"Swedish diamond formation in pike and shot rules?" Topic

Hi, new to the period so please bear with me.

I am painting up epic figures for edgehill. The royalists brigades deployed in the Swedish diamond formation. As this caused Lindsey some consternation, there must be significant pros and cons to this formation. If I wanted to reflect this in the rules( I'm using epic pike and shotte) what are the effective fighting differences, greater firepower ? Looking at Lipscombes deployment maps, the brigade has pike forward at the tip, then pike central, with shotte at the brigade wings and rear, what's the advantage or disadvantage in this ?

I don't want to get too bogged down at this stage but I'd like to come up with a special rules that differentiates the different formations, but I don't understand enough about how it impacted the combat. It must have been significant for Lindsey to go off in a huff, unless it was just a pride hurt thing.

It seems to have been a complicated formation developed to face the superior Polish cavalry when GA was campaigning there in the 1620s. The system required well-trained and experienced troops to use effectively. GA's troops were trained and used it well in the first several years of the Swedish phase of the TYW. As the quality of the troops declined and cavalry types shifted a simpler formation evolved.

I think the experienced Lindsey realized this and felt the early Royal army wasn't up to the challenge. When confronted by the charismatic but less experienced Rupert he lost the argument. The Royalist infantry did not succeed at Edgehill and the formation was no longer used after that point.

Sadly Lindsey died during the battle but Rupert did learn from the experience.

Most rules that I have played have special handling of the Swedish system and tercios. My feeling is that none
work better than adequately.

Thanks for the reply, ok so too hard to execute makes sense for why Lindsey was against it. But still, how did it actually work ? What did the shot do, what did the pike do ?

As far as I can tell all formations basically consisted of shotte shotting(sic) and then running behind the pike if any one got too close. I can not see why different formations really made much difference. Number of guns to bear, and how quick you could shoot and run behind someone with a big stick maybe ?

Sometimes I think wargamers complicate things when really hiding behind a pike is the point, but then in the period the different formations were a big thing, so they must have made some difference?

What adequate methods do other rules use for this ?