Basing Napoleonic Battalions

Things here in the blog have been fairly quiet recently ... that's because the real world has been exceedingly hectic, leaving very little time for any gaming stuff. However, I have found a few moments to experiment with how to base up my Napoleonic forces. The basic choice was between 20mm x 20mm and 15mm x 20mm.


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Here are some Perry's based 20mm x 20mm with 24 in a battalion. That's a frontage of 240mm.



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Next we have 15mm x 20mm with 30 in a battalion giving a frontage of 225mm (i.e. fairly similar area to the 24 man unit above).



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Now for some comparisons. Front unit is 20mm x 20mm, rear 15mm x 20mm. The painted figures are mostly Front Rank.



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Now swapped around to remove any bias.



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Both here are 20mm x 20mm.



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Again, swapped to give a balanced view.

For a while I was tempted to go with the 30 man battalions as the denser formation looks quite imposing but after further consideration I settled on 24 man battalions based on a 20mm frontage, mostly 4 on a 40mm x 40mm base. This is mainly because I'll need to buy and paint less figures, yet the result is still good. Plus there seems to be a trend with rules these days that a variety of basing systems can be catered for, especially if both armies are based in the same manner.

Painted British Artillery

I've been rather under the weather recently, hence the lack of blog posts however here's a few pics of something I finished a while back. It's a British Royal Artillery 9lb-er. Figures from Front Rank, paints mostly Foundry.


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Don't ask why I based the crew individually rather than on the same base as the cannon - I suppose it's just habit.


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Wasn't too sure about the colour for the gun carriage but after doing a spot of research I realised that others have used a wide range of blue-greys so I opted for Foundry Night Sky Mid and then Light.


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I really like the small extras such as the powder barrel and spare shot. I think it adds an extra level of interest.


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Now I'm working on a batch of Perry's Plastic British Redcoats (http://www.perry-miniatures.com/index2.html) and my word they're splendid figures. Plus at £15 for a box of 36, a real bargain too.