ECW Dragoon Horseholders

[mollinary]

We just use markers for dismounts and if the unit can remount it simply does, regardless of the markers location -it stops the tail wagging the dog so to speak and units chasing down the horse holders -a bit too odd.

As for the marker itself, we use a mounted figure and several empty horses. Horse holders rarely actually dismounted them selves. Controlling 4 horses whilst on foot and then trying to Mount one as well is actually a bit tricky.

Hi Dr Dave, interesting views.  I gave this a lot of thought when writing the rules, but would be very interested in any first hand accounts of how Dragoons fought that you may have come across. Regarding whether the horseholder himself was mounted or dismounted, the only contemporary illustration I have seen is in Anglia Rediviva showing Okey's Dragoons at Naseby. The horseholders illustrated are clearly on foot. I would be very grateful if you could share the information which led you to the conclusion that  horseholders 'rarely' actually dismounted.  My rationale for making the dismounted marker stationary was the idea of them moving behind a dismounted unit, dragging the horses with them, seemed inherently implausible, but I am open to other views, particularly if we have evidence of the holders being mounted.

[d_Guy]

Eduardo Wagner bases his large set of lovely watercolors on contemporary illustrations (Thirty Years War period) and has a page devoted to dragoons. He shows the horse holder (with a small whip) dismounted and holding five horses but in a different way then you would first imagine - the reins of horse one are looped over the neck of horse two, horse two over horse three and so on. All the mounts were then placed together and surrounded by a few mounted pickets. This is, of course, roughly 40 years before the ECW and in Europe at a time when dragoons often included pikemen.

I haven't, as yet, found any detailed examples in military publications of the period about how dragoons might have handled their mounts.
FK&P works well because you normally dismount where you deploy to fight. If you maneuver away without remounting you definitely put your mounts at risk, since they don't move.

[d_Guy]

Literacy is not yet a thing of the past!

It was that or shout, "Bol***s!"

[Westmarcher]

We just use markers for dismounts and if the unit can remount it simply does, regardless of the markers location -it stops the tail wagging the dog so to speak and units chasing down the horse holders -a bit too odd.

Naturally, it would make sense for the horses to be held near by, but whether the horse holders were mounted or dismounted (and I am inclined to believe both situations occurred depending on doctrine and era), I find it odd that the horses and horse holders would follow the dismounted troops around a battlefield. So, even without taking into account the conclusions of Mollinary's and D-Guy's findings regarding this era, with perhaps the odd exception, I think it more likely that the horses would stay in the one place while the dismounted troops deployed ahead in accordance with orders, terrain and opportunity to discomfit the enemy. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of any other rules that handle dismounting so sensibly. Once again, well done, Molllinary!