"Age of Eagles Basing" Topic

My army is based to V&B/GA basing (3" square bases.) Both are good rules sets but I haven't really been convinced by either. Was wondering how difficult it would be to adapt Age of Eagles to the 3" basing (I'm definitely not going to rebase.)

Hmm

not wishing to hijack the thread, but I'm curious about why V&B doesn't work for you? I haven't played them (there are roughly as many preferred rule-sets as Napoleonic gamers locally, so settling on a standard has been frustating/impossible), but would be interested in your thoughts.

B

I've heard they were the same as "Napoleons Battles". No other proof. You should be able to convert to V&B basing, make each base equal 3 AoE bases or sumsuch.

NB and AoE have formations shown with the smaller bases. Shouldnt it be possible to show the formations with counters at your 3" bases? Your brigades will not zip to 600 metre width when going into line, but that is one thing critisized of NB, so really no problem.

It would be easier to base for AoE/NB and then put those on VB sabot bases.

AoE uses 3/4 x 1 for infantry, 1x1 for Cavalry.

Spoken as one who has "been there."
I'm currently halfway through rebasing my VnB armies for the AOE/Napoleon's Battles/Shako mounting. I intend make magnetic VnB bases (full 3" scale) to use when I'm in the mood for it. This has been made easier by my discovery of "magentic paint" (not really magnetic, but full of iron filings, so your stands, regardless of what they're made of, will stick to magentic sheet).
Like you, I swore, as recently as two months ago, that I would never remount. I loved the vignette quality of the VnB bases (I was mounting about 24 15mm French in 3 ranks, so it really looked good), but our club wanted the flexibility of using many different rules sets, and about five of us swallowed our pride and agreed on a common mounting that could be used for several systems.

I'm an experienced F&F player and the reality is that we almost always used supported lines as a formation. There is no incentive in the rules not to. In fact, I don't ever remember seeing column used and line only occasionaly to hold an extended position. Is this equally so in AOE? If it were so then the 3" bases could function as the equivalent of supported line formation. I am intrigued by the idea of using counters to show other formations.

Brendan, as far as V&B goes it is a very good rules set and has some great ideas. The game lacks command and control which is an essential element of the period for me. That is something that could be tinkered with. Even using the F&F activation system! I'm trying to remember since it has been a while since we played V&B. I love the big bases and I tend to agree that at the scale of brigades showing formation isn't really pertinent. So in one sense I'm not persuaded by NB or AOE in the need to show formations for brigades. As I said above, since F&F tends to have one formation by default anyway I'm wondering about whether AOE works in practice in the same way.

"AOE/Napoleon's Battles/Shako"

So these three systems all use the same basing?

They do if you use the NB basing option for Shako.

I never played NB, but I rebased from Empire (ptui!) when Shako first came out, as I liked the look of the two-figure deep bases. Then I was delighted when Bill went that route with AOE. And mounting on magnetic bases as Forrest desrcibes made it easy to adapt to VB and GA.

Allen

AOE does use essentially the same basing as NB/Shako and at least one option for FVTW.

As regards supported formation, its somewhat more problematic in AOE since the infantry have been classified as Columnar, Linear or Impulse. Columnar means that the notional battalions within the brigade are by doctrine normally deployed in column, Linear in line and Impulse move in column, then fight in line. The physical appearance on the table may be the same, but the notional battalions are assumed to be in a formation appropriate to their national doctrine. 1806 Prussian = Linear, 1806 French = Impulse.

*Movement, Linear – 6 inches, Columnar or Impulse – 9 inches
*Fire Points, Linear or Impulse – 2 per stand, two rank Impulse or Linear – 2.5 per stand, Columnar – 1 per stand

I've had this issue crop up before on my Yahoo Group, but nearly every game the most prevalent formation is Line of Battle (which means the battalions have simply deployed side by side in a single echelon, they actually might all be in column if Columnar infantry).

Make sense?

Go to ageofeagles.com and you can see the last battle we did.

Regards, Bill Gray

In my experience, we use supported line for defense and columns (formation in masse in the rules) for attacks.

We make this because in columns you can attack with several brigades (usually three) an enemy one and because the defender will be forced to divide his fire he will have less probabilities to cause harm to the attack. Even if a brigade is disordered usually the other two will be ok, so the attack will be more devastating.

The line improves the amount of fire a brigade can deliver, but in this game the casualties and breakthroughs in the enemy lines are made by melee (unless you can fire an enemy in the flank you must concentrate a lot of fire to cause losses).

Hi Bill

What I'm most interested in is the physical appearance on the table top. Do you suppose that I could easily use 3" bases within the AOE without unduly distorting the system. If most units most of the time use one distinct physical shape then I can't see it being a problem. If AOE is like NB and has brigades changing shape then I'd say it becomes a more complicated issue. But in that case perhaps using formation counters might work in any event.

Mark

Brendan, as far as V&B goes it is a very good rules set and has some great ideas. The game lacks command and control which is an essential element of the period for me. That is something that could be tinkered with.

Thanks- I've seen the odd game and the players seem to enjoy themselves, get the game finished in a reasonable time- without the detail getting obsessive.

Chthonic regards

B

Marcus Brutus: Like NB, AoE definitely has brigades 'changing shape' as a key feature of gameplay—line, supported line, attack column, march column, 'tiralleur', square, and so forth. Further, AoE fire and melee functions use the concept of 'stands' of figures as a key component of the combat calculus. Single 3"x3" stands of diorama-like figures (glorious in GA!) will necessitate some involved 'workarounds' to be viable in AoE. Can't comment on V&B—never played it.

Just my 2p

Grey

What Greystreak said.

I thought about this last night and you could use the 3 x 3 stands as an AOE 8 stand supported infantry brigade or a 6 stand supported cavalry brigade, though they would be just a tad deeper. You would have to have some way of marking the GA stand to indicate that one or more AOE stands have been eliminated, and I guess your "brigades" would have to be in multiples of 8 or 6, but I think that would work.

As regards formations, the shape of the brigade doesn't really change that much for square, and I don't see column (Masse) used an awful lot. However, I will say the most common formation on my tables continues to be Line of Battle, NOT Supported Line.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I picked this mounting scheme not only because I thought it looked nice, but doing so allowed me to cover many other games (NB, Shako, one option in FVTW, etc) without having to rebase. Unfortunately, I couldn't hit them all (sigh).

Regards, Bill Gray