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Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

This is usually one of the first questions from beginners as one of the most difficult to answer and most of the time being "does not matter" or "depends on the scale"

One of the common methods used is from Black Powder, with 40x40 for Infantry (4 28mm models) or 45x40 (6 28mm models) and 50x50 for Cavalry were the amount of bases is used to to determine if it is a small, standard or large unit.

Some people also get into details here and try to be "realistic" by researching how many soldiers the specific unit had by the time of the scenario and calculate how many bases/models are needed.
And for them it is very important to have to possibility to use the correct sized unit on the table and rules that have more fixed units sizes are considered bad
But the problem here is very simple, a square base can never be realistic so it would not matter if you have an appropriate sized unit to represent the historical battalion /regiment in numbers if the footprint is everything but correct.

to get into details:
taking the french as prime example, they were organised in 3 ranks and a company was ~130 meters wide while only ~2,5 meters deep (without Officers that were further behind)
going with 28mm being 1:56, 2,5cm (1 standard inch) would represent 140m

so the classic 40x40 square base per company fails to represent the historical 3 ranks for french, as well as the ratio of width to depth

45x15mm with 1 rank and 1 base being 1 company (6 bases per battalion) or even going smaller with 1 model being 1 company (3 bases 40x15 per battalion) represents a historical formation much more accurately even with the number of models not being the exact value of the historical unit by that time scaled down to 1:25.

and looking closer to some division or army level games, 60x30 or 60x40 is often the sized used for a more historical ration between width and depth instead of trying to get a historical model ratio on the table


And this also flows into another point, high entry level because of the high model count needed, because the standard suggestion for Black Powder gets you 24 models per unit and you need many of them
other games that are aiming for beginner are also using the BP basing for compatibility reasons, but half the amount of bases per unit

However, going with a more realistic approach for the basing and take gaming into account, as 15 deep bases with 1 rank or 30 deep bases with 2 ranks might not be the best for shooting or attacking models but let you start with low amount of models while your are still able to play against other people (and can be combined to make larger units later if needed)
As the most important part for base sizes in nearly all Napoleonic rules as that the width of the Line is similar for all players while the depth does not matter (so 6 40x15mm bases and 12 models per unit is perfectly fine for Black Powder)


but one wants the units to look good, and how to handle different nations as the mass units of Austria should look different to British Rifles?
60x45mm (for whatever reason) is a common base size, as well as 60x30
This give the possibility to change the amount of models to represent different types of units or nations, like having 2-4 models for Skirmishers, 4-6 models for line infantry (4 models on 60x30, 6 on 60x45) or 8 models for the large regiments Austria used (60x45).
Same for Cavalry as 2 models on 60x45 for light and 3 for heavy cavalry is possible

and low amount of models can still look good as Battle Brush Sigur demonstrates



TL;DR:
My personal suggestion to start into Napoleonics is to skip the classic Black Powder Bases (or any suggestion for square bases no matter the scale) and go for 60mm wide bases and either 25-30mm deep for 1 rank if you start on a budget or want to keep the model count low or with 45-50mm deep for 2 ranks (4-8 models per base) and use 4 bases per unit

this way you can get good looking units, are compatible with nearly all rules (even the larger army level ones like Blücher) and don't need 36-48 models for (large) units

Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Powerful Pegasus Knight






The classic Black Powder basing isn't the classic Black Powder basing, it's just what typically is there with 24 models. There is nothing in the rules for the game that says that it has to be typically 4 to a base.
   
Made in at
Second Story Man





Austria

2nd Edition on page 19 has a diagram for recommended bases and 40x40 with 4 models infantry and 50x50 with 2 models cavalry
and the text next to it referring that over time this has proven to be the optimal version for gaming

while the the text about unit size names 20-25cm as width for standard sized units in line formation

1st Edition have the same diagram on page 12, while the text also mentions the 45x40mm bases (difference is the the size for standard units is given by amount of models)

the rules might not say that this is the only one but are not mentioning any other size except for giving some variation with unit size (but this is also to have 5-6 infantry bases for infantry and 4-5 Cavalry bases)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/09/16 15:33:12


Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Basing is the bane of wargames. This very topic is one of the issues stopping me from getting into Nappies.

However, this issue appears in Ancients a lot, which I do play. I typically just single base 28mm and then use movement trays to get the "correct" basing for any particular game.

For my 6mm forces, I put them on 60mm x 60mm base as I like the look of it. If rules can't support it, I don't play it.

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Made in us
Executing Exarch




IMO, if you're worrying about accurately depicting the number of ranks in a firing line on your bases, then you're playing too small of a scale for Napoleonics. The Napoleonic era had huge battles with hundreds of thousands of men. Unless you're depicting just a tiny part of a battle, each movement base should be representing at least a brigade. And at that scale, everything's abstracted anyway.

2nd Edition on page 19 has a diagram for recommended bases and 40x40 with 4 models infantry and 50x50 with 2 models cavalry
and the text next to it referring that over time this has proven to be the optimal version for gaming


And Black Powder Epic scale says, basically, "Screw it. Here's a single rank of ten men. Put two of these ranks on a movement base, and get to playing." Both Black Powder and Hail Caesar are meant to be more or less model agnostic. The tray size in those games is the important thing, and you can arrange the units as you feel appropriate for that tray. When I played Hail Caesar, we'd do two model by two model "tiles" for the medium and heavy infantry, but put three figures on one of those same tiles if the unit involved was a warband.

The point that the page you noted is trying to make is that the particular setup is the one that's worked best for the games that the authors play. But if you have a reason to prefer a different arrangement, there's nothing to stop you from doing so.
   
Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut






No matter what you do, basing will be a disaster because most historical formations were much wider than they were deep which means that they're pretty hard to put on the table. In the times of linear warfare, that of course is even worse because if you have any kind of scale (as in, the number of soldiers each model represents) you would end up with units being one model deep. And that just feels wrong. But even with a 16-deep phalanx scaling is hard because 2 or 3 deep just doesn't feel very phalanx-y. Which in turn means that you need insane amounts of models for any kind of battle.

So, I would just go with what looks good. Personally, I base all my figures individually and use movement trays. That way, I'm not locked into any basing system (or lack thereof) used by any ruleset and retain maximum flexibility. It's a lot easier to make new trays for a given unit size than to rebase minis. If only because movement trays won't snap off at the feet.

   
 
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