Hi I am new to war gaming. I am building ECWS Army . What base sizes do I need for Infantry Cavalry and Artillery. And how many figures for each base. What rules are best for ECWS gaming.
thanks
ECWS?
First welcome. Base size depends on the rules - a general size would be 40mm frontage with 20mm depth for foot, 30mm for Horse and 40mm for guns or elephants.
Indeed, the rule sets seem to define these things. I write my own, so ignore such trivialities.
Anyway, far be it for me to agree with M'lord Birkenhead, but I have found 40x20mm to be quite suitable. I use 96 figure units, and have a 1:1 ration of muskets to pikes, as I'm protraying the 2nd Bishops' War as opposed to one of the later ones. This enables me to have some 20x20mm musketeers that I can use for skirmishers or detached musketeers.
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53426724843_706386b23f_z.jpg)
Apologies for the non-Pendraken frippary at the front of these Covenanters
Welcome along CDR :)
As has already been stated basing is going to be dependant to some degree on which ruleset you decide to use.
Some of us here are quite keen on the "For King and Parliament" ruleset which uses a grid system to play. Each square is 15cm wide so, with 10mm figures, we use bases that are 13cm wide by 5.5cm deep for pike and shot and cavalry units - normally 36 figures total per infantry base or 12 mounted figures per cavalry base. Smaller infantry units such as forlorn hopes, dragoons and artillery use 9cm wide bases.
You can see an example of how our games look here: https://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,22736.0.html (https://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,22736.0.html)
Good luck with your ECW project with whichever rules you have choosen to use. If you have questions there are plenty of ECW players on this board who can hopefully assist you.
Cheers
Peter
I like For king and Parliament for ECW gaming - I go with 40x40mm bases, with 2 or 3 of these making a unit.
I tend to get 12-16 infantry on a base, and 4-8 cavalry. I vary the density both on how easy the figures are to rank up, but also on the role of the unit - so pike will be high density, dragoons will be lower density.
Bases are dependent on a number things including by the rules you use, and that is a matter of personal preference. A base with figures is really little more than a game counter used to represent a unit. The size will probably be determined by the number of real men a figure is supposed to represent – I use 1:10. Once you know your ground scale you need to know how many men there are in your unit. I use historical orders of battle so units vary in size but some simple maths will give you frontage (and the number of figures you are going to need). I find that a frontage of about 8mm per figure, as close as I can position them, is about right with a depth of about 30mm. Ground scale in the rules I use is fundamentally important to unit frontages, movement and weapon ranges, and being computer moderated you can alter the ground scale, and ratio of figures to real men, to whatever suits you best. Many rules these days, I understand, don't concern themselves with ground scale, in which case stand size will be arbitrary and all I can say is that a stand populated with figures should look like the unit it is supposed to represent.
To add to the general synthesis - basing really depends on the rules you choose, and choosing rules is a very personal thing, very subjective. FWIW I use Baroque and my figures are based on large 120mm wide unit bases as below:
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4169/34478139206_afd3e58e24_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/UwHtzY)EPM 01 - 1st King's Life Guard - 00 (https://flic.kr/p/UwHtzY) by Zippee Jerred (https://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4159/34389197121_d6ee22703a_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/UoRCcK)T02 - Conyer Darcy's Foot - 00 (https://flic.kr/p/UoRCcK) by Zippee Jerred (https://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4173/34478035996_70030ccdee_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/UwGWUu)RE03 - Owen Cambridge's Horse - 00 (https://flic.kr/p/UwGWUu) by Zippee Jerred (https://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/), on Flickr
(https://live.staticflickr.com/4185/33708903733_149c67c52c_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/TmJWFp)REM01 - Sir John Meldrum's Horse - 00 (https://flic.kr/p/TmJWFp) by Zippee Jerred (https://www.flickr.com/photos/zippee/), on Flickr
Ah, the famous Cambridge horse who, to show their disconnection from the harsh world outside academia, carried their standard upside down! ;D ;D
Welcome to the wonderful world of over obsessing about base sizes. :d
As others have said, most modern rulesets will claim to be flexible especially if you are making both sides. If you have an opponent lined up, better make a joint decision.
FWIW, and following advice on this forum when I started, for ECW I went with a basic scheme of 3 40*30 bases with a base having 10-12 musketeers in two ranks or 12 pikemen in 3. Command stand on a separate 40*10 so it could either go behind the pikes or in front as an in-game status marker and in theory be swapped out to a become a Thirty years war unit. 40cm wide will fit a gun and crew or 3 cavalry comfortably.
The plus is the flexibility to create units which can match most rule sets and also create units in a Tercio type layout, marching columns, all musket or all pike units etc by switching the bases about.
The minus is I then added 2 more 40*10s with dice holder frames and some "scenic" figures like drummers, sergeants, casualty markers,... to make up a standard unit that is 120*40 that needs a relatively ugly movement tray to be practical on the table. And guess how often I have actually used the flexibility of multiple small bases in a unit.
So I would recommend playing around first with card cut to size or MDF bases with any ruleset you want to help yourself decide what you really want and which of ease of handling, flexibility, aesthetics are the most important to you.
And remember that what you will be looking at will mostly be 3 ft away!.
HEALTH WARNING: Not all figures in the pic are Pendraken.
(https://i.imgur.com/MuxsYuD.jpg)
Bet you're glad you asked now. :)
QuoteAh, the famous Cambridge horse who, to show their disconnection from the harsh world outside academia, carried their standard upside down! ;D ;D
Must have been from Trinity.
QuoteAh, the famous Cambridge horse who, to show their disconnection from the harsh world outside academia, carried their standard upside down! ;D ;D
Oops mea culpa I guess!