I am just starting a new project, building all new 28mm Napoleonic armies for the 1813-14 period, maybe 1815 at a stretch, hopefully to be finished in time to refight the 1813 campaign in 2013!!
These will be "Perry" sized 28mm armies, so sourcing from Perry, Victrix, Warlord and Renegade for now. That will include obviously French, Prussian and Austrian units but I also hope someone will have late Russians available in time.
I don't have any particular ruleset in mind, in fact I am intentionally intending to play a variety of different rulesets, but they will be "element" rather than figure based rules or adapted to work with elements. Also this will be for really "big" units, say something like the Grant era 50'ish man infantry units, as a few friends and I have have talked for years about loving the old style "big" units from our younger years.
Now the dumb idea....
Basing infantry was a no brainer, 60mm x 40mm 8-figure bases, each base is a company, typical French 6 company unit will be around 48 figures, easy.
Now Cavalry, I decided I want to move away from the 2-figure 50mm x 50mm base that I currently use, I really liked the dense 3-figure bases I used to have back in the 70's and 80's, there is just something so right about seeing Curassiers packed knee to knee on the table top and 50mm square bases just leaves too much room, so I thought if I used 3-figures on a 60mm x 40mm base it would have the right density to look right and at the same time simplify the bases I need to stock.
But then at the weekend I was messing around and I had some left over bases from Impetus that were 120mm x 40mm with nice modern looking rounded corners and for no good reason I stuck 6 Carabiniers on the base and thought how good they looked fantastic, then the light bulb went of in my head, how about I use one 120mm x 40mm base instead of two 60mm x 40mm bases, with each base being a 'squadron', the equivalent of the infantry 'company' base. Much easier to move around 4 6-figure bases than 8 3-figure bases isn't it?
I keep telling myself this has got to be a really dumb idea, what if I want to move them along a road for example, 120mm wide bases aren't going to fit really, surely I am just going to be creating a headache for myself down the line, but I keep coming back to simply how good they look and a full Regiment is really awesome.
Then I got to thinking some more, I also had some 120mm x 80mm Impetus bases surplus and they would be just right for 2 Artillery pieces, and that gives you room to be creative in base design, so I am thinking of doing all my artillery in pairs.
So what do you think, is this a dumb idea, should I stick with smaller standard bases or just go for it with these big bases?
Crusader Napoleonics
The new unit arrived today, first time I have seen any of the Crusader Napoleonics, 3 8-man blisters for GBP22.00 from North Star, nice price.
First thoughts, very nicely sculpted indeed, really great figures but..... they are small...... these guys won't be able to look over the shoulder of their Perry or Victrix brothers, they are very much "Foundry" compatible. If Foundry is what you are into then I would say definitely get some of these, you will not be disappointed. Not sure what I am going to do with these now, maybe send them of the Spain to join their Foundry counterparts.
2 comments:
Having just rebased a 6mm Napoleonic army for Grand Armee rules (from POW) I would say do it IF you're not intending to play other rules.
Keeping the flexibility is the key.
What many other people do is create a flat base (often using metallic paper if the bases are megnetised) to the size required. Then you can place multiple units on the flat base (allowing you to move them around as a squadron as you propose but also allows you to remove them and use the bases for a different rule set).
So in your instance you keep the two 60 x 40 bases but create a 120 x 40 flat base.
Hope that makes sense!
Fair point, though I plan to stick to rules that are element based and don't really care bout the size or I will adapt rules to fit.
But still your point is valid, flexibility is important and was my real concern, whether at some point down the line I will regret this.
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