Most of those games are from the SYW and Napoleonic period so I hope I can answer your questions. I own the following Piquet supplements Cartouche (AWI, SYW, WAS, WSS, GNW) and Les Grognards(1792-1815) for the period you desire.

PK was designed so that you *don't* have to have lots of figures to play. (12 figure infantry battalions, 8 figure cavalry regiments) But, like you, I like to use lots of figures also! PK is *very* flexible in this matter. As long as both sides have the same mounting scheme then the rules will work. Here is what I do for my games.

15mm - Mount the infantry like Napoleon's Battles (four to a stand double ranked), each stand still takes three hits to remove. With four stands per unit this gives me a nice size unit. Austrian battalions are either 5 or 6 stands. I field the cavalry with historical musters, so my SYW cavalry is usually 6 to 10 stands with 2 figures per stand. Very nice!

6mm - Mount the infantry six figures per stand two ranks deep. This looks really good, since that makes 24 figure battalions. As above, each stand takes three hits. Cavalry I still mount two to a stand. You could change this to four figures per stand if you like.

The biggest PK game I have played in was 35-40 units *per* side.

If you're not interested in managing minutiae if details? Good! PK while definitely suit you.

PK, has battalion size units, so it is designed to have 1 corps fighting 1 corps on the battle field. Others on the PK mailing list have made rules for "Grand Tactical" PK which would be similar to Napoleon's Battles in scope. Part of the beauty of PK is its scalability. The ability to "zoom" to different scales without effecting game play.

What if you are not interested in how many casusalties they have or what formation they're in or whether skirmishes have been deployed or not. Hmmm. In PK, formations are very important for two reasons. 1. Nationality preferences, 2. combat modifiers. Although you don't have to worry about deploying battalions skirmishers, you can put a battalion into skirmish formation to screen your advance. If you truly don't want to deal with formations then Napoleon's Battles may better suite you. On the other hand, Bob Jones has gone to great lengths to keep down the amount of battle paper work. The initial pre game paper work can be intensive when you first try PK. (You're not use the modifiers for each type of unit and weapon).

See if you can get into a demo game of PK before you buy. Based on my experience with PK I think the pros of PK will definitely outweigh concerns about unit formation, but I have never met you so I don't know how adamant you are on this issue.

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