Tuesday 1 October 2019

Thirty Years War 6mm basing: Horse and Light Horse

Original plan for Horse
Original plan for Light Horse
These photos show my original plans for Horse and Croat Light Horse. The top one shows 24 mounted figures which is in the correct ratio to the 48 figures I'm using on Pike+shot bases. The bottom one shows 16 Light Horse.

I had second thoughts about these ideas. I didn't think it was really necessary to use 24 figures for Horse, and I also felt that the Light Horse base looked a little overcrowded. I also thought it would be useful to use (subtly) different numbers to indicate Arquebusiers, Cuirassiers or Swedish Horseman. So I'm now planning to use 20 figures for Arquebusiers,  18 for Cuirassiers, 16 for Swedish Horsemen and 12 or 14 for Croats.

The Croats are acually  'Unarmoured Cavalry' (GNP08) from Baccus's Great Northern War Polish range. I understand that TYW Croats had a proportion of lancers but most would be pistol-armed so most of the spears need to be snipped.

6 comments:

  1. Agree, both the light and the heavy bases look too full here. In 10mm on 80mm bases, I have 5 cav, which looks a bit too thin and 8 heavy, which looks fine. The good thing about the basing is that the light bases make the heavy look heavier and vice-versa. I have different depth of base for heavy and light.

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  2. Sorry, I keep calling them 10mm, but they are 12mm. here is a link to an image of heavy Norman cavalry.
    https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XiuwtrN5cSc/WmjeYFbHjiI/AAAAAAAAHEk/Lzj6jYGosn0pmqwwIQBsNS07p72pEXAAgCLcBGAs/s1600/P6620088%2B%25281%2529.JPG

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    Replies
    1. Hi Norm

      Are these Kallistra? Very nice figures. I see Victrix are doing WW2 in 12mm. https://www.beastsofwar.com/modern-warfare/victrix-upcoming-12mm-world-war-ii-game/

      Richard



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  3. Yes, kallistra 12mm, rather remind me of very old 15mm of some 40 years ago!

    Victrix are doing WWII in 10mm plastics and Gripping Beast are doing 10mm plastics for ancients (Persian based I think), so perhaps the time for massed battles has once again come around and we can be ‘cool’ again :-)

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  4. Yup, 24 cavalry is, well, a lot. You can definitely thin them out.

    For my figures you can tell the different types of horse by looking at the base. My cuirassiers and horsemen are six 15mm figures in a line on a 80x40 mm stand.

    My harquebusiers are a bit different. Still 6 mounted figures but I have 3 firing figures at the front and 3 kind of at ease figures at the rear. on a 40mm deep base I don't get two distinct lines, so they kind of overlap. But they definitely look different to the horsemen.

    And cuirassiers, of course, are covered in armour so look different to both the others.

    Of course none of that will help with your 6mm challenge.

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    Replies
    1. I think the combination of slightly differing numbers, the darkness of the cuirassiers and the figure poses should result in enough differentiation even for 6mm.

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