"Two ranks in games." Topic

I am not asking about the use of two ranks historically. I want to know what the advantages of having two rank infantry in a game? Talking battalions level rules. I have looked at several sets of rules and I don't really see any advantage. Maybe I am looking at the wrong rules or maybe I just don't comprehend it.

It's purely an aesthetic choice, the thought being that two ranks of infantry have a more "close-order" appearance – this despite the fact that even with the largest practicable number of figures per battalion, the ratio of depth to width for representations of line formations is far too high.

Interesting, at least in the U.S. it seems to be largely a modern predilection. Back in the 80s "Empire" and other popular rules sets had no problem with depicting line formations with single ranks of figures.

In 7YW gaming, we found single ranks looked flimsy, so opted for a double rank which, at least to us, looks better!

I agree with the thrust of the argument. One rank approaches (but not nearly closely enough) realism but two ranks looks a lot better. Once you accept that model figures above 6mm pretty much preclude realistic depth to go with the frontages games require, then the aesthetic can take over. Two ranks just looks so much better.

One rank of figures looks like a skirmish line; two ranks looks much better, and aesthetics is half the thing with miniatures.

2 ranks protects flimsy bayonets of the 2nd rank. In the first rank, put officer/musician/flag in centre as a "handle" so players don't touch any flimsy front rank bayonets when they move the stand.

Agreed. Purely aesthetic. But if appearances don't matter, why play with miniatures?

In AWI games, I prefer the look of single rank. Because that's the way they fought!
I cannot get my head around games with 2 or more ranks. The formation ends looking like a pike phalanx. The look alone, for me, negates any supposed "realism" that the rules might claim.

I am of the single rank persuasion, particularly when using Linear armies.
Base depth has always been an issue in wargaming regardless of figure scale and single figure depth looks better and also helps in creating a better appreciation of the ground occupied by Linear units on the table

Purely a matter of personal preference.

This discussion could cover any game from ancients to ACW. Good topic!

I use a 60mm frontage for all of my figures and a 80mm depth for units in firing lines. The larger base creates a sense of action and has a diorama quality. Easy to pick up the stands. Marching units have a 40mm depth and 60mm frontage.

By the way, can you spot the John the OFM personality figure in the picture?

Ah yes. The Portly Gentleman with Tankard.

Yes, I'd recognize him on any battlefield!

Jim

I only need four to a stand but I agree that two ranks, eight figures do look better. However that is an extra expense and effort. The base is 1 1/2 x 1/2, for 15mm figures. Just the same basing I use in FPW for French Battalions. It is a different period 1870 and 1815. Much looser formations in 1870.

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As with OFM my AWI is all single rank basing because I believe they fought that way. The British at Bunker Hill a possible exception.

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This is one of those decisions that can intimidate a first time Napoleonic player.

Nothing is set in stone. If I absolutely hate it I can always rebase however odious that is.

To the best of my understand its aesthetics. I suspect its original was Corps Commander in 1988 or more likely Napoleon's Battles in 1989. Corps Commander's two ranks were based on its earlier ACW set of rules. Why they went down that path I have no idea.

DBN has an alternative basing system for its elements, using 2 ranks on a slightly deeper base. I based up a Prussian army using it, but the bulk of my gaming uses other rules with only a single rank.

The number of figures to paint gets too great, a typical non-DBN game requires about 50 elements; if 40 are 2 ranks infantry then you need 320 musketeer figures. It may look nice but after considering it, I am not moving down that path.

On the other hand using big bases with 6mm, multiple rank dioramas like bases are very attractive and I will go down that path, but as each force mix uses about 12 big bases, it's viable.

I created a video covering the history of Napoleonic basing, which has to be one of the most nerdy things anyone could create.
youtu.be/WUcG0U3NOwA

OC and OFM, if it makes you a happy wargamer, go for it. But neither side in the AWI normally fought in single ranks. At absolute thinnest--meaning late war British regulars--they fought in two ranks "at interval"--meaning they could have gone to a single rank without expanding the frontage. More often, it was two ranks at close interval. Don't believe me. Get unit strengths and scaled maps and run the numbers.

I start worrying about the dreaded "excessive base depth" when the first line bases keep the second line from being in its proper position. So far, this hasn't happened.

Nice piece of work pfmodel!

Hello Old Contemptible!

In the 70s we always used a single rank for our 25mm figures until we discovered that our 36 figure battalions were too wide even for our 12' x 8' table. So we switched to double ranks to double our table space. Although it helped it didn't solve the problem. Later we reduced our battalions to 12 figures. Our membership increased and the size of our collections grew as well. All these problems disappeared when we switched over to 6mm in double ranks.

G'day, OC.

Some of the early rules, like Grant's or Young's from the 60's and 70's, required two-rank units. I think units look better as well- if the units are big enough. Small units in two ranks look like columns- to me you need enough frontage for the two ranks to look right.

Cheers.

Big battalions aside, if we can accept that a single casting represents 30 to 60 men, why can't we accept that the casting also represents X amount of soldiers in their appropriate 2 or 3 rank line?

Nice piece of work pfmodel!

danke, one benefit of a lock down is you have more time doing all those bits of research you never had the time to do. Actually I think its more to do with getting older and preparing to retire. When you retire make sure you have a hobby, otherwise you will lose the will to live due to boredom.

War gaming gives you the oppose issue, you know its not possible to live long enough to do everything you want to do, painting, learning rules, gaming, etc., thus you end up clinging desperately to every possible moment, which requires looking after your health.

I want to die with a paintbrush in my hand, or at least some dice in them.

G'day.

79thPA, I agree. My Napoleonics (10 to 15 figures/BN) were, and my ACW (based for JRII- didn't want to rebase for III) are based in single ranks. As you implied, the two ranks only really works with units that are 20+ figures.

pfmodel, there's a few interesting videos you put up. I didn't agree with all your points, but they all made me think. As for retiring, beware relying on just your hobbies to keep you going. I failed my first retirement because after 18 months the hobbies became chores- I wanted something more to do. Everyone's different, but you may need something outside your hobbies (eg part-time work or volunteering) as well.

Cheers.

the hobbies became chores- I wanted something more to do

A valid point and I agree, just make sure you do something when you retire which involved activity, physical and mental.

As for my videos, I am also thinking and rethinking and have most certainly changed my mind over the years I have posted some of the videos. I have always had a holy grail of gaming, quick fun game which comes to a clear end and with a clear winner and loser. Its rather hard getting to that objective, but I do enjoy the journey.

+ 1 79thPA

I like the flimsiness of the single rank. A line was a flimsy formation. Two ranks of figures are all very well but almost nobody fought in 2 ranks and they make columns and lines alike look too thick.

Perhaps the preference arises from the mini-diorama possibilities: one rank loading, another firing, or whatever. When I got into this pose variation was a nuisance that made units look untidy, not a bonus. You amassed lots of boxes of Airfix so you could combine all the guys from four boxes to make a 24-figure battalion with each figure in the same pose.

You can actually make untidy units look quite uniform by making the bases so, but I still like single-pose units.

It's interesting, the whole aesthetics question.I've seen beautiful figures and armies based in single and in double ranks. I'll never disparage the ability or the modelling taste of anyone whose figures I've seen, especially showcased online, because they're infinitely better than my own.

But for me, I'm with the 4th Cuirassier, when he says "I like the flimsiness of the single rank. A line was a flimsy formation." And it's often influenced by what you started out with. For me that was Quarrie, which used single ranks.

For me too, the idea that an attack column (maybe 40 men by 18) would be represented much deeper than it is wide feels wrong. But interestingly, it's what we all get so used to that it can look right to us on the table. look at a painting from the period and that column is wide and comparatively shallow.

If I were using 6mm, I'd probably put them in 2s or 3s as appropriate but on a base width for 25mm (or 15mm at a pinch) but mine are 15mm so for me, it's one rank, to try to keep a little closer to historical footprints, and I justify the still (but not as much) over-depth problem by assuming there would be support staff – medical, ammunition wagons etc not too far behind the battalion, taking up that extra space.

On 4th's other point about poses, for Napoleonics I like a degree of uniformity, but not just one pose. So I like my 15mm OG Austrians where a pack has a few slightly different figures that creates a sense of not being in lockstep, but trying to maintain formation.

Cheers,
John

I like my figures in 2 ranks much better than when they were in 1 rank. Each one his own opinion I think

@ John

The optimum for me is probably those recent HaT figures where they're all in slight variants of the same pose.
Flimsy matters, because as you note, columns look even further "off" – a "column" was simply a thick line. It's often noted that we can't represent unit depth correctly because our figures are oversized for scaled-down units. In fact, something not often noticed is that our figures are oversized for units at 1:1 scale as well.

A British infantryman had a frontage of 22 inches (fairly typical of the era generally). He was also about 66 inches tall. Therefore for a 28mm model soldier to be in scale, his width needs to be about 1/3 his height of the man, which is to say about 9mm wide. A 28mm figure is always at least 50% wider than that, however. You can sometimes squeeze three into a 40mm wide base, but it isn't easy; the width is usually around half the height, if not more. Likewise, I doubt you can get 6mm figures onto a 2mm frontage.

To put it another way, the z axis is one scale, the x and y axes are another, larger scale, and the result is that the line is too wide and deep even in a ratio of 1 figure = 1 man.

Given this, the figures will always "look" wrong – even if you think of your two-rank units as a form of diorama – because they're too spaced out. This bothers some people not at all, and others quite a lot. The former are probably better off, because there's no solution anyway.

In some eras, the situation is maybe easier. Roman cohorts seem to have formed up between four and eight deep, with a frontage of about a yard per man to swing a sword. Cast-in figure bases are usually square. You could, therefore, deem one square-based figure to be 4 men formed up in 2 ranks and 2 files. The men the figure depicts would be a square so the figure depicts them correctly. If you formed 120 such figures up elbow to elbow, four deep and thirty wide, you'd have a 480-man cohort with proportionately the correct depth and frontage both as models and as a scale unit.

What they're actually depicting is an 8-deep formation, but as in our era 2-deep was the minimum, we can't do this. So you pays your money and you takes your choice.

That's a really interesting consideration 4th Cuirassier. I've never thought much about 1-1 because I've never played Napoleonic skirmish games.

I have played a lot of Ancient/mediaeval games and because it's been at higher levels (1-50 or so) it's still an issue but because a big wall of pike or legionaries is still much wider than it is deep, it doesn't seem so jarring somehow.

With Napoleonic columns it always strikes me, but as I've said,the figures/bases/units/tables always look great anyway. It's just something we have to live with, whatever basing option we choose. At least lots of rules these days are pretty catholic when it comes to basing.

Cheers,
John

It seems the search for perfection is futile. I tend to agree with the comments here, we can only attempt to achieve what we think looks good. As for the rank question, it also depends on the scale of gaming you are going. For 50:1 all the comments are valid as the basic unit is a battalion, but if we move up to 200:1 then a unit is a Brigade and the situation is even muddier.
The Prussians and French brigade, prepared for attack, occupied an area which was mainly empty space. Thin line of skirmishers at the front. A line behind with a Battalion column at each end and then behind two rows of 2 Battalions each in column defining the side of a rather deep rectangle. Finally at the rear we have an artillery battery in the centre flanked by a squadron of cavalry on each side.
This formation as designed to attack and it was a lot deeper than wide, but most of it was empty space. At least it does get the depth correct if we are depicting the Brigade as 3-4 elements of 4 figures each in column.

Probably if your rules are absorbing enough, you cease to notice that your bases are, strictly, incorrect (and everybody's are, as depictions). That's the solution I guess. If the first and last thing you notice about your battles is that the units' appearance is wrong, it may be time to try different rules.

I was mooching around and came across this:

It's a Flames of War battle I believe. If you look at the tank phalanxes in the two bottom photos, they show Napoleonics aren't the only era with frontage issues.

Ha Ha.Yes,1-1 tank warfare leaves Napoleonics for dead in this regard. I've played games where you couldn't actually disembark infantry from its transport without leaving half the base on top of the vehicle . . .

Cheers,
John