Unit sizes?

[Kenshinzo 7]

Hello! I am a new player of LaSalle and I wanted to ask a question about number of bases per unit. A french infantry unit is 4 bases  however my units are 6 bases. 4 fusilier 1 grenadier and 1 voltigeur with 4 figures to a base. Is there anything wrong with me counting my french battalion as 6 bases instead of 4 and maybe upping large units like Austrian infantry to 8 bases to compensate? I hope you understand my meaning buy this.

[Le Grand Fromage]

There are some potential issues you will have to address:

How many bases do you use for the battalions of other nations? (Prussian, Russian, etc.?)  Are they same as the French?  If so, then it should be OK.  But if they are different, it will cause problems for shooting, combat, and formations.

[Kenshinzo 7]

Yeah I was thinking of adjusting the other nations to match the french. Say regular units would be 6 bases strong with large units being 8 bases for all nations. What do you think?

[Kenshinzo 7]

By the way, I really love your rulests. They work well with the space, time and the amount of funds that I have to dedicate to this hobby. I like the  fact that your rulesets are about rules and not pages of regurgitated history that I for the most part already know. My hat is off to you Sir!

[Le Grand Fromage]

Thanks.

As long as all units that are supposed to have the same number of bases, do have the same number, then you can adjust the rules and scales, and it will work.

[Kenshinzo 7]

Awesome and  thank you!

[Jason]

Hi!  I am also a new player to Lasalle, and I've been looking around for an answer to a similar question 

First,, it looks like a great rule set. I've been playing Napoleonics with my friend for couple of years now, and I have a ton of based miniatures. However, we've got tired with the problems posed by the rules that we have been using all this time and I bought Lasalle as it looks like "my kind of game" in regard to unit level, tactics, formations etc. And its very compatible with my collection of terrain and basing system.

Only one thing is really bugging me - a unification of units into 4/6 base blocks. I am very much into writing my own scenarios based on historical ODB's, and its a lot of fun, researching the actual strengths of the units etc. Would it be possible to modify the unit sizes for the rules to still work? I mean, of you had, for example a battery of 4 guns in a historical engagement, then if one base equals two guns, would it pose a problem to field 2 bases instead of 4. Or if I have batallion reduced to 400 men, instead of usual 600, fielding a 3-base unit for the sake of scenario accuracy.

After reading the rules, I dont see why not, as all the tests count dice * number of bases, and I have been doing this with my previous ruleset, (which works in 80% percent the same way as Lasalle does), and it never posed a problem. But I wanted to ask if anyone ever thought of doing this, experimented with it, or maybe found it working/faulty way of doing things.

Thanks in advance for an answer.

[Le Grand Fromage]

Or if I have batallion reduced to 400 men, instead of usual 600, fielding a 3-base unit for the sake of scenario accuracy.

But wouldn't a 400-man battalion likely have the same front as a 600-man battalion, just only two ranks?  You would presumably need to draw a distinction between combat dice (representing the fewer men) and shooting dice (representing the same frontage), right? 

And would you have to revise the various combat bonuses that add dice to the units' combat values?  For example, the "Shock" trait gives +2 dice, right? Does it still give +2 if you're looking at a regiment of only 200 men?  If so, then the traits give better advantages, the smaller the units get.

[Jason]

I was thinking for several days what to reply, because of course, you are right My initial logic was that if I have 600 men battalion represented by 4 bases, and 900 men battalion by 6, then why not take it further and if I have historically around 7-8 hundred make it 5, or if there was 4-5 hundred make it 3. Just to customize things a little bit, because I like messing with the rules And those even numbers of bases were driving me because they look too symmetrical.

So I was just curious if anyone ever tried it.

But I am going to play Lasalle several times, and then I'll see. Perhaps it it will show that it doesn't need any adjustment whatsoever to be a great historical game. 

[Zippee]

If it's the symmetry of the models that bothers you, I'd suggest keeping the 4/6 bases as normal but varying the number of figures on the base, so that smaller battalions have fewer figures, etc.

The 4/6 base area is the operational footprint, it's not meant to be a direct representation at a proportional figure ratio.

The assumption is that most battalions were 400-500 strong in the field and that within that range the difference in performance is too small to measure at the game's granularity. if you're transferring historical unit strengths, the best thing is to amalgamate really small units (as was commonly done in practice). Or is the overall average of the units you're dealing with are in the 250-300 range for instance then just define that as the 'average' 4 base unit.