"Horse, Foot and Guns 2mm Basing" Topic

I'm about to start painting my first 2mm HFG armies, and I'd like some advice.

I understand that 2mm armies are easy to morph, even if it's just the same army across time (say a British one). Under HFG classification, the British infantryman goes from Firelock to Musket to Bayonets to Minie all before their uniform changes appreciably! Similarly,heavy cavalry could over time be Cuirassiers, Heavy Cavalry or some other class (Pistols?).

My current idea to ID units is to have a tag of the style of I2, C4, A1 at the back of each base (the letters being the initials of each arm), with notes on each player's ORBAT as to which brigades are which.

Does anyone have any other thoughts?

I wonder if you can paint the edge of the base with stripes on the back instead.
Maybe a number on the back of a units flag?

Simply because I am not a fan of making bases look like board game pieces with letters etc on them, take away from the look for me.

One method I suggested to a client was to have a different arrangement of blocks on each base for each type of element.

I did a set of diagrams of bases for him suggesting which bases to use and how to arrnage them on the 15mm size bases.

A copy of the file was uploaded to the 2mm Yahoo group (link was in the discussion on your previous posting) and covered most of the element types in HFG I think.

This should do away with the need for labels.

Phil does actually descibe something very similar for 2mm in the rules so it isn't an original idea of mine but the diagrams make it easier to see what he is getting at.

I had considered your ideas, but the thing is, I want to be able to use the same base as different troop types, so I can re-use my elements over time as different troop types but without it getting confusing (especially in a transitional era army).

That said, if it's impossible I'll be doing the element-arrangement bit.

OK – another idea, again culled from discussion with a client in the past.

Base your figures on magnetic bases and then make a steel or flex-metal sabot base with the ID on it. That way you can swap figures to different ID sabots and change the element type instantly.

Alternatively add a small flex-metal strip at the back of the base and make ID strips with a magnetic back. Works the same way effectively but possibly easier to do.

I've not got down to 6mm but in terms of 10mm on MDF bases I've used the depth of the MDF to allow me to colour code with dots or stripes. As i leave the back edge black otherwise, it's easy to paint over and re-designate if necessary.

I second the colour coding idea, using a corner(s) of your bases, see Tony's (GildasFacit's) 2mm DBA page for ideas on that.