6mm ECW with "Tercios" Rules Cheriton 1644

[robh]

A few pictures of a game we played recently with my 6mm H&R English Civil War figures and scenery using the Brevis version of the excellent "Tercios: Liber Militum" Rules.


Initial deployments: Noble Royalists on the left the enemy to the right


Waller's Advance


Confused Melee in the valley


Sir George Lisle's Tercio (including my ECWS re-enactment regiment Sir Thomas Blackwells)

A very confusing battle to game due to the many contradictory versions of its location, alignment to the physical terrain and biased period accounts.  For the game scenario I went with the "British Battles" website analysis which is probably the best:

https://www.britishbattles.com/english-civil-war/battle-of-cheriton/

Not an battle account as such but for those interested in such things  Sir William Waller advanced his entire line into the valley but found co-ordinating a general assault impossible due to the disorganising lane and dense hedgerows which crossed the field. Lord Hopton held the Royalist defence on the crest launching limited counter attacks to turn back the Parliamentarian Infantry. The battle eventually being decided in the Royalist favour by the decisive advance of Sir Edward Stawell's cavalry wing which crushed  the opposing horse of Sir Arthur Heslerige and turned the flank of the Parliament army.

[fred]

Very effective looking game - the overhead shots look very natural

[FifteensAway]

Very nice.  And what I like most about the game - and there is much to like visually - is that it is a 'small' scale game that is not littered with unsightly labels on the bases.  Thank you for that. 

Also nice that the base texturing blends well with your terrain; you found a good balance point.  Having said that, how do you identify the figures?  Not that it is strictly necessary - don't need in 15 mm so I'm certain it can be done without in 6 mm.  Well done and inspiring. 

Your display gives me hope for the possibility of my moving down in scale for the Seven Years War (too much already in 15 mm for storage and too costly to add another to too many periods).

[jambo1]

Great looking game, very nice indeed!!

[DintheDin]

Beautiful table setup and in this scale a panoramic sight! Must have been a very enjoyable game!

[robh]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the comments.

15s:  "Tercios" uses a system of unit 'wear' rather than casualties (the small penny tokens behind the bases in my picture). Wear represents an amalgam of the units training, quality, size and cohesion and rises and falls as the unit fights or rallies.
Apart from this you only need to note units which are disordered by combat situation or terrain, (a slightly different looking penny  token)

For narrative purposes units are identified by a name label on the rear of the base.  I despise seeing figure games with intrusive labels so make mine as low impact as possible. I print them off on my PC to match the base colour as closely as possible. An off table OOB/roster notes any special rules or characteristics pertinent to a given unit.


Over zoomed in view of the label on Bulstrode's Regiment from a different game.

That picture does show the only thing I dislike about "Tercios" which is the order card placed on each unit during the command phase.  They are supplied as micro playing card size and I suppose would be OK for the 28mm or 15mm figures the game is designed for but are enormous against my 6mm bases.
I now replace them with much less intrusive 5mm x 20mm chits with just the order name on one side with the other coloured table green.

[Dashetal]

I have not had a set of the Tercio rules to peruse but everything about them would seem to fit the general eras I wish to game. Hopefully, they won't be too hard to aquire. Are cards now in the rules? The free download  doesn't seem to exist anymore since their name change.

[robh]

The free version of the rules is available via BGG:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/123150/brevis-edition-english

As far as I am aware card decks still come with the full printed rules. But army specific decks can be purchased....only the rear graphic changes for each army, the rules/game elements on the card fronts are the same on all decks.
The Polish Army kickstarter which ended this afternoon has the Polish patterned deck available for 2€

The decks are not in the free rules but the definitions and rules applicable to each one are so it is easy to make up a set of coloured counters to test the game with.

Sadly their web presence is a real mess, very poor website (https://terciosminiatures.com) which does not show the full range and the very useful rules forum has vanished. Ludicrously the best way of contacting them these days is to use the message function on the KS campaigns.

[Yith]

Sorry to necropost a bit.

This interests me quite a bit. I read the free version of Tercios and I am thinking about doing ECW in 6mm with the full version. I have the rules coming for Christmas.

I note your bases are smaller than the Tercios standard. What sizes are you actually using?

[frank xerox]

I have done exactly the same - rules for Xmas with the idea of going it in 6mm in the New Year.
Good to see someone already doing it and making it look so good.

[robh]

Thanks guys, "Liber Militum: Tercios" is an excellent set of rules that are genuinely scale agnostic and the unit basing, as with Impetus, really suits smaller figures.
I always go with Heroics/Ros out of preference for 6mm as I like the ability to determine the location and spacing of the figures myself rather than be forced into using the strict ranks and equal spacing of the other option.

As with all my 6mm games I use a standard 66% measure, so all distances and corresponding base sizes, movements, ranges, command radii etc are measured as per the rules but using a 66% scaled ruler. No messing with conversions. Accordingly my Tercios bases are 80x40mm (being 66% of 120x60)

The only thing I change for the 6mm figures as I mentioned in the earlier post is to use small coloured counters instead of the order cards which, although small by 28mm figure standards, are massive for my reduced scale.

[Yith]

Thanks Rob.

After 30+ years of mostly fantasy/sci-fi wargaming, with some WW2, Ancients and Dark Ages mixed in, I've been looking at other periods that I have missed.

Napoleonics was the first of these and has been this year's project in 6mm on 60mmx30mm sized bases for use with Blucher.

As a result of this I have new terrain available for other 6mm projects and looking around quite fancy giving ECW a go. I'm very much new to it and will have to get up to speed on the period.

For ECW, I don't think 60mm x 30mm would not allow enough room for the nice pike block with muskets on the flank unit bases. 120mm x 60mm is just too big for the smaller boards I use for 6mm. 80mmx40mm and the 66% rule sound sensible to me, so thanks for that!

I also prefer Heroics and Ros, my Napoleonics are all made from those. See many photos on my blog, linked in my signature.

BTW,  Tercios seems very much the same style of game as Blucher to me. Maybe with fewer elements and a little more detail about each.