Rationale for Irish Catholic Confederate list?

[khurasan_miniatures]

First off let me be very clear that I'm extremely pleased to see a list for the confederacy in the book, especially as I have had a line of miniatures made for it!!! Even though I had hoped there would be a mention of the Battle of Benburb, which after all was the largest setpiece battle of the Confederate Wars and in which the Irish crushed a scots/British army (because for a change they were not let down by their leadership or Horse).

But one question -- why are they 2-1 musket to pike? They seem to have relied on the pike as much as the musket, on a 1-1 basis, as for example is attributed at Benburb:

http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/mil ... enburb.htm
Wouldn't giving them a 1-1 ratio, rather than 2-1 with musket*, have reflected their reliance on the pike? Of course I don't know the rules mechanics yet and there may lay the answer.

Also the units are the same size as their scots and English foes, but we are told their reliance on larger tercios gave their opponents an advantage in flexibility on several occasions. Just curious as to the rationales for the unit specs, thanks very much and I look forward to playing the game!!!

[nikgaukroger]

First off let me be very clear that I'm extremely pleased to see a list for the confederacy in the book, especially as I have had a line of miniatures made for it!!! Even though I had hoped there would be a mention of the Battle of Benburb, which after all was the largest setpiece battle of the Confederate Wars and in which the Irish crushed a scots/British army (because for a change they were not let down by their leadership or Horse).

But one question -- why are they 2-1 musket to pike? They seem to have relied on the pike as much as the musket, on a 1-1 basis, as for example is attributed at Benburb:

http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/mil ... enburb.htm
Wouldn't giving them a 1-1 ratio, rather than 2-1 with musket*, have reflected their reliance on the pike? Of course I don't know the rules mechanics yet and there may lay the answer.

Therein does lie the answer as 1:1 doesn't work within the mechanisms, and as we say "Those regiments that were equipped properly still suffered from a shortage of firearms and so are classified as Musket* - in fact even this may be a touch generous."

Also the units are the same size as their scots and English foes, but we are told their reliance on larger tercios gave their opponents an advantage in flexibility on several occasions. Just curious as to the rationales for the unit specs, thanks very much and I look forward to playing the game!!!

I did see the tercio description, however, it appeared to be at best an anachronistic description of the Irish formations which we being raised, as best they could, along mid-C17th lines, and at worse utter rubbish. Off hand can't recall the books that led me to this conclusion, although "Irish Confederates at War" must be a good candidate.

BTW Tercios are not going to be more flexible either - more resilient perhaps, but I'd not describe them as more flexible.

[nikgaukroger]

BTW it did strike me for the right look, but forgot to put in the list blurb, that for these BGs you could model each pike base as normal but the Musket* bases could replace a musketeer with a pikeman

[khurasan_miniatures]

There's an idea!!! Perhaps have the file closest to the pike block depicted with pikes instead, so two bases with a pikeman as the leftmost model, two bases with a pikeman on the right.

Sure I will see it all when I play....

[DanielS]

Nik,
I must admit that your reply has me both confused and a bit worried, you write "1:1 doesn't work within the mechanisms", 1:1 pike to shot ratio was a very common ratio of p&s for a large part of the period covered by FoG-R. Your reply suggest that the rules can not handle this which to me seems to be a rather serious flaw, particularly for those of us who use historical armies and scenarios rather than tournament style ones. Have I misunderstood your reply?

[nikgaukroger]

Nik,
I must admit that your reply has me both confused and a bit worried, you write "1:1 doesn't work within the mechanisms", 1:1 pike to shot ratio was a very common ratio of p&s for a large part of the period covered by FoG-R. Your reply suggest that the rules can not handle this which to me seems to be a rather serious flaw, particularly for those of us who use historical armies and scenarios rather than tournament style ones. Have I misunderstood your reply?

1:1 works with the earlier formations because of the way the BG sizes and formations are specified - in general in FoG:R you don't have the choice of BG size variety you have in FoG:AM. It doesn't work when you have 6 base BGs - which dominate the 1st list book, so to avoid distortions that different BG sizes would cause, and not wanting a special rule for a single side show army, we essentially fudged it to avoid too much complexity.

[DanielS]

Thank you for the reply, so basicly historical scenarios will have to use the pre-deterimined unit sizes and formations found in the army lists rather than building these as show in the historical data? For example Swedish brigades "must" be 3 pike and 4 shot as a 1:1 brigade like the Blue Brigade at Lutzen or a 4 muskets to 1 pike like the Swedish brigade in the same battle won't work with the mechanisms of the rules?

[babyshark]

Thank you for the reply, so basicly historical scenarios will have to use the pre-deterimined unit sizes and formations found in the army lists rather than building these as show in the historical data? For example Swedish brigades "must" be 3 pike and 4 shot as a 1:1 brigade like the Blue Brigade at Lutzen or a 4 muskets to 1 pike like the Swedish brigade in the same battle won't work with the mechanisms of the rules?

I think that the answer to that is that if you are running a specific historical scenario you can change the troop ratios in a BG to your heart's content. But if you are running an ordinary, equal points game (tournaments especially) you need to go with the rules.

Marc

[rbodleyscott]

Thank you for the reply, so basicly historical scenarios will have to use the pre-deterimined unit sizes and formations found in the army lists rather than building these as show in the historical data? For example Swedish brigades "must" be 3 pike and 4 shot as a 1:1 brigade like the Blue Brigade at Lutzen or a 4 muskets to 1 pike like the Swedish brigade in the same battle won't work with the mechanisms of the rules?

I think that the answer to that is that if you are running a specific historical scenario you can change the troop ratios in a BG to your heart's content. But if you are running an ordinary, equal points game (tournaments especially) you need to go with the rules.

Marc

Consenting adults can do whatever they like outside tournaments. You don't need our permission.

However, the main purpose of having Musket* (although we have also found other uses for it) was to allow 1:1 BGs to be represented as 6 bases.

Otherwise they would either have to be represented as

a) 3 bases of pikes and 3 bases of shot, which would be a bit weird.

or

b) as 4 bases of pike and 4 of shot, in which case the unit would be larger than the 2:1 unit - even if the units in fact weren't larger.

We thought the Musket* solution was better. It does represent the 1:1 ratio but using a different method from having equal numbers of bases of each type.

The army lists don't have any BGs of 4 shot and 1 pike (they do have ones with 5 shot and 1 pike) but the rules would in fact work fine with such BGs if that is what you wanted to use in a historical refight.

The army lists are designed more for those who don't have the detailed knowledge, or want a framework for tournament or pickup games. They are not compulsory for all games. In fact on P.189 it says "In historical refights...the armies are determined by actual battle accounts..". The points system is just for one-off games, and even then "referencing" the army list books is only "recommended".