"Representing Pike & Shot Units" Topic

I am in the middle of drafting my own quick-play rules for pike and shot warfare. The scale of my wargame is strategic. The smallest tactical unit is the battalion/tercio for infantry, and squadron for cavalry. Units are monobased.

One design challenge I am working to overcome is how to best depict units, as well as figuring out what is even worth representing at all.
In particular, my research has shown me that there were generally a handful of specific formations worthy of consideration for tabletop representation:

- The Tercio (of course)

- Dutch-style Battalions

- German-style Battalions

In short, my understanding is that tercios were robust, extremely ponderous formations that relied on mass and impact to essentially move the foe off the field.

Dutch-style battalions, formed around a core of 500 or so men, were an innovation designed to counter the tercio and did so successfully when part of a larger combined arms effort. This formation had two wings of musketeers flanking a central pike mass. My reading has shown the typical depth of a battalion of this style was about 10 ranks, manpower permitting.

Finally, the Imperial armies during the Thirty Years War ended up adopting a composite formation known as the German battalion that essentially tried to incorporate the best aspects of the tercio and Dutch battalion into a single formation. The product was a formation of around 1,000 men arranged like a Dutch battalion (musketeer wings rather than "sleeves" of a tercio) and typically fielded with more ranks (12-15).

So my question to my fellow pike and shot enthusiasts is, do you think it's worth making a distinction between German and Dutch-style battalions?

My initial thought is, yes, because German battalions (on paper) seem to have been more robust formations by design and were also, ideally, twice the size of your average battalion modeled after Maurice of Nassau's design. Therefore, German-style battalions are worthy of having their own distinct profile in the rules that reflects their size on the battlefield.

Or do we think simply reducing the unit distinctions down to either being a tercio or battalion without regard for whether it's Dutch or German is the better, more elegant choice?

In practice, all infantry battalions in my wargame will be on 60x30mm bases, so a German battalion might be depicted as a unit with four ranks of models while a Dutch battalion would be two, or maybe three.

I'm curious to hear anyone's thoughts or suggestions on this. What do you think?

These are differentiated in Liber Militum Tercios, which also suggests mono-basing. They're also pretty quick rules so worth a look before you craft your own. There is a free 'lite' version available in pdf form online.

A Tercio, as such, is not a battle formation. A Tercio is more like the equivalent of a French regiment of the following century – and administrative structure dealing with recruitment, pay, training & supply of reinforcements.

Well Franz, BillyNM, and GildasFacit, this is now already a fascinating discussion, which I can only observe with great interest.

BillyNM – thanks for mentioning Liber Militum: Tercio – just downloaded their lite version (nice production quality).

Ok, let me sit back and try to follow along here……

Liber Militum Tercios is my favorite pike and shot ruleset bar a wide margin. The core mechanics are very simple and rely on special attributes to add specific characteristics where warranted.

The old, massive blocks of infantry that Tercios are often associated with have the "mobile fortress" rule that protects them from flanking attacks. They supposedly weren't as ponderous as some think and the men and formations could be fluid and respond to different threats in different ways.

Of course as tactics developed, and the lethality of gunpowder weapons increased, these massive formations gave way to smaller more modern formations. The rules note this and address this.

Here is a battle report of Fleurus using Tercios (and including "Tercios"): link

Grouping into similarly frontaged formations:

- Spanish Tercio

- German largee battalion

- Dutch Brigade of two battalia

- Swedish Brigade of four squadrons

- Swedish Brigade of three squadronts

- Standard brigade of two battalions

With differences of firepower, close-quarters combat power, etc.

Applicability depending on prevailing cavalry power;

- as cavalry weight/power weakens – infantry formations can be less massive.

- as infantry firepower increases – infantry formations can be shallower.

PAR! Thanks for the link – love your units! – ok, let me get out of the way again – :)

Many years ago we played the English Civil war with mixed pike and shot bases. Certainly in that war there were never enough shot to meet the establishment anyway. Therefore for artistic effect we based Pike and shot on the same base.

We replayed lots of the ECW battles and actions and it did not lead to results that were implausible. In some cases the results were not that far from the actual battles so there was no real issues with this basing but really the armies were not well trained and that may have an impact on how you represent them.

UshCha, the availability of muskets in the ECW varied during the war. Lord Fairfax's army was mostly musket equipped with a very small proportion of pike, many units with none, until it was destroyed at Adwalton. Much later in the war musket armed units became more common elsewhere, both sides fielding some at Langport.