Military Bases

New Byzantium's elite Gianizaroi riflemen, still unwashed and drybrushed on their new 2p pieces


Situation

My Lace Wars troops were originally based for Warfare in the Age of Reason (AoR), 1/2" per figure frontage and depth. This was a tight squeeze even 15 years ago when the first Old Glory and Front Rank troops were recruited, newer recruits for New Byzantium are quite a bit bigger!


But the army has now been been hit by 2 dilemmas:

(i)  I moved city, and AoR is not played where I now play - in fact a whole host of new 18th century rulesets have emerged, with wider basing (thank heavens) but they are all different base sizes.

(ii) I am increasingly enjoying the new generation of "big skirmish" games like Sharp Practice, which require individually based figures to work best
 
Complication

Thus one is in the situation of trying to find a Universal Basing that allows you to play as many of the rulesets as possible.

You can see the various main heritages - the DBx lineage with the 15mm per close order / 30mm open order infantry,  20mm heavy cavalry, 30mm light cavalry, based on 60mm frontage elements (in 28mm). Then there is the Warhammer heritage, 20mm frontage per foot, 25mm per horse, single mounted or sabot (though there is a convention to base 2 wide to more easily move figs, but so they can form OK looking columns.

Separate bases seem to be nearly universally done on the 1" per man round base (or in the UK, the 2p piece)

Resolution

Well, I decided to decide on aesthetics in this most Reasonable of Ages. Close order foot at 15mm frontage look "right" to me, at 20mm frontage they look too far apart for 18th century close order foot in my opinion, but most rules are now at 20mm. However, 3 men on a 2" frontage look like a decent compromise of looks and are close enough to 20mm frontage.

Also, 2 men on 1" round bases are 2" as well, so you can get a 2" frontage "elemet" with 3 close order or 2 open order troops on it - works for me. In other words, all my Light foot troops are available for Sharp Practice games as individuals.

The DBx heavy horse on 20mm are just too boot-to-boot, its more lap-to-lap with todays' bigger figures. 25mm is a bit far apart to be totally boot to boot, but is OK. Personally I prefer my light horse to be further apart, but many new rules in the period don't differentiate.

Keepng to my 2" frontage element idea though, 2 heavies in an element work just fine - and I have based my lights singly - so they can be used in Sharp Practice as well as single men.

Depth for all close order foot will be 20mm (as that seems to be the one standard), and cavalry 2"

So - the die is cast, let the basing begin! Photos to follow....

(Now all I have to do is work out how to optimise battalion size - AoR is 12, Kriegkunst is 16, Black Powder is 24+..... )