"Revision of Gush" Topic

I plan to put on a game at Historicon 2010. The period will be the Italian Wars French vs Spanish. I have scanned the Gush rules in and ran them through OCR. I plan to take out all that is extraneous to the period of the Italian Wars. I also plan to get rid of the EHC, LC, HI, etc. and replace them with actual names: gendarmes, genitors, Swiss pikes, etc. I'm afraid I'm not up to date on base sizes. Since the Gush rules require figure removal I need a base size for individual 28mm figures. What would you suggest? I do not want bases sizes for 3 or 4 figures and then have to put casualty markers on them. That looks so tacky.

Rich

You could just go with 3 – 4 figures, and put real casualty miniatures behind them to signify losses.

I may be telling you what you already know here, but anyway

If you can get a copy of the army lists that Gush produced to accompany the rules, the work of naming the units is done for you.

For example

List 22 French Army. Early to Middle Italian Wars

Gendarmes d'Ordonnance: EHC, A, lance, mace, sword, order @19 points
Archers: HCC, C, lance, sword, order @15 points
Stradiots: MC, D all javelin or all spear…

…I'm sure you get the idea

Base sizes are 'standard' WRG. What everyone did back in the day was base units in 4 or 3 figure bases with a couple of singles and doubles to allow single figure removal. So a 24 figure unit would have, say, 4x 4 figure bases, 1x 3 figure base, 2x 2 figure bases, and 1x single figure base. It's easy to 'make change', and you can put the lot on a sub-base to aid movement if you wish. As figures in contact are important in the combat rules, it makes things easier too.

More tidy than casualty rings, and if the figure isn't there it can't be 'accidentally' counted for combat or morale checks ;)

Rich,

(A) I'm sure you already knew much of the above, and (B) I think you are asking "what size SHOULD the individual bases be to accomodate the newer (and larger) 28mm figures?"

Of course George's old basing standards matched those of Barker's Ancients rules in most regards, and were determined based on the older 25mm ranges (Minifigs, Garrison, Hinchcliffe, etc.). The probelem today is that a "close order" pikeman should be on a 15mm frontage and many of the newer makes will just physically not fit on that frontage. In particular, I've been following some of the problems that ECW gamers have been having in trying to adapt the rules, and many of them are finding that they can only get a three-figure grouping on a 60mm frontage comfortably. You have the same problem with the mounted troops in close order (Gendarmes), which call for an individual frontage of 20mm and again, many of the modern castings won't fit on that base size anymore without increasing the depth and adapting some form of staggered basing.

I would suggest, given that there are not a lot of people still playing Gush, and that you are building armies specifically for Historicon, that you increase the base sizes as required for the figures you are using and then publish that as a standard. Barring that, you might co-opt the base sizes being used in some of the newer popular rules sets so that people who already have based armies will be able to bring figures.

An alternative that is used by Bill Protz for his "Batailles de l'Ancien Régime" (or BAR for short, SYW-era rules) is to base figures individually and then provide movement trays cut to his basing standard so that players with figures based for alternate rules sets can simply place their figures on the larger sabot bases. He has used this system at several major conventions and it seems to work well. I believe he uses foamcore board for his sabots.

I would say that for newer ranges like TAG and Redoubt, and GW "Empire" figures, you would need a minimum of 20mm per close order infantry figure and 25-30mm for close order mounted figure. You can probably get an unbarded horse and rider on 25mm, but with barding I think you may need 30mm.

As you know, I'm working on the same thing in 18mm for the period 1640 to 1690 and have had to completely revise the basing structure to accomodate the larger figures made today.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

Base sizes are 'standard' WRG.

No, not really. Infantry and LC, yes. However the overwhelming majority of "normal" cavalry has a 25mm frontage.

One of the things that ed me off the most about rebasing my Poles to DBR was that no one wanted to play that either. The second was that when WECW canme out, my formerly Gush based troops would have been 99.9% WECW compatible.

My own figures are on 1 inch for cavalry and .75 inch for infantry. I was wondering what the standard is. My 1 inch equals about 25mm.

Oh Bill, you're the one that has done such splendid work on the Wars of Louis XIV. Your blog is one of the best, if not the best around. I can't say enough for it. Some friends of mine and I are building some William III period armies. Hell if I'm going to let some Frenchman supersede the real hero of the period. We are using those splendid Cooplestone figures. As such, I am steeling er borrowing some of that great information. Good job.

John, I see we share the same "bleeped" vocabulary.

Anodyne, I have the army lists but in the back of the green rule book is a list of names used at the period and whether they are EHC, HC etc.

Rich

Rich,

Thanks for the compliments on the blog, but in the interest of accuracy, the blog was started and is "owned" by Ralphus. Awhile back he decided he wanted some help with it and some different viewpoints and specialized interests, so myself and "Corporal Trim" and a couple of others were invited to become "contributing editors". We all have common interests in the period, but also have some individual interests that we feel makes the blog extremely well-rounded. Plus, we have an excellent readership base with several noted historians and authors who frequently help with collaboration and contributions of their own.

For instance, both Dan Schorr and Curt Johnson have helped me immensely with some of the OoB's and unit histories that I've done, noted sculptor "Clibinarium" has contributed to several comments and articles with figure updates, and now we also have "Motorway" and "Mats" from Holland sharing information with us from their "Rampjaar" blog and some translations of Dutch original source material, and noted TYW author Stephané Thion from France is now sharing information from his "Rohan to Turenne" blog and from original French sources. All told, it's a very satisfying experience and one that has been well-received.

Now, as far as "the real hero of the period", I suppose that depends on your area of interest and point of view. Later into the Dutch Wars it was definitely William, but my own area of interest centers on Turenne and Condé. Turenne's Rhineland campaign is still considered a masterpiece of generalship and coordination. Bonaparte even made all of his general's and Marshall's read the official records of this campaign and had Turenne's remains moved to the Church of the Invalides.

And Conde's exploits, under multiple flags and monarchs, don't need repeating here. One is worth noting however, he led his last charge gout-ridden and unable to wear a boot. He left his carriage, mounted his horse and led the charge from the front as always, saber drawn. Truly the "beau sabreur" of French myth and legend, long before Murat, Lannes, LaSalle or Michael Ney.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

Hi Rich,

My 2nd edition of WRG Gush is (and I presume he did not rebase his stuff):

Close order foot 15mm, order 20mm, both depth 20mm, Open 30mm sq.

Mounted close order 20mm, order 25, open 30mm, all depths 40mm+.

Artillery U/light 30mm, light 50mm, medium 60, heavy 75mm with depth to suit models.

You might find, as has been said in previous posts, that scale creep will make life difficult for the close order stuff.

James
olicanalad.blogspot.com

Yes James, sadly so. Ergo my missive. I have standardized my cavalry on 1 inch or 25mm. The infantry is standardized on .75 inch or 20mm. I'm going to have to do a work around to represent the various widths used by Gush.

Rich

Hi Rich,

I feel your pain. I'm currently painting up a Punic Wars collection using Renegade figures (the chief of sinners). I wanted the close order stuff tight. Before painting I was hoping for 16mm, then 18mm, but had to go for 20mm to fit them on – and they are still very snug.

What I hoped would be a consular army with a frontage of about 10 foot is now over 12 foot – my table is 12' – Arghhhhh! Plus I now have to consider where the extra storage room will be found – which is considerable as I have to find room for about 1800 figs in total.

I'm definately 'going true 28s' for my planned Napoleonic project (which starts November 2011).

Good luck,

James

Rich,

Forget about Gush. It's not worth revising, especially when you can probably write a superior set of rules. Use whatever basing you want and run the ing game! (I may even register for the event). [Fair warning].

John

Rich,

Might I suggest the following (corresponds to what I've done for Gush, Dave Millward's "Musketeer", and the Renaissance variant of Bob Bryant's "Might of Arms"):

Foot:

Pikemen/close formation polearms or spears – 3/4" X 3/4"
Support Foot (crossbows, arquebusier, Swiss halberdiers, etc.) – 1" X 1"
Skirmishers – 1 1/2" X 1 1/2"

Mounted:

Gendarmes, Men at Arms, Lancers, Reiters – 1" X 2"
Skirmishers, Dragoons, Carabins, Stradiots – 1 1/2" X 2"

You can increase mounted bases to a 2 1/2" depth without adversely effecting the play of the game if your figures need the room. Also, while Reiters should technically be on a tighter frontage than your Gendarmes or Men at Arms, you will find difficulty in physically fitting today's Cuirassier or Reiter castings on anything smaller than 1" frontage, and it shouldn't effect combat that much. Try it and if you feel that the Reiters are at a disadvantage, offset it with a +1 in the 1st round of combat. Under the original basing conventions, 5 Reiters would have "matched up" with 4 Gendarmes at a 100mm frontage.

Even though you're mounting your figures individually, you might want to adopt a sabot base (especially if you use metal bases and magnetic sheeting for your sabots) and standardize on a 3" frontage by appropriate depth for formation. This would give you a "standard" frontage of 4 pikes, 3 support/shot, and 2 skirmishers for foot and 3 Gendarmes or 2 Stradiot, Carabin, Dragoon, Croat, etc., for mounted. I would also suggest using a standard 3" wide base for all artillery, by whatever depth you choose.

I don't know what you're currently using for basing material, or how many figures you might have already based, but I think you'll find that steel bases are available from Wargames Accessories in all of the individual sizes I've recommended above (or flexible steel from Litko), and you can use foamcore with self-adhesive magnetic sheet from a craft store or Wal-Mart for your sabot bases to speed up movement. Makes your 32 or 48 figure pike blocks much easier to handle. Also, WarWeb.com sell both the individual steel bases and the self-adhesive magnetic sheet in large sizes (12" X 12" and 12" X 24") at fair prices, all from Wargames Accessories.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

John,

Forget about Gush. It's not worth revising

Surely a personal opinion? I think you'll find that many out there will disagree with it and still believe that George's rules (or Dave Millward's "Musketeer" written in 1976 and a very close "clone") still reflect the period better than anything published before or since, at the command and control level they were designed for.

While there are many element-based abstracted systems out there, or "grand tactical" sets structured at the Army Commander level, and many sets now that use the in-vogue card-generated events and movement/fire initiative systems, these two sets of rules are still considered by many to be the "gold standard" of the period.

The only real issue with both sets is that they tried to use the WRG "cookie cutter" approach to covering too broad a time period when they should have been split into at least two different sets for Western warfare, and probably a third set for Eastern warfare. They should have been split into a "classical" Renaissance period (as Rich is attempting now), and an "Early Modern Warfare" set for the post 1620 era, when firepower and smaller tactical units began replacing the Grand Tercio's of the earlier era and firearm-equipped battle cavalry and better artillery began changing the conduct of battles (as I'm attempting to do for the period 1640 to 1690).

If I may, let me recommend Dr. Pierre Picouet's excellent "Tercio" web site as a resource on the changing role of infantry from Rich's period of interest to my own. Dr. Picouet covers in excellent detail (and with illustrations) the various tactical doctrines, formations and methods of fire of all of the major Western combatants from 1525 to 1704. It's one of the best resources available on the web for this period.

link

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

Surely a personal opinion? I think you'll find that many out there will disagree with it and still believe that George's rules … reflect the period better than anything published before or since, at the command and control level they were designed for.

Bill,

Of course it's my opinion! As it is your opinion (and that of "many out there" that Gush reflects warfare in the period well). Besides, I was directing my "opinion" towards Rich. I know him and was being a bit "tongue in cheek." (He is the editor of "The Reiter" quarterly Renaissance wargaming magazine, and I have been the rules reviewer for that same publication).

In any event, Gush may be interesting, seem accurate to many, and provide a perfectly satisfying game. For a convention game, it probably is far too detailed and complex. Also, he is perfectly capable of writing his own rules (and in fact has shared this fact with me) and running a game using them. I was offering encouragement.

Thanks for the link to the Tercio site. I often refer to it over the years. Have you seen the companion site covering cavalry, infantry, and artillery? I think there's a link on the Tercio.

Best,

John

John,

My apologies for not being aware of who you were and your relationship to Rich. I am acquainted with Rich and his role, have subscribed to The Reiter, and have corresponded with Rich over the last few years, mainly about Gush.

Glad you were familiar with the "Tercio" site, although this is a new link. Dr. Picouet moved the site because of web hosting problems. And yes, I am familiar with the other site as well as his "Battles" site, which is also excellent.

BTW – I used to fill your same role as well as do figure reviews and painting and conversion articles for the "original" USPSF group out of Louisiana way back in the day. I used to regularly attend the annual convention and championship in Baton Rouge, as well as host regional games at Cons in Texas (back when we still had such things regularly!).

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com

Bill,

Are you making the trek to Historicon? We should try to all meet up (the Renaissance Geeks that is). Surely if Rich is coming all the way cross country, you can make it up from the South!

Excellent blog by the way. My local club is pondering getting into the gaming the Louis the XIV period (probably later, but I'm pushing for the earlier period).

John

John,

Alas, lack of employment and funds will prevent me from attending (Mr. Obama hasn't gotten around to "stimulating" me yet). Glad you like the blog, all of us that are involved take a lot of pride in it, and in maintaining it's integrity and broad scope. I would have loved to be at Historicon this next year, especially with the theme.

I cashed in a bunch of credit I had coming and did some trading of a pile of OoP 25's so that I could stock up on 18's to do the French (and some opponents) in two groups: 1640 to 1661 and 1672 to 1690. That's why I'm working on my own rules revisions as well.

Bill
Sir William the Aged
warsoflouisxiv.blogspot.com