Decisions

Hi,

Got all excited last night as I finished my sixth Italeri French line figure. I was planning to some basing this morning whilst the cub watched Spongebob, but after a bit of musing and fiddling, have decided to hold off.



The main issue was what size of bases I was going to go with. Leading contenders were 50mm squares, or 60x40mm rectangles. If the latter, then the plan was to use 60mm squares for the horse and guns. I posted up questions about the size of 1/72 artillery at The Miniatures Page and Benno's Figures (thanks to those who replied, especially Guynemer, pics were great), and that took care of the 50mm option - while guns would likely fit, they'd be just a little crowded.

I was hoping the smaller bases would allow play on a smaller table, but frankly, given a) how much time it will take to finish this project, and b) the fact that I'm most likely to play at a store, the size factor isn't all that important. A second consideration was that I could get away with a 3x2 formation for the infantry, thus using less figures, thus getting units finished faster.



Then I realized that speed wasn't really a factor either. This is primarily a painting indulgence for me - it's why I'm doiing it in 1/72. If I wanted fast, I'd do 6mm or dip. I also abandoned the idea of 60x40mm rectangles for infantry - the 60mm squares are better for some of the firing / advancing poses. The squares also mean if so disposed, I can use the bases for rulesets other than Lasalle - Polemos Marechal d'Empire comes to mind.

This also led to a reassessment of my ability to base the figs I've painted. I'm coming to realise that with the 1/72 boxes, the variety of poses means they require some planning in terms of use. I'm leery of the kneeling / firing poses, as I think they detract from the sense of movement in the unit, so ended up with something like this:



To get this to work, I've included the grenadier poses that came in the box (rather than saving them to mix in with a converged grenadier unit), and went with 4 wide one each base. I like the sense of mass it gives. This means I'll need to paint up some more guys before I can get a test base finished, but that's ok. This is a project that's going to have to fit into the cracks anyway. We're on baby countdown here, so any goal-oriented expectations are going to have to take a back seat for a while. I have this happy image of two or three years from now sitting down at an 8x4 table with a couple of armies and puttering away, ideally with a cup of tea and a couple of kids peering over the table edge.