Horse and musket infantry in six ranks?

[mmcv]

Looks great Leman. The 2mm scenics are quite tempting given you can represent entire towns quite easily.

Having played at the three scales which is your favourite for the FPW?

I'm also looking at Austro Prussian and Crimea as options too. Have ordered BBB and BBEB so will see if any other scenarios tickle me from them as well.

[Hwiccee]

Yeah GNW seems a bit fuzzy between P&S and H&M, right at the changeover period. Not a conflict I know much about beyond a little googling and wiki crawling.

Yes and indeed the whole period up to 1720 is really more P&S than H&M. Even in the West most armies used pikes in the early stages of the WSS. People are often fooled by the uniforms which look very H&M but everything else is a lot more like P&S.

What do you mean by not as I think? As in the models don't match the historical formations?

No I meant more that people often think they are still using the classic Tercios and similar at this time - the big square with 4 shot blocks on each corner. I didn't use the 'P&S' 2mm from Irregular to make units. Instead I used the 6 rank blocks you have and similar pike blocks and then constructed units from them. In some cases this involved filing down blocks & gluing them together to make bigger blocks.

Will be interested to see how this turns out. 1:1 is certainly doable at 2mm but that's going to be an epic project. Will be good to see how they turn out on a 3d printer. Presumably you've done some test prints?

Yes I have done some tests but that is all so far. The main problem is even in 2mm 1 to 1 units are massive and so I would need a 35 foot table for my original plan. So I am having a rethink.

I have tried to attach a couple of pictures. One of Irregular P&S units and the other of 1 to 1 3D printed WSS units.

[mmcv]

No I meant more that people often think they are still using the classic Tercios and similar at this time - the big square with 4 shot blocks on each corner. I didn't use the 'P&S' 2mm from Irregular to make units. Instead I used the 6 rank blocks you have and similar pike blocks and then constructed units from them. In some cases this involved filing down blocks & gluing them together to make bigger blocks.

Did Tilly and Wallenstein not use the big Tercios still in some of his battles? I know the Dutch and Swedish styles were showing their superiority and use under the Protestant forces, but I'd thought there was still a few of the big bastion Tercios were used by the Catholic League. That might just be the idealised style in the artwork mind you.

Yes I have done some tests but that is all so far. The main problem is even in 2mm 1 to 1 units are massive and so I would need a 35 foot table for my original plan. So I am having a rethink.

Time for 1mm?

I have tried to attach a couple of pictures. One of Irregular P&S units and the other of 1 to 1 3D printed WSS units.

They look amazing. I'd thought of using the 2mm stuff as more of a glorified counter to represent huge battles or to play on small table tops, but you've really made them look superb.

The 1:1 just goes to show the sheer numbers of people involved in these battles, something easy to miss when using representative units.

[Hwiccee]

Did Tilly and Wallenstein not use the big Tercios still in some of his battles? I know the Dutch and Swedish styles were showing their superiority and use under the Protestant forces, but I'd thought there was still a few of the big bastion Tercios were used by the Catholic League. That might just be the idealised style in the artwork mind you.

Tercios continued to be used until 1704 but from circa 1635-40 they were identical to regiments/battalia - i.e. they looked like all other units. Before then they still looked like most other units around but were deeper. Tilly might have used deep units, like the one on the left but the evidence is not clear. The one in the middle was widely used in the early stages including by the Dutch and by Catholic armies not commanded by Tilly. The big 'old style' tercios in art are apparently not used.

Time for 1mm?

I think not In 2mm they still look something like figures and a unit but much smaller you might as well use a counter.

They look amazing. I'd thought of using the 2mm stuff as more of a glorified counter to represent huge battles or to play on small table tops, but you've really made them look superb.

The 1:1 just goes to show the sheer numbers of people involved in these battles, something easy to miss when using representative units.

Thanks for the kind comment and the last part was what I had in mind. I intend to do a real historical battle at 1 to 1 as this should really show some of the realities of the period. It is though not very good from a gaming point of view as even for relatively small battles you need a large table. So I will mainly be sticking with my 10mm for most things

The ECW/TYW units are scaled down and so more user friendly - a unit is a 'brigade' and so most battle are on 6 by 4 tables. I created them when developing a rules set but now I am replacing them with something more visual.

[mmcv]

Tercios continued to be used until 1704 but from circa 1635-40 they were identical to regiments/battalia - i.e. they looked like all other units. Before then they still looked like most other units around but were deeper. Tilly might have used deep units, like the one on the left but the evidence is not clear. The one in the middle was widely used in the early stages including by the Dutch and by Catholic armies not commanded by Tilly. The big 'old style' tercios in art are apparently not used.

I think not In 2mm they still look something like figures and a unit but much smaller you might as well use a counter.

Thanks for the kind comment and the last part was what I had in mind. I intend to do a real historical battle at 1 to 1 as this should really show some of the realities of the period. It is though not very good from a gaming point of view as even for relatively small battles you need a large table. So I will mainly be sticking with my 10mm for most things

The ECW/TYW units are scaled down and so more user friendly - a unit is a 'brigade' and so most battle are on 6 by 4 tables. I created them when developing a rules set but now I am replacing them with something more visual.

Good to know, thanks. I've been working on ECW in 10mm so have plenty of experience with the Dutch style formations anyway!

Out of interest what frontage did your 1:1 troops end up at? Hard to say from the close up photo.

I'd probably aim for user friendly units in 2mm so I can field a large force in a normal table area, or even make some sort of portable wargame setup.

I'll no doubt do a H&M project in 10mm in future but just want to dip my toes in the water and I've had a notion for a while to try the small scale stuff.

[Hwiccee]

mmcv: The 1:1 infantry are on a 18cm frontage per battalion. The cavalry are on a 9cm frontage per squadrons. At the moment I have files for infantry units of 400, 500 or 600 men and in 3 or 4 ranks. The cavalry also have variants -100, 125 or 150 man squadrons with 3 or 4 troops.

This means you can squeeze 10 battalions on the table & supporting cavalry/artillery on a 6 by 4 table - assuming they are in 2 lines and packed in. Realistically probably less than this.

For user friendly units one of the attractions for me was it was portable. The rules are for large battles which help but I have enough figures to do any ECW/TYW battle in a standard office box file. I have printed mats for 'terrain' that fold up small. So the whole set up is extremely portable.

Good luck on your project.

[mmcv]

Thanks Hwiccee!

[Leman]

Looks great Leman. The 2mm scenics are quite tempting given you can represent entire towns quite easily.

Having played at the three scales which is your favourite for the FPW?

I'm also looking at Austro Prussian and Crimea as options too. Have ordered BBB and BBEB so will see if any other scenarios tickle me from them as well.

I really don't have a favourite scale. I find the bigger battles in the likes of BBB work best with 6mm, but some have very complex scenic requirements and these are best represented in 2mm/3mm scale. !0mm is great for battalion level games like FoB2 and From Shako to Coalscuttle.

I am going to be doing the !866 war in 2mm simply for convenience. Although not technically accurate my Austrian infantry will be in white to easily differentiate them from the Prussians. I have already done BBB Langensalza in this scale. It was popular down the club and has been played three times.

[mmcv]

Yeah my scenery/terrain collection is essentially nil at present. This isn't a big deal with ancients where wide open plains were common battle grounds but for later conflicts they're obviously much more important. 2mm seems like it would be easy to put these scenic elements together compared to making scenery even for 10mm. I'll get there one day with 10mm, will need plenty of hedges for my ECW stuff of course, but want a smallish, cheap project I can get on the table quickly for later this year as that pesky real life business is pretty busy at the moment and will be for a while to come!

[Leman]

Very small scale scenery has the same problem as figures, i.e. inconsistency in scale. Irregular's original 2mm buildings are very small indeed, but the later IK range are slightly bigger, and fit well with Brigade Models small scale scenery. There is more consistency in 3mm between Peter Pig, Paper Terrain and TBM.