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    The Pikeman’s Lament: Pike and Shot Wargaming Rules
    The Pikeman’s Lament: Pike and Shot Wargaming Rules
    The Pikeman’s Lament: Pike and Shot Wargaming Rules
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    The Pikeman’s Lament: Pike and Shot Wargaming Rules

    By Daniel Mersey, Michael Leck and Mark Stacey

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    About this ebook

    Recreate the action and drama of 17th Century warfare on your tabletop with The Pikeman's Lament. Start by creating your Officer – is he a natural leader raised from the ranks, the youngest son of a noble family, or an old veteran who has seen too many battles? As you campaign, your Officer will win honour and gain promotion, acquiring traits that may help lead his men to victory. Before each skirmish, your Officer must raise his Company from a wide range of unit options – should he lean towards hard-hitting heavy cavalry or favour solid, defensively minded infantry? Companies are typically formed from 6–8 units, each made up of either 6 or 12 figures, and quick, decisive, and dramatic games are the order of the day. With core mechanics based on Daniel Mersey's popular Lion Rampant rules, The Pikeman's Lament captures the military flavour of the 17th Century, and allows you to recreate skirmishes and raids from conflicts such as the Thirty Years' War, the English Civil Wars, and the Great Northern War.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJan 26, 2017
    ISBN9781472817334
    The Pikeman’s Lament: Pike and Shot Wargaming Rules
    Author

    Daniel Mersey

    Daniel Mersey has spent more than three decades leading miniature armies to spectacular defeat on tabletop battlefields. He has won no medals and his armies will never salute him. Daniel has been writing books, gaming articles, and rulesets since the 1990s. His rulebooks for Osprey Publishing include two Origins Award-nominated titles, Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant, and the UK Games Expo Judges' Award-winning Rebels and Patriots (with Michael Leck). In 2021, Daniel was appointed as the University of Edinburgh's first ever Games Designer in Residence.

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      Book preview

      The Pikeman’s Lament - Daniel Mersey

      CONTENTS

      1. INTRODUCTION

      Getting Started

      Basing Your Models

      2. RAISING YOUR COMPANY

      Officers

      Commanding Your Company

      Understanding Unit Profiles

      Choosing Your Units

      Spending Your Last Couple of Points

      Horse Units

      Foot Units

      3. BATTLE RULES

      Important Rules Conventions

      What Happens During Each Turn

      Activating Your Units

      Issue a Challenge

      Rally Wavering Units

      Test for Wild Charges

      Ordered Activations

      Ending Your Activation Phase

      Moving

      Shooting

      Attacking

      Testing Morale

      4. MISSIONS

      Setting up a Game

      Terrain

      Choosing Attackers and Defenders

      Deploying Your Company

      Choosing Your Special Orders

      Winning a Game

      Mission A: Gå På!

      Mission B: Patrol

      Mission C: The King's War Chest

      Mission D: River Crossing

      Mission E: Morning Assault

      Mission F: Steak on the Hoof

      Mission G: Beating Up Quarters

      Mission H: Storm the Redoubt

      Mission I: Foraging at the Village

      Mission J: Rescue Mission

      5. SAMPLE COMPANIES

      Thirty Years' War 1618–48

      English Civil Wars 1642–51

      The Deluge 1655–60

      Scanian War 1675–79

      King William's War 1688–97

      Great Northern War 1700–21

      OFFICER ROSTER

      COMPANY ROSTER

      1. INTRODUCTION

      Welcome to The Pikeman's Lament, a set of simple and fast-moving miniature wargaming rules designed for the pike and shot period, from the Thirty Years' War, through the English Civil Wars, to the end of the Great Northern War and beyond. The Pikeman's Lament helps you to refight ambushes, escort missions, and other tasks performed by a small company of soldiers rather than a full army. We call this 'outpost warfare'.

      In his book Pike and Shot Tactics 1590–1660 (Osprey, 2010), author Keith Roberts vividly describes the style of action we hope you will be able to recreate with your miniature armies and our rules:

      George Monk wrote It is very fit a General should often command his Galloper and Dragoons to fall upon his Enemies outermost Galloper-Quarters. Which is one of the readiest, easiest and securest ways that I know to break an Enemies Army. This type of action was carried out at night or in the early hours of the morning, and could sometimes involve large numbers of men. Usually, however, these missions were smaller raids by a few troops of cavalry on a static garrison, or the outlying quarters of a marching army as it advanced or retreated. This was an everyday feature of military activity, and the optimum way of carrying out this type of raid was included in cavalry training manuals. The description in John Cruso's, and that in John Vernon's (which is based on Cruso), described the use of cavalry only, but it was common to support the attack with Shots – provided either by dragoons or by infantry temporarily mounted or riding double behind cavalrymen. Dragoons or other Shots would be useful in house to house fighting in the enemy quarters themselves, as well as providing firepower support for cavalry actions. Essentially, the attackers' Special order was to cut down the enemy sentries before an alarm could be given and then overrun the corps de gard, who must be armed all night, and have their Gallopers at hand, readie and bridled. They would then seek to take control of the alarme point (the area designated for troops in quarters to Raising in the case of an alarm), and any other large open space where the enemy garrison might gather to organize themselves, such as the market place. Cruso described the alarm point as that place without [i.e. outside] the village, where the souldiers are to assemble to withstand an assailing enemie, being a place of great consequence. The commander of the quarter would have given advance instructions in case of an attack, and appointeth a certain place for every troop, where they shall stand, which way faced. By sending a troop to ride through the streets the attacking cavalry kept their opponents in small groups, which could then be killed or captured while isolated. Lastly, when the surprised occupiers gave up the struggle and sought to escape, a troop waiting outside the quarters would intercept them. The Special order of the defending commander was to slow down the attack at all costs with his corps de gard and any other men he could get together quickly, in order to give the bulk of his force a chance to arm and organize themselves to resist the attack en masse rather than in isolated handfuls.

      Perry Miniatures English Civil War company – Haselrig's 'London Lobsters' lead the way. (Alan and Michael Perry)

      Campbell of Lawers' attack on Auldearn Village, by Gerry Embleton © Osprey Publishing. Taken from Campaign 123: Auldearn 1645.

      Alongside the rules, The Pikeman's Lament presents a varied selection of missions and allows players scope for choosing their own victory conditions. This means that you can concentrate on playing the mission and enjoying yourself without getting bogged down in rules. The rules are model scale-neutral; many gamers choose 28mm, but 15mm is cost- and space-effective, if less spectacular to look at.

      Our design goal has been to successfully rework the Lion Rampant medieval wargaming rules to represent this next evolution of historical warfare. Many of the rules remain as they were – we're not trying to reinvent the wheel – but the troop types, campaign system, missions, and some smaller rules are different to the original game. As with Lion Rampant, we've focused on the overall 'feel' and 'flow' of the game, rather than worrying ourselves about the minutiae of historical simulation. Even if you are familiar with Lion Rampant, please read the rules carefully, as there are some differences that we have introduced to better fit our vision of pike and shot warfare.

      More than anything else, we wanted to work together to create a pike and shot miniatures game that is easy to play and enjoyably fun. We hope you agree that we've done so!

      Design Note

      We don't like to be too precise about table sizes to play on. Most missions will play out nicely on a 4x3' table… there's limited movement before the actual fighting starts, leading to quicker games and more than one mission in an evening's play. For multiplayer games we most often use a 6x4' table.

      GETTING STARTED

      To play The Pikeman's Lament you'll need to create an Officer to lead your Company, assemble the troops to follow him, and read through the Battle Rules. Keep the book handy through your first few games, but most players find they are familiar with the basics after a couple of games.

      In addition, you'll need a couple of model armies (usually around 40–60 models in each), a good handful of dice (a dozen or so per player is perfect), a gaming table with some scenery on it, a tape measure showing inches, some markers to show Wavering units, and one or more friendly opponents (unfriendly opponents are allowed but not recommended).

      BASING YOUR MODELS

      The Pikeman's Lament is written

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