Slitherine

Is it legal to detach shots from 4 units of 4 shots and 2 pikes each like these?

1) 3 units of 7 bases each; 1 unit of 3 shots bases
or
2) 1 unit of 18 bases; 3 units of 3 shots each

Yes, I know they are very strange formations, but is just to understand how it works...

I think odd bases are prohibited.

Also your army must have the same number of Battle groups IIRC.

The army has the same number of BG (4).
The question is if they can have a odd number of bases...

Moro wrote:The army has the same number of BG (4).
The question is if they can have a odd number of bases...

See Appendix I at the back of each army list book for details.

Moro wrote:The army has the same number of BG (4).
The question is if they can have a odd number of bases...

It has 1 Grand Battle group and 3 normal Battle Groups, so for this purpose counts as five (I think)

you can only detach two shot stands from each pike and shot BG and they can be combined as 1 BG of 4 shot and 4 pike and 1 BG as 4 shot. Only 1/2 of your battle groups can be combined. so if you have 4 BG's only 2 of them can combine into the larger pike and shot and shot only BG's.
Odd numbers are not allowed unless it specifies in the army list they can have 3 bases for example.

Page 182-183 of the rule book covers detached shot.

If you have 8 or 9 pike and shot BGs then you can select 4 for detachments. The procedure is to create new Shot groups and then combine the old BGs as needed to meet the requirements. You can detach all of the Shot from a BG. With 4 standard PS BGs and thus 16 Shot and 8 Pike to play with you could have

3 pure Shot BGs and one pure Pike BG, such as
8 Shot 6 Shot 2 Shot 8 Pike (which since all Shot is detached can go deep as a Keil)

or pure Shot BGs and 2 Pure Pike BGs, such as

8 Shot 8 Shot 4 Pike 4 Pike

or something other mix of pure formations,

or have some composite PS BGs as in the example on page 183 with 2x4 Shot and 2x(4 Shot +4 Pike (2 deep)).

or "something completely different"
8 Shot
4 Shot
4 Shot + 4 Pike (2 deep)
4 Pike (which can go 4 deep)

I suppose you could get to a BG with 6 Shot and 6 Pike, but this would seem quite impractical, as the Pikes per page 33 wouild be a block 2 deep and 3 wide with a file of Shot 3 deep on each wing - that 3rd Shot can only fill in for losses - a b@$tardized wannabe Late Tercio.

Starting with tercios of course gives you some other options.