"Pike and Shotte Question" Topic

Our group has been slogging through these rules for several weeks. We have resolved (at least we hope so) most of the questions that have arisen, but there is still some uncertainty as to exactly what the rules mean by "unit". We would normally consider an infantry regiment to be a "unit", but in P&S a regiment appears to be composed of, say, three units: a shot unit on the left, a pike unit in the middle, and a shot unit on the right. These units operate in dependently (unless given a group order), and may pass or fail morale on their own, with the rest of thew regiment carrying on regardless. Do other players agree with this?

Part of the confusion arises from the different ways the term "unit" is used in the rules. For example, cavalry charging a pike block have little chance of prevailing. Fine. But the rules then say that their chances are similarly slim if attacking a shot unit containing a company of pike. ???? So does this mean a "unit" may contain both shot and pike? If so, why then would a regiment ever be composed of more than one unit?

We also have a problem with unit size: the range of figures for small, medium, and large units is pretty wide. As an example, a shot "unit" in one of our regiments is composed of 8 men, who would roll 2 dice, given their Shooting value of 2. A commanded shot unit of 16 men would also roll 2 dice. This seems counter-intuitive--why would a unit twice the size of the smaller one be no more potent in battle? What is the point of not having units as small as possible within a given size range?

We would be very interested in hearing how others have addressed these issues. (I went to the P&S forum at Warlord to get their views, but there are 27 pages of topics, and a search did not get me what I am after.)

Thanks in advance,

Chris Johnson

We treat each body of troops (e.g. block of pike, wing of shot) as a unit.

A unit in the rules is exactly as it states, I don't really understand the confusion, there are even photos of each unit type.

To spell it out, a "classic" pike and shot unit of pike block and two wings of shot is THREE units in the rules.

They can only support within three inches of each other, so they should be kept close, but yes they are independent units.

The only house rules we employ is that you can only form hedgehog as a regiment, so you give the order and all units from the Regiment (usually three) have to from hedgehog, and you can only form hedgehog with your own regiment, so a wing of shotte cant form up with another regiments pike block.

"But the rules then say that their chances are similarly slim if attacking a shot unit containing a company of pike."

Look up the pike company rule in the special rules section, that is what it refers to.

As for unit size, and this is another thing people for some odd reason can't seem to grasp – a unit is a unit. The number of figures is irrelevant, you just have to make "standard" units all roughly the same size in terms of frontage and then add a few figures or take away a few for the units you want to be large or small.

If you want 12 figure shot units, make those "standard", then add an extra four to make a "large" or take away four to make "small".

It's only a 16 figure commanded shotte unit becase you have put 16 figures on the table, in rules terms, unless you classify it as "large" or "small" then its a standard unit.

The confusion arises specifically from the Special Rules reference to a shot unit "containing a company of pikes"--what is a company? A block? Why use that term? And how can a shot unit even contain pikes? This is NOT shown in "the photos of each unit type", incidentally, so this does not resolve the question.

The numbers of figures question arises because we believe there should be a reason to have units of different sizes beyond "large, standard, or small"; 1 die more or less is not much of a difference, especially if we are comparing a unit with one twice its size. Based on your definition, we could call a 3-figure unit (2 shot and 1 pike) a "standard unit" and have about 150 units dinking around the board. It's hard to believe this is what the authors intended.

We are not attacking the rules; we play 19th C. Black Powder a lot. We're just trying to make the situation more clear.

@dandandan

I think the confusion, at least for me, is not the number of figures, but the number of stands. A standard unit size is 2 to 5 stands. It is the frontage that a given number of stands take up. And this is important for hand to hand combat as the more stands your unit has, the more likely you will make contact with more than one unit. I would then have to split up my dice for hand to hand combat among the two units while each of the enemy unit gets to use all their combat dice.

This then lends me to want to keep my units only two stands wide since there is no impact to my shooting or hand to hand values.

What are your thoughts regarding this?

Matthew

I don't think that P&S models the ECW units very well because it splits shot and pike into separate units.

We played with the three units combined into one unit as it felt more like ECW that way – having independent units of shot that can wander over the battlefield doesn't portray ECW at all…

I am still looking for a set of ECW rules that feel like ECW and play faster than Forlorn Hope!

Mike

Thanks, Mike, this is somewhat our feeling as well. It is hard to believe part of a regiment could be destroyed while the rest of the regiment (even if considered "supporting") could suffer no ill effects at all. In our last game, BOTH units of shot fled, leaving the pikes holding the proverbial bag.

Mike,

How did you handle the unit stats? Did you just take the pike stats and make their shooting stat be what the musket stats were?

I myself didnt like these rules for ECW-we played a Parliamentary force againts Montrose,who had little to no shot and they didnt stand a chance.The Scot pike blocks had no hope in closing with disorder. However,I do think it will be a much more fun set of rules for Italian Wars,with the reduced numbers of shot(te).

Hey bumbydad, ignore the post from Dandandan. That is a troll account looking for trouble. It has only been active for 20 days and only one post, the one in this thread. And, keeping true to form, already has a stifle. Not from me though. I think it just proves that TMP adds stifles at random. :-)

I don't see a reason to ignore dandandan, he just answered the questions in the first post. You, however, talks about "stands" of units, which isn't mentioned in the rules at all.

"I went to the P&S forum at Warlord to get their views, but there are 27 pages of topics, and a search did not get me what I am after." So why didn't you start your own thread over there then? We don't bite. ;)

Well, I talk about stands for page 24 and image on page 25.

The standard size of a unit on page 23 says, "12 to 25 models"

If you and I play a game, I will have my standard size unit of 12 models on 3 bases, also what I am calling stands. That is 120mm wide by 40mm deep. If you put your forces out and your standard size is 24 figures, then you are twice as wide as my unit.

This is where I think the smaller width has an advantage over the larger in hand to hand combat. A greater width may cause you to contact more than one unit in hand to hand, which you would then be forced to split your combat die during the roll.

Now, why to ignore Dandandan. That account is only 20 days old and the only reply is the one he has posted on this thread? Which had to be a challenge to the original poster's comment? Not a constructive one. Yes, I will continue to ignore him.

Have been and posted to these warlord forums. Yes, no one bites there and no one bits here either.

For more detail on 45thdiv's example, it was cavalry of 5 stands, 3 stands in front, 2 in back, attacking a 2 stand musket in line, adjacent to a 2 stand wide pike unit. The cavalry therefore overlapped the muskets and had to include the pike in the melee, one cavalry stand in contact with one pike stand. The muskets did not form a hedgehog with the pike.

So the cavalry had to split their HtH dice between the two units. We did it proportional, 2/3 to the muskets and 1/3 to the pike and of course the cavalry took heavy casualties from the pike, and had to retire. The pike and the muskets, who took some casualties, stood firm. The dice rolls did not seem out of the ordinary. This seems to imply the foot units don't really need to form a hedgehog. The pike will siphon off some of the dice from the attack on the musketeers, and cause enough casualties to throw back the cavalry. I really don't have a problem with most of that, except musketeers are supposed to be not much better than speed bumps if they're caught in the open by cavalry, and of course they were the target.

I guess if I had formed the cavalry stands in a 2-2-1 column formation I could have attacked the musketeers exclusively and left the pike out of it, but that doesn't seem right.

Oddly enough I'd written them off for Italian Wars because of the anemic pike blocks (4 stands?) and lack of support for some of the weirder tercio formations. I assumed they were mainly a set for ECW.

Rich

If dandandan is a troll account, he's acted unusually by answering the questions- perhaps a little brusquely but not incorrectly.

Hi Bumbydad. Yes a unit is defined as one of the pike blocks, or each "sleeve" of shot separately. Theoretically this means that you can give each of them separate orders, but this gets very tricky and as we've become more experienced we've learned that it's more effective to keep them in formation and give them group orders at the same time. Attacks tend to break down much quicker once individual units start becoming isolated.

Pike Blocks and Pike companies are differentiated in the rules, but I can see how you'd not spot it at first. Pike blocks are the unit type as you'd understand them. Pike company is a special rule that some units (in later periods covered by the book) can have to represent primarily shot-armed units with pike support, but not enough so as to warrant a separate unit.

When it comes to unit size, I really view the numbers of figuures in the book to be little more than a guideline. Go with what makes sense, given your collection. If a commanded shot unit is twice the size as one of your shot units, then consider splitting it in two. As long as both sides have broadly the same principles for frontage for small, standard and large, then you should be fine.

Hope this helps.

Leigh