The great cavalry rebasing challenge

I thought I'd share the basing layout of my cavalry units.

I'm someone who started out with units of singly-based models using movement trays (getting any size of tray I could need from the fantastic Warbases), and have slowly made the transition to multi-basing (though still having movement trays available for all units). I rebased some light cavalry a few years back (two figures to a 50x100mm base) but I wasn't quite happy with it. When I made the big / crazy decision to rebase all my heavy cavalry, I thought long and hard about how I'd do it, with a new layout for the light cavalry too. The important factors were:

1. I wanted consistent unit sizes, in multiples of 5 - so 20-strong heavy cavalry units and 10-strong light cavalry units.
2. The exact width and depth of the units wouldn't really matter in terms of gameplay. The heavy cavalry units were going to be wider than my infantry units no matter what.
3. I wanted the heavy cavalry to look tightly packed, yet not too neat and rigid, so they needed a bigger footprint, noticeably enough depth so their ranks aren't overly neat.
4. I actually wanted the light cavalry to look a little tighter than the first attempt, but not in neat lines. I want the boundary between 'heavy' and 'light' to be a bit blurred.
5. I wanted the heavy cavalry to be quickly and easily 'disordered' in game when required - taking all the individually based figures off their movement tray and re-arranging them was too much of a hassle in the past.
6. I wanted to use Renedra plastic bases rather than MDF ones, as they are noticeably thinner - about 1.5mm rather than 2mm. I like the look of thin edges when not using a movement tray, and when I do use a tray I don't want the figures to have a full 4mm of basing (the bases + the tray), which would make them look far too tall when alongside other units with just 1.5mm of basing height.

Using Renedra bases rather than custom MDF ones meant I was limited in what sizes I could use, and a few experiments showed cutting and re-glueing plastic basics wasn't a good idea. Eventually I found a size that worked - Renedra sell a 65x90mm 'artillery' base which seemed just the thing. For the heavy cavalry I've used 6 of them in 2 ranks for a total unit footprint of 270x90mm. For the light cavalry I've used 4 of them with the shorter side to the front, for a unit footprint of 260mmx65mm.

As for placing the models, for the light cavalry it was easy - 10 figures over 4 bases, in a 2-3-3-2 layout. For the heavy cavalry I wasn't sure at first, but eventually decided two ranks of 3-4-3 would work. It means the centre of the unit is quite tightly packed whereas the flanks have a bit more room.

And here's some pics of other ways they can be set up - for the heavy cavalry ('formed' units in the rules I'm using), they can be mixed up a bit to indicate disorder - and I can remove a base from the rear ranks if they've taken significant casualties or have become shaken. I can also use discrete counters for these things, but it's also nice to show the state the unit is in visually.

The light cavalry ('open order' units in my rules) can be re-arranged any way the player wants when they move as long as the bases stay in contact - here's some examples. Also an example of a small light cavalry unit of just 5 models (incidentally my mounted crossbowmen from an earlier post are 5-strong, using this same basing layout).

And here's the two units side by side.

As for the actual rebasing project itself... with the French cavalry which I haven't yet posted (but have finished), I had a total of 94 individual figures to remove from their bases, plus 20 light cavalry to rebase after the first attempt (plus about 30 newly painted additions). This was made particularly daunting due to the fact that almost all of these were plastic Perry horses stuck to plastic Renedra bases with poly cement - there's no way they were going to just be popped off like a metal-to-plastic superglue join. In the end I decided to saw the horses off their integral stands - each horse has just two points of contact with the stand, either two hooves or a hoof and a bit of floating 'grass'. Fortunately most of them sawed off without any damage - I think only two or three horses suffered from broken ankles in the process, and these were easily re-glued. 

The majority of the hooves lost some plastic in the process, but that didn't matter as after basing material is applied you don't actually see it - the bottom millimetre of hoof is covered at least by sand. They were then re-glued to new Renedra plastic bases. For about half of them they stood flat and level, but the other half had some sort of lean to them either due to the cut not being clean and even enough or simply due to the model's weight - these ones had to be carefully leant against something in just the right position as the glue dried, and left untouched all evening so it was 100% dry before touching again, to avoid any last minute lean.

They could then be glued to the new large bases, for a total of 3mm height from tabletop to hoof.

Oh, and before I cut them from their original bases the basing products had to be removed. Luckily I found just by soaking them in water for a while the sand, grass and tufts could just be scraped off. I have admittedly wasted a lot of money on tufts that never saw a game!

The pic should demonstrate the process that 94 horses had to go through..... Daunting when I started out.... though by the end, it was definitely worth it! But never again....