Hi All – I’m not sure if it’s been discussed here but I did a quick search and could not find any obvious references. What are peoples thought’s on how to maximise the utilisation of figures for Irregular capable unit and such. I’ll have a few of these but the first obvious one is 1/95th Rifles from Picton’s Division at Quatre Bras & Waterloo – In an extreme case (and I’ll use my 24 fig 28mm scale battalion as an example) you might want or need up to 48 figures as follows:
4 Formed Stands at 6-figs each = 24 figs
4 Irregular Stands at 4-figs each = 16 figs
4 Skirmisher Stands at 2-figs each = 4-8 figs
Obviously this is pretty inefficient and not the best use of the figures?
I was thinking one trick might be to have 4 Irregular Bases that are just figureless but have spaces cut in them to insert a Skirmisher stand (a bit like a movement tray) – so you can reuse the 8 skirmisher figures (from the above list) and remove the 4 Irregular Stands completely (getting you down to 32 figs). So a 50mm x 25mm skirmisher marker with 2 figs drops into the middle of a 50mm x 50mm standard figure base to indicate it’s an irregular not a skirmisher?
Alternately I am thinking just model the 4 stands of the Battalion as semi-Irregulars – so 4-5 figs per base in a not completely regular formation (versus having 6 figs in 2 regular ranks of 3) – and do the 4 skirmisher stands (which you always need regardless) and then you can tell when it’s irregular (because no skirmisher stands are out - right?) and when it’s formed it has it’s Skirmisher stands... Plus you have the prerequisite SK stands for breaking the unit down completely. And this gets you down to 16-20 figs for the main unit plus 8 Skirmisher Figs (which you might pad out further by doing half to all the SK stands with just 1 fig) – leaving you only something like 20-28 figs max to cover all options...
This latter probably works fine for the Rifles & 60th Americans, and the odd European Jager unit but I guess for standard Light Battalions you want to model them as formed 6-fig per base* and just to the slightly staggered bases with no Skirmishers as per the rule book if irregular, as the simplest and best way to model? But you'll still need the 4 SK stands again so in the 28-32 fig region (i.e. if your basic formed 'small' unit is 24 figs).
* I’m using my 28mm basing scheme as an example – the 6-figs per base per formed stand isn’t the object (so don’t get hung up on that) it’s the reduction of figs or alternate bases for Irregular formation and/or cunning way’s to model both with the same figures that I’m interested in.
I’ve also thought of putting some figs on small 20mm round bases that sit in the standard base amongst the other figs, when the unit is irregular you remove the 1-2 removable figs and replace them with blank spacers (e.g. with grass & rocks on - again like a movement tray) so suddenly your 6-figs in 2 lines of 3 per base suddenly has only 4 figs with an irregular gap in each line (because you don’t always remove the middle fig). But this pushes the overall fig count up again – i.e. a 24 fig small battalion with 4 SK stands is back to 28-32 figs...
This latter would work for any type of unit (incl. Light Infantry) – but still results in a (significiantly) increased figure count once you do several units...
What have other people tried, considered, come-up with, or otherwise experimented as a way to create morphable units where they have this 3-way function (i.e. Formed, Irregular, and break into SK stands/companies)...?