"Battlegroup in 6mm, basing" Topic

So I got into Battlegroup, ordered the D-Day book off plastic soldier and ordered a platoon of both the germans and americans, with tank support.

How have folks gone about basing their units in 6mm?

I started by doing them in small groups (2's 3's and Single leaders) with some spares as change (for when casualties happen) but whilst I liked the look I felt it was too much for the scale of conflict I wanted to represent (even two platoons start to be too many) so have changed to generally putting a unit on a base and having either dice markers or my force sheet to record losses and effects. I'm still not sure whether this is the best option or not but it does make it easier to see how many orders you used etc.

BALM

I can do Battlogroup in 6mm, 15mm and 20mm.

For 6mm I base a squad 30mm x 20mm for the rifle team and 20mm x 20mm for the LMG team. All other support weapon teams are on 20mm x 20mm bases.

I use mini dice from Pendraken to track casualties for the squad or team. I use red and white dice. A white 3 would be 9 men (6+3). When it drops to 6 or less I replace it with a red dice. A red 3 would be 3 men.

I base vehicles on a 30mm x 20mm base. 2 base sizes does it all. Bases from Litko.

Pat

I don't know the battlegroup rules, so can only infer from other's comments that you are looking for fire-team basing for your figures.

I use US 1 cent coins for my basing. I find them to be cheap (I get as many as 100 for just $1 USD!), and always available. That last part, availability, is one of the key advantages, as there are few things I find as frustrating as running out of bases on the last one or two stands I'm trying to complete, and having to wait for the purchase of more of my whatever-they-are bases to be available to finish the unit. With pennies, I can just go lift up a cushion on the couch and always find a few more.

I also occasionally use Euro 1 cent coins for some of my smaller bases, particularly for command stands. Being smaller, they are useful for 2-man units, but alas, they are not nearly so readily available to me, and having 2 figures on a stand is enough visual distinction that I don't really need a smaller stand.

In the rules I use (Mein Panzer v2), the infantry is squad-based. Most stands represent 8-12 men, regardless of how many you put on the base. Some stands represent half squad-sized "teams" of 3-6 men.

For my forces I use a standard presentation of 4 figures representing a standard rifle squad. I usually put 2 rifle figures and an LMG team on the stand. Some WW2 armies (Italians, Soviets) did not have LMGs in every rifle squad, so in some cases I just put 4 rifle figures on a stand.

I put 3 figures on a penny to represent a full squad-sized unit (ie: 8-12 men) that is not a rifle squad. Such a unit might be a larger HQ, or combat engineers, or a heavy weapons crew, or any group of specialist troops.

I put 2 figures on a penny to represent a half-sized unit. These might be LMG teams, or command stands, or commo teams, or FO teams … whatever would be less than a full squad in size. Here the figures themselves are more important to determining what the half-sized ("team") stand represents.

Some examples:

Here is an infantry squad from my WW2 Romanian force. Here you can see the squad includes riflemen and an LMG team.

Here you see a platoon of my WW2 Romanian infantry. There are 4 rifles quads (Romanians had larger platoons than many western armies), each with 2 riflemen and an LMG team, there is a platoon command squad of 3 figures, and 2 2-man "teams" with a 60mm mortar (in the back), and tank hunters (in the foreground).

I have found the pennies to be very robust for game use. They are heavy enough to give a firm placement to the figures, and they provide some measure of protection for the figures.

Been doing it this way since the late 1990s, and it has worked out pretty well for me so far.

Your mileage may vary.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)