Basing pike and shot units

[Sandinista]

I am experimenting with basing pike and shot units for early 16th century, this is one idea. 16 pike 16 crossbow on 80x60mm base, any comments/thoughts?

Cheers
Ian

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Move the middle left and right crossbows in towards the pikes would give you a more H shaped unit, tercios like?

[Sandinista]

Can't decide if I should make it a 48 figure unit on a larger base. I have a  while to think about it, the Italian Wars range doesn't exist as yet 😊

Cheers
Ian

[Subedai]

Big blocks are great for faster moving but I wonder how versatile the basing would be for different sets of rules...unless you are not that bothered or you write your own of course.


MickS

[Sandinista]

If I can find a way to show 16th century pike and shot satisfactorily I'm won't care what size the bases are. Also, I'm so far away from civilisation up here in Kerikeri I don't worry about my bases being compatible anymore. I buy at least 2 sides for any project, and base to what suits my eye these days.
It is 100km to the nearest club :-) it only meets monthly and I can usually make 2 out of 3

I have tried smaller bases, but never looked quite right. Looking for inspiartion from somewhere 

Cheers
Ian

[fred.]

The Baroque rules go for a large single base to represent a Tercio. For 28mm they go with 18cm square, this is one of the examples of basing



For 10mm I am using 12cm frontage. I'm currently toying with how to make this formation work with my current basing of figures, a mix of 40mm square and 40x20mm - which doesn't work too well, so it may be better to go for bespoke basing, for the shotte/crossbow, and some of the pike, with perhaps the option of swapping out a 40x40 pike block, to allow some reuse of figures?

I'm thinking of 30x30 squares of shotte on the corners. Which then gives space for a 60x60mm pike block in the middle. Should look pretty sturdy. In the Baroque photo they have some additional shotte on the front middle as well.

Ultimately you need to go for what gives the right look to you - looking at your mock up base, I think the pike look a little low in number / spread out. And the extra crossbow in the middles of the edges, kind of disguise the look of the formation.

[Leman]

Indeed, those are my mate Nev's figures with which Baroque was play-tested down the Liverpool club. He's now produced about four tercios like that. I tried to find a photo of it this morning but couldn't. Fortunately Fred was able to post one.

[fred.]

How cool is that.

Its on the Dadie Piombo website as part of the basing example http://dadiepiombo.it/english-basingbar.html

[toxicpixie]

I might tinker with the placemen of the missile troops, but 4*4 pike and the same number shooters on the corners/front looks like a goer to me. Ofc my megalomania (if not painting time or funds!) says go with more figures on a bigger base - possibly 120mm wide, six by six pike with three by two shooters on the corners

Or two by two "corner clumps" with the rest sleeving the pikes

[d_Guy]

Was trying to get this up earlier so probably overkill. My version of an early tercio (using the iconic bastion corner form):

It is formed in a 4x4" sabot (call it about 100mm square) using 10mm figures: 24 pikes, 24 arquibus, 4 command and 6 other weapons.
Obviously doing it on a single stand (and somebody else painting it  ) would look way better! I just like using small one inch square modules.

I don't know much about the use of tercios but I think they had a multiplicity of forms, with much experimentation along the way, so you probably have a great deal of scope in how to form them up.

[Leman]

Very good; FoGR has a variety of tercio formations available. It's a set of rules I may one day get my head around.

[d_Guy]

When you do get your head around FoG-R send me a note of explaination 
It is a good reference to the period, however.

[jchaos79]

They are non playables, but I like the pictures





Talking about more realistic unit for a game, I can talk about Tercio formations and warmaster.

Ed and I have some and playtested, and we are quite happy with them. We do not want to go with bizarre rules or going apart of the WMM philosophy so the easy way to represent it is using a tercio (a third part, which it is what means Tercio) of arquebusiers per pikes. So the brigade is made of three units (two phalanx and one arquebusiers). Then put combine arms and schiltron. If the Tercio don't move they could adopt schiltron formation as a square so do not have flanks but (little modification) still fire to 20cm as arquebusiers protect the square.

[Sandinista]

Found the FoG images, will experiment further.

Cheers
Ian

[Hwiccee]

I have a kind of related but different question on this kind of thing and I would value peoples thoughts.

I am currently working on TYW armies and can't make up my mind how to depict the deep Tercios used by Tilly's armies. These had abandoned the earlier idea of 4 shot blocks around a central pike block and instead used the standard 2 shot blocks. The problem is it doesn't look as much like a Tercio as I would like and can be difficult to distinguish from the standard tercios of the time.

The intention is to use the figures for public display so  am torn over whether to go for historically right or to go for the look. Any thoughts?