"Constant Frontage Basing Rules?" Topic

I've got 6mm ACW based on 60mm frontages for infantry and cavalry and 30mm for artillery. Obviously I can use Altar of Freedom, Horse Foot and Guns and lightly modified V&B. What are my other options?

Thanks.

Please explain what you mean by Constant Frontage Basing Rules?
I'm guessing you mean rules where figures are not removed so that the unit frontage remains constant?

Seems lots of rules don't take away figures, but to me playing Empire and does remove figures for 44 years it seems odd to me. Last convention game a cavalry regiment only had 60 troopers left but all figures were still on the board in a Carnage and Glory game.

I'm sorry. What I meant by "constant frontage basing" was that all units have the same frontage--or possibly half that. No "my unit is 10% stronger than yours." Units might be disordered or in poor morale, but they consist of a single stand until that stand is removed from play. DBA is possibly the prototype. V&B and Altar of Freedom are other examples.

As for the merits of the system, in 28mm or 30mm I remove casualties or mark them off stands. In 6mm, I lose enthusiasm for such activities, and maintaining a roster for each unit always struck me as entirely too much like work to be considered fun. Obviously tastes vary.

The following will work with a tweak here or there:

• A Firebell In the Night
  
• A Union So Tested
  
• Civil War Battles
  
• Forty Dead Men
  

That is how Carnage and Glory works, figures seem to have no reference to how many men the computer has keeping track

"On to Richmond" comes to mind.

DBACW, which is a DBA variant.

Honor and Glory by David Marks used a fixed number of 4 bases to represent a regiment.

They used to be hosted on a Yahoo! group until those were closed down, but an internet search should find someone who has kept archive copies.

If you don't mind using strength point markers or a roster or whatever, there are very few rules you can't play with fixed base units, even all those multi base ones like Bloody Big Battles or Fire and Fury.

Keeping the frontage of a unit constant is more realistic in many ways; by the time a unit had taken enough casualties for the frontage to reduce, its morale would have failed anyway.

Frontage is really misunderstood in many designs. Shrinkage of frontage does not negate the responsibility of the unit from controlling their assigned area. It should become the next higher commander's problem to address.

What does matter is how much longer can the unit remain effective and under control of the leadership. That is more important and to the point than using numbers of remaining in the ranks. History is filled with examples where many broke and ran when the few held till nearly wiped out.