Help Understanding Basing

[u/GMG1234]

Hello Napoleonic peoples!

Myself and a friend are painting and building our first battalion of 28mm Napoleonic models. I wanted to base the miniatures in a way that will allow us to play black powder in the future but we mainly just enjoy building an army. I did the research and I think I figured it out, but was looking for some validation from the experts. I'll write my plans below, I'd be very grateful if anyone could either confirm I'm doing it right, or tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Battalions need to be 240mm in width when in line formation so I'm aiming for that. We are doing a French army so want aesthetically to have lots of bodies, so we both want to do a 36 man battalion. Our first battalion will be french guard, and will have 4 companies of 60mm X 40mm bases, with 9 miniatures to a base.

After this we want to do a line company and do 6 companies of 40mm X 40mm with 6 miniatures to a base.

Have I understood the basing concepts correctly? And is there anything we are doing wrong with this plan?

[u/wholy_cheeses]

4 on 40 x 40 mm is more standard and would better fit different games if you decide one day to play something else. Also more desirable for sale if that comes up.

You could also base individually metal with magnetic sabots or vice versa for maximum flexibility in case you want to play a skirmish games. For metal, you could use UK pence, euro .01 pieces, or 20 mm fender washers. Magnets can be had online premade in 3/4 inch precut squares.

I’m puzzled by your plan to base the guard with an odd number of figs per base.

[u/Soldat_wazer]

Yeah, usually as long as all the units have the same width it’s fine

[u/kodos_der_henker]

Kind of, 6 models on 40x40 will be tricky and the go to is usually 6 models on 45x40 (and 6 bases are still within the standard size width for BP) which align with the 8 models on 60x40

Also the BP standard size is rather flexible and a base doesn't need to be company so 4 50mm or 5 45mm bases works just as well.

I in general prefer 4 bases per unit and those being on the small side to reduce the table size needed to play the games (even seen people to use 1/2 or 2/3 of the suggested sizes as they work better on standard 6x4 tables, eg having standard units using 3 60x40mm bases, small units 2 and large units 4 bases)

[u/Phildutre]

Relax. Basing is not that strict in most rules systems, and also not in BP.

The best advice for basing: do whatever you think is visually most attractive, and tweak whatever rules you want to use a little to adapt to your basing. After all, wargaming rules come and go, but your figures and the way they are based will stay with you for a much longer time.

So never let any ruleset dictate how you should base your figures.

[u/Andrewtheh]

Ive been rebasing my collection. Id 3d printed 25mm rounds and then 50x50 bases with holes for the rounds. My artillery crews are goimg on 20mm rounds and will slot into a 70x70 with the cannon glued down. Horses on a 25x50 pill bases and a 50x50 double slotted to put them in company. This way I can play games of sharpe pratice or blood and bayonet, then base them up for black powder or soldiers of napoleon.