Slitherine

I have almost all of my Swedish foot painted for 800 points, hoping my horsies are in tonight.

The Swedes seem to be a very attacky army, so I was considering doing a defensive army as a second army.

Was thinking about the Imperial Spanish with six big boomies, some fortifications, and LT's supporing them with a fair bit of h armoured pistol/pistol horse.

Is a defensive, shoot em up and then commit the meat of your army valid?

Give it a try and see if it works. By the sounds of it shooting is quite deadly so if you can shoot up more of him then he does of you I guess you would stand a better chance of winning. Might need to look at melee POA's to see how you will stand up in the up close and personal fights though, might not want to have your Swedes just stand out there and get shot up if they can close and stomp you in melee.

deadtorius wrote:Give it a try and see if it works. By the sounds of it shooting is quite deadly so if you can shoot up more of him then he does of you I guess you would stand a better chance of winning. Might need to look at melee POA's to see how you will stand up in the up close and personal fights though, might not want to have your Swedes just stand out there and get shot up if they can close and stomp you in melee.

I was going to do Swedes as the attack army, and Spanish with six artillery and field fortifications as the more defensive army. Just wanted another style of play.

BNF, if you are planning a defensive battle, you might find 2 BG of firearm LH very useful. They allow you to work them in combination with the HArt / MArt in funneling the opposition, or at least to ensure he spends most time under your guns.

timmy1 wrote:BNF, if you are planning a defensive battle, you might find 2 BG of firearm LH very useful. They allow you to work them in combination with the HArt / MArt in funneling the opposition, or at least to ensure he spends most time under your guns.

My initial list I drew up (mainly to see what extra models I would need) was:

Troop Commander
Troop Commander
Troop Commander


Kurassiere Horse H Armoured Superior Pistol Pistol 4
Kurassiere Horse H Armoured Superior Pistol Pistol 4
Kurassiere Horse H Armoured Average Pistol Pistol 4
Bandellier Reiter Horse Un Average Carbine Pistol 4

Tercios viejos espanoles (LT) M Foot Un Superior Musket 6
H Foot Armoured Superior Pike Pike 3

Tercios viejos espanoles (LT) M Foot Un Superior Musket 6
H Foot Armoured Superior Pike Pike 3

Tercios viejos espanoles (LT) M Foot Un Superior Musket 6
H Foot Armoured Superior Pike Pike 3

Dragoons Dragoons Un Average Musket 4
Dragoons Dragoons Un Average Musket 4

Medium Artillery 2
Medium Artillery 2
Heavy Artillery 2

Fortifications 6

My gut feel is that tercios aren't very good defensive troops actually.

They give up a PoA to enemy artillery so are especially vulnerable to being shot up and they don't occupy much frontage. It seems to me their strength is in not suffereint flank attacks, letting them move forward pretty aggressively and a greater ability to absorb casaulties in comparison to typical pike and shotte units.

Why not try Dutch, they get a bunch of FF's and you can't get much more defensive than that. Stand inside and blast away at the evil Swedes. They also get plenty of artillery and you can even grab a couple of ships to help pound your opponent from off shore, better work on making coastal terrain first though.

The Dutch seems like a good choice if you look at the list, another good one would have been the army of the Margrave of Baden-Durlach (Protestant German) which was designed to fight defensively from behind a sort of wagon fort but there are no options for his "war wagons" in the Ealry Protestant German list (they are not easy to 'translate' into wargames units, they are a sort of crossbreed of light artillery, field obstacle and fortifications)

Dutch are the way to go. Having played an army without any MArt or HArt, I can confirm that a 3 deep pike formation is just about their favourite target. ETs are about the best attacking foot in the game. Now ET Spanish vs Dutch behind ditches give just about the best of all possible historical match ups...

Whoo hoo I might have posted a good suggestion for a change, there is a Dog.. I mean God

Artillery is the key to forcing the other side to attack so you may be defensive - particularly good at crippling or breaking small mounted BGs left in its arc - the more expensive the horse, the better!

MikeK wrote:Artillery is the key to forcing the other side to attack so you may be defensive - particularly good at crippling or breaking small mounted BGs left in its arc - the more expensive the horse, the better!

Wouldn't Ottomans or Russians fit this model for a defensive army? Lots of guns, and decent but not the most expensive cavalry for followup to the bombardments?

Not if your opponent has HArt it is not!