"Silly formations? " Topic

"Now perhaps some perspicacious chap can answer me this. Why in some rules do the "game designers" allow silly formations and mad organisations. Now I'm only talking about historical wargaming here . I don't care if your Dwarfs form up in the famous King Ankelbyter XIV's pigs arse formation or of the Fartenberg Fusiliers use the inverse square- with all the bayonets pointing inwards. No I'm talking about rules purporting to be historical and allowing patently non- historical formations . In this instance specifically English Civil War….."
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Amicalement
Armand

It's how it is in da rules innit. I don't know – I think I'm going to live with this contradiction because I prefer the look of it.

I will pass on the inverse square though- that's right rubbish.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Could someone explain what this guy's beef is?

Could someone explain what this guy's beef is?

He is annoyed because some ECW rulesets permit formations that were hardly if ever used IRL, but which are quite effective. Allied to that the aesthetics of the game look wrong, because people then use basing and formations which were not done, or were very rare – in his example, the 'sleeves' of musketeers being shallower than the central block of pike.

I think we should all pick exotic formations form Barriffe's book!
I'm not sure I have played any rule system (ECW) where the modelling of the frontage of the muskets gives an advantage or disadvantage as appropriate. There just seems to be a recognition of defensive formations (ie facing square), march formations and offensive formations (the default). Therefore his beef must be aesthetic to which I say… whatever…

Have the various ECW re-enactor groups ever combined to try and see how an actual sized regiment organised and fought?

Say 200 pike and 400 shot actually trying to move and shoot without collapsing into disorder?

Can the pikes protect the shot form cavalry and can they react quickly to a flank treat? How easy is it for hundreds of musketeers to shoot? I am sure one weekend might answer a lot of these questions

It would look great even with the differing costumes.

Regiments did not fight as self contained units in the ECW. It was an administrative designation not a battlefield one.

Regiments would be split up or combined by company to form 200-300 battalia with musket/pike ratio as suited for the role required or more likely the availability of each. The ratio was rarely the neat 2:1 wargamers love.

As to have we tried it? (ex ECWS re-enactor here)
Yes, at a 200 or so man Battalia level it was common on formal training weekends and days before public events.
March column, deployment to line, general advance, wheel, musket rank rotation and deployment for 1, 2 or 3 rank firing, hedgehog, were all practised.

Thanks Figuresales for that.
I am just curious how these "formations" actually worked in reality.
I am assuming that the standard pike block and 2 sleeves of shot that features in most ECW games is an abstraction. So would a regiment then deploy its pike in a couple of blocks and its shot in companies with interlocking fire zones like the Swedish brigade diagrams?

Part of my confusion is how they operated against cavalry. I may be wrong here but I have always assumed that pike like to stand close together when fighting. Shot however need space for all that reloading business and when using slow burning matches, having gun powder on their person really don't want to huddle together. So I can see a hedgehog working for a few shot hiding beneath the pikes but not several hundred.
Or was it all a much smaller, fluid affair where the cavalry advanced received a few shots, fire some of their own and only a few would press on to be countered by a group of pike who would advance to intercept them and make their stand to allow the shot to retire behind them or other groups of pike in the vicinity.

I can see the "Swedish" style horse lining up and coming in quicker in larger numbers with the pike bracing themselves but would the shot just run to the rear and rely on shots from their neighours and the cavalry veering away from the pikes to disrupt the charge? I can still see a large number of shot being very vulnerable to even a few cavalry that bypassed the pike.
Or perhaps it was a case that in most cases by the time the cavalry had beaten their opposite numbers they were not in a great shape to take on steady foot?

I am just being wary that perhaps I am guilty of viewing ECW and late TYW cavalry a bit too close to Napoleonic cavalry and having just a few pike was enough to change the dynamic in these actions.