"What Rules Can My Basing System Support?" Topic

I'm going to dive into Napoleonics with the Warlord Epic Battles sets.

As usual, I have many questions about basing. In the ACW world, the Fire & Fury standard seems to be roughly accepted as most common, and as long as your bases work for that style they work for everything. But in Napoleonics there isn't such a standard, and I'd like to check and make sure my basing plans don't somehow mean I can't play a bunch of rulesets.

Assuming the strips are roughly the same width as the ACW ones, I'm thinking of doing all infantry in two ranks on a 30mmx20mm base. I'll have to split the strips in half, but it will get me double the bases and give me more flexibility.

If I wanted to play against someone using the included bases, I could simply slide two bases next to each other to make the 60mm frontage of the originals.

Lasalle seems like it'd work out of the box, maybe reducing ranges a tad?

If I wanted to play Volley & Bayonet or Grande Armee or Blucher, I could make 60mm squares with 2 Infantry bases in the rear, 2 grass bases in the middle, 2 skirmisher bases in the front.

Obviously with this scale I won't be playing any figure removal games, but otherwise, how does this sound?

ALSO:
What are the recommendations for magnetizing the bases for easy combination. I'd like to be able to make those 60mm square bases and move them as one entity, etc. There seems a dizzying array of magnetic sheet, steel bases, and so on. Please educate me.

A 60mm base is standard for Altar of Freedom. Pretty sure Baccus sells something which would work too, since they seem geared to 60mm regardless.

Any stand removal system works, though you might have to apply some modifier to distances. (Pretty sure there's one in the DB system.) Same thing for any roster system.

And there's always that unusual one in Featherstone's Complete Wargaming.

General rule is to apply sheet steel to your stand--that is, whatever your castings are glued to--and use sheet magnets for the associated 60mm or whatever squares, since the magnetism fades away and it's easier to swap out one 60mm square base than the six smaller stands.

My group is using the ACW Epic basing for both FnF and Black Powder. We are counting each 60mm base as 2 FnF stands and are going to paint some 30mm stands for "change". For Napoleonics there is Age of Eagles which is essentially FnF basing.

These days many rule sets are basing agnostic so ppl don't have to rebase to play. For example most of Sam Mustafa's rules use a base width system for measuring so you use whatever size bases you have as long as they are consistent between the armies.

If stored correctly magnetism doesn't 'fade away' from magnetic sheet.

If you store the magnetised bases on a thin metal plate (I use steel cabinets) or some soft iron impregnated vinyl (such as Ferrosheet or many other trade names) then the magnetic 'circuit' is completed and the magnetic pull will reduce very, very slowly. I have many magnetic bases stored this way that are as good as when I made them over 20 years ago.

For Lasalle, I'd be tempted to cut the bases in half, as the OP suggests and put them on 40mm bases.

But that's because 40mm something of a standard in my club.

From looking at the ACW strips I think that by the time you have split up some strips you will be deciding that splitting is a really bad idea.

Looking at costs, the warlord set with 300 figures costs $39. USD For example 300 Pendraken figures costs around $70. USD So, think about how long it will take you to paint them and whether the price difference is worthwhile. It's also going to be hard to get figures to match the Warlord ones if there is something that you want that they don't have

Napoleonic basing is indeed a no win solution, 40mm bases, 2 deep is common, but so is 20mmx25mm (Napoleon's Battles) – both for 15mm. 60mm for a battalion as a single base is also common

For magnetized bases, I highly recommend Shogun Miniatures

John

I sit corrected on sheet magnets, Gildas. I seldom use them myself, but it's a complaint I've frequently heard.

I sit corrected on sheet magnets, Gildas. I seldom use them myself, but it's a complaint I've frequently heard.

I have a number of based figures where I used steel paper/magnetic tape from Trevor at Coritani. These are still going strong after 20 years or so.

I also have some bases made with cheap magnetic sheets from a pound store which seem to have lost their power which wasn't strong in the first place.

Before i rebased my napoleonics i did some research in common basing systems, this video outlines the history of basing. youtu.be/WUcG0U3NOwA

Many rules these days allow for a wide range of basing, as long as both sides use the same basing width.

As for magnetic bases, for storage this is common, for moving around a playing area its less common. Movement trays may also meet your requirement. If you are creating 3cm bases and intend to double them for 6cm width, for the polemarc rules I assume, a movement tray is a good idea. I am considering basing my 6mm on 3cm bases and using a 6cm movement tray. Most of my 15mm are all on 4 cm width bases, which tends to be the most common standard outside the US.

If you use the Carnage and Glory computer moderated rules your basing can be adapted quite easily. The system does not require a uniform number of figures on each stand but once you determine how many men are in a unit that unit must occupy the appropriate space on the table…you enter the total number of men in a unit in the system and you can use whatever ground scale you wish.