Base Sizes for RtE

[MikeH]

Hello Chaps

it was nice to see Barry at Claymore and I'm really looking forward to getting my grubby little hands on the new rule book but I wanted to ask a question about base and unit sizes as I'm going to start painting up some armies soon

so Barry without giving too away from the book are you able to tell us what size bases you recomend for 28mm figures and how many bases make up an average unit?

then I can start sorting out my figures into units and at least think about painting a few

cheers

Mike

[barr7430]

Hey Mike good to see you too!

No secret on the basing...

Rules are written to avoid ANY rebasing of existing collections but if anyone is starting from scratch my recommendations are:
15mm frontage for infantry
20mm frontage for cavalry

bases depths to suit collections. There are many example basings in the photographs so people can get a feel for the pros/cons/look of each

Infantry operate in battalions of sizes 16,20,24,28,30,32,36,40,42,48,52 and 56 depending on what you are triny to recreate. The basic 'element' for shooting and combat is a 'combat group' of 4 models. This applies to both infantry and cavalry.
Cavalry organised in Regiments of 10-60 models(of course 60 is an extrmely large Russian regiment). Typically 16-32 depending on nationality and theatre.

All of the combat mechanisms involve 'All models fighting' therefore basing size is irrelevant.

Hope this is enough to keep you interested... go to the WARCHEST where a couple of chapters appear in draft form in MICROSOFT WORD. They are much amended and edited since these roughs but the principles hold true!

[quindia]

Hi, Mike.

I'd like to add a small point to Barry's comments. You can always just pick a standard size for your units and this can be based on things like how many models you are willing to paint, the size of your game table, etc.

Decide what part of the Napoleonic wars you want your forces to represent. Even if you don't plan on playing historical refights, you probably have a particular battle or theater that really draws your interest. Starting from there, pick a battle that really gets you going and then pick a brigade from your chosen nationality on which to model your initial collection. Write down the strength of each battalion, divide by twenty (the default scale of R2E is 1:20, but you could use 1:15, 1:30, or pretty much anything you want), and round the unit off to the nearest unit size Barry listed above. You may find some Peninsular units end up even smaller than 16 models, but can simply combine two understrength battalions to form a regiment if necessary.

Simple! Once the brigade is finished, move on the next brigade in the division and so on. I look at my chosen battle to see what cavalry regiments may have been near my chosen division so that I know, at least during one point in history, the force I field on the table had a chance of being near each other. Then even when I set up fictional scenarios, I can be confidant that my army bears some resemblance to the period I am trying to portray.

Or you can just throw all of that out the window, field French units of 24 models so you get six combat groups that have the right color pom-poms, and form everything else around that!

[MikeH]

Cheers Chaps

well as I currently don't have any 28mm naps (other then my beloved Slaughterloo armies) I think I'll play around with the bases and see which size suits the figures but I'll probably go for 4 figs per base for infantry.

as for period well I did pick up the new Talavera book by CS Grant so that may be a good starting point

I'll go and have a hunt around warchest and read the first few chapters

Mike