Labels and Battlefield Clutter

Over the years I have sought to reduce as much as possible anything on the tabletop that may detract from the figures. I have gravitated towards using orbats for recording casualties, morale status and details of units as a compromise which has gone some way in reducing battlefield clutter. This does of course mean that records have to be kept which some would find laborious. They have been used so many times over recent years that I have found it has now become second-nature and very useful for cross-referencing in campaigns. The style of orbats I use can be found throughout my After Action Reports. 

I saw a thread recently on TMP discussing the labelling of figures which has generated this post. I try to make the labels as unobtrusive as possible using a white font on black background. They are limited to being 15mm wide matching the width of my 6mm figures bases. The TMP thread got me thinking again about how I can reduce their impact. The idea behind my labels is to provide enough information about each unit to reduce the need to continually refer to the orbats. 

Here are the labels prepared for the next battle in my Napoleonic campaign, the Battle of Erfurt:

I have used this format for the last 4 or 5 years and it is probably overdue for a review. Ideally I hoped to reduce by roughly 50% the amount of label showing at the rear of the figure base. I reckon I could lose some information on the label without causing confusion or increasing unnecessarily the need to refer to the orbat. It was then just a case of defining a way of displaying what I needed in one line on each label. I have come up with this:

  

The width is maintained at 15mm for each label. Some of the command bases could not be condensed to a single line without omitting detail I felt I would need, although I may revisit this after the next game. As can be seen in the unit labels, they start with the first 2 or 3 letters of their Brigade commander, the unit and finally their status e.g. Line, Veteran etc.

I shall also trial a green background (for the Prussians in this case) as it may blend in better with the green terrain tiles.

I shall be playing Erfurt in the next few days with an AAR posted to the blog when I shall assess how these new look labels performed in action.