The Trouble With Tercios

[nikgaukroger]

First one about the BGs sizes.

We have to fit somehow pike and shot BGs from 3000 to 600 men.

If the standard Dutch or French unit of 600 men is represented in the game by a 6 elements BG, how big should an early tercio be? 14 elements seem the minimum rather than the maxumum...

What we actually have is a BG of 6 bases representing 2 units of 5/600 men acting together - effectively we have a troop scale of 1 base = 150/200 men in most cases.

Second one about arquebuses and muskets.

Muskets were fistly intruduced to skirmish and shoot at long range in front of the main tercio battleline. My understanding is that those musketeers are assumed to be part of the tercio BG. Correct?

Later on, there were more and more muskets until they constituted most of the tercio firepower. The big question mark here is if we create BGs with a mix of musket and arquebus. Here we should rather look at the consequences in terms of playability than the actual mix of troops we had in the tercios. My first impression would be that for the transition period we allow to choose between musket or arquebus, but than having to field both will lead either to a-historical deployments (all arquebusiers in one side, all musketeers on the other), or kind of game cheese (if we allow arquebuses to give rear support to muskets).

Regarding the shooters units detached from the tercios (mangas), at the beggining they were most probably arquebusiers. For the 17th century I have my doubts if we should grade them as musketeers or arquebusiers (or allow for a free choice).

Xavier

The approach really has to be that we usually classify them as the majority type - having both in the same BG leads to the cheese you mention.

From my reading it looks to me as though the C16th Spanish would be Arquebus but after that I am less sure - the arquebus seems to have been retained longer by the Spanish, however, I don't think that at Rocroi they were outshot by the French and so would suggest that by then at least they shoulod be Musket. What do you think would be suitable for Nordlingen?

I have found something that suggested that around 1636 the units in Italy still had about 2x as many arquebusiers as musketeers, the Flanders army was mostly musketeers and that in Spain it was around 3 arquebus to 2 musket. Does that match any information you have?

Of course it is complicated that, again from what I have read, some of the foreign units in the Spanish army probably had more muskets than the Spanish

[xavier]

What we actually have is a BG of 6 bases representing 2 units of 5/600 men acting together - effectively we have a troop scale of 1 base = 150/200 men in most cases.

In this case, BGs of 12-16 elements would be fine for early tercios, either as standard tercios (4 shot - 4 pike - 4 pike - 4 shot), or as Alba's "keils" (2 shot - 4 pike - 4 pike - 4 pike - 2 shot).

Late tercios could be depicted as BGs of 9-12 elements depending on the scale (from 3 shot - 3 pike - 3 shot to 4 shot + 4 pike + 4 shot). At this stage pikes still deployed up to 12 deep, while shooters used thinner formations comparable to the Dutch. Therefore I wouldn't force players to deploy all shooters at each side of the pike in a single column, since this would mean losing firepower (to be checked for consistency with general rules).

As we said before, early tercios can probably be left for 16th century armies, and late tercios allowed for the Imperial Spanish list at least until Nordlingen (where we should have the 2 elite tercios of 1800 men - 12 elements, and the rest of 1500 men - 9 elements).

By Rocroi even the 2 elite regiments that stood all French attacks didn't have more than 1000 men, and therefore can already be represented by the standard 2 shot - 2 pike - 2 shot formations.

Xavier

[xavier]

The approach really has to be that we usually classify them as the majority type - having both in the same BG leads to the cheese you mention.

From my reading it looks to me as though the C16th Spanish would be Arquebus but after that I am less sure - the arquebus seems to have been retained longer by the Spanish, however, I don't think that at Rocroi they were outshot by the French and so would suggest that by then at least they shoulod be Musket. What do you think would be suitable for Nordlingen?

I have found something that suggested that around 1636 the units in Italy still had about 2x as many arquebusiers as musketeers, the Flanders army was mostly musketeers and that in Spain it was around 3 arquebus to 2 musket. Does that match any information you have?

Of course it is complicated that, again from what I have read, some of the foreign units in the Spanish army probably had more muskets than the Spanish

Yes, we're in line. Looking at the ordonnance of 1632 seems that the army in the Low countries was the one that adopted the musket in a faster way. The army in italy was the slowest (besides the new peninsular tercios raised, which at the beginning also had quite a high ratio of arquebusiers).
Foreign units (even if moved to Spain at a certain point), were mosly recruited for the Low Countries operations, and therefore would also be musket armed.

For the army in Spain we have a different list, so it's quite easy to fix: allow shooters to be graded as arquebusiers before 1640, as musketeers at any date.
Tercios In italy and the Low Countries are both covered by the Imperial Spanish list, but we might use the same solution...

Xavier

[rbodleyscott]

In the Early 30YW Catholic list you have Early Tercios with 6 pikes and 6 shot. This works fine at deployment with the new definition of tercio formations, as you can have 2 shot in each of the front shot horn and 1 in each of the back ones.

However, if you lose any shot, your frontal shooting power diminishes rapidly as you have to leave at least 1 shot base in each horn until you have only 3 left, then you turn into a Late Tercio.

Should we allow Early Tercios to voluntarily turn into Late Tercios if they don't have enough shot bases to keep the front ones at full strength without stripping the rear ones?

Also, does the representation in this list mean that the Late Tercio formation shown bottom left in Diagram 1 in the rules no longer exists?

Should players have the choice of deploying the 6:6 BGs as ET or LT?

[nikgaukroger]

In the Early 30YW Catholic list you have Early Tercios with 6 pikes and 6 shot. This works fine at deployment with the new definition of tercio formations, as you can have 2 shot in each of the front shot horn and 1 in each of the back ones.

However, if you lose any shot, your frontal shooting power diminishes rapidly as you have to leave at least 1 shot base in each horn until you have only 3 left, then you turn into a Late Tercio.

Should we allow Early Tercios to voluntarily turn into Late Tercios if they don't have enough shot bases to keep the front ones at full strength without stripping the rear ones?

I don't think it would be right to force them onto a formation that shoots badly without real reason and I don't think there is one in this case. As for formations see below ...

Also, does the representation in this list mean that the Late Tercio formation shown bottom left in Diagram 1 in the rules no longer exists?

I think so.

I currently envisage that ETs are going to be 8+8, 6+6 and 4+6 formations. (pike+shot) I am unsure about the 4+8 Charles included.

All LTs will be 3+6.

Should players have the choice of deploying the 6:6 BGs as ET or LT?

I see these as just being ETs.

I think I need to write a new description of Tercios for the rules to cover the various formations and the progression over time - we have moved on from Charles' wording I feel ...

[rbodleyscott]

In the Early 30YW Catholic list you have Early Tercios with 6 pikes and 6 shot. This works fine at deployment with the new definition of tercio formations, as you can have 2 shot in each of the front shot horn and 1 in each of the back ones.

However, if you lose any shot, your frontal shooting power diminishes rapidly as you have to leave at least 1 shot base in each horn until you have only 3 left, then you turn into a Late Tercio.

Should we allow Early Tercios to voluntarily turn into Late Tercios if they don't have enough shot bases to keep the front ones at full strength without stripping the rear ones?

I don't think it would be right to force them onto a formation that shoots badly without real reason and I don't think there is one in this case.

That being the case, why not treat, "early tercios" with "6 pike + 6 shot" or "4 pike + 6 shot" as Later Tercios?

That avoids any problems re shooting.

The alternative is to treat them as early tercios, but allow them to turn into Later Tercios as soon as they lose 1 shot base, which seems rather pointless.

[nikgaukroger]

In the Early 30YW Catholic list you have Early Tercios with 6 pikes and 6 shot. This works fine at deployment with the new definition of tercio formations, as you can have 2 shot in each of the front shot horn and 1 in each of the back ones.

However, if you lose any shot, your frontal shooting power diminishes rapidly as you have to leave at least 1 shot base in each horn until you have only 3 left, then you turn into a Late Tercio.

Should we allow Early Tercios to voluntarily turn into Late Tercios if they don't have enough shot bases to keep the front ones at full strength without stripping the rear ones?

I don't think it would be right to force them onto a formation that shoots badly without real reason and I don't think there is one in this case.

That being the case, why not treat, "early tercios" with "6 pike + 6 shot" or "4 pike + 6 shot" as Later Tercios?

That avoids any problems re shooting.

The alternative is to treat them as early tercios, but allow them to turn into Later Tercios as soon as they lose 1 shot base, which seems rather pointless.

The reason to have them as ET is that they represent the "castle" formation tercio only on a smaller scale than the "full" 8+8 formation and so should have the all-round formation benefits in the same way. These 6+6 and 4+6 formations should start with front and rear horns as close to the 8+8 full monty version as basing allows.

The 3+6 formation represents the later less all round formation which did not have horns in the castle formation. Which reminds me we have the slightly weird 8+8 non-castle formation late C16th German LT mentioned earlier - an exception I fear.

[rbodleyscott]

I don't think it would be right to force them onto a formation that shoots badly without real reason and I don't think there is one in this case.

That being the case, why not treat, "early tercios" with "6 pike + 6 shot" or "4 pike + 6 shot" as Later Tercios?

That avoids any problems re shooting.

The alternative is to treat them as early tercios, but allow them to turn into Later Tercios as soon as they lose 1 shot base, which seems rather pointless.

The reason to have them as ET is that they represent the "castle" formation tercio only on a smaller scale than the "full" 8+8 formation and so should have the all-round formation benefits in the same way. These 6+6 and 4+6 formations should start with front and rear horns as close to the 8+8 full monty version as basing allows.

The 3+6 formation represents the later less all round formation which did not have horns in the castle formation. Which reminds me we have the slightly weird 8+8 non-castle formation late C16th German LT mentioned earlier - an exception I fear.

Fair enough, but we will have to allow them to choose to switch to Late Tercio formation as soon as they cannot otherwise keep 2 shot bases in the front horns. Then the player can choose which is more important, retaining reasonable firepower or immunity to rear charges.

[xavier]

I currently envisage that ETs are going to be 8+8, 6+6 and 4+6 formations. (pike+shot) I am unsure about the 4+8 Charles included.

All LTs will be 3+6.

What about Alba's tercios with 3 times as many pike as shot? Will they be another possible deployment for ET (12 pike + 4 shot), a keil variant or even some new "big BG"??

[xavier]

As we said before, early tercios can probably be left for 16th century armies, and late tercios allowed for the Imperial Spanish list at least until Nordlingen (where we should have the 2 elite tercios of 1800 men - 12 elements, and the rest of 1500 men - 9 elements).

By Rocroi even the 2 elite regiments that stood all French attacks didn't have more than 1000 men, and therefore can already be represented by the standard 2 shot - 2 pike - 2 shot formations.

Xavier

One slight comment here. Since the 1632 ordonnace still talks about a nominative strength of 3000 men for the tercios, should we still allow early tercios for the first years of the Imperial Spanish list??

[rbodleyscott]

What about Alba's tercios with 3 times as many pike as shot? Will they be another possible deployment for ET (12 pike + 4 shot), a keil variant or even some new "big BG"??

A keil variant if I understand correctly.

[nikgaukroger]

As we said before, early tercios can probably be left for 16th century armies, and late tercios allowed for the Imperial Spanish list at least until Nordlingen (where we should have the 2 elite tercios of 1800 men - 12 elements, and the rest of 1500 men - 9 elements).

By Rocroi even the 2 elite regiments that stood all French attacks didn't have more than 1000 men, and therefore can already be represented by the standard 2 shot - 2 pike - 2 shot formations.

Xavier

One slight comment here. Since the 1632 ordonnace still talks about a nominative strength of 3000 men for the tercios, should we still allow early tercios for the first years of the Imperial Spanish list??

We're trying to stick with actual numbers (as far as they are known) rather than theoretical numbers - so in this case I think the answer is no.

[nikgaukroger]

What about Alba's tercios with 3 times as many pike as shot? Will they be another possible deployment for ET (12 pike + 4 shot), a keil variant or even some new "big BG"??

A keil variant if I understand correctly.

Indeed it is/will be.

[rbodleyscott]

Fair enough, but we will have to allow them to choose to switch to Late Tercio formation as soon as they cannot otherwise keep 2 shot bases in the front horns. Then the player can choose which is more important, retaining reasonable firepower or immunity to rear charges.

Taking a look at the current wording of the rules, I cannot in fact find anything that prevents front horn base losses being taken from the rear horns, which will then automatically cause the tercio to morph into a late tercio when either rear horn is empty.

I think that it still needs to be stated explicitly (after the paragraph on early tercios turning into later tercios):

Example: An early tercio with 6 bases of pike and 6 bases of shot was initially deployed with 2 shot bases in each of the front horns and 1 shot base in each of the rear shot horns. When it loses a shot base, the player can choose whether to replace the lost base from one of the rear horns, in which case frontal firepower will be maintained but the battle group will immediately become a later tercio as above, or leave one of the front shot horns with only 1 base, so as to retain the benefits of an early tercio while losing some frontal firepower.

but I don’t want to discover later that there is anything in the rules that contradicts it.

Is there anything?