"Basing 6mm for WRG 1685-1845" Topic

How did players who do (or did) use the WRG 1685-1845 rules for Napoleonics base their figures? I don't see how the basing as written would work for infantry units which could skirmish (i.e. pretty much all of them), it would just be too fiddly.

This was where I discovered "dense pack". I used 15mm bases but put four 5-6mm figures in place of a single 15mm figure.

It made 12 or 14 figure battalions look so much better

It was fiddly.

Close order foot – four figures (in one line) on a base
Open order capable – above split into two
Open order – bases in a line seperated by same amount.

PLUS you have to have some singles for casualties.

I still love them – they represent elegant simplicity in layout and function.

Dislikes:

They are slow and tedious and don't scale up at all.

Being forced to remember everything because of the interlaced bound system.

The automatic -1 for anyone not from God's Own Country approached by a column of baguette-waving Frenchies.

Improvements:

Doing morale tests at brigade level rather than for each battalion.

Not removing figures – just add hit markers to use in the bound's morale tests.

When we started using 6mm with H&R figures I think we had moved on from WRG. However, we could still use our basing which was all in strips for infantry when we encountered WRG players. We used balsa strips about 1/4" wide and cut to the length of the strip. Cavalry and artillery were 1/2" wide(deep)by don't remember. Only going on memory which is failing so they could have been slightly deeper. They were however very fiddly and would fall over on any type of grade or major table shake. Casualties were marked with rings and other creative devices.

After a few years we realized that these stands were just not practical, especially as our collections were growing. Our solution was a base that was 5/8s" x 7/8s" that we could buy in a hobby store called "woodills". Infantry was mounted three strips deep and could be used as a company or upscaled and called a battalion. Cavalry was three figures and was a half squadron, upscaled a regiment.

When single base units started to gain traction we moved into 3" x 1 1/2" for all units which oddly enough had been our movement trays for our 25mm collections.

As Baccus grew internationally we realized the value of the 60mm x 30mm base and switched over our entire collection which is now some 50,000 figures. I still have about 2,000 to switch over. Can you imagine the nightmare it would now be to have all of those still on balsa strips!

Some people did do the uber fiddly option of making the bases half the size of the 15mm (which were half the 20-25mm basing) with the same number of figures.

You could go for the same basing as the rules suggest for 15mm with twice the figures but retaining the single rank (this would get you closer to actual depths for most units).

As for line infantry who can skirmish – you really only need part of the battalion so based as most armies didn't break entire battalions out to skirmish, you need someone to be the supports (unless you do one battalion per brigade ot some such).