THIRTY YEARS WAR AND ENGLISH CIVIL WAR. - Problems with Pike and Shot.

 I'd always wanted to give the Thirty Years War a go- or even the English Civil War and have bits and pieces packed in boxes....Lockdown is a good opportunity to sort the mess out! 

Like most wargamers I've got rule sets galore on my shelves: Warlord Games Pike and Shotte, Polemos, The Warre Game, 1644, Warhammer ECW,  Baroque,  DBR, the old WRG rules,  For King and Parliament (TtS) and Liber Militum Tercios and too many others to remember.

Everyone has their own favourite set. However I find myself getting caught up in some of the details. The big issue for me started to become pike to shot ratio and how to depict this on the table. For some rules it is easy. With Warhammer, individual figures are used so just build up the unit with the figures in the ratio you want. A shot heavy unit with pike to shot 1:2 with thirty figures? No problem- 10 pike in two ranks in the middle with 20 shot, 10 each side of the pikes. It is a period that lends itself to BIG units, but I just wanted to stick to the figures I've got and make a little go a long way!

Rules and basing for this period just drive me nuts and for every suggestion there is an equally valid critique. I have no idea how to adequately represent a Swedish Brigade of 1632 on the table without a large number of troops, representing the different components.

Over the years I've gone for the 'single base= 1 unit' look. Impetus does this for ancient and medieval, and for ECW and TYW these rules do the same:  Liber Militum Tercios, The Warre Game, Polemos and the Twilight of Divine Right.  Also in some of these cases it doesn't matter how many figures are on the base.  I like the 'game counter' unit so spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide on a single base size and figure configuration and number of figures- and what each configuration represented. 

Confused? Me too.

In the end for me it boiled down to three main proportions of pike and shot :
1) Pike Heavy units where the ration is more pike to shot say 3:2 or more ( 2:1) etc. Not common, I think in the TYW or ECW, but certainly existed.
2) Mixed units where the ratios starts with Pike to Shot 1:1 or 2:3 etc
3) Shot Heavy units where the ratio starts with the ratio of pike to shot being  1:2 at least.
And the fourth:
4) Shot only.

Now some people may quibble that this is too limiting and doesn't adequately represent the range of ratios. Fair point. SO I will ignore them..it took me too long to work this out....and several rebasing experiments. Some rule sets have done this already - so maybe I should have just looked at their classifications.

Anyway, how to make generic representations on the table? I settled for a 120mm x 80mm base for each unit. Originally I had 180x 60mm and they looked great- but some of my armies ( Ottomans and Poles) are actually based on the 120mm frontage- and wanting to be able to make them all compatible and use   them, so I settled on the smaller base 120x80mm.
Although "Shot Only" troops are on 120x60mm.

I note that other people have had these musings- so many blogs mention this dilemma. One even wrote his own rules to deal with it ( Tilly's Very Bad Day).  It can be handled on a big base with 10mm, 6mm or 2mm. However 25mm does actually look a little sparse - not the massed pike and shot effect- but decided to go with it for compatibility anyway even though the bigger base looked better, the smaller base was actually better to play with ( and I could get more units on the table). I realise that the units probably look a bit small and when this is pointed out...I'll just ignore it again.

Rules trial with BIG bases - 180mmx 60mm- the pieces of paper for designation so everyone knew what each unit was. It was a trial after all!

The same game- I loved the look of the big bases- I know I could have made it 3 bases of 60mmx60mm, but liked the "big single base" idea. 

I've played the "Liber Militum Tercio" rules and liked their different classifications of units- all on the same sized bases- except the  bigger , early Tercios.  And decided to go with the types of classification that they had.

The "Liber Militum Tercios" Rules have these classification:  'Early Tercio', 'Tercio" 'Classical' 'Reformed' and 'Modern' .
Twilight of Divine Right  has these: Early Tercio, Tercio, Regiment and Swedish Brigade  which equate roughly to the Tercio Liber Militum Rules for the Tercios  and Regiment = Reformed and Swedish = Modern ( roughly). 

So MY units had to represent the proportions, AND the style of P&S unit.

There was:
1) Early Tercios,  ( Could have any ratio but mainly Mixed ) (120mm x 120mm)

2) Later Tercios, ( Could have any ratio but mainly Mixed ). (120mm x 80mm)

3) Reformed Pike & Shot. ( Mixed or Shot Heavy- the most common type. Used by the French, most ECW forces, Danes and Protestants) (120mmx 80mm)

4) Modern Pike & Shot   (Shot heavy- for the Swedes in the early 1630s for example and many later formations)(120mmx 80mm)

5) Shot only- ( It's obvious- no pikes!!)( 120mmx 60mm)

In the end, the size of the unit (Brigade), can be represented by the fighting value or Break Points or something like that. Still confused?? Me too- so just look at the pictures!

So why do all this? Well we have a set of homegrown rules we have been using for ancient and medieval battles and wanted to stick with some of the most familiar mechanisms and needed  to consider all this.....and have a compatible universal frontage.

Here are a few of the permutations that I'm considering.

Later Tercio- Mixed- The larger formation used by the Catholic League and Imperial armies

Later Tercio- Mixed.  ( The figure ratio is the clue - Pike to Shot 8:12= 2:3)
6 pikes on each side and 8 pike thru the middle.

Later Tercio- Shot Heavy ( Figure ration Pike to Shot 8:16 so 1:2 )

Reformed- Mixed- 6 Pike evenly through the middle-  4 shot on each side- sorry unflocked!

6 Pike to 8 shot 3:4- Mixed.

Reformed - Mixed. - The pikes slightly at the back.

 

Reformed - Mixed

Scot Covenanters- Reformed- Mixed.

Modern- Shot Heavy. (Unflocked!!- but Pike to Shot 4:12 - so 1:3  therefore shot heavy.
I could get rid of two shot on each side and have 1:2.

Again

Shot Only - yes my Janissaries- AGAIN- on 120x60mm ..... I know you're all sick of looking at them - from my previous blogs but it's this basing ( and army) and frontage that is directing my 120mm frontage for everything BEFORE 1648. My GNW/WSS is 180mm frontages.

Shot only - Hungarian Haiduks in Polish service.- another army based on the 120mm frontage - 120mmx 60mm. These guys fought Gustavus Adolphus' army in the 1620s- so I wanted to be able to keep the frontage compatible- so 'Shot Only' Units are on 120x60mm and Pike and Shot are 120x80mm.

More Haiduks

Hungarian 'Shot Only' Unit vs a Reformed Mixed Unit. Now they're compatible- although the 'Mass' effect per unit is not quite there. Oh well  ' A man's got to know his limitations' ( Dirty Harry Callahan)

My Winged Hussars- Each unit on 120mm frontage.

All my Ottomans- based on 120mm Frontage 

There are no flags on the units yet. I have to decide what army I want to do, and then the flags can go on. Or maybe a small hollow rod in the hands of standard bearers to slide a flag pole in so that i can change things around? That sort of flexibility has its benefits- especially in a period with no uniformity!

So uniform bases which represent the area a unit takes up with a vague nod to the actual formation.

Now I can hear the hue and cry about all the inadequacies of my decision:

"it's not really accurate'

'how many figures does it represent?

'It doesn't look right'
"How can you tell the difference between a Dutch Battalia and a Swedish Brigade?

'A Tercio should look bigger.'

I get along with the voices inside of my head. 

Now that I've sorted  it all out to my satisfaction but no one else's ......onto the cavalry.