"First Pike and Shotte battle " Topic

I played my first game with this ruleset. I didn't have a lot of time so we just did three battalions of infantry on each side.

Montrose had sent the majority of his force off to ambush the covenanters. There were quite a few men left guarding the baggage and they were all equipped with pike, enough for 8 units of pike two of them Irish.

The covenanters had detached three battalions of two units of shot and one unit of pike each to follow where they thought Montrose had gone. The covenanters came out of the woods into a clearing and saw the rebels lounging around.

The rebels were pretty quick to get on their feet and picked up their weapons as the covenanters advanced on them.

The covenanters advanced somewhat slowly and Montrose's men were not overly quick to match them.

As the two forces moved into musket range the shots from the covenanters started to tell and threw some of the pikemen into confusion.

Despite that the pikemen came on and the first clash between the rebels and the government men was decisive. The pikemen clove through the government troops and sent the center battalion reeling.

The leftmost government battalion was coming up as the Irish slammed into the rightmost battalion shattering it. With their pikes whirling like blenders Montroses men sent the government troops falling back in total disorder.

As far as luck goes both sides had about average luck. Neither side had spectacular or poor command rolls. Both sides were about 270 pts plus commanders which were equal on each side.

Thanks for the AAR.

Did you like the game? Rules?

It was a quick game to try out the rules. I'm not sure how I feel about an all pike army beating the snot out of a pike/shot army in the late 1640s.

Oddly I had my first game last night – 800 points a side, my Covenanters v his…. err….30 years war Swedes. (As an observer pointed out, there were probably nearly as many scots in his army as mine. Perhaps they were fighting over the last bottle of Tonic Wine.)

His army was roughly, 4 Pike, 8 shot, 3 Cavalry and 1 Dragoons, a couple of light guns and a medium gun.

Mine was very similar – I had two more commanders and two more units of cavalry, 4 frames, no medium guns.

In essence we advanced into musket range and blasted away at each other – neither of us could quite break our Black Powder habit and charge infantry into supported infantry – and by the time we wanted to there were shaken and disordered units everywhere, so didn't.

On one flank my cavalry decided to beome a strategic reserve – only contribution was to chase off some pesky dragoons – on the other his cavalry charged mine, and utterly annihilated them. They were then able to move in and charge my right, which hedgehogged up.

The game ended with my Hedgehog doing a whitecoats impersonation under a hail of shot from his foot and cavalry. Swedes won fairly convincingly.

I enjoyed it, bit early to say if the game is fine. My foe is notoriously painstaking, can get a little slow as a result – may need a few more free-and-easy games to see if I like it.

Add me to the list of people who have looked at the lists, done a few sums and realised that an army made up entirely of pike is going to be a tough one – and none of the lists prevent this!

Pat

"It was a quick game to try out the rules. I'm not sure how I feel about an all pike army beating the snot out of a pike/shot army in the late 1640s."

Maybe its not that far fetched in the grand scheme of things.

If your Covenanters fire had stopped the pikemen it would have been a different story. I don't play P&S so don't know the odds. But since they did not surely the pikemen would have rolled over them or made them run away?

P&S does sound interesting.

Played a game last night. Around 8-10 horse, 4-5 pike, 8-12 musket and a few guns. We had a musket unit break a pike unit. Both were well supported. Hard but not impossible. They were my pikes :-(

Add me to the list of people who have looked at the lists, done a few sums and realised that an army made up entirely of pike is going to be a tough one – and none of the lists prevent this!

Can't you and your opponent prevent it by making a conscious decision to play with historically reasonable forces?

And another question. How would an all pike army fair against an all shot army (instead of all pike v mixed pike/shot)?

a) yes of course – I would never dream of doing otherwise
b)hmmmm…… not well I reckon, if you factor out the enormous advantages they have over cavalry.

Pat

How did it feel having seperate pike and shot "units"? I find it odd thinking of the pike of a Regiment running away for example, while the shot carry on regardless.

Jaz
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I was averse, but it never really seemed to jar.

Several of my shot sleeves were smashed up while the pike survived. I suppose you can rationaise it as reflcting 'a degradattion of the unit's ability to fire'

Pat

I always felt that the true test of a renaissance ruleset was how well it handled the interaction of the musket and pike within the same unit. If atttacked by cavlary, one would suppose in "real life" the muskets would move behind the pike "curtain". But move out from it to shoot. Its this half "medieval", half "modern" mix that fascinates me about the period, yet seems hard for rulesets to simulate. How well does P&S do this?

On my right, my cavalry were swept away and his were able to threaten my infantry.

He charged the nearest Shot unit. They chose to react by 'Hedgehogging' with the nearby pike unit. I passed the requisite test and they fomed a hedgehog. At that point he had the choice of completing the charge, or of halting short. Wisely he chose to halt short, as Pike are terribly effective against cavalry. While his cavalry remained close by my hedgehog could not 'reform' back into its units, and had to remain huddled. Had I been able to come to their assistance they could have reformed and shot at something.

I could not, and so they spent two turns geting pistolled, and attracting a lot of fire from a leather gun and some commanded shot. After two turns of this they collapsed and broke.

Pat

As far as interactions go, this result sounds good to me…

I feel like an all pike army would just roll right over an all shot army all else being equal. The pike could get to the shot and only take two rounds of shooting going in possibly, although probably more. If the shot could retreat to an infinite distance they may well win. But with a 4+ save vs. a 5+ save and 4 stamina vs. 3 stamina it probably won't be close as the pikes will slice and dice the shot almost every time. We had a few lucky saves in our game from the shot and the shot did beat a pike unit once, they made 5 5+ saves that turn and inflicted one hit.

feel like an all pike army would just roll right over an all shot army all else being equal. The pike could get to the shot and only take two rounds of shooting going in possibly, although probably more. If the shot could retreat to an infinite distance they may well win. But with a 4+ save vs. a 5+ save and 4 stamina vs. 3 stamina it probably won't be close as the pikes will slice and dice the shot almost every time. We had a few lucky saves in our game from the shot and the shot did beat a pike unit once, they made 5 5+ saves that turn and inflicted one hit.

Your math is correct, of course. But what about the fact that the shot can disorder the pike with their shooting and thus stop them from moving forward at all until the end of their next turn? If I've got two units of shot getting two rounds of shooting at the pike as it's coming in, the odds of getting a "6" on one of those rolls is pretty good.

But if Pike is still too advantaged, maybe a simple levelling measure would be to make the stamina/save values the same for pike and shot. The differnces win the troops would then just be the Hand to Hand values and shoot values.

As I think of it, what's the rationale for making a unit of pikes "tougher" than a unit of shot? I can see perhaps the better save representing more armor (although IIRC the designers notes say that neither stamina nor saves represent only physical attributes but also include morale and such) but does that really apply during the ECW when, as I understand it, the use of infantry armor was in decline anyway?

Yes! A six causing the tar pit of disorder can stop all but the very best units.

Yes but it only stops them for one turn.

So lets say there are three units of pike vs. three units of shot or two units of shot and one unit of pike.

The shot gets two shots per unit. So it is all three then they should disorder 1 unit of pike per turn. If the pike just move to outside of range and the shot move up one and shoot they will disorder one unit.

The other two units advance the next turn, say only one move.

They all get shot at again and another one stops but now the first one can move again.

And so on. They should be there in three turns tops and that is only 18 shots, 9 hits, 4.5 actual damage so you have 1.5 hits per unit.

Then they get their closing fire which should get four more hits, for another 2 hits on two units say. So two of the units are close to shaken.

But then they maul the shot units probably winning all three close combats. They get 6 attacks hitting on 3+ scoring 4 hits. The shot only get a 5+ save so will probably only save 4 of the 12 hits on them, resulting in two shaken and one with two hits on them.

They might shake two of the pike units in return.

But this is only in a situation where it takes the pike three turns to get there.

With Ld 8, which most of them will have, they have almost a third of a chance of covering the distance in one turn.

Bede19025

I assume that the Pike blocks having 4 hits instead of 3 represents a greater number of men. My Pike blocks are 16 strong whilst my musketeer units have 12.

Leigh

When I think of pike vs shot, I don't see how pike would ever catch shot. With their 15-18 foot pikes and maybe armor and a weapon requiring tight formation, I see slow pike following nimble shot which fades back and fades back, all the while putting shot into a tight formation in which a shot can't miss.

And even if there was no cavalry within 20 miles and the pike could abandon formation, isn't a pike about the worse melee weapon anyone could possibly use. Certainly it is great against cavalry and OK if your opponent remains approximately 15-18 feet away but even a sword and shield guy can wreak havoc if he gets inside the pikes reach. A 15-18 foot peak isn't much good if a guy is only two feet away and has a knife. Pikes seem best in melee if you maintain absolute formation. Maintaining absolute formation would seem to make it hard to catch shot.

I just have a hard time seeing shot allowing formed pike to catch them for melee. It seems an unhurried evade or fallback is the natural result. And even if the pike breaks formation to catch shot, it seems shot should match pike in a melee unless pike armor gives some sort of advantage.

Now I could see pike meleeing with pike. It is almost as if Pike is primarily an anti-cavalry formation with some melee capability against other pike armed formations. The whole objective of taking out pikes with other pikes is really to remove the anti-cavalry capability. And it would seem, pikes should have no capability against shot except to force them to fallback.

Jagger, you have basically hit upon the key point. Pike defend the shot (particularly against cavalry)and when the shot have done their work the pike can move forward to break a shaken and disordered enemy. Often this wouldn't come to actualy blows as the target would either break and run or if they showed signs of standing the pike would stop short.

Read Stuart Reids from Partizan Press – 2nd hand copy currently on East Riding Miniatures website £4.00 GBP link and on Abe books.

Like Drillmaster I think Jagger has the nub of the argument right. At 30 yards standard ECW pikemens back and breast was not bullet proof. The tactic was to wear down the enemy with firepower and when they started to look shakey to send in the pike division to drive them off. The alternative is that when you're the side looking shakey you can send the pike forward to threaten the enemy formation and cause them to give ground allowing time to steady the rest of the lads.

In close combat drawn up in 6 ranks it is difficult although not impossible to get past the hedge of pike points when the pike block is in close formation. If that formation is disordered it is very easy to get to grips (at least thats my experience as a re-enactor). If the pike man is armoured he will have an advantage against edged weapons but I would have thought less so much against a well swung musket butt coming in against head, neck or shoulders. Of course in that situation the pike is likely to be dropped and a close combat weapon used such as a tuck (short sword) or similar. Beare in mind that many pikemen were unarmoured after the early part of the ECW, and even in the first 18 months it seems that only the front rank or two would have a full corselet.

So in game terms I might give a pike unit marginally better melee capabilities if they can stay in formation. After the first impact that too might no longer be the case as a good rolling melee is just the thing to break up a nice solid formation.

Against firepower they should fair no better and perhaps a little worse against artillery (closer formation)than shot would. Against musketry if unarmoured perhaps less resiliant at close to medium musket ranges (say out to 75 yards) as they are a nice tightly packed mass. Beyond that no better or worse than shot formations. Armoured pike units might have a slight defensive advantage at medium ranges (say 50 – 75 yards) but take more casulties below 50 yards where the armour doesn't help and the massed target is easy to hit. At long musket shot the musket ball has lost so much energy it struggles to punch through a buff coat or stout wollen doublet so I see neither advantage or disadvantage for a pike unit over shot.