ECW Three combined Pike & Shotte - For the King

I hadn't realised I'd not added these to my blog in 2022.

 
Anyway for the record I plan to do a fourth combined Pike & Shotte for the Royalists

Henry Bard's, my 1st Pike & Shotte Regiment

Sir Alan Apsley's, my 2nd Pike & Shot Regiment. 

Sir Gerard's, my 3rd Pike & Shotte Regiment.

There were two brothers Charles & Gilbert Gerard and each raised a regiment, both regiments wore blue but I've not determined which brother had what regimental flag.

So this is Sir Charles Gerard's or Sir Gilberts Gerard's colours.

If you know the difference please tell me in the comments.

The Cannons Arrive

My Royalist army is getting bigger with the arrival of  their Medium Cannon and Galloper guns, unfortunately for them the Parliamentary guns arrived too.

The range is a little close.

Men and guns from Pendraken and Gabions from Last Man Last Bullet   

I based the guns separately as I wanted to remove them from position of they were destroyed and leave the earthworks etc behind  I'll always try to make things harder.

The Royalist Infantry

ECW Pike and Shotte 10mm AAR 20th July 2024

Tony B.and I played a game of ECW today, using the Pike & Shotte Rules. We were using a mix of wooden bases and Pendraken models. One day all the models will be painted; in the meantime, this allows us to play a game.

Tony elected to fight for Parliament (grey boards) and we both set up. Tony based all his models on a hill, whilst I lined mine up opposite. The game - Tony chose to redeploy to the foot of the hill and use his stronger fire power to whittle away the Royalists, while I had to get in contact as that is where the royalist strengths lie.

As usual my left flank blundered leaving the table but I managed to get them back in play however my CIC was bouncing from right to left wing trying to get things moving as both wings stumbled forwards. In the end both wings got close enough for Tony to charge them and get to a position to enfilade my left Pike block, with help from his pike and cannon in front of my unit he fired in 16 shots, causing 12 hits sadly his glee was short lived as I saved the majority.

On my left I chased off his cavalry and then revenged myself on the small units of Shotte. In the end his wing was broken as two of five units were broken and the rest were shaken. With nothing to protect the flanks of his pike from my cavalry and Shotte his central position was perilous. On the other flank honours were about even but in the centre my Pike was almost all shaken and suffering.

We should have taken photos, but I wasn’t expecting a game, more of a tutorial, however we managed 5 turns and at the end both side were sufficiently weakened that they’d probably have discretely left the field of battle. So we called a draw. First image is immediately after Tony’s charge on my wings had been repulsed turn 4. The second at the end of the game after turn 5 his broken wing retreating and my centre one 'wound' away from breaking.

The painted combatants

Brigaded Musket Shotte - Standard Unit

Brigaded Musket Shotte - Small unit to support the cavalry

Three units of Royalist combined Pike and Musket

The reason we used boards for unassembled units  ECW Pike & Shotte

ECW Pike and Shotte in 10mm

 Pike and Shotte

The challenge: Do it in 10mm keep basing simple and standardise to other 10mm games we play HC! and a Fantasy addon game I'm developing.

The participants were a Teacher who had written a thesis on the ECW for his masters, a reenactor-wargamer and myself a simple wargamer, but my business life had been spent as a project manager. As a team we work well get ideas, facts and concepts sorted.

We wanted to do it in 10mm and we didn't like the idea of the Combined P&S unit's Shotte sub units walking off to some other location away from the Pike, which we have seen done by others. So we resolved to base them together so nobody could separate them. 

Then in the 'To Kill A King' supplement. we found on pages 144-147 special units for the period. So that is a must purchase alongside the main rule book if you want to play ECW.

As with many games the desire to play sometimes comes before you've managed to paint the armies so for a change we decided to use blank bases to represent the units. 

Board Armies

In the end the standard frontage is 100mm and small units 50mm, Horse and Combined Pike units being 60mm deep and normal infantry 50mm deep. 

Galloping cannons (Infantry) are 30mm x50mm. Medium cannon are 50 mm wide by 60m deep.

Command units are on 40mm discs, the General on a 50mm disc.

In the board armies the Parliament army is Red and the King's is Grey, you'll note the difference in the Combined P&S units more Pike and less Muskets in the King's army whilst the reverse is true of the Parliament's army which is represented below.

For actual models we decided on the above layouts.

The agreed opinion was to make it look as much like a real unit would with a lead drummer 'D' by the CO 'O' and drummers behind and to the rear that would echo the command.

The Regimental flag 'F' would be at the front with the CO and the company flags in the second rank.

In reality this was the parade position, in battle the flags would be moved to the rear ranks to protect them. Pike is either 'P' or 'X' if armoured and of course the 'M' is for musket. I've chosen to have less armoured pike in the Parliament army. 

At the rear of the block would be a lower ranked officer and two NCO's 'J'.

And it would look like this from above.

To my shame I've not yet finished the armies but I plough on.

A Brigaded Musket unit and a small unit that would support the Cavalry units. 

As units are completed they replace the blank boards.

We played a number of games with these and they worked well, all ranges and movement were as per the rule book we didn't reduce them we saw no need to do so. In the opinion of the Historical elements of the team they fought as they should and lost or won in the correct way. Unless I started rolling super dice, I habit I have that upsets people. 

Image of games played with tokens, I'd certainly recommend the idea as it gets you playing and encourages the painting, yes it's a little like playing 40K with unpainted minis, but who didn't?

Wound and Stamina marking - Why are there little pegs on your bases?

The Cannons arrive

Tracking Wounds and Stamina - Why are there little poles on your bases?

 Wound markers - Why are there little poles on your bases?

Picture above says it all without the waffle.

We all need to track wounds and there are many ways of doing it. Dice, coloured or numbered counters are some options and most of the time they are positioned next to the unit and so often left behind when the unit moves. The solution is to balance the marker on the base I've seen discs balanced between ranks of troops and I want to cry.

We were using small dice green indicating wounds, replaced with a red die when they were shaken. These also get left behind and worse would get knocked so five wounds became one. Using dice holders gave mixed results, some too tight you can't get the dice out, or too loose and fall out.

Then we started playing a lot of Hail Caesar! and it soon became clear we had to identify which units belonged to an HQ, to stop errors in command.

SWMBO required a trip to IKEA and I saw a cheap version of Hama beads 'PYSSLA' and the solution came to me.

Use the beads at one rear corner to denote wounds using the current colour system, use the other colours on the other edge to denote HQ and its units. 

This is a 10 point Stamina version whilst HC goes up to 8 stamina I allowed for the possibility of 10 stamina. (Fantasy version with Monsters). 

Each red dice represent a point where the unit might be shaken, depending on what its stamina is 4, 6, 8 or 10 use red or if unit has a higher stamina value use the pink, orange or black token at that point instead.

Historical Colours - What colour should I paint those clothes what might they have been?

Whilst in fantasy I don't care what colour I use I do like to be more accurate in the historical setting, I like to think I'm painting a plausibly accurate colour.

I suspect a lot of the Wargaming source material is opinion, sometimes very objective, but we don't really know what colours the Cretan archers wore but here are some interesting links. 

From the historic perspective, indicating the availability of colours.
I was surprised at the range of colours and their shades and then how colours or their shades were restricted to certain classes of people,

Medieval Woman - Dyes

From which this excerpt comes

Notes about colours
It must be noted that just because it was possible for a colour to be dyed, it did not mean that it was instantly adopted by all walks of life. Many colours were deemed unsuitable for the peasant class. Bright colours, it was thought, were not humble and engendered a feeling of pride which was a mortal sin. Peasants should remember where it was that God had seen fit to place them, and they should not desire anything other than God's will.

Clothing in greys, browns and muted blues were thought most suitable for the lower class. This did not mean that peasants were dowdy. Greys and browns were available in a number of shades and clever colour coordination of hoods and tunics could still make for an attractive ensemble. Blue was a colour which was available to most classes, both cheaply and expensively, in all shades ranging from muted, sombre blues to brilliant jewel blues of the upper classes.

Medieval fabrics and its uses
More about the fabrics available

Medieval fabrics and the use of colour 
This is a good read with a number of colour pictures of the dyed wool. from which this picture comes

Weld yellow to woad blue to produce greens

Plant coloured wool

Walnut Hull dyed yarn, naturally dyed

Natural dyes Wikipedia link

Basing my Lizardmen

 I wanted to have a tropical feel with a rich grass base with pools of water and spikey plants.

I usually base my models by placing them on the wet filler, a plastic based filler needs no glue and is almost instant, a sand based filler needs a little Copydex and left overnight to dry. 

The pools of water are rather simple. 

I left areas with no filler or scrapped it off, painted the flat area white, then some Ice Blue, any light blue will do, then Aethermatic Blue as a patchy finish, looking for a patchy algae bloom. 

Finally PVA glue twice, sometimes a with a 2nd coat of Aethermatic Blue between the PVA layers. I then painted the earth a medium brown as I intended to cover most of it I didn't do my usual Iraqi Sand dry brush.

I couldn't make my mind up if I was going to flock before or after I added the plants, in the end I did both but preferred the before. 

If you flock after doing the plants you may end up flocking the plastic and or leave bare earth under them. In temperate basing I think bare earth works, I didn't want it in my jungle bases I wanted rampant growth, but for the swampy light infantry units I wanted a little earth showing

Doing the plants - for sources look at Using plastic plants, sources and application

My spikes were made using elements from a Topiary ball, 

I used either elements 1 or 2 cutting off one part (3) then cut that in to three parts (4) or sometimes 2 by not cutting at 'a' to give me a taller piece.

I drilled 1mm holes to plant them, especially for the long pieces (at the back right in image).

However, if I wanted to achieve the short stubby spikey bits I had to drill 2mm and even 3mm holes to pull through all the stems so I only had the leaves. (Front and sides in the image.) 

Be very careful when drilling, especially with brittle 3D prints, fortunately the glue back together well.

I'd often start with a small size to lead the way, then use larger bits, testing the piece I wanted to pull through using large bits up to 3mm and usually using pliers to pull them through.

When I had the right size hole I'd use loads of superglue gel locating it amongst the leaves where they'd be squeezed together, look at the last image see all the plastic. Before I started doing this excess glue the elements were falling out.

When it was set, I'd cut off the pulled through excess and push in more super glue.

You'll be picking superglue off your fingers for a while, frequent washing during the process helps. 

Be very careful your gluey finger doesn't touch the painted model. I tended to do this a little at a time wondering if it was worth the effort.