Basing pike and shot units

[Hwiccee]

I am in fact well along with this project but it has had some hiccups. The biggest being not having seen the whole range of figures - I finally managed this last weekend at Derby and hence the unpainted stuff.

So I wanted to do 4 basic infantry types - Tilly's deep Tercios, general TYW Tercios, Swedish Brigades and ECW style regiments (a variant on this would be musket only units).

The Swedish Brigades and musket only regiments were the easiest, although I later realized I made a mistake here. The plan was to use the small pike/musket blocks to make up the bases - for the musket only units I would use 3 or 4 blocks next to each other in a line. This meant doing something I have frequently done.

When I was going to put a block next to another I planned to clipped away the 'base' and then file the edge flat to make the join to (a similarly treated) other base. It had not occurred to me at this stage that I could just use figures from the non Renaissance range instead for the musket only units! So now I have just got 'Horse and Musket' units for these.

In any case here are some Swedish Brigades - note sorry the pictures/paint job don't do the figures justice and also I have added extra flags.







My initial plan for the Tilly's deep Tercios, general TYW Tercios and standard ECW style regiments was to use 3, 2 or 1 block per unit, in the case of the two tercio types with the blocks clipped and filed to fit them together better.

So this is ECW typye units - i.e. single depth blocks





For the tercios I had originally wanted to use the large pike blocks but the only Renaissance musket only block is small and so it would mean a lot of clipping/filing so instead I went for 2 standard renaissance range blocks clipped/filed/glued into 1





I now realise I could have used the Horse and Musket range and at the moment I am thinking of using 1 larger pike block and 2 of the 6 ranks deep musket blocks from the Horse and musket range - a comparision -



For the large Tilly style tercios as already mentioned I am in 2 minds about what to do. My initial idea was to continue as above - i.e. clip/file 3 blocks together. But then I noticed that there was an 'old fashioned' (for TYW times) tercio available. It is a bit short on 'shot' and so I added an extra small shot block to each corner.

So here we have the 2 versions -

At the back/to the left are tercios made from 3 blocks clipped & filed. At the front/to the right is a tercio with 4 extra shot added.








The 3 blocks is probably closer to what Tilly's units looked like but the 'old fashioned' tercio looks like a tercio.

Of course now I have a third or fourth option wth the large pike blocks and Horse and Musket range stuff. Having seen all the range I think either of the following might be the way to go - sorry not painted/de-flashed yet





Finally a couple of pictures of what I have in mind. I don't have enough done yet to do a full battle but here are the Royalist right wing and centre at Naseby.







The right wing is 5 cavalry units in 2 lines - the front ones have commanded shot (the left wing will be similar once I get them painted). The centre is 3 lines of infantry with 2 cavalry units in the 2nd/3rd lines.

The bases are 60mm wide and so the army will have a frontage of 9 bases = circa 2 foot.

I hope this makes sense and will help a bit if you plan something similar.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent

[Techno]

 

Cheers - Phil

[toxicpixie]

That looks like I was trying to describe

Looking good! I do like Irregulars 2mm stuff, especially en mass.

Wish I'd thought about adding more musketeers to the "old school tercio" when I did mine, no excuse, I even had some extra musket blocks I didn't need in the army pack! I gather it's (probably) less accurate than the three block deep "normal" pike & shot formation but it does look much more exciting and "stereotypical correct"... I might go with deep for the bulk, but with a base as "old school" and a note somewhere or lots of explaining

[d_Guy]

To say "you are well along" is a bit of an understatement!
The look and feel is great. Have stared at the contemporary (or near contemporary) paintings and drawings of TYW battles (and the famous Nasbey print) trying to glean details and I think you are capturing the overall effect nicely.

Also nice to see all the manipulations that you have done and the careful joins used to give depth. The idea of using some pieces from H&M period is a good one and I would not have thought of it. I also like the look of the larger flags which makes units identifiable - think that also was a good choice.

Your skill exceeds mine (quite substantially!) but I would be included to brighten up the bases with highlights here and there.

Since these will be used in a demo game and you are clearly working at the brigade level, what rules will you be using?

[Sandinista]

I do like the look of the tercio blocks. My experiments are now up to 120 x 60 mm blocks, but still not happy.

Cheers
Ian

[FierceKitty]

You've put a lot into those.

[Leman]

The 2mm stuff really does seem to capture the look of a large army. Having seen what you've done I might consider giving the Dutch Wars or the French Wars of Religion a go, especially as I already have some stuff available (including the old style tercios).

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Do look good

[Hwiccee]

Thanks for the kind comments but I suggest that you also take a look at the link Fenton posted earlier for some really good stuff - I also came across another very good one but can't find it now.

d_Guy: Yes I plan to do more to the bases but after I have everything sorted - I will add some hedges+fields/trees/'clutter'/etc.

Generally the attraction of 2mm is the look of it compared to contemporary maps, etc. Hopefully you can get something that looks like the famous Naseby map mentioned (and indeed a big inspiration for this) and others of the period - I think it works particularly well for this era.

I have done the 2mm guys as 'generic' units and it is fairly easy to 'swap' over flags to reflect which army is fighting but I am working towards just having enough units not to bother with this. This means I can do most armies/battles with the same troops. I have a long term project to do a single battle but with specific units and in 10mm. Say do Edgehill or Lutzen with the proper uniforms/flags/etc with 50 to 100 infantry per unit to give the same effect. But that will have to wait for now.

On the rules we are playtesting a version of the Twilight of the Sun King rules (sometimes called Twiglet) to cover the period 1620 - 1670. A new version will be out soon covering 1680-1720 - http://www.wargamer.com/reviews/review-twilight-of-the-sun-king-second-edition/ - and hopefully the ECW/TYW will come out sometime in 2017.

[Subedai]

Very nice, I'm most definitely tempted.

Years ago I saw an impressive ECW 6mm game at a show which was close to 1:1 and each of the infantry regiments were about 12-15 inches wide in 6 ranks. Now ever since then I've fancied doing the same only in 2mm, and now the opportunity is here. So if I was to use one block per company then could you answer the following questions?

Amongst all the fine pictures there is one of all unpainted blocks set up in a MPM formation. I take it that the you are using BG31 (Infantry in 6 ranks) from the H&M Range as musketeers and RBG9 (Swiss/Landsknecht pike) from the Renaissance Range for the pikemen. Are both variants of the pikeblock shown -as in one with standards and the other without?

The rest of the troop types are really self explanatory.

Don't ask about rules because I haven't got a Scooby, although at such  a unique scale I will probably end up writing my own.

Thanks

MickS

[Hwiccee]

Hi MickS,


Yes the figures look good. I too remember the 6mm ECW game and that was stunning.

The unpainted stuff is now painted and I will try to get some pictures at some point - my camera is broken at the moment. Yes they are BG31 and RBG9. At the time I got them at the Derby show a couple of months ago there was no mention of 2 varieties and the website didn't mention it. So it was a surprise to me when I saw the figures and there were 2 varieties & it was only after you mentioned it here that I realised it was listed as 2 types. Bearing that in mind they are the 2 variants that were available at that time and I would guess now are listed as such.

It is perhaps not so easy to see but all the pikes have flags at the front of the block. By all I mean the pike only blocks but also those in MPM strips. I generally didn't like these pikes at the front and so I either filed them off or just painted them over. I wanted to put the flags on the back as I have done. If you look carefully you can see them on some that don't seem to have them on the front, for example on the front of the pikes in the Swedish brigades. Sometimes I painted these and you can clearly see these on the 'Traditional Tercio' picture where you can see the front.

So all the pikes have these flags at the front except the RBG9 block you mention with standards. On this block the 2 flags are up and you can see them easily. The other type of block has the standard flags on the front edge and you can see them in the pictures if you look carefully.

I think your idea would work fine with multiple BG31 and RBG9 making up a unit, add say a mounted officer command (RBG25?). I am seriously considering doing the infantry using just these but keeping the current idea I have for 3 blocks = 1 regiment, mainly as that works with the rules and bearing in mind I am trying to do ALL the ECW and TYW armies. But the rules I will use would work fine with a unit being say 12 blocks and I am sure others would too.

p.s. I have just noticed that you can see the flags on the MPM blocks on the Irregular webpage.

[Subedai]

Hi MickS,


Yes the figures look good. I too remember the 6mm ECW game and that was stunning.

The unpainted stuff is now painted and I will try to get some pictures at some point - my camera is broken at the moment. Yes they are BG31 and RBG9. At the time I got them at the Derby show a couple of months ago there was no mention of 2 varieties and the website didn't mention it. So it was a surprise to me when I saw the figures and there were 2 varieties & it was only after you mentioned it here that I realised it was listed as 2 types. Bearing that in mind they are the 2 variants that were available at that time and I would guess now are listed as such.

It is perhaps not so easy to see but all the pikes have flags at the front of the block. By all I mean the pike only blocks but also those in MPM strips. I generally didn't like these pikes at the front and so I either filed them off or just painted them over. I wanted to put the flags on the back as I have done. If you look carefully you can see them on some that don't seem to have them on the front, for example on the front of the pikes in the Swedish brigades. Sometimes I painted these and you can clearly see these on the 'Traditional Tercio' picture where you can see the front.

So all the pikes have these flags at the front except the RBG9 block you mention with standards. On this block the 2 flags are up and you can see them easily. The other type of block has the standard flags on the front edge and you can see them in the pictures if you look carefully.

I think your idea would work fine with multiple BG31 and RBG9 making up a unit, add say a mounted officer command (RBG25?). I am seriously considering doing the infantry using just these but keeping the current idea I have for 3 blocks = 1 regiment, mainly as that works with the rules and bearing in mind I am trying to do ALL the ECW and TYW armies. But the rules I will use would work fine with a unit being say 12 blocks and I am sure others would too.

p.s. I have just noticed that you can see the flags on the MPM blocks on the Irregular webpage.

Thanks for the prompt reply and look forward to seeing the pictures.

My 6mm ECW have 3 bases per regiment in a MPM style but I wanted to move on from there. Years ago -actually decades ago now- I was in the SK and off the field often thought about the C&C of the whole thing and how many problems arose from just trying to command a small pike block. That ECW game just brought it whole thing to the fore and it is that aspect that I want to concentrate on in any rules that I write. Plus in 2mm the plan is a lot more achievable on the size table I have.

Just out of interest, what set of rules do you use? 

MickS

[Hwiccee]

We are kind of going the other way to you. We are using 'brigades' as the units to do large historic battles with relatively small forces. The rules are a variant of the Twilight of the Sun King rules.