Tercios...How to kill the beasts??!!??

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 1:05 am

So Dead. and I are foraying into early TYW realms with Catholic and Protestant German armies for a change.

But how do you fight those superior early tercios??? Any suggestions? Dead. will be running the Catholics and yours truly the early protestants (both before 1626).

Andy1972 · Post by **Andy1972** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 2:35 am

I would say pound them with artillery.

daveallen · Post by **daveallen** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:21 pm

They're expensive, big and slow. Blast them with as much shot as you can and be grateful they aren't Swiss!

Dave

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:26 pm

Ya...that was my thoughts too. But they'll probably be Tilly's superiors!

But am planning to just throw as many average 6paks as possible at them. I'll never break them from losses, but cohesion can still go down on the beasties.

hazelbark · Post by **hazelbark** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:44 pm

Indeed they are susceptible to CT misses. You hsould have at least 3 (4+2) for every Tercio. So you should be able to manage 10 shooting bases on it. If you have two to its front and one on its side you should grind it down with dice.

Or course there is likley anotherr Tercio next to it.

One thing people forget. Tercio's i believe you can put in a restircted zone. So zip a superior cav up on its side. Yes he will shoot at you. But to drive you off he needs to shoot you away or turn to drive you off or bring up supports. This could allow a bunch more shooting on it.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 11:01 pm

Of course there will be more than a single Tercio on the table, I am hoping to catch the Protestants in a nasty cross fire since I can blast away on all sides. And I still have some cav about to chase off any cav that try to pin me.
I really want to see these things in action for once. The certainly look impressive.

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:00 am

They'll look even better routing.

geoff · Post by **geoff** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:21 am

Would love a battle report when you are done. I am doing an Early Catholic TYW army myself in the near future.

Cheers.......Geoff

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:23 am

I will take photos and report back.

I have a deployment that I think will cause the Catholic doom, but can't mention it for fear of spies...they seem to be everywhere these days!!!

We'll be doing 1100 points per side (25mm)(English substituting for Germans, so no comments about the flags!

) on a 4' x 8' table. It fills the thing with double ranks. Does look cool. In fact, I end up with more troops since I lose the superior foot from the NMA.

In two games previously, a Great Commander + rear support has been critical in several situations. I suspect the Protestants will have found a suitable candidate!

(Though he may be flying a flag that says, "For God and Poodle Pie!"

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:24 am

geoff wrote:Would love a battle report when you are done. I am doing an Early Catholic TYW army myself in the near future.

Cheers.......Geoff

Too bad you're not near us. We could always use a cannon ball boy!

jonphilp · Post by **jonphilp** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:42 pm

Hi,

We have had a couple of games with Early Catholic TYW v Early Swedish. Using early tercios to anchor the main infantry battle line supported by Bandellier Reiter & Kurassiere's has negated the Swedish horse whilst the late tercio's and artillery tried to break the Swedish foot before any hand to hand combat. Two victoires so far for the Catholics but the tercios really soak up the points and are hard to manoeuvre around the battefield.

Looking forward to the battle report although I am not holding out much hope for the Protestants.

Are you using the Tartschier on the Catholic side. I have the figures but have never had the points to include them in my army and I am interested in how they will work on the battlefield.

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 4:30 pm

I calculated:

1 superior tercio = muskets @ 11pts x 6 (66) + pikes @ 9 x 6 (54) = 120pts

That's for a 4 base width. Two of the beasts equals 9 base width (1 in between to allow for divisional movement) and 240pts.

With my Bgs running at 44pts each for average, I can basically have 3 to each tercio.

Now, we have another idea or two as well, but the walls have ears around here...spies everywhere!!

My horse is good quality, so we should be able to hold our own there.

I would think that if I can take out one of those tercios, my vast numbers of regiments will then be able to swarm through!!!

hazelbark · Post by **hazelbark** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:05 pm

Here's a tip.

Command out the shot in some of your average units. Create an 8 stand musket unit put in in front of the Tercio. Shoot away and fight with a general in the front rank.

That's if the Tercio's have 3 ranks of pike. You will fight on evens. Be less likley to autobreak. And put out a lot more firepower than they expect. use the remaining pike for either rear support, target practice or march them off in the 12 MU flank zone to face off enemy mounted.

Although 4-6 medium guns all adjacent aiming at one Tercio are going to do a LOT of damage as it advances. Something like 8 rounds of shooting with 4-6 dice on evens. Should be worth at least one test and 2-4 bases dead.

People are so used to a single battery they really don't realize how much massed firepower this is, when they get the + for shooting at 3 ranks or Tercio

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:34 am

I keep wondering why everyone says the Tercios are so slow (does that translate into "battle turtle of death" or something?) They move 3 MU's per turn, 6 if there is a general present just like the rest of the foot. Perhaps the depth makes them seem slower.
One thing I was wondering was if you wheel them do the rear ranks kink or do they hold the footprint and swing wide out back? (large derriere and lack of room foreseeable here)

As for the Tarschier, none in this army. I only have 2 points to spare so no fully armoured knights. I also don't think I have any figures about that I could sub in for them, perhaps next time as I was intrigued by them.
I have also dropped the FF's, was going to get them for the cannons but they got dropped as I needed points elsewhere and I have troops to defend the guns, speaking of which any heavy guns on the protestant side???
I am confident my own cav will be both numerous and deadly enough to take care of any protestent kindling mounted on horses

Can't go into detail here as the ears have walls, fortunately the Protestant spies don't bathe so we can smell them out.

"God loves Tilly"

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 1:40 am

Speaking of flags back in the early release days there was a post that listed a web site which had several flags for the 30YW. Mostly they were Danish, but there were some nice CAtholic flags in there as well, unfortunately I failed to down load them (or can't find them on my hard drive which is also possible) but I have been unable to find the post or relocate the site. I believe it was a German site. Most of my flags are on wires so they can be slipped on and off, I have some nice double headed eagle flags I managed to find online so I think some of my flags will look less English and more Imperial at least.

stecal · Post by **stecal** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:00 am

this one?

http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/alexflags/tyw.html

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 2:15 am

deadtorius wrote:Speaking of flags back in the early release days there was a post that listed a web site which had several flags for the 30YW. Mostly they were Danish, but there were some nice CAtholic flags in there as well, unfortunately I failed to down load them (or can't find them on my hard drive which is also possible) but I have been unable to find the post or relocate the site. I believe it was a German site. Most of my flags are on wires so they can be slipped on and off, I have some nice double headed eagle flags I managed to find online so I think some of my flags will look less English and more Imperial at least.

Show-off!

(He made his flags removable for just such an occasion.)(While we, the righteous, firmly established them in our regiments.)

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 5:05 pm

I like the idea of a 4pak of pikes as rear support. Just might have to try that. And they wouldn't have to worry about that cursed - for shooting on the far flank with a threatened flank! (Tried that last time and even my superior boys couldn't hit a single horse!!!)

I don't like the idea of a 4 base wide shot BG of 8 bases just sitting as a ripe target for cuirassiers.

But there sure would be a lot of musket smoke just before they charged into me!!!!

Ah, will see. Still debating the final battle plan.

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 5:07 pm

Or...

Use those 4pak pikes in behind artillery as support. That way, no muskets are wasted behind the artillery guns.

shadowdragon · Post by **shadowdragon** » Fri Jul 29, 2011 6:15 pm

Blathergut wrote:
deadtorius wrote:Speaking of flags back in the early release days there was a post that listed a web site which had several flags for the 30YW. Mostly they were Danish, but there were some nice CAtholic flags in there as well, unfortunately I failed to down load them (or can't find them on my hard drive which is also possible) but I have been unable to find the post or relocate the site. I believe it was a German site. Most of my flags are on wires so they can be slipped on and off, I have some nice double headed eagle flags I managed to find online so I think some of my flags will look less English and more Imperial at least.
Show-off!

(He made his flags removable for just such an occasion.)(While we, the righteous, firmly established them in our regiments.)

Perhaps that's also useful for occasions when he needs to use his white flags.