"Infantry formations in 3mm and 6mm and rules" Topic

Sorry for all my queries but one thing also I am thinking about after looking at so many pics online of 6mm and 3mm

Where the infantry and cav.for that matter are nicely set on bases where they are massed in a line or attack column or have their skirmishes on the base also – I assume in these arrangements people are not playing rules with battalion formations specifically , such as in ESR or Bluecher – is this right or do folks playing using units in fixed battalion sized looking formations with rules that do feature formation changes but then just place a marker or dice or something to indicate the actual formation of the piece?

If a stand/ element is a unit, do not expect to see figures make formation changes since they are presumed to be in the appropriate formation for the circumstance at hand.

I have just started experimenting with 3mm figures for Volley and Bayonet using 3" x 1.5" stands.

Old school rules normally require you to physically arrange your elements into line, square, column, etc. However many rules these days do not. The other factor is game scale, at the scale of Blucher the elements can be arranged in any manner you wish, what is important is the base they sit on. From memory Blucher does not indicate formation, its assumed the troops adopt the best formation for the circumstance. Finally we have figure scale, physically forming up elements into a square is more common for 25mm, so-so for 15mm and not very common for 6mm. I have no idea about 3mm.

For any other rules you need to read the rules to see if they require you to form up elements into specific formations.

well i guess the other ruleset i have been circling around and one of the first ones got was Napoleon's Battles which does do formations – but doing something with these rules in 6mm or 3mm appeals to me greatly, but also just in making the paper ones i am just trying to work out what would suitable to create, – i am experimenting now with 3mm paper as well as 6mm (3mm paper seems crazy but it actually may work – i will have pictures soon )

i did see a forum post from someone who made a beautiful waterloo battlefield and enormous armies at 6mm scale and using General de Brigade rules –

perhaps a better for me to find out would be whether anyone using 3mm scale is here and what rules do they use. Have they found limitations with what they could use? perhaps i will have to ask in teh general forum

Perhaps you should check this forum out.
link

If you are using paper is may not matter what the scale is, the main focus should be on the base size. Another option is converting a Napoleonic board game into a figure gaming format. This video ( youtu.be/5Fwp4bPoaQM ) provides one method of doing a conversion, just pick a game you like.

Not Napoleonic but we are doing WSS in 3mm and GaPa rules.

We halved the scale to bases 20x15mm and an Inf Bn is usually 2-4 bases. We are using sabot bases with a label at the rear and turning the lead unit indicates the Bn is in column. We have only just got that far and not played a game yet so we may change that to a marker for troops in column.

You have the addition of more complicated formations in later periods but sabot bases are not that difficult to make (we use magnetic figure bases) and easy enough to swap out for differing formations such as square or attack columns.

With 3mm you can use the same base sizes as larger figures but get a mass effect with subunits arrayed on the base but we wanted more units so smaller bases to play larger battles on our smallish table.

thanks for the info and links – the 3mm inf i am testing out now are 2cm across at the front

I really like those pieces people make where the infantry in its 4 or so companies and skirmishers are all on one base, but again does limit the versatility of such pieces to only being useful for Bluecher and ESR?

I really like those pieces people make where the infantry in its 4 or so companies and skirmishers are all on one base, but again does limit the versatility of such pieces to only being useful for Bluecher and ESR?

No, I base mine on a single base since that is what the rules I use most often have, but I use them for multi-base unit games without problems when the fancy takes me. Depending on how many units are on the table, I either use markers, a roster, or just declare it. They all work fine.