Scourge of War Boards

The English Civil Wars (1642-1651) are a very popular wargaming period over here in the UK. I have just seen a couple of people discussing it over on Martin James' LBH thread.

The issue of course is the mixed pike and shot formations common to all the European armies of the mid 1600s.

I see two problems:

1) Representing an infantry troop type that has no ranged attack capability, only a melee weapon. This should not be insurmountable as cavalry falls into this category.

2) The mixed regiment formations with a central body of pikemen and a wing or "sleeve" on either flank of musketeers. We could probably overcome this by making each regiment a brigade in SoW terms of three units with them always deployed close together. On the march the musketeers would usually march ahead and behind the pikemen so again, a brigade formation would work to represent this. You get the added bonus that mounted regimental commanders then become brigade commanders and even the attaching of 1 or 2 small cannon to regiments as "battalion pieces" can work.

I feel though that Waterloo might be a better game engine to represent this war since the square formation in that game could be used to represent the "hedgehog" or "Schiltron" all round defence used by pikemen. This gives us another issue in what to do with the musketeer wings as historically these would either shelter underneath the extended pikes or fall back behind them, but with the additional AI coding WL allows I think this could be overcome.

Its a spectacularly colourful period with no standard army colours or uniforms and almost every single regiment having its own uniform - and even then these were never standardised - think ACW Rebs but with butternut replaced by any number of base colours.

Something to discuss by a small group who may be interested?

http://www.warlordgames.com/wp-content/ ... gehill.jpg

https://worldhistoryleverett.files.word ... vilwar.jpg

http://www.directart.co.uk/mall/images/800s/dhm0698.jpg

http://new.gunmag.com.ua/wp-content/upl ... gear-3.jpg

https://www.hinckleypastpresent.org/ima ... kley09.jpg

I would certainly be happy to lend a hand with any projects ...granted it would be tricky and perhaps a American Revolutionary mod would suit the SOWG game engine better...but would be entertaining to attempt.

You are absolutely right Saddletank melee would have to be addressed in particular the push and shove of the pike and the fighting in contact would need to be prolonged and not just a few seconds as currently represented in the game. At the start of the war the long Pike was the predominant weapon with regiments just having a nominal number of Musket attached however as the war progressed the number of pikes vastly reduced and musket bearing troops increased. The rate of fire would need to be massively reduced you would have been doing well if you fired one round every couple of minutes and there was no bayonet until later in the war when some plug bayonets appeared once fired and in close melee the musketeers would simply turn the weapon around and use as a club bashing their opponents. Swords were carried by officers and sergeant-at-arms whilst others preferred a short pike or Halberd.

In terms of cavalry one criticisms of SOWG is that the cavalry is far too aggressive charging at Infantry formations which in the American civil war usually didn't end well for the cavalry! But I think for the English Civil war this will be fine as back then cavalry was very much used for punching through the troops on the battlefield -however it was very uncommon for cavalry to dismount and fire - mostly cavalry preferred to fire mounted usually from a very close range (due to the range and poor accuracy) - there were a few light dragoon units who did dis-mount but these were very much a later war innovation. The principal weapon of the cavalry was the sword the lance was used very rarely mostly this was employed by sottish Covenanter cavalry such as Leslies Horse at Marston Moor the feared 'Gordon horse of Montrose'

Artillery should be okay however these would need attaching to the regiments there weren't deployed in batteries on the battlefield and were few in number the three main types 1/ field pieces made up of demi-culverins sakers and minions common sizes being 5.25 9 and 4 pounders.2/ light pieces such as falcons-robinets and galloper guns there were some multi-barred weapons but these were not as common 3/ siege guns - Cannon royal to Culverins 15 to 63 pounders and mortars of various sizes. The cannons were extremely cumbersome and usually hauled into place by oxen and once deployed they were generally static i.e not moved during the fighting - again this would need to be factored in also cannons of the period was slow firing and highly inaccurate - firing solid shot.

I would be happy to work on some OOBs the battles are were much smaller so you could perhaps have the brigade formation representing a regiment for instance?

regards

Zeke

Hi Saddletank

I could do the sprites. I have lobster pot hat sprites, pike infantry, and musketeers infantry similar to your photos.

Remus

Hi Saddletank.

I don't know enough about WL to know how far you can go in adjusting it to suit ECW, but between you and Zeke it's starting to sound doable. Your idea of making regiments brigades and the square as a shiltron seem to solve a couple of the bigger problems.

I'll certainly help with it in whatever capacity, maybe some 16th century buildings.

Pom.

We would need to use the WL engine I think since we need pike defensive formations and I can't see GB being able to do that except by TC which was the method we used for squares in Gunships "Road to Wagram" Nap mod for GB. Unfortunately it meant the AI could not use squares so the GB version would only be useful for PvP MP games.

Guys - I am going to move this to the WL Mods forum for further discussion.

Link:

http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/waterl ... od-project

We would need to use the WL engine I think since we need pike defensive formations and I can't see GB being able to do that except by TC which was the method we used for squares in Gunships "Road to Wagram" Nap mod for GB. Unfortunately it meant the AI could not use squares so the GB version would only be useful for PvP MP games.

Guys - I am going to move this to the WL Mods forum for further discussion.

Yes a valid point about the Square formation as this would be needed for the Pike infantry as they fought several rows deep I agree that WL would probably be better for a ECW mod which reminds me that I need to get familiar with the modding capabilities of the newer game.

regarding SOWG I'm actually just having a play with gunships "Road to Wagram mod" as I'm thinking pulling together a 1812 mod which I think will suit the SOWG engine this featured far smaller armies - I want to have a play with breaking a regiment down into companies and see how the engine copes - Naturally I will post results