WOTR: Use of bills / bows as separate units?

[SirRoystonPapworth]

It also depends on what we consider a retinue.

At the basic level this may only be less than 10 men brought by minor gentleman. But would you expect this to be a ‘unit’? Isn’t it likely that this would be combined into a greater lords retinue and organised into weapon types? If not you may end up with heavily armoured men in a rear rank, behind a lightly armed billmen as retinues try to keep together.

Even bow at the rear implies a level of organisation outside of just the retinue.

And, looking forward to the ECW, there you had regiments being reorganised into viable units by the Sergeant-Major General rather than fighting as purely one regiment.

Thinking that the captains of WotR armies couldn’t organise their troops into effective units I think belittles both their experience and their abilities.

I’m firmly in the separate units camp., otherwise how did Fauconberg deploy a vanguard of archers at Towton for example?

[LCpl McDoom]

There may be something in the once long-running, now preserved in aspic, ‘Force composition in the Wars of The Roses’ thread here that helps address your question, although you’ve probably already spotted that…

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=59060.0

Thank you for reposting this link, I had lost it a while back. It is still for me one of the stand-out better aspects on the LAF. 

[rampantlion]

I published a set of rules years ago (Vows of Iron), and I used them as separate units but if touching they could work together and pass through each other as needed.  If they were shire levy I had them take a disorder check.  There were a few more rules to them but those were some of the basics.  That worked pretty well but they were not exactly a combined unit.

[Moriarty]

If your retinue came to an assembly as mixed bill, bow and men-at-arms, messed together, camped together, were a coherent whole for morale purposes, I can’t see that cohesion being sacrificed on the altar of ‘units’. A Battle being composed of multiple retinues, archers ordered to the fore as needed, I can.
 
How did we have bodies of archers and men-at-arms at Agincourt? Is it because men were ‘indented’ to serve with a set number of followers, like John Akeland who served with 25 other archers? Did others, like Thurstan Anderton esquire, indented to bring two other men-at-arms and six archers, command all six archers and his two companions serve in the centre? Was there a difference in the deployment of large retinues such as that of Arundel?

https://www.medievalsoldier.org/about/agincourt-600/the-english-army-in-1415/english-army-table/

[George1863]

I wondered about this question for a while before recruiting for Bosworth in 15mm. Bosworth may be rather different from the battles of the 1460s re force composition, but the large number of shire trained bands called out for the royalist side led me to go for mixed units in the belief that the shire levy at least, would have served under the lord lieutenants who raised them - of whose loyalty they could be reasonably assured. As noted a couple of times above, an 'archer' in the commission of array could also be a billman or spearman (in parts of the country). I have based up dismounted men-at-arms in separate units on the grounds that Surrey seems to have commanded a distinct group armed with polearms in Norfolk's 'battle', but other units are mixed and classed as 'shire' or 'retinue.'

A lot of this is to do with the scale of the project. Mine will be about 25 to 30 elements per side in 15mm. It's an interesting side-hustle to other periods. If it was a main project in 28mm, I might have gone about it differently (i.e. Norfolk's 'battle' might have been broken down into twice as many elements, in which case bows and bills could have been fielded separately).

As an aside, I have gone for half and half in bows and bills. It used to be thought - certainly in rulesets - that 2/3rds of the unit should be armed with bows. I have always thought that proportion too high, at least for the 1480s.           

[Dave Knight]

The big problem with mixed bill and bow units is that it gives the wargamer too many options.  Each unit can normally switch between melee capable and shooting capable multiple times.  The research that I did for Test of Resolve Wars of the Roses suggests that in most cases high volume archery ( effective in wargaming terms) was done at the start of the battle.  The troops equipped with bills and polearms for melee then closed and fought it out.
It always looks odd to me when a mixed unit of bill and bow gets itself into an advantageous position to shoot half way through a battle and delivers a decisive volley of arrows.  OK perhaps at a skirmish level but not in a  reasonable sized battle.

[Basementboy]

It would be interesting having the option to “up armour” archers with more melee troops in exchange for a reduced rate of fire- maybe during list-building? I feel like there’s a rule set that does that

[Uxbridge]

There may be something in the once long-running, now preserved in aspic, ‘Force composition in the Wars of The Roses’ thread here that helps address your question, although you’ve probably already spotted that…

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=59060.0

I hadn't come across that thread so thanks for posting the link.  WOTR is on hold at the moment while I frantically paint 15mm Seleucids for an event (I forgot that my ability to estimate painting times is woeful with some 'units' taking much MUCH longer than anticipated!).

Thanks for all the very interesting replies, much to ponder.  I'm leaning towards a combination of mixed and separate I think, as much for the variety if anything.  If every foot unit, save perhaps for MAA, is a combined mixed bill / bow it could be a bit samey.  I've also seen the mention of massed archery volleys, almost an archery duel, with the archers then retiring while the bills and MAA then get to slug it out.  Whichever route I go at least I'll know that neither (or a combined) route is definitively wrong.