Howdy all,

Have just received my first Baccus order, which made my day, I’ve been toying around with basing ideas this evening.

Bearing in mind I know so little about the period it might as well be nothing, and although I have narrowed the rules down to Baccus and Ga Pa, I absolutely hate rebasing, so I want to hedge my bets. That will allow me to play both, or move from one to the other, or indeed an entirely different ruleset.

Cavalry first as they are easiest. One rank didn’t seem enough, so I though about two ranks. These are Imperial cuirassiers. Looks good to me, but is it historically inept to base standing Western horse in a slightly straggled formation like this ? I thought perhaps that the more « shock oriented » the cavalry, the more even I would make them.

The base is 6cm wide, which seems to be a standard ; but I felt 3cm was too tight for this straggled cavalry formation so I went for 4cm. I know that means I cannot buy Baccus bases, but I’ll spend the money on more figures, I promise ! Some rules seem to want base depth to be half of base width, but in your experience, does it really matter that much ? As long as you know that « BD »=3cm.

On to the infantry. These are my Imperial infantry based to fight a Western opponent (those dastardly French, for instance). Having the pike four deep allows me to keep the pike to shot ratio to 1:3 and give the effect of a small but compact mass. What do you think ?

On one flank I have put two command figures (one will be the flag), and could indeed put three. I am toying with the idea of them being free standing (a block of two and a block of one) and using them as Ga Pa step markers. Is that a dumb idea ?

I’ve put them on 4cm deep bases because I imagine it is better if all units have the same base depth...but that means a lot of unoccupied ground in front of the unit. So I am thinking about what I could use it for. Did these units have a few sharpshooters deployed ? I also thought about battalion guns, but they don’t often seem to be a thing ? I could also put a mounted colonel and some runners, perhaps.

Some of you are of course wondering, if you have struggled this far, why the infantry are on two bases instead of just a single base. Well, Imperials vs. French is the side project ; Imperials vs. Ottomans is the main one. In which war the Imperials dropped the pike, callously inconsiderate of the grief it would give us wargamers. So the pike block will me mobile, I’ll then swap the bases around and slide in some musketeers behind the command stand. Yes, I do have a headache.

As for representing infantry in columns, I suspect that doesn’t happen very often, so I’ll probably do a few specific column bases, and markers if they run out.

Basing the Ottomans will be a lot simpler, just a bunch of guys looking mean in a blob formation !

Thanks for reading ; I am now going to crack the paintbrushes out, get these first teasers painted up, and then come back for more !

Hey, Lee. 

There are no dumb ideas! Some people love to base their armies according to history and studied military formations, and others are a bit more loosey-goosey. I like a chaotic combination of both.

Whenever I paint a new army I begin with reading and thorough research to give me ideas on strategy and formations, and because I'm a dork. Whether I choose to incorporate everything I've learned into my painting and basing is another story. I say start there. Learn all there is to know about your Ottomans and Imperials and French. Irrespective of whether or not you use what you've learned, you'll walk away from your studies greatly edified! 

Ultimately, they're your armies and this is a hobby meant to give you joy and pleasure. I say base them however the heck you want; whether it's according to history, or according to your own personal aesthetic :)

Stoked to see your progress. Good luck! 

Looking forward to seeing your collection progress Lee! 

I generally follow historical formations in what little basing I have done, but then again, parade ground formations would generally disintergrate in battle. In my opinion, anything is good regarding painting and basing, as long as you are satisfied with it! 

I will be aiming to upload photos of the progress on my 1914 Great War French and Germans over the next few days, so keep an eye out for that. :)

Hi Lee,

The first thing to say is that I certainly agree with the others that have replied in that you should do what youthink looks right/good and not worry too much about details. When I was making my Austrian army of this era I had pikes in my foot units and didn't worry about the fact they should be missing when fighting Ottomans.

Having said the above perhaps I can help a little with your choices.

I don't play the rules you mention but I think you are right to go with 6cm by 4cm bases generally. The 6cm frontage would fit in with the main rules I use and others that I know about. While increasing the depth to 4cm will make no difference when playing these rules.

On columns units are only using march columns in this era and there use on a battlefield was rare. This is true for many periods and not just this. In this era it should only really feature when say you want to switch units from one flank to the other flank. Most of the time what happened was bth sides formed up in line outside engagement distance, which was very short & many rules get completely wrong, then they marched forward.Obviously you can do what you want but I just use a marker and move units 'sideways' to represent when units are in colomn.

On the infantry I think the ratio was more like 1 pike to 2 shot, this is certainly what the best sources say. This would also, maybe, make things easier for you. You could use 6 shot strips and 3 pike strips per unit in a 3 by 3 formation. Possibly with the addition of command as extra figures or replcing some of the pike/shot. You could then use the 3 smaller bases per unit to allow the swapping out of the central pike small base. As you suggest you could use the command or mounted colonels to fill the bases. Battalion guns didn't exist at this time.


On the cavalry I am not sure why you are using 3 small bases here - something in the rules perhaps. In any case on units being 'staggered' or not you I think you have it the wrong way round. In 'Western' armies of thiis era, 1680-1720,'heavy cavalry' basically used 5 different types of tactics. 4 of these were a trade off between speed and maintaining order, the 5th managed to combine both - the Swedes.

Of the other 4 two, including those used by the Austrian, of the tactics emphasied maintin order and formation but moving relatively slowly. So troops using these tactics were more likely to remain tightly in formation even when attacking. At the other end of this groups were units using very aggressive tactics, like the French. These tacitic called for relatively high speeds but usually in a relatively loose formation. In effect these were a lot more likely to be 'staggered', especially when attacking. The 4th tactic in this group was basically a compromise between these last two and used by the Anglo Ducth in the 1700's.This was attacking at medium speed but with medium disorder. These tactics are not relevant to you current project but might be going forward.

In any case I would say from the historical point of view clearly cavalry would usually be well formed if stationary but could be 'staggered' when reforming after combat or similar. You could use the 'staggered' idea to represent different tactical styles but probably with the 2 'slow' systems in formation, Anglo Dutch a little 'staggered' and the 'fast' more staggered.

Finally the Ottomans and light horse. The Ottomans were not really in 'blobs' in these days, even if they were in the past. Their armies were all 'regular' troops but not necessarily recruited in the same way as Western troops or fighting in the same way as them. The infantry fought in ranks like Western units but the emphasise was more on aimed fire than the volume of fire. Plus some combined this with aggressive close combat attacks.

Most of the cavalry also formed in ranks but were a lot more flexible about keeping them. They would keep formation but break it to exploit small gaps in enemy lines, hence the emphasis on maintain good order with the Austrians, or shooting and then breaking off to allow a fresh attack. So maybe they could be 'staggered' but not a 'blob'.

The above is for 'heavy' cavalry, which was the overwhelming type in Ottoman armies. Ottomans, the Austrians and some others also used light cavalry. For the Ottomans these were usually allies rather than actual Ottomans - Tatars, Balkan vassals, etc. For the Austrians and others they were Hussars. These troops could fight as classic skirmishing cavalry and so as  a 'cloud' of figures. Although they also often appear to have fought more formed as in effect low quality 'battle' cavalry.

I hope this helps a little.

Evening all,

You have all helped a lot, thank you very much !  I have just painted - and more to the point here, based ! - my very first infantry unit this evening, and a second is on the way.

When I read through various rules sets, most of them (I think Polemos was the only exception), set up a battalion or "squadron" as three individual bases.  I was pretty sure that was pointless for infantry (at 6mm scale at least) and that some sort of marker would so when occasionally needed.  Thanks for confirming it !  I did however assume cavalry was more flexible.

With your very clear and extremely useful description of cavalry tactics Hwiccee, I've come to realise that cavalry also spent most or all of their time in a linear formation too.  So one base it can be then, and just as well because three bases was fiddly.

Thanks also for the heads-up regarding my notion of "straggled formations".  So I will base the (Imperial) Cuirassiers and the Horse in two regular lines (well, maybe a horse or two shying out of position); perhaps I'll stagger the Dragoons a little bit more so as to distinguish them.  When I get round to the French, I'll do something different.  In any case, a 4cm deep base will make things easy !

Thanks also for the tips on the Ottomans !  I spoke a bit off the cuff, as I knew that Janissaries held formations; however I didn't expect that was the case for the other troops and that is really good to know.

Thanks again to all and a good evening to you,

Lee

It's worth noting that one of the main reasons for adopting the 60mm x 30mm single unit basing system was to reduce the number of bases in play, therefore reducing the amount of time moving figures in a game.

Which is faster and easier; moving 20 60x30 bases or 60 20x30 bases?

And as for sorting out which little base goes with which regiment after the battle?.....