Art De La Guerre

[IainR]

I have been reading about the Scots armies in the 14th and 15th Centuries (which this list represents) and have a number of suggestions to make it more authentic. Would appreciate others' thoughts on this.

The main issue is how to most accurately represent the Schiltrons - the list currently offers Heavy Spear or Mediocre Pike with many (including myself) choosing the pike as the best compromise. However, there is very little evidence to support the use of Pike (i.e.15-18 foot) prior to the disastrous learning experience at Flodden, which is technically outside the date range for this list. The use of Heavy Spear would be more accurate but this doesn't reflect the heavier formations particularly well, given that the nobles generally fought in the front rank with armour and 2HW with the second ranks projecting their spears forward. A combination Heavy Spear + armour + 2HW would be appropriate (although the combination of 2HW and spear would be unique in ADLG).

Obviously going down this path would imply that there should not be separate Scottish Foot Knight units - they fought as part of the Schiltron. The use of French knights and crossbows was such a rare occurrence it should be discouraged - looking at online army suggestions it appears everyone is taking this option despite it being limited to one campaign season in 1385 (which had no historical battles).

The other glaring problem with the list is the complete lack of Scottish horse. From the time of William Wallace onwards, realising they could not match the English knights and needing some way of protecting flanks from the deadly archers, the Scots had routinely deployed forces of hobelars with their armies and they are attested in many of the major battles of the era.

If no other changes are made, I would strongly suggest that the list excludes the use of Scottish mounted Knights but instead includes up to 4 units of Medium Cavalry Impact or Light Cavalry Javelin.

[madaxeman]

Schiltrons fall into a wider category of “troop types that the standard suite of ADLG categories don’t quite cover”… but going down the route of adding in special rules for every unique troop type in history is a rathole that thankfully almost all wargames rules nowadays have consigned to the dustbin of rules writing history.. 

At the end of the day though, combat in ADLG is resolved by rolling two dice and adding a number of modifiers to each one. 

Giving Schiltrons the Mediocre Pike factor does make them a bit better than Spearmen, and particularly dangerous to enemy knights, but still brittle in combat and vulnerable to dismounted knights.  

As long as the overall end result is kinda right therefore, I’d be tempted to ignore the “pike means very long pointy stick”  thing and rationalise it as “they are a unique edge case where the Mediocre Pike factors have a decent stab at getting the right outcomes”
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www.madaxeman.com

[ethan]

[Mark G Fry]

Hi IanR

I have previously made a few suggestions about this list (to allow it to fight the Henrician Tudor list) - although I cannot find the thread - where I suggested that for the Flodden Campaign (which does come within the scope of the v.4 rules now) that a % of the schiltrons should be allowed to be upgraded to: Pike, Pavice Mediocre.
NB: the numbers of armoured Scottish nobles as a % of the overall formation was always relatively small and the chaps at the back might only be armed with a stave or dirk, so Pike mediocre is really a levelling out across the unit.

In addition, for later C15th & early C16th armies there needs to be an option to have 1 unit of Handgunners to replace 1 of the Longbows and that there also needs to be the addition of some Borderers (which is a more obvious omission).
The Borderers are probably best represented as: LC or MC impact or dismounted as HF spear (to represent them at Flodden). The LC/MC impact designation reflects what already exists in the WotR list.

However, I am with Tim & ethan as far as the current Pike mediocre designation goes - it is (IMHO) already very generous, and the numbers of polearms and axes was probably in a minority, especially in a general Lowland levy. The Highland & Isles allied contingent solves some of your challenges.