Advice on arranging AWI figures for both British Grenadier and Maurice sought

[Jeffrey]

     Hi all,
     I've taken a good long look at the wonderful 10 mm AWI Pendraken sculpts, and am trying hard to optimize an order for them.  While I have a number of older rules sets for the AWI- 1776, War in the Americas, Piquet, Redcoat- I'd really like to assemble a force which can be used for both Maurice (which use an established number of bases for each unit) and British Grenadier (where historical orders of battle are represented at 1:20 or 1:10 ratios).  Given that the Pendraken troops look so good en masse, I'd like to build units which contain figure counts in the 30's.  Based on my surmisal of the rules (I own neither right now), this 30+ figure aesthetic suggests building for the 1:10 ratio for British Grenadier (generating batallion sizes in the 32, 36, and 40 figure range) then trying to fiddle with that basis so that 4 bases can be culled for use in Maurice.

     What I'm thinking about doing is this:
     Establish, for each foot battalion, four rectangular bases with 8 figures each, mounted in double ranks.  This will serve as the unit in Maurice and the nucleus of the unit for British Grenadier.  The remainder of the figures necessary for bulking up the unit for British Grenadier will be mounted by 4's on square bases.  I'll then have to construct some sabots for each game so that the four Maurice bases will appear square and there won't be any fiddling with the movement of the many British Grenadier pieces because they'll have the benefit of movement trays.

     Other than the awkward fact that the standard bearers will be slightly off-center (seemingly unavoidable given that Maurice is fixed at 4 stands), does anybody see any fault in my proposed scheme?
     Is there an basing scheme for cavalry and artillery which will allow a similar flexibilty in the use of the figures for the two rules sets?
     Many thanks in advance for your thoughts,
     Jeff

     

[WeeWars]

Hi Jeff – and welcome to the Forum!

I only have Maurice. All units are 4 bases, as you say. The bases don't have to be square. There's a diagram on page 40 for changing formation with rectangular bases. Page 66 shows a diagram of irregulars with 5 infantry on a base instead of 6.

It seems, though, that if you don't want to allow infantry or cavalry massed formations (two bases deep ) – massed cavalry is really intended for early 18th century tactics, massed infantry a national characteristic – then you could use units of three or even two bases so long as you can represent lines and columns. (Although disruption comes in 4s.) With three bases you could get your flags in the centre of your units. I imagine single-base deep linear units might suit AWI?

Cheers, Michael

[Zippee]

I based my Maurice stuff on 20mm squares (4 inf, 2 cav) and guns on 40mm squares

For most Maurice I count two bases as one and use 40mm BW (although I can play bigger games at 20mm BW if I choose)

This also works for Blackpowder where you can make small, medium, large, easily

And allows a lot of flexibility in arranging 1:20 or 1:10 forces for the likes of BG - I initially started them for 1:5 Sharp Practice

They can be seen on my Flickr pages
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/sets/72157634835447144/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/sets/72157634829124811/

[conster]

i am basing my awi 24 fig on one 100mm x 30 base and will count it as four bases as i will be useing them solo the line column thing is not a problem

[WeeWars]

Stephen, Do you know of anything in Maurice other than formations that needs units to be in 4s? Disruption comes in 4s but is that just coincidental? Michael

[fred.]

In Maurice each stand is supposed to shoot straight ahead if there is a target ahead, so you need to be able to at least estimate where each stand is supposed to be.

The 4 hits has no need for 4 stands.

Formations matter a bit - for cavalry its helpful to be able to have them in a square block rather than a line.

When we played, most of my British were on 40x20mm bases, 2 to a unit. And this worked fine.

The only time single stands are better, is when you want units in march columns - which are used a bit during the games, as they are the only way to quickly move units.

[WeeWars]

Formations matter a bit - for cavalry its helpful to be able to have them in a square block rather than a line.

This formation is intended for massed cav of late 17thC and early 18thC rather than AWI cav?

[fred.]

I've just checked the book, and in Maurice units are always 4 stands (except artillery)

For AWI with little cavalry, you can either have very few units per side, or you could declare the units are irregular, which makes them less combat orientated - but more manoeuvrable.