Base Sizes and How my troops are organised.

 Just recently a few questions have been asked regarding my basing conventions, how many figures per base, what size basing is used. So here I shall lay out my methodology for the rules I use.

Research.

The first thing I do when developing an army is to decide which theatre it will be, then consult my reference books that have an Order of Battle, my usual size of force is the Division. Then work out how many commands are needed, followed by the number of troops, (hence the total number of bases), any cavalry and finally the artillery.

This Divisional size fits neatly into my available playing space of One square metre which equates to a ground scale of one square mile. 

So far my focus has been 1809 and, yes, I know, Waterloo, but I am working towards Spain and the Tyrolean revolt.

Command Structure.

By this I mean commands. Having determined the number of battalions, I then assign the commands. There will be an overall commander albeit at Army Level, (such as Wellington, Napoleon etc.), or the highest ranking commander present, usually a Corps or divisional command. Next will be Divisional commanders, (assuming they are not the highest rank), followed by Brigade command - the lowest level.

Base sizes; Army Command, a 40mm circle with three figures which has attached three ADC figures on separate 10 x 20mm bases.

Division has two mounted figures on a 30mm circle with attending, (two), ADC figures. Finally, the Brigade commander is a single figure on a 20mm base but has no ADC's attached.

Hence for the cavalry it will be a Regimental command, and if the artillery has enough guns in play, an artillery commander.

The ADC's serve to relay orders between individuals, moving at the fastest mounted speed. This makes, to my mind a more realistic way to change orders and represent the time lag involved.

The Infantry.

Each Battalion is made up of four bases containing Musketeers, Skirmishers, (usually four figures), and Grenadiers, (usually four figures), as well as the Battalion commander standard and musicians, (who plays no real role in the command structure - just a figurehead).

Each base of the Battalion can contain at the least, eight figures and at the most ten, this just depended on how many figures spare there were when I ordered, (this is a bit of a hangover from my early days of building an army - I'm a bit more savvy and organised now).

Each Base is a 30 x 20mm rectangle except for the command base, which is a 30 x 30'ish polygon, just to give the Battalion some direction and character.

Lately, skirmisher bases, (30 x 20mm), have been constructed using oddments of figures and often weigh in at four figures set irregularly.

The Cavalry.

Until recently, my cavalry forces were relatively few, but a recent upsurge in painting for my annual Waterloo game made me realise this area of the game needed more work for all nations. As such I have been looking at various cavalry Regiments and putting together my purchase list to cover most of the theatres of interest.

The cavalry has four bases per Regiment and each base has three figures, sometimes the elite squadron or command have the correct dress, but sometimes not!  

Each base is a 30 x 20mm rectangle with three figures.

The Artillery.

This is where things go "off the wall" generally speaking. Due to my original set of rules from the past, the artillery has a somewhat different ground scale to the rest of the bases. 

Each model represents a battery of guns appropriate to the nation it belongs to, and each base contains one gun. The artillery train is probably the least researched part of my troops and has a mix and match number of horses, not always correct for either horse or foot artillery, or even which side the riders are mounted. Only recently I acquired a reference book that highlighted my errors, but I shall not be correcting them any time soon!

Each base for the guns are 20 x 30mm, and for the train it is 20 x whatever size fits the number of horses.

That's it for now, maybe a painting guide will be next!