on the workbench & my basing system for napoleonic

As Big Red Bat asked for it in a recent comment:

Basing System for napo :

First, I'm going to use all those miniatures with a ruleset named "Tactique". To describe it I would say that this is a simple variation on Battlelore (more than Command and Colors (C&C) - I've never played Memoire '44, so I don 't know its specificities).

The author has made some minor changes, and some major ones. What is "magic" in Battlelore is played as special orders/manoeuvres and the cards have been removed and replaced with a simple activation system. There are a few "advanced" rules (orders are part of it, as are commanders and special terrain/units (militia, lancers...)).

I would say that the author took Battlelore (BL) and made it feel napoleonic. One of the main change is in the size of the units which are way more killable in Tactique than in C&C or BL.

As in the original game(s), a unit remains efficient whatever damage has been done to it - until it is destroyed or it flees the board. Every time you are damaged, you remove a base.

Units have a number of bases which depend on the type of the unit :

infantry : 3 bases but for militia : 2 bases
cavalry : 2 bases
artillery : 1 base.

Some units may have one more base to show a strong resilience, depending on the nation.

As I'm willing to built 2 armies and I do not wish to fight against someone else army (which would be fine anyway as there s no such things as front size : everyone stays in their own hexagons!), I had a complete freedom on the basing system.

My main decision was for the infantry. There are a lot of them in an army as you can guess. The "normal" way would have been to put them on 3 bases, with 4 to 8 miniatures on each bases. Now, as I said before, in this game, you are as strong (in attack) with 1, 2 or 3 bases. Also, painting napoleonic is quite time consuming (even if I'm starting to get used to it) and I didn't want to paint miniatures to just remove them in the first turn after a hit from some far away artillery. SO I made the choice to make one BIG base with most of the miniatures and 2 smaller ones for the casualties. Actually, I could have made some casualties counters too : that is still an option.

For the cavalry, I choosed to make 2 big bases in a more classic way; it adds something to the feeling of "weakness" of the cavalry.

The bases are as follow (in mm):

infantry :
Line - 1 big 80x80 with 16 miniatures and 2 40x40 with 1 miniature each (skirmishers)
Light - 1 big 80x80 with 8 miniatures (skirmishers) and 2 40x40 with 1 miniature each (skirmishers) OR 3 bases of 80x40 with 3 miniatures per base.
Elite - 1 big 80x80 with 15 miniatures including an officer on horseback and 2 40x40 with 1 miniature each (skirmishers / saper)
Militia - 1 big 80x80 with 16 miniatures and 1 80x40 with 2 miniatures (skirmishers)

Cavalry :
Heavy - 2 bands of 50 x 100 with 5 riders each Front of unit is the long side of each band
Light - 2 bands of 50 x 100 with 5 riders each (maybe less) Front of unit is the short side of each band
Elite - 2 bands of 50 x 100 with 5 riders each Front of unit depend on the type. It should be visible from the uniform that it is elite. If not, I'll find a way... Maybe spear head formation or something like that.
Lancers - 2 bands of 50 x 100 with 5 riders each Front of unit is the long side of each band - the lances help to distinguish the unit.

Artillery :
Line - 1 big 80x80 with a cannon and 4 gunners.
Horse artillery - 1 big 80x80 with a cannon and 4 gunners - I may make it a bit "narrower and longer" and add an horse like 120x60- not sure.
Elite - depends on the type (horse or line). Something will distinguish it; I don't know what, yet.