Howdy all,

Have just received my first Baccus order, which made my day, I’ve been toying around with basing ideas this evening.

Bearing in mind I know so little about the period it might as well be nothing, and although I have narrowed the rules down to Baccus and Ga Pa, I absolutely hate rebasing, so I want to hedge my bets. That will allow me to play both, or move from one to the other, or indeed an entirely different ruleset.

Cavalry first as they are easiest. One rank didn’t seem enough, so I though about two ranks. These are Imperial cuirassiers. Looks good to me, but is it historically inept to base standing Western horse in a slightly straggled formation like this ? I thought perhaps that the more « shock oriented » the cavalry, the more even I would make them.

The base is 6cm wide, which seems to be a standard ; but I felt 3cm was too tight for this straggled cavalry formation so I went for 4cm. I know that means I cannot buy Baccus bases, but I’ll spend the money on more figures, I promise ! Some rules seem to want base depth to be half of base width, but in your experience, does it really matter that much ? As long as you know that « BD »=3cm.

On to the infantry. These are my Imperial infantry based to fight a Western opponent (those dastardly French, for instance). Having the pike four deep allows me to keep the pike to shot ratio to 1:3 and give the effect of a small but compact mass. What do you think ?

On one flank I have put two command figures (one will be the flag), and could indeed put three. I am toying with the idea of them being free standing (a block of two and a block of one) and using them as Ga Pa step markers. Is that a dumb idea ?

I’ve put them on 4cm deep bases because I imagine it is better if all units have the same base depth...but that means a lot of unoccupied ground in front of the unit. So I am thinking about what I could use it for. Did these units have a few sharpshooters deployed ? I also thought about battalion guns, but they don’t often seem to be a thing ? I could also put a mounted colonel and some runners, perhaps.

Some of you are of course wondering, if you have struggled this far, why the infantry are on two bases instead of just a single base. Well, Imperials vs. French is the side project ; Imperials vs. Ottomans is the main one. In which war the Imperials dropped the pike, callously inconsiderate of the grief it would give us wargamers. So the pike block will me mobile, I’ll then swap the bases around and slide in some musketeers behind the command stand. Yes, I do have a headache.

As for representing infantry in columns, I suspect that doesn’t happen very often, so I’ll probably do a few specific column bases, and markers if they run out.

Basing the Ottomans will be a lot simpler, just a bunch of guys looking mean in a blob formation !

Thanks for reading ; I am now going to crack the paintbrushes out, get these first teasers painted up, and then come back for more !