Slitherine

We know that many of you have researched individual armies and that there is a wealth of knowledge amongst you.

To that end if any of you have any interesting facts or information about your favourite army that might be suitable for inclusion on the army list notes lets hear about it.

If you can also quote any source for the info so much the better. It might be information about their generals, interesting battles or any other snippet of information that you feel is interesting. I cannot promise anything but you might just see your notes in print

JDM

Hi, my favourite army is Thracian, although in a DBM open competition it's best to use a derivative such as Dacian, Lysimachid, or Bithynian. Yes, I know its not a Tourney Tiger but its colourful and it used to cause huge casualties. You guys seem to have pretty good knowledge of this army (talked to Duncan Head I guess?) so before I make any suggestions I would like to ask how do thepeltasts, cavalry and mercenary hoplites rate under these rules? Can you fight in wedge? Is there only one type of peltast?

Hi. My favorite armies would have to be Ottoman Turks and Wallachians of the medieval period.

jdm wrote:We know that many of you have researched individual armies and that there is a wealth of knowledge amongst you.

To that end if any of you have any interesting facts or information about your favourite army that might be suitable for inclusion on the army list notes lets hear about it.

If you can also quote any source for the info so much the better. It might be information about their generals, interesting battles or any other snippet of information that you feel is interesting. I cannot promise anything but you might just see your notes in print

JDM

My fave army is Wars of the Roses - It was my first army in DBM in '97' & now I've come around fullcircle at the end of DBM. The interesting thing about the WotR is although there was much treachery & bad blood between families, there really wasn't much betrayal on the Battlefield, Northampton & Bosworth Field aside.

Most of the WotR battles came down to either:
Flank Marches(Towton or 2nd St. Albans)
Attrition (1st. St. Albans, Blore Heath or Stoke Field)
Foolhardy attacks (Wakefield & Tewkesbury)

There seems to be a lot more artillery about than DBM would suggest, particularly at Blore Heath, Tewkesbury, Northampton & Bosworth Field.
The Cheshire Archers seems to be the best around at the time, though Handgunners were few & far between apart from St. Albans(large, unwieldy & more likely to kill their firer than the their target!)
Both sides had sizeable Irish contingents from their respective supporters the Fitgeraldines(York) & Butlers (Lancaster) but the Welsh appeared to be fickle or mercenary, depending on your point of view.

The only thing that doesn't seem clear in most accounts is how many Billmen & Spearmen either side had. But since most battles in the WotR were big Foot slogging matches - apart from Mounted charges at Blore Heath & Bosworth Field - this would suggest that there were far more Spears & Bills than Archers - at least 2:1 - than the era of the Longbow would imply.

Towton is a case in point - once the archers had fired their quiver into the snowstorm - they just became part of the solid mass of Foot in melee, albeit armed with lesser armour & weaponry.


Cheers,
Jer

Well to tell you the truth, id have to pick the Irish or the scottish or the german.
The reason i picked them is because they are from where my families came from

coldknight wrote:Well to tell you the truth, id have to pick the Irish or the scottish or the german.
The reason i picked them is because they are from where my families came from

The Irish will depend on terrain or the Gallowglass I suspect, Kerns & Bonnachts being chiefly missile troops. Though there could be an argument that Bonnachts could be close order Auxilia, since they wielded axes in combat as well as firing off javelins & darts. Horsemen will unlikely to be a major contingent though ...

The Scots will be likely to be wall of Spears in the early Middle Ages - the classic Schiltron the English knights floundered on - & lots of Pikes later on as they tried to copy the Swiss & the Galwegians will be the Scots main Shock Weapon troops.
Not sure what the Scots were like Pre-Middle Ages though.

Aside from the Pikemen & Handgunner that used to be hired out as mercenaries to all nations, I have no clue what the German Armies consisted of though



Cheers,
Jer

whitehorses wrote:
The Scots will be likely to be wall of Spears in the early Middle Ages - the classic Schiltron the English knights floundered on - & lots of Pikes later on as they tried to copy the Swiss

Pikes were not introduced until the Flodden campiagn - AoW Scots will be spearmen.

nikgaukroger wrote:

whitehorses wrote:
The Scots will be likely to be wall of Spears in the early Middle Ages - the classic Schiltron the English knights floundered on - & lots of Pikes later on as they tried to copy the Swiss

Pikes were not introduced until the Flodden campiagn - AoW Scots will be spearmen.

What about the Scots Pre-MiddleAges?
Chariots & Defensive Spearmen?


Cheers,
Jer

I have two different sources of inspiration: The Illiad, and the classic Greek/persiand period. I??m raising an E. A. persian army (fascinanted by Herodotus) and I hope I??ll expand my shelves with some early/hoplite army. I think now that peltast can shoot, (unlike DBM) and hoplites are shock troops, the feeling of commanding them will be very real, and will be a tough army.

nikgaukroger wrote: Pikes were not introduced until the Flodden campiagn - AoW Scots will be spearmen.

A mistake, IMO. Scots spears in the pre-Flodden period were 12-14 feet long -- too long to joust with and longer than Swiss pikes were.

Probably a better way to do it is to place restrictions on undrilled pikes, like pre-Flodden Scots and pre-Guinegate Lowlanders, successfully conducting aggressive actions with their pikes. Drilled pikes (Hellenistic and Swiss pikes, Swiss-trained Germans who became the Landsknechts, and to a lesser extent the Swiss-trained Lowlanders post 1478 and Scots 1513+) would be able to attack with efficiency, undrilled ones would not.

There would be no difference in effectiveness, or ony marginal differences, between drilled and undrilled pikes on the defensive.

I was going to suggest this in discussion of another rules development, but in a world in which permitting bow-armed troops to shoot is considered too radical, I thought better of it.

However, there is no evidence of Scots using deep formations as the Swiss did. As Pikes in AoW (like most other ancients/medieval rules) are designed to fight in formations much deeper than other troops if troops like the Scots are rated as Pikes they will end up fighting in unhistoiurcally deep formations and thus the historicality of the rules representation is weaker. AoW doesn't want to make the same mistakes on this as other rules do.

Basically Scots fight more like Scots if rated as Spears. Function based not overly equipment based representation remember

Having used them at Usk I can add that they work very well as spears in AOW. Seems to fit their character in battle much more thana pike classificationn from what I know of the period.

Si

nikgaukroger wrote:However, there is no evidence of Scots using deep formations as the Swiss did. As Pikes in AoW (like most other ancients/medieval rules) are designed to fight in formations much deeper than other troops

They are?

When did that happen? Alex usualy deployed his 8 deep - just like hoplites.

Swiss fought deep, but I've not seen anything that says that the pikes were designed for that - they started fighting deep with halberds after all, and went to pikes 'cos the halberds were supposedly outreached by hte lances of dismounted knights!

Later renaissance pikes fought as shallow as 2-3 ranks.

Sure many pikes DID fight deep, but I think it's a fairly tall tale to be spreading that that is what they were designed for!

shall wrote:Having used them at Usk I can add that they work very well as spears in AOW. Seems to fit their character in battle much more thana pike classificationn from what I know of the period.

Si

The Classical way to fight the Scots was to have Knights fairly close by to force them to close up, & then shoot them with Welsh Archers.
As soon as the Scots started to buckle under fire, that was when the Knights went in.
The only thing was, it took time for the English to learn that they couldn't defeat the Scots by Knights alone, they needed Longbows as well.

Not a tactic you could use against a block of Pikes, but very feasible fighting a big wodge of Spears.



Cheers,
Jer

Interestingly...

Exactly the best tactic against them in AOW....works due to the missile fire rules causing DISR on the spearmen and then charging them can work.

Si

As long as the knights don't get too excited and charge the spearmen before the archers do their work.....

Actually the AoW mechanism here is pretty much spot on.

Hammy

hammy wrote:As long as the knights don't get too excited and charge the spearmen before the archers do their work.....

Actually the AoW mechanism here is pretty much spot on.

Hammy

That's why you need to keep the Knights close, but not too close
Can Generals hold Knights? Or do you just have to keep them out of charge range & bide your time before they go steaming in?


Cheers,
Jer

whitehorses wrote:That's why you need to keep the Knights close, but not too close
Can Generals hold Knights? Or do you just have to keep them out of charge range & bide your time before they go steaming in?

Generals will certainly make it a lot easier to hold knights.

Spear don't like charging knights and knights don't like charging steady spear. It is an onteresting standoff until the archers intervene.

Hammy

shall wrote:Interestingly...

Exactly the best tactic against them in AOW....works due to the missile fire rules causing DISR on the spearmen and then charging them can work.

Si

What's the Feudal English army like in AoW, since the (1272-1377) era of the 3 Edwards was principally involved in the Scottish Wars?
Knights - Undrilled, Lance-armed, Armoured & Average
Welsh Archers - Undrilled, Longbows, Armoured, Average, Swords
Foot - various Spears, undrilled, Average/Poor, Armoured.


Cheers,
Jer

whitehorses wrote:

shall wrote:Interestingly...

Exactly the best tactic against them in AOW....works due to the missile fire rules causing DISR on the spearmen and then charging them can work.

Si

What's the Feudal English army like in AoW, since the (1272-1377) era of the 3 Edwards was principally involved in the Scottish Wars?
Knights - Undrilled, Lance-armed, Armoured & Average
Welsh Archers - Undrilled, Longbows, Armoured, Average, Swords
Foot - various Spears, undrilled, Average/Poor, Armoured.


Cheers,
Jer

We have not done the list yet, but according to general policy, most likely the knights would be Superior. (Not superior to other knights, you understand, Superior to the plebs). They would be heavily armoured (from about 1150 or so onwards), lancers, swordsmen. The archers and other foot mostly Protected rather than Armoured, with Unprotected at least as an option for the archers;