"6mm Basing Update" Topic

Thank you all for having welcomed me and for having given me a lot to think about regarding how to base 6 mm figures.

Having reviewed how 6 mm figures are based, I initially started with 60 x 30 base to accommodate a battalion. While I liked how the unit looked, the old war gamer in me decried the inability of this unit to form column or square.

I subsequently rebased this unit by dividing the 60 x 30 stand into four 30 mm x 15 mm bases. Working from a scale of 1 figure = 20 men and looking at 1,925 as the paper strength of a Russian infantry battalion or 1,038 as the actual field strength as referenced by referenced by napolun.com), I initially thought about using 14 figures per base for a battalion strength of 1,440 men.

Unfortunately in order to do this, I would either need a 3rd rank or (more likely) would need to extend the existing two ranks. Either way, my bases were too small (or I needed to do a better job with basing these figures).

Since I'm still in the basing concept stage, I went ahead and put 10 figures per base, largely because I didn't have enough Russians to do otherwise. If I had to do this again, I should have based a French unit since I have several hundred already painted whilst these particular figures were just painted last week after having sat in storage for 20 years. Working from a 1 figure = 20 men ratio, I think these size bases would have been a better fit for a French battalion. As it is I now have a significantly under strength Russian battalion that I will have to rebase (which is why I didn't paint or flock the bases in the pictures below).

Issues of scaling temporarily put aside, I based these figures just to see what they would look like. As you can see from these pictures, four 30 x 15 bases allows me to form line, column, or square.

As to whether or not these are actually practical for gaming since a player would now have more pieces to maneuver, I don't know because I'm not really a gamer. I haven't gamed in over 25 years … but I have painted.

My enjoyment of Napoleonic miniatures primarily involves researching and painting uniforms and building model villages while listening to period marches or binge watching a TV series. This is a quiet sedentary activity that fits my reclusive bachelor lifestyle while also appealing to my obsessive compulsive tendencies.

1=20 is a good visual, but still 1 company per stand isn't more stands than my 1= 60.

P.S. Bill says otherwise but hit submit once and wait it out for how long it takes, multiple submits before it comes up gives multiple threads. Am absolutely 100% sure of this.

I tried deleting them but they're still there. (Hangs head in shame.)

If you base on steel, you can cut sheet magnet movement trays in no time at all, Best of both worlds.

I base my 6mm on 20x20 steel bases.

They look fantastic. I'm assuming you normally game with a slightly smaller unit than that? ;)

LOL, yes.

But I'm slowly working on a tactical game with units that size.

I think a lot of gamers do silly things with battalions because they see them as being 60x30 and pretty handy.

For the record this is 288 figures. Six companies, 4 bases per cmpany, 12 figures per base. At this ratio – about 1:2 or 1:2.5 a battalion is 19" wide.

Come on everybody.

Cut this obsession with companies – those are for admin in towns and billets.

Use the tactical groupings of Platoons and Grand Divisions instead.

(@Masse – you know this already but Russian battalions were divided into eight platoons and operated as four Grand Divisions)