Historical Formations in MESBG: Tercios, Testudos, and Cantabrian Circles

Good morning gamers,

Before we begin our series on magic, I thought we might take a short digression into a really fascinating thing I’ve been trying in my games recently: trying to replicate real-life military deployment formations in the MESBG system. Yes, not all things are reflected the way they work in real-life in the MESBG system (pikes don’t get any bonuses against cavalry models, for example), but the principles of real-life tactics should be able to be applied at least in part to any kind of tactical deployment game.

If you read my post on Shieldwall, I went through a few different historical formations that can be used in certain situations by units with Shieldwall (Schiltron, Warped Wall, English Formation). Those real-life examples got me thinking about how you can use other real-life formations to better effect in MESBG (or if they even work). Today, we’ll be looking at three different formations – the Spanish Tercio (mixed melee/ranged infantry formation), the Testudo (melee infantry formation), and the Cantabrian Circle (skirmish cavalry formation).

Formation #1: The Tercio

Historical Background

The Tercio (or Tercio Espanol – “Spanish Third” – or sometimes called a “Spanish Square”) was a formation that was used as gunpowder became more popular in Europe (late 15^th Century). In Europe at the time, here were the things you could depend on:

• Musketeers could kill pikemen because they were slow and were packed together (rock beats scissors);
• Cavalry could kill musketeers because loading/firing muskets was time-consuming and couldn’t be done while retreating (paper beats rock); and
• Pikemen could kill cavalry because of the length of their weapons and the strength of numbers that could be brought to bear by forming tight ranks could kill the horsemen before the pikemen could be reached (scissors beats paper).

The Tercio: one block of pikemen surrounded by four companies of musketeers

So far as I can tell, “lizard” and “Spock” didn’t come into the mix – but you get the idea: different kinds of military units were well-equipped to fight certain kinds of enemy units and were ill-equipped to fight other kinds of units. The Spaniards formed a professional army and developed this idea of blocks of troops moving as a unit to supplement each other’s weaknesses. Here’s what they did:

• The center "checker box" was made of a hollowed out square of pikemen (giving the men on each side the ability to back up or reinforce as needed); and
• Around this square were four squares of musketeers, stationed at each corner of the square with enough flexibility to maneuver.

Tercios themselves were deployed in a checkerboard pattern, with the back of one square being supported by at least one other Tercio – and anyone who walked between two forward Tercios would face the combined firepower of three Tercio squares – ouch! Armies that took one Tercio head-on would find fresh Tercios coming towards their flanks as the checkerboard collapsed into a solid line (hoorah for reserves).

The guiding principles of the Tercio are pretty simple though:

Deploy a mixture of units together to supplement each other's weaknesses.

Deploy in such a way as to not have a vulnerable flank (equally capable of defending on all fronts).

It should be noted that we don’t fight in Tercio Squares anymore – the Swedish and Dutch figured out that if you had a gunline formation, you could rake the Tercio squares by putting more fire on them than they could muster in return (because the Tercios were designed to be responsive to attacks from all sides). This asymmetric approach to dealing with Tercios (all-damage from one direction instead of distributed attacks across all directions) ultimately led to Tercios being abandoned, but they did work for quite a while.

Application to MESBG

The idea of the Tercio is simple enough: a block of spearmen (or pikemen) in a central square, surrounded by some satellites of archers around them. These archers should be ready to fade away from the fighting, letting the spearmen take over from there. Here's what an example Tercio might look like:

A Tercio: 12 spearmen in a loose box formation with 12 archers orbiting around the sides in triplets (because shooting-over-shoulders is a thing).

To make this particular Tercio, we would need:

• Denethor, Steward of Gondor (though you can get away with a Hero of Fortitude)
• 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields, spears, and bows
• 3 Rangers of Gondor with spears
• Faramir, Captain of Gondor with bow (again, you can get away with a Hero of Fortitude)
• 5 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield, spear, and banner
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields, spears, and bows
• 3 Rangers of Gondor with spears

We have a simple block of 12 Warriors of Minas Tirith in the central square (no supports innately). Because trapping your own models is a thing (see Rythbryt's post on Shieldwall for more information), we can't have a two-deep - let alone three-deep - wall facing all sides (actually, we can, but we'll cover that later). Around this loose square, we've placed 6 Rangers of Gondor with spears and 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields, spears, and bows that operate in four groups of three, ready to fire at any models that approach any side of the Tercio. While you might not get all 12 models shooting at once, you should have options for at least nine of them if you maneuver them properly.

Melee units can be vulnerable to shooting units (or magic) and so including some ranged units with them allows you to have "some answer" to whatever pelts at your melee troops. Most ranged units (especially those from Minas Tirith) are in danger of being overrun by melee troops after they arrive (archery is a fickle mistress, after all), so including a block of melee troops that they can form up with is valuable.

Historically, Tercios were intended to be marched as several blocks protecting each other - and with 26 models in this formation (and 50% bows), we're unlikely to have more than one of these formations in most games (though admittedly, this Tercio "only" cost us 367 points - and you can run this formation with 33% bows for 337 points if you run Madril, 1 Captain of Minas Tirith with shield, 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows/spears/shields, 13 Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears/shields, 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield/spear/banner, and 4 Rangers of Gondor with spears). If you want to correct the 50% bow limit in the original formation, you can swap out 4 of the bowmen for melee troops (which would make two-man "musketeer" squads). All that to say, it IS possible at 1000 points to have up to three of these checkerboards deployed (and at 800 points, you could easily have two of these formations working together).

The important thing about this formation is the flexibility it provides - you can respond to attacks from any front equally well - and even if you're surprised, all of the models in the center square have spears, so you can support any of the archers that get charged.

The Tercio compacts pretty easily into a line of battle, with the formation able to advance 1-2" and still form a solid line (with some guys on the flanks to shoot).

This formation can be made by running two warbands - the heroes who lead these warbands can stand in the center of the formation if you need to keep them safe. As the enemy approaches, the archers can fade away from the fighting (the Warriors of Minas Tirith can actually join the formation as they lend Shieldwall to their buddies) and you can shift the formation to focus on receiving your opponent from whatever direction he comes.

With the reformed lines (knowing where the attack will be), any archers who faded away from the line (Rangers in this case) support the lines by keeping flankers off, while the rest of the battle-line (9 files in 2 ranks) are ready to receive whoever comes - that's quite a long battle line (and might be enough to allow you to wrap around your opponent)!

Modified Tercio: an embedded Tercio square - more Prone to traps, better protection from archery.

There is a variation of this, however, that might work better - and that's embedding your archers into your Tercio (instead of having them as separate blocks). In this formation, our archers are part of the square, with single-rank support on the sides and double-rank support on the front/rear. This makes it less likely that the side ranks trap the models at the corners of the formation but still keep whoever is in the formation safe. This is also a much better formation for Shieldwall, as it's harder to disrupt it by killing a single model (a problem with the previous formation). If you do the 33% bow limit variation, the inner-corner archer would be a melee model (you want all of your actual archers on the exterior).

In what situation would you rely on this formation? Well, if you're playing a maelstrom fight (or if you're playing against Goblin-Town, Azog's Legion, or the Wolves of Isengard Legendary Legion) and you expect that your flank could suddenly be a battleground, this formation removes the vulnerabilities that normally face an army in these scenarios. With no real flank, your formation remains flexible to deal with enemy advances (which can change the way your opponent plays). Now for maelstrom fights, this does require both formations to arrive on the same edge and deployed by you, so that may come at the cost of Faramir's (already necessary) Might. If playing a game above 400 points, you'd probably want Madril in your army (and he'd be a cheaper alternative to having Faramir, but I don't own a Madril yet, so he didn't show up in any pictures). :-)

Formation #2: The Testudo Formation

Historical Background

You’ve probably seen the Testudo (Latin for “Tortoise”) formation in movies – it’s where you have a group of (usually Roman) soldiers so packed together that they can protect their front/top from attack with shields and be immune to ranged damage (and possibly using their shields to protect their flanks as well). The formation is pretty simple and very effective – but this should be understood: its primary purpose was to make ranged attacks less effective against it, NOT fighting in close combat (though it could do that to some extent).

Now shieldwalls that mitigate enemy archery were not unique to the Romans - lots of people did it.

The Vikings did it . . .

. . . the Saxons did it . . .

. . . and the Byzantines did it too in a formation they called a foulkon (which military historians believe was derived from the Testudo - they were Roman, after all).

Since the Byzantines hired Viking soldiers (called Varangians) to serve in their armies as bodyguards, maybe the Byzantine methods impacted Viking tactics (and as an extension, the Saxons)? I don't know, jut speculating. The principle being applied should be readily seen:

Deploy your units in a tight formation with their shields positioned to make your units harder to kill with arrows (and possible other things).

At any rate, the formation was intended to be immobile and used to hold important ground: moving in this formation was difficult since the shields didn’t interlock. Instead, if you knew where you wanted to be, you could marshal your army to that point and form the shieldwall there. If you want to know why this would be impractical to do while moving, just consider (queue segue into MESBG) . . .

No shield cover on the side of a slow moving formation where all the deadly archers are? Brilliant...

Application to MESBG

In MESBG, shields boost your Defense value by 1 (usually – Corsair Arbalester Pavises and Vault Warden Foe Shields give more because they’re bigger). While this doesn’t do a whole lot of difference, it CAN make a difference against certain ranged weapons (D6 is great against S3 ranged weapons, but just as good as being D5 against S2 ranged weapons). So how does one employ a Testudo formation in a meaningful way in MESBG?

Well, equipping your shieldwall with shields is probably a good thing anyway, but the idea is to make archery less effective against you. Easterlings have the ability to fight in three ranks and have two models make way for the models in front (assuming everyone has the Phalanx special rule – which Easterling War Priests do not). As such, a Testudo formation might look something like this:

An Easterling Testudo formation - the only faction where it makes sense to run 3 ranks of guys . . .

Here we have your stock-standard Easterling Phalanx – three ranks deep, six files across with the wings of the formation protected by an Easterling Captain with shield. Added to the ends of these formations are four Easterling Warriors with shields to guard the flanks – but instead of flaring to the outside, they’re kept tight in line with the rest of the formation. Since all of the warriors in this formation are D6 (including the banner), they are equally likely to suffer damage from archery as any of the others (with the banner having plenty of options for friendly models to pick up the banner).

This formation on its own is quite vulnerable – a six-man frontage is not likely to last against two formations of enemy troops (wrap-around is real). Thankfully, this formation does have 4 extra warrior slots, so I've opted to bring along four Kataphrakts (who are in a 4s formation to take advantage of their Gleaming Horde special rule, but can also race from one side to the other to protect the flanks from enemy models that try to disrupt your phalanx - you'd want them actually touching each other to take advantage of Gleaming Horde, sorry about the error in the photo!).

If you're not playing Easterlings, you probably don't want to get caught in combat in this formation: like the Schiltron shieldwall formation, the intention with forming up your units this way is to make them harder to kill with archery. Forming a Testudo formation around a banner (as we've done in the example above) will all-but-guarantee that your banner will be picked up by an unengaged model - and that's good! Once you get near the enemy, however, you'll want to spread your troops out into a two-deep battleline to allow your units to Make Way for each other.

This is probably the least creative use for this tactic, but it certainly would work. Other factions (such as the Fiefdoms, Lothlorien, and Isengard) can get pikes as well, but since their pikemen either can’t take shields OR suffer a -1 penalty to their dueling rolls if they take shields (in the case of Uruk-Hai Warriors), most of them would benefit from doing a two-rank deep “Testudo” formation where everyone has a shield and the back rank models have spears (which we don't consider a Testudo). While you can certainly set up your battle lines to get two supporting pikes with these guys, you probably won't see a concentrated block of pikes because of the risk it poses to your engaged friendly models.

This is very unoriginal though . . . Now if you’re looking for originality credit, let’s take a look at our final military formation for today!

Formation #3: The Cantabrian Circle

Historical Background

Probably the greatest example of real-life benefits not being reflected in the game, the Cantabrian circle was used by light horse archers during ancient times (and possibly early medieval times). The idea was simple:

• Horse archers (or horsemen with javelins) would ride in a rough circle that rotated in one direction;
• As each horse archer neared the enemy formation, he would shoot his bow;
• As each horse archer curved away from the enemy formation, he would grab a new arrow or javelin and get ready to shoot again.

Credit: Big Red Bat Cave

Unlike lines of volleying archers, the Cantabrian circle provided a constant pelting of arrows (instead of a devastating barrage with time to reform in between). The horse archers were also in motion, so if enemy warriors tried to shoot them, it was easier to dodge the arrows that were being delivered in return. Finally, because the cavalry were moving, pursuing infantry would find cavalry opponents who could easily move away from them (while reloading, ready to create the circle again when the pursuing infantry were a safe distance away).

This formation was best employed against heavy infantry (who were slow) or archers (who would fire in volleys and would find it difficult to take aim). Against cavalry, this formation was pretty ineffective. The principle of the Cantabrian Circle was pretty straight-forward:

Keeping your cavalry in motion allowed them to stay alive longer and have a distinct advantage over pursuing infantry.

So how does this simple formation translate into MESBG?

Application to MESBG

The short answer is not very well IF you do it exactly like the history books indicate – firing constantly in small amounts is treated the same as firing in a volley, it’s not harder to hit moving targets in this game than stationary targets, and models that move and shoot suffer a penalty to their to-hit roll. So, is this a viable strategy in MESBG?

I actually think it is – not because of the archery benefits it provides, but because of the principle of reserve troops. While this wasn't the overall principle of the formation historically, it was definitely true: anyone who pursued a Cantabrian Circle fast enough to catch it would find the cavalry already in motion, ready to charge into their flanks. With many cavalry riding in a circle, you never knew how many would be available as reserve troops - and engaging them all before the could turn and charge you was impossible.

With the 10 Riders of Rohan shown below, we’re going to use the idea of the Cantabrian Circle without actually doing one. Here’s how it works:

The front six archers shoot, the others do not (I mean, if you don’t have to move more than half your movement, then shoot away and be happy). At the end of the round, we have a 7" gap between us and the advancing formation - guess it's time to move!

Chances are, your Riders of Rohan are going to be pursued and you need to back up – so the two units on the side near the front make a full move behind the formation, taking up the two farthest positions in the new circle.

The next two riders in the formation take the next two farthest positions in the formation, which will cost them their full move as well (so we have four cavalry archers who were able to shoot last turn and are unable to shoot this turn).

Because of the distance that needed to be crossed, the riders who used to be in the back of the circle can safely move less than half their movement to take up positions closer to the enemy in the center of the new circle path.

The next two closest units take the next two closest spots, also moving less than half their max movement so as to be able to shoot in the coming round.

The final two archers close the circle and take the front-most spots, moving half their movement so they can fire again in the Shoot phase.

It's important to note that the formation moved roughly 5" backwards, so we could "just move backwards" 5 inches with everyone. While this would allow everyone to potentially shoot, we've chosen not to place anyone in base contact with any of our other riders - so any friendly models who are "in the way" would prevent us from shooting entirely. Being in base contact with each other in a circle would help you avoid hitting the model directly to your left or right, but this is still unlikely to give you good targets with some of your riders (unless you're surrounded - you have bigger problems then).

While you COULD form two ranks with these guys, you run a big risk by forming two ranks: if your opponent does get into charge range (with cavalry or infantry) AND gets priority on the following turn, you’re more likely to have all/most of your cavalry tagged by a few models by keeping them close together. In this formation, you are far more likely to have cavalry in reserve that will be unengaged when it’s your turn to move/charge (the formation is 8" deep, so you'd need to be really surrounded to have everyone charged). Calling a Heroic Move to engage the front-most cavalry will not be able to tag everyone, so your counter-charge will be devastating (and for Rohan, that’s really good - somebody needs to be on the charge).

Let me repeat this for emphasis:

This formation isn't the most effective formation for shooting, but its emphasis on reserves makes you more likely to be able to charge with your models (at least some of them). 

I didn’t have any heroes in this warband – in part because Captains of Rohan are the only units that can take bows (sorry, Eomer). You could put Eomer, Elfhelm, or Dernhelm in here (Dernhelm would need a team of 6), but their shooting would need to be with a throwing spear – you probably wouldn’t put them in the circle, but you could put them in the center of the ring, measuring distance to be able to cast their throwing spear but not impeding the rest of the group. While these shooting heroes might be tempting, my pick would actually be Theoden - no risk in moving him to an inopportune spot just to get a shooting attack in, better buffs for the cavalry that do get to charge.

Finally, a quick note about doing this with throwing spears: because the range of the throwing spear attacks is much shorter than the range on a bow attack, you are unlikely to be able to shoot with very many of your models at the enemy without risking being charged on the following turn. While javelins were used heavily in Cantabrian Circles historically, I think bows make for better options in MESBG - stick to ranking up your throwing spear cavalry and shooting with as many as you can (and charge - throwing spears are great on the charge)!

Conclusion

Hopefully you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it – it’s always fascinating to take real-life tactics and employ them in a game of toy soldiers (even if those toy soldiers are from a mythical land where these tactics might never have been used). Next week, we pick up our regularly-scheduled programming and start an in-depth review of magical powers (and how best to use them).

Magic took a big hit in the new edition compared to previous editions, with some spells (like Transfix, Fury, and Sorcerous Blast) getting toned down in effect to make the game more balanced, while other spells (like Sap Will) remained more-or-less the same, but they became harder to cast (and as a result are not go-to spells, but rather require some serious thought to use). With all of these changes, one might wonder if casting magic is even worth it at all (and if it is worth using, how do you get the most benefit from it)?

We begin our discussion with the coolest glamour spell in MESBG: Sorcerous Blast. Has it been nerfed too much because you can't send a helpless grunt skyrocketing down an enemy battleline? And is there any reason you'd want to use it over Immobilize/Command (which are always easier to cast)? Find out the answers to these questions and more next time - until then, happy hobbying!