"Pikemen in Pikemen’s Lament and other skirmish" Topic

Pike as weapons were for use against cavalry, and en masse. For lower-count skirmish rulesets, it just seems both odd and ahistorical to have groups of 6-12 pikemen running around with their pikes skirmishing with other foot and limited mounted foes.

Do people use pike figures for this level of games? To me, it seems as though I should instead use pikemen figures armed with swords or such—if using Warlord plastics, just not use the supplied pike and use swords or other weapons from the sprues.

I've been wondering the same. Interested in any responses

Most of mine have halberds, which IMO is a good compromise- and likely for smaller actions, at least through the mid 16th century.

And, who's to say there are only twelve of them? Does anyone have pike blocks at 1:1? That would be impressive!

In the Michael Arnold series about the ECW the main characters company is always beat up but they still go out on missions, and a lot of times he only has twenty or so pikes so it has the feel of Pikeman's Lament.

I guess because if you don't have the pikes, you might as well just use any generic musket based skirmish game.

How about this for a Pike Block in 1:1…

link

One compromise I thought about after I made the original post is to multi-base any pike-armed figures—like the TMPer who advocates multibasing in general on round bases. Pikemen in this instance could be grouped in bases of three figures, to better simulate them attempting to always form a small pike block.

You could look at the following rules to see how pikes are dealt with in skirmish games: it may not be historical, but it works.

Witchfinder General

Once Upon a Time in The West Country

There are instances of small groups of pikemen being used to protect individuals/small groups of non-pike armed men:

-Sir Thomas Fairfax when cornered by Royalists outside the gates of Hull (I think it was Hull).
-To protect a sally from the siege of Morpeth on Montrose's trenches against counter attack.

Michael Arnold seems to have it about right: an infantry company of 100 would have 30 odd pikemen. This was the number (30+ pike, 60+ musketeers, i.e. a company) that defended the Royalist fort at South Shields against a Scottish assault.

In figure terms, I field infantry 'companies' of 12 figures: 8 musket, 4 pike; the ratio roughlt being 1 figure = 8 men. Officers are supernumary.

Yes, Tin Man, I realized as soon as I sent that that someone was going to show up with such an example.

This was the number (30+ pike, 60+ musketeers, i.e. a company) that defended the Royalist fort at South Shields against a Scottish assault.

Yes but were they actually ARMED with pikes at the time? I've read of incidents of ECW/TYW storms / sieges with halberd-armed men. I assumed that these would be purpose re-armed pikemen, which makes a lot of sense.

@ Beast Rampant:

All but 14 of the defenders escaped: 30 odd pikes (the weapon) were captured by the Scots, amongst other things.

There is a detailed account of the assault in a Parliamentarian pamphlet, which describes Scottish pikemen (WITH pikes) supporting the attack.

It seems the 'first wave' of attackers went in with 'faggots' to fill the ditch; the second 'wave' were musketeers 'hotly contesting the ramparts'; followed by the pike (who presumably drove the defenders from the ramparts, whereby the assaulters climbed into the fort through the gun-ports.

Try it with the rules I mentioned above: it works. But granted, halberds would be handier; and the Scots seem to have used these, in part, in their later assault on the breaches made in the town walls of Newcastle.

I think of Pikeman's Lament as a semi-skirmish game rather than a true skirmish game. Figures often act like individuals but really its the unspecified "unit" that counts. At that level, pikemen can have a useful role.

Here are a couple of photos of PL games where pikes figure prominently:

If you treat P/L as more of an "actions" than a one on one skirmish it all seems to work better. I like to imagine the figures represent 5 to 10 actual men and the units represent companies of foot and troops of horse.

OK, I stand corrected, 4DJ! Thank you for the info, I will look into that further.

I really love the round bases here. Nice painting and animation on these figures too.

I've read that it was quite common for Spanish forces to leave their pikes behind when fighting in Holland and areas that were too wet.

@LtJBSz You are probably correct—treat PL as an equivalent to Sharpe's Practice and the like, and use a different system for "true" 1:1 skirmish. If I think of it that way, pikemen using pikes in PL makes more sense, because it just doesn't on a 1:1 fight using 50-60 figures.

@BigRed—what size are those round bases with two figures per base?

YogiBearMinis,

I used tte 3-2-1 basing that Michael Leck, PL's author uses:

link

The size of a two figure, infantry base is 30mm. I used Litko 3mm thick, part number GMB321-100.

@ Beast Rampant: No correction; I was just refering to primary sources; these are:

Thomas Fairfax; A short Memorial of the War …

Somerville; Memories of the Somervilles(for Morpeth
siege).
The Taking of the Fort at South Shields (Parliamentarian
pamphlet)

Big Red; I like the 3, 2,1 also. I'm doing mine like these but, with the 3mm Litko bases… looks way cool!
link

Skipper John,

David is a gaming buddy and not only is he a great painter he is the basing king.

In Maurizio Arfaioli's thesis on Giovanni de Medici and the Black Bands, during a discussion of skirmishing:

"During their action, the arquebusiers were flanked by groups of 'corsaletti' – armoured foot soldiers- armed with short polearms. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Lelio Brancaccio (1560-1637), a veteran of the Netherlands who had been in command of one of these groups of amoured storm troops, considered these halberdiers an obsolete legacy of the past wars, when Italians and Spaniards still had not learned how to wield the pike with sufficient skill."

The implication being that at that time, pikes were being used in skirmishing, at least among those who had "sufficient skill".

It could equally be read as merely a criticism of Italian and Spanish tactical practice.

Also, note that the passage refers to 'storm troops', suggesting that the 'corsaletti' were siege specialists, thus putting a different spin on the comparison with pikemen.

Small numbers of pikemen would have been useful in sieges too, defending and assaulting breaches, gates, and other narrow apertures, and in street fighting. In all these situations a small group would still present a solid wall of pikes while having secure flanks and rear, however outside this role it's hard to see how they could have influenced an action.

Been reading about pike and shotte colonial forces, a lot more use of half-pikes in small forces as pikes are cumbersome and not too useful in small fights. Also the French in the 30YW started leaving their pikemen in the rear to move faster, a practice they continued afterwards.

The Portugese used Pikemen in groups of 36 in their colonial wars in the Indias in the early 16th century – seems that they did work quite well if trained properly.