possibly with attachments like anti-tank guns that could either fit on the base or just go with them on their own. I need some ideas. If you don't mind please post a picture of your battalion sized bases/units or a link. Thank you.

What rules will you be using for this?

My own mix of Panzer Korps, Panzer 8, KISS Rommel and High Command.

I believe that Sam Mustafa's "Rommel" rules use this same scale, but I am not totally sure.

Sorry, I was way off – a base is only a company in "Rommel". I've seen that often 2-3 bases are in the same square though, so that would be a battalion.

I just use my normal stands and declare that today they are battalions, instead of companies, platoons or sections.

In smaller scales I do have some based up as companies with multiple vehicles, infantry stands, heavy weapons etc.

I think Megablitz uses a stand as a battalion. You might find something on their site.

Megablitz battalions usually have 2-3 infantry figures or one vehicle for a battalion in the larger scales.

A typical e.g. mid war Germans infantry division would have something like:

Div HQ. Co+Kubelwagen or similar (one base)
Div Signals. Signallers + radio truck (one base)
3 x Infantry Regiments: each of three battalions (each one base with 2 figures per base)
1 x artillery regiment: 1 x gun plus gunners, 1 x logistic element (horses and limber)
1 x AT battalion: 1 x AT gun plus tow
1 x Engineer battalion: one base of engineers (two figures). Maybe some transport or a pontoon bridge.
Div recce: 1 x cav squadron (2 cavalry on a base), 1 x bicycle company (a couple of cyclists on a base).
Div logistics: horse cart and horses.

You will notice that the transport and support elements take up far more real estate than the infantry element. A bit like real life.

No photos, but just some thoughts.

While working on my own version of 'Snappy' bttn per stand WWII rules, I decided to use FoW basing since that's the most current rule set I see played at conventions -- good for 15/10/6mm scales. For its 15mm scale, Inf stand are about 2x1-inch.

How you pair stand inches with ground scale depends on your preference. My idea was to make each player a division commander. To me, for a US division circa 1944, it still means at least 14 stands: 3 regt x 3 bttns each = 9, plus a division HQ = 10. + 4 bttns arty = 14. Whether you 'assign' the tank bttn or not is up to you. If separate, that's 15 stands.

Attachments (arty, AA, TD, etc) will increase that. If you want trucks, 1/2tracks, prime movers etc, that increases the total. If you add medical and support, that increases the total number of stands. You could end up with 40 stands. It'd look impressive. :) Perhaps a little much to handle than the 15 or so 'basic orgn' stands.

Frank Chadwick's prototype bttn per base rules in development uses 2x2-inch, but I recall his troops are 1/72 (20mm), or at least the game I played in. The game using Big Zhukov rules used 1x1-inch stands.

I have AARs and rules analysis (PDFs) with photos for each system if anyone is interested (sorry, not into facebook et al). E-mail me at lockwood161 at comcast dot net and I'll e-mail 'em to you. Put WWII AARs in the subject line so I can tell them from the spam.

The idea of bttn sized stands, somewhat akin to boardgames but with better visuals and freedom from a hex grid, has appealed to me for about a decade. Discarded previous efforts, but zeroing in, so I think. :)

I don't have any pictures to share, but I can suggest a way to find some: do Internet searches for games Volley & Bayonet, Grande Armee and Impetus, and look into forums and blogs of people playing them. Each of those games uses the same concept of a single-base large unit on a larger base, and some of the vignettes people come up with are gorgeous.

Also do image searches for 3mm WWII games, because a lot of people take advantage of the small scale to make each stand a vignette of troops/equipment in a proper formation, or in action.

The smaller the scale you choose, the more flexibility you have in what you can depict. A 3"x3" stand of 6mm miniatures could include foxholes, bunkers and sandbags, or tanks in formation, artillery arrayed in a 2-3 gun section in separate clearings with brush and/or netting cammo, AT guns in ambush positions, etc.

I actually went the other direction (multi-stand battalion-sized units), because I'd like the flexibility to use multiple stands to depict things like facing, formation, footprint, and a unique composition of particular abilities (e.g. an infantry unit with 3 stands is "stronger" than one with only 2 stands, attaching an infantry gun stand increases its defensive abilities, attaching an assault gun stand increases its offensive capabilities, all attachments increase footprint and supply needs, etc.). This seems to be a rare concept in WWII gaming (which is odd to me, since most other eras of gaming use multi-stand units without raising any eyebrows), but multi-stand units is one of the things I liked most about Great Battles of WWII and Panzer Korps.

- Ix