Pike and Shot pre-game activities

I finished off reading “Pike and Shot Tactics 1590-1660” by Keith Roberts. In its 64 pages, which has lots of illustrations, it covers the development of tactics during the period along with the challenges the commanders and armies faced.

Just finished reading 

My interest in the book was more towards the end of the time period covered and the English Civil War. The take outs from this book from a gaming perspective are:

• The commanders battle plan was very important and the army would undertake training and drills in the required formations prior to the campaign and battle. 
• The level of experienced officers and troops would influence the choice of formations a commander would use in their battle plan.
• The commander, when having to engage in battle, would adhere to their battle plan regardless of the ground fought over, adjusting the plan as best they could to suit ground and available forces, but not fundamentally altering the plan.
• Communications in this period were slow and commanders had few opportunities to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses and had to rely on their army’s deployment to gain an advantage.
• The importance of unit positioning so units in the first line so they could retire and have space in which to move and not crash into the units behind, or spaces in which other units can advance to bolster lines.

I am now thinking about how to incorporate more decision making into the game’s planning and deployment activities. For example:

1. Have players in advance of the tabletop game list their units and place them into the marching order: vanguard, battle, and reserve. This would dictate the order of unit placement on the tabletop, right to left.
2. Players would have to draw their battle plans in advance, positioning the units for the vanguard (right flank), battle (centre), and reserve (left flank) in the first, second, or third lines. Essentially listing units on a 3 by 3 grid (see picture below).
3. The tabletop terrain becomes known to the players after planning and they can have to divide the tabletop into three sections for the centre and both flanks. The minimum section width must allow two units to comfortable fit side by side. For my unit base size of 4 inches width a minimum of 12 inches would be used. It is at this stage the player gets to adjust their battle plan to fit the terrain by the sectioning the tabletop and deciding the position of the first line. The second and third lines would fall in behind.

Example of a battle plan.

Example of sectioning the tabletop for deployment

I am still thinking about incorporating unit experience into the rules and how best to do that. One thing has been confirmed is I will be keeping my units as a single base, as I had been thinking about reducing the number of units and increasing their size to two bases for a unit. Having more units on the tabletop, 10 to 12 units per army, helps with more detailed battle plans. The tabletop may hopefully have some resemblance to one of the period prints.

I do so like these print of battles