Raglan's Italian Wars

[Atheling]

Lovely work Gareth 

You're storing on with these mate 

[Lord Raglan]

Lovely work Gareth 

You're storing on with these mate 

Cheers mate

I have a bit of an arms race going on with some of the boys on Twitter. I hope to have a playable French army by the end of May.

[Atheling]

Cheers mate

I have a bit of an arms race going on with some of the boys on Twitter. I hope to have a playable French army by the end of May.

The end of may!! I hope to have one unit finished by then, two at tops! 

My one fault though, I sometimes have periods where i spend too much time messing around on the net 

[Bloggard]

wunderbar

[Lord Raglan]

The end of may!! I hope to have one unit finished by then, two at tops! 

My one fault though, I sometimes have periods where i spend too much time messing around on the net 

Aiming for at least 3 big pike units and some additional infantry support, plus 2 wings of cavalry, one heavy and one light.

[Atheling]

Aiming for at least 3 big pike units and some additional infantry support, plus 2 wings of cavalry, one heavy and one light.

How big for the pike Gareth? Assuming you're still looking at Furioso?

[Lord Raglan]

How big for the pike Gareth? Assuming you're still looking at Furioso?

Definitely Furioso, it ticks all the boxes for me.

Swiss pike are 72 figs per block, but most of the others are 56 figs. 

[Atheling]

Definitely Furioso, it ticks all the boxes for me.

Swiss pike are 72 figs per block, but most of the others are 56 figs.

Excellent. Large pike blocks are a great way of doing it. They just look "right". Smaller blocks lack that key component.

[Lord Raglan]

Excellent. Large pike blocks are a great way of doing it. They just look "right". Smaller blocks lack that key component.

I am now thinking of going bigger for the Spanish Tercio

[Atheling]

I am now thinking of going bigger for the Spanish Tercio

They're a difficult body of troops to pin down in the right formation really. The temptation is to have a whole rank of Sword and Buckler to the fore backed up in turn by the Arquebus then Pike. I'm not sure (is anyone?) how they actually formed this early on but however they did, it was very effective.

[Hu Rhu]

I am now thinking of going bigger for the Spanish Tercio

They're a difficult body of troops to pin down in the right formation really. The temptation is to have a whole rank of Sword and Buckler to the fore backed up in turn by the Arquebus then Pike. I'm not sure (is anyone?) how they actually formed this early on but however they did, it was very effective.

As I understand it, if you are talking about the early Italian Wars then the Spanish used the Colunella, a fore runner of the Tercio, a mix of Pike, Arquebus and Swordsmen.  Initially the bulk  of spanish troops were sword and buckler men which were effective in the Reconquista but they found that these could not stand against the French/Swiss pike so they raised the ratio of pike and arquebus and reduced considerably the number of sword and buckler men.

Whilst no-one knows the exact ratio the rough numbers were 4:4:1 - Pike, Arquebus, Sword forned in a single unit of around 1000 to 1200 men.  They usually 'brigaded' 3 or 4 Colunellas together which (much) later turned into  the Tercio system.

An effective way of portraying this on the table is to have a unit of 12-16 Arquebus in two ranks backed up by another 2-4 ranks of pike (12-16) with a single rank of swordsmen ( at the rear or perhaps on the side of the colunella in two blocks of 4. The unit then fights as a combined shot and melee unit, gaining the advantage of the mix of weapons but with lesser effectiveness in hand to hand combat with the Swiss pike blocks.  Which is why the Spanish almost always fought defensive battles with their infantry behind some form of obstacle or barricade.

Olicanalad has posted a number of ideas about the colunellas.  A link to his blog is here:
http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-second-italian-wars-battle-using-pike.html

Here's a poor picture of how I utilise portray the colunella for Pike and Shot.

[Atheling]

Thanks Hu Rhu. A very sexy looking unit.

I'm familiar with James Roach's excellent blog.

The only thing I would add to what you have presented is that due to a more comparatively heavy emphasis, early on in the First War, by the Spanish on the arquebus in comparison to that of the Italian, French etc I would be tempted to put more arquebus carrying models on the bases to represent the relative prevalence of that troop type compared to other nations.

Cerignola 1502 CE is a very interesting battle in this regard. I'm actually contemplating switching my game from Fornovo to Cerignola as it is certainly a more interesting battle. The problem as usual, is the lack of heraldic info in English. I was a little disappointed to see that Massimo Predonzani, Vincenzo Alberici, Rachele Tiso latest offering didn't cover the battle.

[Hu Rhu]

The only thing I would add to what you have presented is that due to a more comparatively heavy emphasis, early on in the First War, by the Spanish on the arquebus in comparison to that of the Italian, French etc I would be tempted to put more arquebus carrying models on the bases to represent the relative prevalence of that troop type compared to other nations.

I quite agree and plan to double the number of arquebus figures in each colunella.

[Atheling]

I quite agree and plan to double the number of arquebus figures in each colunella.

I look forward to seeing then mate

[archiduque]

Excellent work!!!