Reforming the Regiments

I had bought what I had hoped would be all the 10mm French and Austrian line infantry I would ever need. Since doing that, however, I decided to reduce the number of command figures per line infantry regiment. I had planned to have one command base for every battalion (see Post 30). However, I began to feel that this would result if not in too many standards and the old adage that the infantry units would end up looking like elaborate colour parties then just too few men with bristling bayonets. I resolved that all six-figure battalions would not act as separate units but be added to the other battalions in the regiment. This meant that all French and Austrian line infantry units would now have either two or three bases – 12 or 18 figures. This decision brought my nominal battalions more in line with a number of commercial big-battle Napoleonic rule sets with two-base battalions as the smallest army unit. Something I had already resolved was the way to go back in Post 5. Now with (nominal) infantry battalions of either two or three bases, only regiments made up of six bases – as the table shows – would actually need some way of signifying how many (acting) battalions were in the regiment. The plan now was that all regiments would have one standard on a command base with a foot officer and a drummer. Regiments with three battalions would signify that they had three battalions by adding a second command base with a mounted officer but no standard.
Number of Regiment Bases 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Battalions in the Regiment 1 1 2 2 2 or 3 3 3 3
Battalion Bases 2 3 2 + 2 2 + 3 3 + 3  or  2 + 2 + 2 3 + 2 + 2 3 + 3 + 2 3 + 3 + 3
POST 47
47