Double Deep Pike Stands?

[Philip McBride]

I raised the question earlier about mounting pike figures two ranks deep on a stand that is double deep, like pavisier stands, to better reflect the historical sixteen ranks of pikemen in a phalanx compared to other shallower formations of figures with shorter spears. Just to see for myself what the impact would be in a game, both visually and dynamically, I remounted enough pike figures to make two small phalanx blocks of two stands each--but each stand with eight miniatures in two ranks.

In the first try-out the two phalanxes experienced the expected additional flank vulnerability, and a situation where one stand died when a pushback that would have been okay with a single rank stand didn't have the room for the double deep stand--again like a pavisier stand.

Also, the double ranks of figures in the front stand cause the rear stand of a phalanx to take two turns to shift to the side and up instead of one turn, again reflect the lesser maneuverability of an historical 16-man deep block.

Visually, the four ranks of pikemen in the phalanx block is very appealing to me. It looks right.

I don't know how other players might accept this 'homegrown change', but it's been fun to see and use the deeper phalanx on the tabletop.

Deep Phalanx v Chinese 1.jpeg (914.21 KiB) Viewed 1207 times