Advice sought

[Nirnman]

Hertsblue I love your figures and see you have them base in five six men blocks for the infantry and in six man squadrons for the cavalry. that is the effect that i'm looking for if I can find a suitable rule set that allows for this. May I ask what set you use and how easy is it to operate and if suitable for solo play if I can't find opponents in my area?

BtW I notice that you only use two flags for your French foot back when I first started using Peter Laing figs our group had Three flags for the French Two drapeau d'ordannce and one colonel's colour while the British had only two the kings and regimental colour it certainly looked effective on the table.
I must look out the old marlburian figs and post a few pics so that todays gamers can see what it looked like in the past. I remember that the worst flag I ever had to paint was for a battalion of Gardes Suisse in this scale as every quarter  of the flag had a different order for the piles wavy unlike normal Swiss regiments where each quarter was identical

[GordonY]

WSS rules, well you could do worse than Might and Reason by Sam Mustapha, number of figures on the base irrelevant (means cram as many as you like onto the base, 60mm x 30mm, means a whole heap of 10mm) 2 bases to the unit, available as a PDF from the authors website, about £11 (dunno what that is in dollars). Also covers the 7YW, but thats it, its very period specific, the only bad thing I've read about it is that the Prussians are pretty much unbeatable, so simple, choose 2 armies so that neither are Prussian. I've got it, read it but never played it, only because of my ADD, or as I like to think of it my "Oh SHINEY!!!" syndrome, at the moment I'm struggling with building some 1:1200 Nappy ships and some 1:600 Ancient galleys along with 15mm Orcs for HOTT. Who said that one project at a time was sensible?

[Fenton]

What about Age of Honour by the people who did Age of Eagles?

http://www.ageofeagles.com/Pages/ScenarioBooks.aspx

[Hertsblue]

Hertsblue I love your figures and see you have them base in five six men blocks for the infantry and in six man squadrons for the cavalry. that is the effect that i'm looking for if I can find a suitable rule set that allows for this. May I ask what set you use and how easy is it to operate and if suitable for solo play if I can't find opponents in my area?

BtW I notice that you only use two flags for your French foot back when I first started using Peter Laing figs our group had Three flags for the French Two drapeau d'ordannce and one colonel's colour while the British had only two the kings and regimental colour it certainly looked effective on the table.
I must look out the old marlburian figs and post a few pics so that todays gamers can see what it looked like in the past. I remember that the worst flag I ever had to paint was for a battalion of Gardes Suisse in this scale as every quarter  of the flag had a different order for the piles wavy unlike normal Swiss regiments where each quarter was identical

After years of hunting around various basing systems I opted for the square 20 x 20mm variety as the most flexible - you can make a reasonably convincing column of route or a line of battle from them. Each "element" represents 100 infantry so the number of elements varies with nationality. My Bavarian battalions have six elements whilst my British and Dutch, with their platoon-firing organisation, have eight - albeit with fewer figures per base. Likewise, the squadrons vary from five figures (French) up to seven (Danish Lifeguards).

You may well be right about the number of standards per battalion. At the time (about seven years ago) I had limited info on the subject and as I was hand-painting the flags I drew the line at two each. In point of fact, I now believe that there was only one colonel's colour per regiment, the second and subsequent battalions carrying two drapeaux d'ordonnance.

As for rules, I use my own Corporal John rules. If you go to http://rulesdepot.net/index.html you can view and download them free.   

[Nirnman]

I downloaded Corporal John but was put off to find that it stated that pike element must be fielded for every four elements of musketeers.  I didn't see any pikes in your units so are you treating this as optional? I was going to use a 30x 30 base as I have a lot of spare peter pig bases in this size but 20x 20 seems reasonable. I can understand the reasoning for the different number fo elements by nationality/firing system but  how did you determine the number of bases/elements for which nationality I skimmed through the rules but didn't see any nationality tables?

You're right about the flags but back when I started we just made our regiments one battalion strong and three flags for the frogs, etc looked the part. if one was being truly accurate yjeir is a case for each company to have its own flag and unless scaling at one to one that is unfeasible.

[Nirnman]

Hertsblue have just re skimmed through my pdf of Corporal John and see where you are coming from on base size and basing. However just noticed I had no appendix which probably details who use platoon fire etc and cannot find the quality factor for troops anywhere either I must have got a duff download.

[Friedland]

I'd definitely stick with 10mm.

Very cost effective if you're gaming on a tight budget. Like yourself I've got a large collection of both 15mm and 28mm armies. Even though the 28mm stuff looks impressive once painted, the sheer cost and time can sometimes prove frustrating. For example it's taken me around three years to get (albeit) a very large French Napoleonic Army, and with a fair few Perrys plastics thrown in it's still a lot of money invested.

When you consider that a twenty four man (metal) regiment would likely set you back about £25 at the very least - whereas the same price would get you a whole Pendraken 10mm starter army - it's a veritable bargain.

I'm also the same when it comes to space, and being able to play a decent game within certain confines is important. Unfortunately most of my 28mm games had to wait for the space available to me at my local club, but now in 10mm I can run through a game whenever I want in the modestly sized back room.

On the subject of gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if you end up bumping into someone on one of the many gaming forums who doesn't live too far away (you'd be surprised). Also having mentioned that you live in N.I. if you find yourself passing through Belfast you could always swing by "The Modellers Nook" ( 17 Winetavern St  Belfast BT1 1JQ
028 9023 3862). I usually drop by when I travel over to Belfast. The guy who runs it is a lovely bloke and I'm sure he'd be happy to put up a notice asking for other gamers interested in your specific periods. He usually deals in plastic vehicle kits, but has also started stocking figures. Last time I was there I had a long discussion with a fellow customer on painting French Napoleonic uniforms!

[Fenton]

Belfast?...I'm there!...So is Irregular Wars..well close enough to  Belfast anyway

[Fenton]

Here is some of the WSS I painted up about 10 years ago for an aborted project...

[Nirnman]

nice figures fenton  what rules were you going to use? and Belfast definitely not!!am from outside it. Newtownards actually. Friedland know Joe in the modellers nook quite well used to game with him years ago. have all but lost contact with those I gamed with back the work and other things got in the way now redundant and with time on my hands hoping to pick up again.

[Fenton]

Well UMS is still going once a month, and I know plenty of gamers are prepared to have a go at anything and could be persuaded...

[Nirnman]

good grief it still is! when and where does it meet now?

[Grenadier]

if I can find a suitable rule set that allows for this.

Rules?  Ah, for free and easy I would Google "Blenheim 2004" and download their set.  Others using battalion size units are, Baccus Polemos WSS(there is a new version in the works) and GNW sets, the Pike and Shot Society's "Captain General", League of Augsburg's "Beneath the Lily Banner", Mustafa's "Maurice"... what am I missing?
All have pros and cons as to operating systems, playability, realism etc.  The latter two are fairly new and very popular but not necessarily the best, IMHO. Most are flexible as to basing. 
I am staunchly against figure removal to portray casualties and the Polemos rules fit my bill.  The others using figure removal can ,of course, be modified to just using a tally sheet for each unit. Also, Baccus has great free info on uniform colors and flags and the Wyre Forest club has great OOB info on their site.

Brian

[Hertsblue]

Hertsblue have just re skimmed through my pdf of Corporal John and see where you are coming from on base size and basing. However just noticed I had no appendix which probably details who use platoon fire etc and cannot find the quality factor for troops anywhere either I must have got a duff download.

No, you're quite correct. It appears that when I uploaded the latest version I forgot to include the appendices.    Apologies. I will get that fixed within the next day or so.

As for the pikes question, that only applies where a musket-armed unit is not equipped with bayonets. Bear in mind that the rules also cover the LoA and earlier pike-and-shot periods. In the WSS, when the pike is falling out of fashion, the units may be entirely armed with musket and bayonet.

[Nirnman]

Ah thanks for that clarification especially when the must was in bold and I found a class category on another set of rules Fusilier  by the same person would it be the same do you think?

[Fenton]

UMS meets in St Johns Church on the Castlereagh Road..its near the top just after Montgomery Road if your going via the Dual carriage way. It still meets the last Saturday of the month.
Richard Clarke of the Two Fat Lardies is coming over for the August meetup

[Nirnman]

Found it I have a 2day calligraphy workshop next weekend( last one in July) but I might try and get the for the August meeting what time does it start.

[Fenton]

No idea at the minute..Usually its a 11am start, so suspecting it will be something similar

[Nirnman]

thanks I might see you there then.

[Leman]

Going back to basing I have found that the Baccus system workd very well with 10mm figures. Other types of flock, stones and clumps can also be added, but the basic glue, grit and paints work very well, see below: