ECW Rules

[T13A]

Hi Zippee

When I am playing ECW I want the flexibility to put an individual unit in different formations. That is, have a regiment of foot in line or in march column, put my pikes at the front of a column, have a regiment of horse in a single line (of bases) and thereby doubling its frontage etc. And with all the relevant pros and cons of those particular formations.

Unless I have misunderstood the basing system of Baroque I do not believe I can have that kind of flexibility. Having a unit of pike and shot based together on a single base for an ECW game (where the forces can be quite modest compared with some ancient battles) just does not feel right to me. I want a bit more granularity in my ECW games.

Just my tuppence worth!

Cheers Paul

[mollinary]

Sorry if I blew your cover mate 

Well, I think it was only a matter of time!   As far as I can remember (!) my original organisation was based on doing Edgehill at a scale of 1:10.  I did loads of calculations, based on infantry orders six deep. Each rank of figures represented one and a half ranks in real life.  The musketeers were supposed to represent the moment they had doubled up to provide a 'salvee', and so were only 2 figures deep. The musketeer base was supposed to be open order, the pike close order. A rank of horse was equivalent to three in real life.  Since I started I have moved away from such rigid representations, and am happy to regard them as sleeves, blocks, troops or squadrons as required!  

The frustrating thing is I have achieved my first objective, which was to create armies for the ECW which look like the engravings and paintings of the period. In particular, pike blocks which look like pike blocks. But I still cannot play with my toys with a rule set I like!   .

Another thought I have periodically grappled with is Sam Mustafa's Maurice, minimally adapted. If someone produced character cards adapted to ECW I think I might be tipped over the edge!

Mollinary

[Zippee]

Hi Zippee

When I am playing ECW I want the flexibility to put an individual unit in different formations. That is, have a regiment of foot in line or in march column, put my pikes at the front of a column, have a regiment of horse in a single line (of bases) and thereby doubling its frontage etc. And with all the relevant pros and cons of those particular formations.

Unless I have misunderstood the basing system of Baroque I do not believe I can have that kind of flexibility. Having a unit of pike and shot based together on a single base for an ECW game (where the forces can be quite modest compared with some ancient battles) just does not feel right to me. I want a bit more granularity in my ECW games.

Just my tuppence worth!

Cheers Paul

That's fair enough - but I would agree that its a matter of granularity of design rather than basing flexibility. You could use small bases and move stuff around and play Baroque it just wouldn't 'mean' anything in rules terms.

For the granularity you want I think something like Forlorn Hope is closer to the mark

[d_Guy]

For the granularity you want I think something like Forlorn Hope is closer to the mark

- or Pike&Shotte since there are now some rule extensions that allow the muskets and pikes to function as an integrated unit. Personally I like Forlorn Hope better.

[ffoulk]

I've toyed with Forlorn hope a few times in the past but Pikes always seemed to be too powerful and muskets too ineffectual; the Polemos rules suffer from the same issue (unsurprisingly). I know muskets weren't battle winners at this time but if Pikes had been so much better in a fight there surely wouldn't have been such a drift towards the musket as the war progressed. I've thought of upping the range of muskets so they at least get a volley in before melee ensues but it feels like maybe a fudge too far.

I wasn't initially a fan of the Polemos cavalry rules but have come round now... the only 'safe' way to Charge is to be using Swedish Tactics + Good Quality which is fair enough but I'm not sure those using Dutch Tactics and simply Advancing to contact should be as effective as it is though. In the end however I have to defer to the rules writer as my knowledge of ECW Cavalry warfare is only moderately good.

Baroque intrigues me... it seems to fit the basing I've chosen (one base per regiment) so I might pick a copy up at Partizan at the weekend if there are any around.

Inevitably with such threads as these a lot of recommendations are about our personal choice of rules and how much we want a good game vs historical accuracy; always  coloured by our own (mis)conceptions of course, but it's good to air our thoughts. Any Baroque players care to comment of the effectiveness of various pike:shot ratios and the differential between Swedish and Dutch Cavalry in the rules?

Cheers

[d_Guy]

Any Baroque players care to comment of the effectiveness of various pike:shot ratios and the differential between Swedish and Dutch Cavalry in the rules?

As you probably already know Baroque is not an ECW specific rules set and being new has a limited number of army lists available (but they are being added with some regularity - beta lists anyway). the Royalist and Parliamentary lists currently only cover roughly Edgehill to Marston Moor.

My play experience is limited and if you read my other posts, somewhat specialized.
Briefly - musket to pike ratios are abstracted. Each unit ("regiment") has a VBU (think combat value) which is used for both fire and melee. M&P units have a modifier that reduces the VBU when used for fire. The greater the reduction the larger the pike to musket ratio. In the English lists all M&P units are set at -2. (This will clearly change for some later war units). Note that the VBU is reduced by casualties.

Muskets are pretty effective at very close range ( one foot unit move distance), somewhat effective at close range (one horse unit move distance) and might occasionally score a hit at long range (two horse unit move distances).

A M&P unit being charged will likely get defensive fire and the results of that fire immediately applied. The presence of pikes reduces the combat value of the horse. So far it seems that fire, while not usually the decisive factor, can weaken the enemy sufficiently to make a victory in melee much more likely. For me at least this seems a fair representation of the period.

OK - Dutch vs Swedish ( Baroque uses the more common Trotter vs Galloper) . Incidentally there are other types of horse but I'm leaving them out of the discussion. Only the Royalists (in the current list) have Gallopers. Both types (assuming the same discipline or quality) have very comparable movement and combat values. Trotters generally do have the capability of firing their pistols after defensive fire but before commencing melee and, like defensive fire, those results are immediately applied. All horse can pursue a defeated foe but gallopers are forced to do so. Within each disciple/quality class, Gallopers have a slightly greater impetus bonus (an increase to the combat value on an initial charge). Gallopers also have a better chance of getting a longer pursuit distance and longer charge distance bonus.

I haven't used Gallopers (having lancers instead) but a couple of observation from games:

The pistol volley used by my Trotters usual resulted in minimal effectct but on a couple of occasions it caused a substantial reduction in the defender's combat value and was likely the difference in winning the melee which followed.

In another case I had a Trotter unit rout a weak warband unit, take the allowed pursuit move and catch another unit in the flank, cutting them up petty nicely also. So - acting a lot like Gallopers.

Hope this makes some sense and is of some help - oh - Welcome to the forum! 

[ffoulk]

Cheers d-Guy. Great info. Sounds like Baroque could be a good option. Not so bothered about army lists (although in the long run who doesn't love reading army lists?!).

Will definitely pick them up at the weekend now. Sadly, for my ECW gaming, I'm off to Canada for the next six months and have opted not to risk transporting an army with Pikes so it'll be December before I get back to the period   

[Hwiccee]

Our group, unsurprisingly, uses the 'Warr without an Enemie' rules. These are aimed at smaller battles with 5 to 10 units a side. They are influenced by the Forlorn Hope rules and current thought on ECW tactics. So for example it has 4 English cavalry types (Pistoleers - typically early Parliament, Gallopers - very early Royalists and the more commonly used Dutch & Swedish types) and not the 2 often used - typically, and wrongly, called trotters and gallopers.

At the moment we are working on an extension of another set (Twilight of the Sun King) aimed at doing big battles - most ECW battles will be 1 player vs 1 player. These very much look at the big picture but they do allow full battles to be done reasonably.