Basing for Arty Conliffe’s Shako

Shako permits any basing system but recommends a few. I’ve gone for something slightly different to be consistent with my Shako Basing for the First Carlist War and Basing for the Liberators Quick Play Rules.(for the Chilean Campaign 1817-18) so I can do some mixing and matching of figures and/or rules.

In summary:

• Infantry Battalion: 18 figures with six stands of 3 figures.
• Cavalry Regiment: 12 figures with six stands of 2 figures.
• Artillery Battery: 2-3 stands per battery with 1 gun plus 2-4 figures per stand.

Infantry Battalions

Infantry Battalion: 18 figures with six stands of 3 figures

A full strength infantry battalion would look like the following when deployed in line. It has six stands, one of which is a command stand, one a cazadore stand (C) and one a grenadier stand (G). The other stands are fusilier.

Early War Spanish Battalions

Early war Spanish battalions had four companies, normally fusilier companies. The second and third battalions of line regiments would have this composition.

The first battalion was different from the other battalions in the regiment by having two grenadier companies and two fusilier companies. I chose to represent this with three fusilier stands, two grenadier stands and a command stand.

Grenadier Battalion

The Spanish also field entire grenadier battalions, notably the Provincial Grenadier battalions.

Cavalry Regiments

Like the artillery I’ve based my Cavalry on a narrower frontage than Shako suggests, and for the same sort of reasons:

• To make it consistent with the infantry frontage.
• To make it consistent with other rule sets.
• To make a cavalry column look like a column.

To be consistent with 18 figure infantry battalion I’ve gone for 12 figure cavalry regiments. A regiment deployed in line would look like this: T stands for trooper.

Artillery Batteries

I’ve based my Artillery on a narrower frontage than Shako suggests. I had several motivations for this:

• To make it consistent with the infantry frontage (too much DBM I suppose).
• To make it consistent with other rule sets (don’t ask me why).

In Shako II an artillery battery is meant to have the same frontage as an Infantry Battalion in line so I’m giving each battery three stands.

I used the number of crew (A) to indicate the size of weapon.

General staff

I’ve used consistent basing to my Carlist War Shako armies, so they are interchangeable. This does mean the bases are slightly bigger than official Shako or QPR. (QPR doesn’t have Aides, but just in case.) And John McClennan is trying to convince me to do round bases instead.

Key to diagrams

	Officer. Painted as Centre company
	Standard Bearer. Painted as Centre company. .
	Musician (usually Drummers, but could be Buglers or Pipers depending on the unit). Painted as Centre company although might have reversed colours.
	Fusilier / Centre Company
	Grenadier / Right Flank Company
	Cazadore / Left Flank Company
	Trooper
	Artillery Crew