Basing for Infantry --

When you really get down to it (as far as basing troops goes), there are really only three basic types of infantry in European mid-eighteenth century warfare -- regular troops, irregular troops and skirmishing troops.

The vast bulk of troops are "regular" troops -- that is trained "professional" soldiers. Now, since I really don't like the looks of single-ranked troops representing a "battalion", I wanted my troops double-ranked -- like this.

And, while I basically selected "Koenig Krieg" style basing (four figures on a stand -- in two rows of two), I wanted larger units. Hence, in my rules, a battalion ranges from 16 to 24 figures (4-6 stands).

Irregular troops, while sometimes acting in solid blocks (like regulars), needed to have a different look to them. Thus I decided upon a deeper base and a loose "diamond" formation for each "company" (four figures). Thus, they will look like this.

Now, for both the regular and irregular "line-type" troops, each stand of four figures represents a "company" (with 4-6 companies per battalion). However, I needed something different for "jaegers" and other true "light infantry".

In my opinion, such troops are generally afforded too much strength under most rule sets. True "light infantry", while very valuable on campaign, were of little real value on the battlefield. About the best that they could do was to occupy "bad ground" and delay opposing troops.

Thus, while each base still represents a full company, only two figures (instead of four) are used. The rest are hiding , moving or reloading. Thus I'm using a base twice the width of a "regular" base -- but twice as wide.

My next post will probably be about my choices for basing mounted troops.


-- Jeff