Slitherine

I build a Catholic army with two of Tilly's early tercios (superior,6 shot, 6 pike) 12 stands so not grand battle groups. During the set-up I decide to detach the maxium shot from each (3) and create a musket unit of 6 shot. To keep the starting number of battle groups the same the remainder of these two units must be combined into a massive unit of 6 shot and 12 pike. Even though this is now the size of a grand battle group (with a whopping 10 stands needed to auto-break it, being superior) does it still count as only one BG for attrition points?


Kevin D.

kevindgaming wrote:I build a Catholic army with two of Tilly's early tercios (superior,6 shot, 6 pike) 12 stands so not grand battle groups. During the set-up I decide to detach the maxium shot from each (3) and create a musket unit of 6 shot. To keep the starting number of battle groups the same the remainder of these two units must be combined into a massive unit of 6 shot and 12 pike. Even though this is now the size of a grand battle group (with a whopping 10 stands needed to auto-break it, being superior) does it still count as only one BG for attrition points?


Kevin D.

The rules require that the total number of attrition points be unchanged so I guess so.

rbodleyscott wrote:

kevindgaming wrote:I build a Catholic army with two of Tilly's early tercios (superior,6 shot, 6 pike) 12 stands so not grand battle groups. During the set-up I decide to detach the maxium shot from each (3) and create a musket unit of 6 shot. To keep the starting number of battle groups the same the remainder of these two units must be combined into a massive unit of 6 shot and 12 pike. Even though this is now the size of a grand battle group (with a whopping 10 stands needed to auto-break it, being superior) does it still count as only one BG for attrition points?


Kevin D.

The rules require that the total number of attrition points be unchanged so I guess so.

Alternatively it cannot be done as an 18 base BG is a Grand Battle Group and thus counts as 2 BGs for attrition purposes

nikgaukroger wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:

kevindgaming wrote:I build a Catholic army with two of Tilly's early tercios (superior,6 shot, 6 pike) 12 stands so not grand battle groups. During the set-up I decide to detach the maxium shot from each (3) and create a musket unit of 6 shot. To keep the starting number of battle groups the same the remainder of these two units must be combined into a massive unit of 6 shot and 12 pike. Even though this is now the size of a grand battle group (with a whopping 10 stands needed to auto-break it, being superior) does it still count as only one BG for attrition points?


Kevin D.

The rules require that the total number of attrition points be unchanged so I guess so.

Alternatively it cannot be done as an 18 base BG is a Grand Battle Group and thus counts as 2 BGs for attrition purposes

That would mean that early tercios of 12 stands ccould never detach shot. A rules lawyer could also argue that by definition a grand battle group STARTS the game with more than 12 stands and detaching shot is well into the set-up and therefore well after the start of the game.

Kevin D.

Kevin

I considered the same question as part of my attempt to learn the rules and came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done. Regardless of any rules lawyers arguments about when the game starts, an ET cannot have more than 2 files of pike and each file must have 3-4 bases, which clearly can't be done with 12 pike bases. Furthermore, when you take into account that the depth of the pike files is not allowed to increase in the parent unit, unless all the shot are detatched (which isn't possible for a tercio), it could not even qualify as a kiel, since they must have at least 4 ranks of pike in each file.

However, in the end I concluded that it probably didn't matter much in this case, since compared to other contemporary formations the 12 base ET is rather short on fire power and if I was using the Early 30YW catholic german list I'd probably want to boost the firepower of the army with some of the many musketeers available, rather than weaken my main attacking BGs. Although I accept, of course, that may not be everyone's prefered approach.

Andy

kevindgaming wrote: That would mean that early tercios of 12 stands ccould never detach shot. A rules lawyer could also argue that by definition a grand battle group STARTS the game with more than 12 stands and detaching shot is well into the set-up and therefore well after the start of the game.

If you were inclined you could have great fun arguing over this

I am inclined to accept it, however, as it seems daft that the formation could not detach shot.

BTW (for Andy) whilst the resulting pike & shot formation cannot be a keil or tercio it can be formed up as "other pike and shot formations". IIRC there is no requirement for a tercio to remain a tercio after shot has been detached.

Nick,

a good point. Although at 6 files across it might be a monster to manoeuvre and wouldn't benefit from the flank protection of tercios and kiels. I expect I'd prefer to give it a miss, even if it is possible.

Andy

nikgaukroger wrote:

kevindgaming wrote: That would mean that early tercios of 12 stands ccould never detach shot. A rules lawyer could also argue that by definition a grand battle group STARTS the game with more than 12 stands and detaching shot is well into the set-up and therefore well after the start of the game.

If you were inclined you could have great fun arguing over this

I am inclined to accept it, however, as it seems daft that the formation could not detach shot.

BTW (for Andy) whilst the resulting pike & shot formation cannot be a keil or tercio it can be formed up as "other pike and shot formations". IIRC there is no requirement for a tercio to remain a tercio after shot has been detached.

According to the rules an Early Tercio that detaches shot subsequently operates as a Later Tercio. (In this case a very big one )

Either way, it doesn't seem a very cunning wheeze.

nikgaukroger wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote:

kevindgaming wrote:I build a Catholic army with two of Tilly's early tercios (superior,6 shot, 6 pike) 12 stands so not grand battle groups. During the set-up I decide to detach the maxium shot from each (3) and create a musket unit of 6 shot. To keep the starting number of battle groups the same the remainder of these two units must be combined into a massive unit of 6 shot and 12 pike. Even though this is now the size of a grand battle group (with a whopping 10 stands needed to auto-break it, being superior) does it still count as only one BG for attrition points?


Kevin D.

The rules require that the total number of attrition points be unchanged so I guess so.

Alternatively it cannot be done as an 18 base BG is a Grand Battle Group and thus counts as 2 BGs for attrition purposes

That was my original view, but it all depends on the definition of "initially".

rbodleyscott wrote: According to the rules an Early Tercio that detaches shot subsequently operates as a Later Tercio. (In this case a very big one )

Either way, it doesn't seem a very cunning wheeze.

Missed that.

Mind you it says ".. is deployed as and treated as a later tercio ...", which would imply - the "deploy as" bit - that it must be a proper later tercio formation.

rbodleyscott wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:

rbodleyscott wrote: The rules require that the total number of attrition points be unchanged so I guess so.

Alternatively it cannot be done as an 18 base BG is a Grand Battle Group and thus counts as 2 BGs for attrition purposes

That was my original view, but it all depends on the definition of "initially".

As long as we don't get into debating the definition of "is".

This may be heretical (in which case I recant) and might not be compatable with as yet unpublished lists, but maybe it would be easier to amend the ETs in this list to be a size and composition that wouldn't cause any issues, but which is still broadly compatable with the historical evidence, and avoid 6:6 pike:shot BGs in the future. Both 4:6 and 6:8 pike:shot ETs can detatch shot without falling foul of the various restrictions, for example.

Andy

PS Nik apologies for misspelling your name in my last post.

panda2 wrote:This may be heretical (in which case I recant) and might not be compatable with as yet unpublished lists, but maybe it would be easier to amend the ETs in this list to be a size and composition that wouldn't cause any issues, but which is still broadly compatable with the historical evidence, and avoid 6:6 pike:shot BGs in the future. Both 4:6 and 6:8 pike:shot ETs can detatch shot without falling foul of the various restrictions, for example.

That would be a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Perhaps a case of a flea wagging the tale.