Total Tactics - Pike & Shot: The Dutch Reforms | Total War: Warhammer 3
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In this video we'll be exploring further into the tactics of classic Pike & Shot battles by learning about the Dutch Reforms of the 16th & 17th Centuries. We'll also be testing them out using The Empire against the Greenskin hordes. This was made after the 2.3 Update during the Immortal Empires Beta. If you have any questions, or any tips, post them in the comments!
Total War: Warhammer 3 was developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega. It is part of Games Workshop's Warhammer universe. The music in this video is credited to Creative Assembly and their composers.
Please note this is an unofficial video and is not endorsed by SEGA or the Creative Assembly in any way. For more information on Total War, please visit www.totalwar.com.
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Additional Music
Killers - Kevin MacLeod
Time Stamps
Intro - 00:00
History of the Dutch Reforms - 00:39
Dutch Battalions Formation - 02:10
Applying History - 02:41
Checkerboard Battle - 03:36
Dutch Battalions Battle - 06:48
Conclusion - 12:09
Outro - 13:10
Thank you all so much for watching!
I love how the channel is turning into a fantasy stress test for historical militaries
Lmao it's definitely an interesting niche I've found myself in! I find it a lot of fun learning about and using real military tactics so I'm all for it haha Cheers bro!
I find it scratches my itch for history tactics and fantasy. Thanks for doing this work.
I used the Tercio with grombrindal on legendary and very hard battle difficulty and it made life to easy! Fantastic to see historical strategies actually work even in a fantasy setting. I'd love to see this dutch formation directly against a tercio.
Omg that's awesome! It worked out well against the Dark Elves then? I feel like Dwarfs work so well with it and yeah I've found its so cool how historical stuff can actually work out in a Fantasy setting like Warhammer. I keep picturing a battle between this and a Tercio, it'd be so cool! Cheers bro!
Well, the previous games were meant to be an historical simulation. Even though the Warhammer games are fantasy, the base game is still there.
It did! Focus fire their lords and make sure the thick boys up front have shields to eat the ranged and the flanking two are antilarge. Worked great! Love your videos man
@@andregon4366 Yes and no. If we're only sticking to infantry and basic cav, sure, but the animations, magic, monsters and massive units that disrupt formations do give historical tactics a hard time. These formations kinda work because they rely on ranged to stagger and deal damage, while halberds have charge defense and armour piercing. The viable historical formations are few in this game.
@HenryCarlyon sorry bro for taking a bit to respond haha your post got lost in all the comments! I'm so glad to hear that! I was always hesitant to go up against Dark Elves with Dwarfs so I haven't tried a Grombrindal campaign yet I'll have to do so at some point! Thanks brother I really appreciate it!
This formation could be reworked to better take advantage of the fantasy elements and faction strengths. For example when I play Kislev's forces I use a similar fomartion, but playing to my strengths. Using Kislev's hybrid infantry is really effective here, as they can hold their own in melee AND fire in the backs of opponents fighting other army formations already engaged in melee. Relatively fast bear artillery is perfect to reposition to fire along the enemy line once they're engaged, so I reposition them to the flanks, shielded by horse skirmishers and keep my 4 shock cavalry units in the center instead. Hybrid infantry won't hold their own for long in melee, but supported by ice magic slow effects they get more shots off, often decimating enemies before they reach me. Skirmish cav and surgical charges along engaged infantry length keep enemies away from infantry and cavalry, letting them shoot, or quickly break the front line, letting my infantry take a step back, before cav withdraws, opening the enemy to being shot again. Finally, flank artillery is vulerable at the start, but its diagonal lines of fire deal massive damage to advancing forces as opposed to shooting them straight up. And when the lines clash, quickly repositioning the arty to have a 90 degrees angle of fire along enemy infantry line deals insane damage with little groms.
That sounds awesome! I love the idea of the mobile flanking artillery that's a really sweet tactic! I do plan on looking at this with more fantasy elements with the different factions, I just like to start off with something relatively basic to get a grasp on the foundations. Cheers bro!
arrer boys stand in a line, use the burning head - Sun Tzu
Lmfao! He really was wise beyond his years
Every video is of higher quality than the last one. I do quite like the imagery at 2:12 Also, I sincerely hope that the support for these videos is high enough for you to keep making them and at some point maybe even have a fan tournament using these tactics or something. I imagine it being lots of fun.
Thanks so much bro! I try to add a bit more or otherwise improve with with one, I’m glad it’s showing 😁 all you guys have been really supportive with these vids I definitely look forward to making more! And a tournament would be amazing! I’ll have to look into that
I love how you cover these old tactics. Tell us the history and then practice it. It has resparked my love for total war warhammer 2 and I try using them in practice. I will definitely try using this tactic as it not only looks cool but (if i can get my micro to where it needs to be) can be very practical for large engagements as you showed.
Thanks so much bro! That's awesome I'm so glad you're interest in the game is going strong again that's so sick! Hope these work out for you!
Great video! So glad to see you continue experimenting with historical formations in "the old world".
Thanks so much bud! It's been a lot of fun learning about all this stuff and figuring out how to apply it to the game, I can't wait to see what else there is! Definitely got more and more planned to do
Loving your videos! I'd also like to see legend's take on these
Thanks so much glad you've been enjoying them bro! And yeah that'd be cool to hear what he thinks of these, I'm sure they're not to his usual style but hey
So glad I found this video again. I think it's crazy how people have so many ideas about army builds and tactics, when a lot of the best stuff is can be found in a history book. It's also fun to see the rare intersection between one of my favorite video games and my interest in Dutch history.
Hey bud glad you enjoyed it! And yeah the more and more of these I've done it's always surprised me just how effective they can be! It's so cool that real life History can still apply to stuff like this
I love this format. Perhaps a few shots of close combat analysis and a few moments picked out in slow motion to highlight principles or tactics at work would take it to the next level.
Thanks so much bud! Glad you've been enjoying this! Thanks for suggestion I'll keep that in mind! It's annoying how you can't rewind a replay that'd make things so much easier
Love you bro, this is really helpful
Cheers bro! Glad it was helpful for you! I appreciate it!
Fun fact, the winged hussars were eventually defeated by a mix of muskets with barricades and Dutch cavalry specifically with the Dutch horse known as Friesian which is a huge strong horse.
Oh wow I didn't know that! That's cool! The Winged Hussars are super cool from the little I've heard of them, I need to look more into their history. Thanks bud!
Great Video, once again! I Love seeing these professional, efficient and effective tactics in a game like this. I even used the 'triple tercio' in my cathay campain, but with Dragon crossbows and it was staggeringly effective. What i wondered though, is whether you Plan to make a more 'fantastic' application of your showcased tactics. Like in a dwarfen army, implement irondrakes. Because, as obviously effective these tactics are, many races have such interesting units, it would almost be a shame to leave them without usage in your Videos. Keep up the good work, and I am looking foreward to the next!
Thanks so much bud! That's awesome I'm so glad that it worked out well for you! Cathay really works well with these formations. And yeah I absolutely will be doing vids with more fantasy units in these formations, I like to start off with a relatively "realistic" army and then expand from there by adding in more exotic stuff to give more punch or cover weaknesses. Cheers bro!
Very nice content, thx!
Thanks so much bud! Glad you enjoyed it
ty for the video it has been rly fun for me as a new player to total war trying out this formations , with some factions like cathay or ogres it was soo fun xd
Thank you for watching bud! I’m really glad these have been helpful and fun for you to use! Cheers bro!
Great video again, I can't wait test this formation and try out similar stuff with other faction to see if it works.
Thanks so much bro! Let me know how it goes for you!
To echo everyone else, loved the video! The historical intro was fascinating as a history enjoyer, and then he application in TWWH3 was awesome as a Warhammer fan :D
Glad you enjoyed it! I really appreciate the kind words bro! Cheers!
Yay! My favorite WH-tuber is back! It looks like the Tercio series of tests were more effective. Interesting results.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot to hear! And yeah I definitely had better results with the Tercio right off the bat, it took me a little bit to get something that worked reasonably well with this one. Hopefully with the suggestions you guys have been giving we can get this more effective
If it helps, I subscribed a while ago after seeing your tercio video, testing real military tactics in warhammer fantasy is fascinating to me.
Thank you so much bro I really appreciate that! It's definitely been fun to learn about these and try them out, it's a cool little challenge adapting them
I would swap two frontal handgunners units for crossbowmen and then swap their initial positions with halberdiers. That way those units can engage enemy ranged units with bigger range, can fire above the halberds and do not rquire you to shuffle them before melee, so you get a few more shots from them in general.
That's a really good idea thank you! Yeah shuffling the units around can get a bit hectic, what you suggested seems way more efficient, cheers bro!
@@MalleusGaming57 cheers
Quite innovative aproach on TW Warhammer. Congratulations.
Thank you kindly! I feel like there's so much potential with all these real world tactics, it's really interesting learning about them too. Cheers bro!
I've been watching your pike and shot tactics series after watching a lot about the infantry revolutions in the early-modern period, similarly also trying to take inspiration as to what worked historically to best use handgunners in TWW3 like this series, very well done! In my latest game as Wulfhart in immortal empires, I've had to modify my tactics quite a bit depending on who I fought since I've had fronts all around the world. - For cavalry and monster heavy armies like the Lizardmen, I've had to to a more Tercio-inspired formation that included more halberdiers than shot. Having more halberd reserves and deeper lines definitely helped. - For heavy-infantry focused armies like chaos, I found that the Dutch reform-inspired formation worked best. The few greatswords units in the army could hold off the enemy's entire front line just enough for the bulk of the enemy's melee line to be shot to pieces by the handgunner units. - For similarly range heavy factions like wood elves or cathay however, I've had significantly more losses than fighting other armies. I thought about implementing something like Gustavus Adolphus' tactics similar to your other video, whilst using my melee units and cavalry more aggressively to provide shock value, but I haven't had the best success with it. Would be cool to hear about your experiences fighting different armies with the different pike-and-shot formations, cheers!
Thanks so much bud! I really appreciate that and I'm so glad you've been enjoying these! I really love too how you've been utilizing different formations based on what you're fighting it's just so cool to me that you've been able to adapt differently to them with these tactics! I feel like I've generally had similar results to you, I'm trying to get an Estalian modded campaign going but the Skaven have been such a pain to deal with. Heavy ranged have been a problem yeah, I'm still trying to figure out something for them, with a Tercio I've been holding my own ranged units back and unfortunately letting my infantry absorb a few volleys until I can position my own ranged to concentrate fire on the enemy missiles. Using my infantry as bait works but I hope I can figure out something more efficient. There's always Cavalry but it can be tricky too to fit enough of them into an army
This is such a cool idea
Thanks so much bud! Glad you like it cheers!
It’s depends on your enemies movements, you must apply the Dutch more loose and make as well the gunners move to a line of sight/fire, don’t keep them idle, always moving and firing. Use you calavary to harass or mow down range units. My opinion. Loved the video…
As he said, unless you can program more elaborate instructions for the units to act independently, the dutch have to be microed more than the spanish to work well.
@sablanmontenegro9417 Yeah I'll be the first to say I need to work on my micro, I didn't use my cavalry to the best of their ability, more just to counter their cavalry. Cheers bud!
@amossutandi oh yeah it's definitely a lot more micro intensive, even with a lot of pausing I was still struggling a bit with everything going on.
I have found this formation to be extremely effective, if an enemy is too close, advance the pike, and the wings can keep firing, and the other squares can turn to help, amazing! I find having a lord or hero behind the formation helps with keeping moral high
Interesting... definitely subscribe
Bro thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it and I really appreciate it
Love these videos. Bravo. Tactics - I think if you were more proactive with the cavalry to neutralise the enemies earlier on, you'd then be able to rear charge and clean up the enemy archers, reducing casualties to your own men.
Thanks so much I really appreciate that! And oh most definitely haha I pretty much just charged the Cav out to hold up their Cav, had I paid more attention to them it would have been a lot better. Cheers bud!
I've found that larger spacing often works best with the Pike and Shot tactics, It gives your second line and third line more sidelines to fire into.
Ohhh yeah that's a good point! More potential for flanking shots I love it! Cheers bro thanks for the tip
Pretty cool!
Thanks bud! Glad you liked it!
Underrated channel
Cheers buddy I appreciate it!
Another campaign awaits me... another "new" tactic... great work btw 🙂
Haha as Karl Franz would say: "No Peace! Only War!" Cheers bud let me know how it goes if you test it out in campaign, glad you enjoyed it!
@@MalleusGaming57 Ok
@@MalleusGaming57 I was using this tactics in campaign (with mods): + pluses: spices up campaign, some kind of roleplay. For the most battles is useful. - minuses: tactic good for early-mid campaign. Early handgunners can be replace by crosbowmens. In mid game when AI start using proto-dommstacks (like 6 same elite units in army) is starting to be exhausting. For true doomstacks it is not a good tactics. Repeatetive heavy micromangement makes you tired. Other units compositions are useful too, sooo.... Keep in mind that gunner units in TW: Warh. 3 are just a reskin archers/crossbowmen. They even don't received a reloading animation. "dutch reform tactics" in vanilla campaign is rarely useful. mods: units from mods can make a dutch reform tactics a complete monster. - "heavy gunners for Empire and Kislev" - "Grand Order of Reiksguard" - "Demolitionists, Commandos, Armoured Infantry for Empire" - "Imperial Elite, Empire Late Game Unit Mod" A lot of gunners with special skills and weapons. A lot of Heavy Infantry. With units from these mods, "dutch reform tactics" become a true beast. I skip TW Millenium: Modern Warfare mod because is OP in itself.
For checkerboard I think replacing the last line of handgunners with crossbows so they can stay engaged, alternatively with both formations if each battalion has a slightly looser formation the last line can swivel to shoot on a diagnol between first and second line or alternatively they can flank if you like to micro and first 2 lines are engaged.
Oh yeah Crossbows would have been great for the Checkerboard, I was just seeing the differences though if you took the exact same army and just set them up differently. Good call with the looser formations I'll have to try that out! Cheers bud!
its so good ! keep it up ! i wonder if you can find some cleaver tatctics to put to the test for Khorn army or something that are realy rush oriented, without just playing with the IA limitation pulling back and forth cavs/wolfpacks to break their formation
Thanks a lot bro! I'll see what I can come up with, I've got a Viking style Infantry Formation in mind that'd probably work really well with Khorne, that's something I'll be looking into eventually
Nicely done. I think it would be better to position the artillery more to the sides to get more angled fire. And you could have moved more free units from the right in support to the center as the enemy right flank routed
Oh yeah some angled shots would have been good, I'll probably be swapping most of them out though for more Cavalry or something, I had them for counter battery fire but I feel like they didn't do anything. And yeah for sure I feel like I definitely need more experience with using this since this was pretty much me trying to figure it out haha cheers bro thanks for the suggestion!
I think there is more micro-management with the Ducht Battalion. The Checkerboard feels like a big block while using battalions gives you more flexibility.
The biggest advantage the Dutch Battalion has over the checkerboard is it's a real formation. All working, real world formations included some kind of reserve. Having those units of knights allows you to over match the enemy in select parts of the battlefield. That localized over match will allow you do roll up the enemies whole force.
Yeah I've normally used the Checkerboard in my battles, but I really enjoying have that reserve force for emergencies. I've had a few suggestions about swapping out some of the artillery, more cavalry would be good for sure, especially to take out their ranged units
@@MalleusGaming57 A simple tactic used since antiquity is to "refuse the flanks". The furthest units on either flank were further back than the mainline. If an enemy tried to turn the flank these units would attack the would be flankers.
My go to is the good old double envelopment whenever possible. Though as the Empire, I used hit and run tactics with the outriders with grenade launchers when my infantry were shitting the bed against the Von Carsteins.
That'll be something I have to look into! And man I love Outriders with Grenade Launchers but I never seem to be able to have room for them in my armies. The von Carsteins can be such a pain, I had to switch out my line troops for Flagellants when fighting against them so they didn't just Terror rout.
You gotta do more videos with this formation. I’m curious how skaven (one of my two favorite Warhammer Fantasy factions until GW gives chaos a proper gunpowder faction) would perform.
I've definitely got more planned for this! Working on a Cathayan version right now but it should translate pretty well to Skaven. Cheers bud glad you enjoyed this!
Oh boy, chorfs are definitely for you then.
just injecting your content straight into my vein
Lmao Nectar of the Gods this stuff, soon you'll be all powerful bud! Cheers brother!
This is really good love learning little bits of history and seeing it mixed with a fantasy game, I'm interested to see if skaven could do pike and shot using warplock jezzails and clanrat spears
Glad you enjoyed it bud! Skaven can pull it off though the Clanrats won't be doing much holding haha
I think the biggest weakness with this army comp is the light frontline, 4 units halberdiers with on them relegated to the tertiary line is just not enough to hold steady. I would replace one of the cannons and the bright wizard with 2 extra halberds and double the number of halberds per battalion. The cav and guns can provide cover for the cannons, and having 50% more units in the frontline will help hold against armies that fare much better against massed missiles than orcs, like chaos or dwarfs.
I've had a good time doing with with the Marienburg mod. Using this formation has carved a path of blood and profits through the Old World.
Awesome! Does the Marienburg mod add in different units? Glad to hear this has been working well for you bud!
@@MalleusGaming57 most of the units added by the mod are variations on existing empire units. Example: the landship is a steam tank built for ranged combat, the culverin is a shorter ranged great cannon, etc. The only new units that are new are stuff like marines. Free company militiamen are pretty weak in melee compared to the Marienburg Marines, but I usually default to using great swords as my main stay for melee simply because they’re quite resilient and are closer to the Swasbucklers in Cataph’s Southern Realms. Outside of that, it works pretty seamlessly with mods like Sigmar’s Heirs.
@@banzaiperson ohh that’s sick! I’ll have to check it out sometime then. Love the idea of the Landship!
Great video! You could try with a little more infantry in order to minimize your losses but it is still awesome to watch and try ! thank you
Thanks so much bud! Yeah I’m thinking swapping out some Cannons for more infantry or cavalry, may be more effective that way. Cheers bro, thanks for watching!
Remember an Empire Total War we literally get two turns to do Pike and shot era that was so much fun
Only 2 turns? That doesn't sound like much time haha I have Empire but never played it I should check it out
@@MalleusGaming57 Pikes are kinda underwhelming in melee sadly. Meaning the historical approach for Sweden doesn't work
I need to test this out, but swapping the forward/spear tip Handgunners with Free Company Militia (since they have better Melee stats) to survive and soak up charges better. Though someone else's suggestion of using Crossbowmen instead (and swapping the positions of the Halberdiers and said Crossbowmen) is a less micro-heavy strategy.
Oooh man! I feel like Volkmar's Free Company would do really well for that with all the buffs they get. I also really like the crossbow suggestion that's been made, I feel like both options could work pretty well
Awesome video man. If there's one thing I'd like to see it'd be instead of typing out what the units are maybe just show the unit cards? I think that would be easier to digest
Thanks bro! And yeah that's a good idea, I wasn't super happy with how the text worked out, I'll try that out for next time
More videos like that!
Haha glad you enjoyed it bud! Definitely have more planned for the future!
The handgunners that were the most to the left and right didn't do much, they had no LOS being in a depression ! And I think using a couple damage dealer melee unit like Greatswords to protect rear line would be useful
Ugh yeah Gunpowder units can be so finnicky! Greatswords would be amazing, I'm definitely gonna be reducing the cannons since they didn't really do a whole lot, I'm just now torn between adding more cavalry or swapping in Greatswords. Cheers bro thanks for the suggestion!
I want to try this with Kislev! Probably be great for the Armored Kossars with their fire arms and line holding
Oh absolutely Kislev would work out well with this! Can't wait for the DLC and new units
One thing for sure is that the guns seemed to be able to constantly fire, unlike in checkerboard.
Yeah I really like how the firepower is fairly concentrated and unobstructed, hits pretty hard but can be a bit fragile
Id love to see how this performs with the some tweaks now we have additional imperial units that could change this outcome against an even more difficult foe
Oh yeah with the new units and potential upgrades I'm stoked to see how all my previous formations will be now! I'll be making updated vids in the future, stay tuned bud!
ive actually had a lot of success with this formation, maneuverability really makes up for a lot of disadvantages the empire usually has while keeping the front facing firepower of a basic gunline.
That is awesome to hear! What kind of threats have you been facing with it?
Just watched both this and tripple tercio and I'm amazed. Gonna test these in my next campaign as Empire when Chorfs commes in. Two questions :D Which one do you prefer as main solution? Tercio or Dutch version? Second, how do you think Helblasters and helstorm rocket batteries would fit in these formations?
Thanks so much bro! Glad you enjoyed them! I can't wait for the Chaos Dwarfs, I'm super interested to see how they'll work with formations like these. Personally I feel like the Dutch formations are a bit more offensive since they've got some more ranged punch and I really enjoyed using them with integrated short range/high damage troops like Ironhail Gunners or Irondrakes. And its funny you mention Hellblasters and Hellstorms because I'm trying to figure out a Swedish Artillery Brigade formation. Been having mixed results so far, they do a ton of damage but it's tricky to protect them
I'm testing this as wulfart and indeed does work wonders 😀 well, he's running modified variant with halbaders switched to his hunters + Gotrek&Felix but Mazamundi did not stand a chance. I also changed one cannon to hellstorm rockets but I will either reverse it back to cannon or move it somewhere else because it tends to shoot into middle's battalion back 😜
A lot of people I know come to the same pseudo-historical conclusion with ranged armies, although the specific tactics tend to vary. Even the basic checkerboard is arguably a mirror of the Roman triplex. My personal take is that it comes out of wanting to preserve lines of fire while also maintaining reactive infantry fronts and allow troops to rotate into place.
Lol I don't personally know anyone who's also interested in this kinda stuff so none of them would come to that conclusion haha That makes a lot of sense, amazing how timeless it is. Cheers bud!
This is cool as hell I wish the halberds had a more dense formation like you see in all the pike men art but still cool
Oh man right?! Something like the front rank kneeling down and the other ranks leveled to take a charge that'd be so cool. I remember in Medieval 2 the Halberd Wall was such an effective unit formation. Cheers bud!
Swaping halberds with the front gunners creates a lot of chaos so I don't know if one extra volley is worth the effort. Personally I'd remove all front gunners and get the 4th battalion instead. (Kind of a hot take) Great vido.
Yeah I was kinda feeling that too, it turns into a bit of a mosh pit, and the Halberds don't really get to benefit from their Charge Defence. I was thinking the same as you, moving them to a 4th battalion would like be way more effective. Cheers bro!
I love the historical formations. This stuff is great, what about some of the military reforms of Gustavuos Adolfous?
Cheers bud glad you enjoy them! I'll be looking into the Swedish Formations as well down the line, can't wait to see how they work out
i always interested in making checkerboard but with archers. Elven archers (for elven fractions), arbalesters (for the Empire), would it be strong? I mean archers don't even need checkerboard to fire.
Checkerboard works amazingly with Elves, I use it a lot when I play as them. Even though Archers can fire their shots in an arc, having a direct line of fire through the gaps in a checkerboard will let them do more damage so it's still worthwhile to do that. The additional advantage with them is that you can do a deeper Checkerboard (like 3 lines instead of 2) and still be able to have all your missiles firing
I think the checkerboard is especially powerful for archers, with guns it might be better (numbers permitting) to flank and get in close. My fascination with this sort of army did make me build one of this type of warfare led me to making a similar army without the Knights in my latest Empire campaign. I kind of forgot how late cavalry was used, even if nobody would want to be transported back in time into a WW1 cavalry unit, they did exist and Volkmar even has bonuses for Knights! Unfortunately recruiting this army in campaign mode is a bit of a pain because it requires 4 buildings and you can get by with just archers and artillery which only requires 1 building. The Knights and melee infantry don't add a tonne to the power of the army, although Knights will get larger numbers of kills in battles, that is usually thanks to running down routing enemies, which other factions achieve with much cheaper war hounds.
Yeah something I really like is how these can be adapted to various stages of the game. Like you said it still benefits archers so early game making use of this with Spears and Archers/Crossbows is still pretty effective. I wonder if Pistoliers would work out better for you? They're cheaper than Knights but they don't really have the same hitting power
i know this is testing a real world formation, but just off the bat i can think of replacing the gunners in front of the halberds with crossbows. the tactics largely remain the same, but the cross bows instead focus on ranged units behind the enemy front line.
Absolutely, a few people have mentioned that and it's a really good idea. Also placing the halberds in front so they don't have to move through each other will be good, the longer range of the crossbows would still help out a lot. Cheers bro!
Quality videos mate keep up
Thanks so much bud will do! Cheers!
You never thought to do same concept of this real tactics in 1212ad or Rome 2 ?
Maybe in the future, I had trouble really getting into Rome 2. I've mainly played Medieval 2 and the Warhammer series. I've collected Warhammer since I was a kid so this was like a dream game for me
@@MalleusGaming57 it's totally fine mate I love your content do whatever you love to give us the best with passion
I appreciate that brother!
From the Spanish Tercio you attempted all the way to the Dutch Reforms by Nasau. You may as well push all the way to the Swedish Carolean and Prussian Reforms if this keeps up. Great work man! 😂. The only downside from those military reforms was the lack of magic / mana, well duh 😂. Imagine if we were to live in a fantasy setting complete with magic / mana systems 😂.
Oooo I didn't know about Prussian Reforms! The Swedish system is definitely on my radar, now I've got something else to look into after that! Haha I'd be so down for some real life dragons to spice things up, if only. Cheers bro!
@@MalleusGaming57 The Prussian Reforms comes waaaay later, but to put it simply, because of 1 man - Frederick The Great.
Caroleans are later and line warfare and not exactly pike and shot
That is great! I always knew those historical commanders knew something. Some suggestions to maybe improove the formation a bit: 1) Maybe it would be better if you've taken one habdgunner unit from each "tercio" and out of three freed unit composed a fourth "tercio". That would make the army more tactically flexible and more resistant. Becouse one can clearly see that a melee heavy enemy can quite easily tie only three units of halberds down and then get to handgunners wich is not optimal nor ideal. So more melee units would allow habdgunners to do their thing. I believe that aslo would be closer to historic formation, and guns to pikes ratio of Gustavous Adolfus armies. 2) Perhaps cannons aren't that necessary to bring whole three units of them. Tercio formation and "duch tercios" can be an effective offensive force, I think(i'm not sure), so just one unit will probably be enough. Thought it is quite rigid and small distractions like fast-moving cavalry can hinder it's effectivnes(It's also demonstraited in this video). Therefore swapping two units of cannons for two units of cavalry(to have four units of cavalry) might be the better call. To counter enemy cavalry. In our history renessance and 1700th armies relied havily on cavalry for the same reason. Also they mostly used cavalry with ranged capabilities becouse it performed better against both enemy cavalry and infantry than heavy shock cavalry of the past. I'm not sure, but I believe that it is also the case in warhammer(I just am not sure if ranged cavalry will be able to Stop enemy cavalry). Also maybe swapping halberds unit that guards the cannons for cavalry will make it so that you don't need to guard it, becouse you have cavalry supeiority anyway. But that would allow that one unit to actively participate in the fight and not just stand there(no wonder it didn't lost anyone). [Or maybe it would be better to swap it for greatswords, I'm not sure] You make great videos and I love them! Please make - not necesserely more videos, but - videos of the same quality more.
Cheers bro! Thanks for the suggestions I wholeheartedly agree with what you've said. I think taking the screening Handgunners from the front 2 battalions and using them with that 4th Halberd unit in the army, putting them as a battle line unit would help out. Then yeah I was surprised at how little the cannons did haha swapping 2 for some cavalry is a great idea. I like the idea of Outriders, it'll be more micro though. I hope to keep improving with these vids, thanks so much for the support my dude
@@MalleusGaming57 thank you for being so close with your audience, it is rare and awesome.
Bro I really appreciate you guys taking the time to watch my content, you've all been super supportive of me and my channel it's the least I can do and I love chatting with you all!
@@MalleusGaming57 Thank you, bro, you make amaizing content, it's a crime not to watch it.
I would change 2 handgunners for free company militia, probably add them on the sides. Just to have a support unit to catch anyone who cross the first line and get into the handgunners. I also think this could work better with dark elves as their crossbowmen have shields.
That's a good idea, I'm generally not a fan of Free Company but with the buffs they get from Volkmar that'd probably work really well. And yeah Dark Elves would work really well with these formations, their AP missiles are sooo good! Cheers bro
This is really really impressive! The Orc's strength is being a large mass of melee fighters and this formation just removes that strength entirely. Instead of 1 large mass of combat where your troops would be at a disadvantage, there are three smaller zones of fighting where your formations completely outgun the oncoming horde and have enough melee backup to keep from being overwhelmed. All while the Orcs are unable to focus the bulk of their forces. I really have to look into something like this for Kislev. I keep getting overwhelming by Chaos armies. Perhaps if I force them to split up more then I can have more success. Of course, it doesn't help that I've recently combined Kislev and am forced to us armies set up by the AI.
Thanks bro! Yeah I feel like having local superiority in the different areas really really helped out, especially with the different sections being able to help out the others once they've repelled what they're fighting. I think Kislev would be able to really make effective use of these kinds of formations, I think I'll be looking into the Swedish Formations with them sometime soon. Good luck bro let me know how you fare against those Chaos scum!
@@MalleusGaming57 Thank you kindly! I've recently started my "Kislev Reforms" and am having some success!
@@MalleusGaming57 Update. I've altered Katarin's army formation more than the makeup to use the checkerboard formation and the results are mind blowing. I fought the Slaanesh RoC Quest battle and annihilated the three armies sent against me. In 4 lines I had; 4x Ice Guard (glaives) in front, 3x Armored Kossars (Great Weapons) the center being the RoR version behind them , 4x Ice Guard (Swords) behind them, and 1x Strelsi with 1x Tzar Guard on each side in the back. I had 2x Gryphon Guard and 1x Wear Bear Riders (RoR) that I was not able to use effectively. Heroes included Katarin, 1 Ice Maiden, and 1 Patriarch spread out in the third line behind the Armored Kossars. Prior to this I was using long thin lines of Melee front and Archers behind to prevent flanking (I'm always worried about getting outflanked) and that may be the crux of my problem. I may not be getting flanked but my armies don't have the staying power for units that are only 5-6 ranks deep.
@@Centurian128 dude that’s amazing to hear! Nice job! So glad it’s working out for you. That sounds like a pretty mean army and it’s got some nice unit diversity too. I love how you have plenty of reserves to help out, I found that even with a double line if one section got overwhelmed it was a bit of a mess to try and fix that since most of my units would be engaged
Hellcannons: It's HIMARS o'clock.
Lmao the fact that the Hellcannon's shots home in as well kills me (and my poor units) every time.
Can you test the high Roman legion tactics with the dwarfs?
That'll be sooo cool! I was thinking of Lizardmen as well, Dwarfs would be sick. I'll definitely be looking into Roman tactics down the line, can't wait!
I love this, but aside from the reach issue (pikes keep people far enough away far better than halberds) one hiccup for bringing this doctrine across might be limitations of battalion vs regiment in WH: Like how to get the 3-1 shape you made 75% firearms and 25% polearms because you can't break units in half but the actual formation had almost double the polearms at 60/40ish (and beyond that it used two kinds of firearms with different characteristics) Since in the TW engine a 3/2 balance to represent that would have to raise total size and cut down on cavalry and such, four frontline 2/1 ratio groups instead of three 3/1 might be a better approximation with similar coverage and more mutual support with more melee power to back it up. (If a faction has access to more than one similar tier direct fire infantry type it might fit the Dutch model even better to make the 2 ranged units a combination of range vs firerate or piercing vs higher flat damage) Glad this exists and loved the video.
Thanks so much bro glad you enjoyed this! Yeah I'm always toying with the amount of guns and melee, its funny how I'm having the same problems that historically the people who were thinking this up had. I like your idea of four 2/1 battalions, definitely helps spread things apart for coverage. Cheers bud!
What difficulty did you play duting these battles?
I think this was on Hard, I was doing these Battles on Normal initially but I switched at some point. On Campaign I play on Very Hard
This worked for me on an online play, but with unit caps I switched the back row hand gunners with crossbowmen , 4 hand gunners, 4 crossbowmen, 4 halberds, 2 war wagons, 2 knights of the sun and 2 swordsmen units
Oh that's awesome! Has it been performing well in multi? Anything that stood out for you strengths or weaknesses wise?
@@MalleusGaming57 I would say because of the gaps the enemies I play against tend to push to one side or another but the sector of fires are covered by my ranged units so it helps, I do find myself forgetting about like one or two units because it’s so micro intensive. The only thing that gives me a hard time is flying monsters, they are good at disruption so I have to target it as they get in range which takes away from my units chipping away at the ground forces
Are the artillery effective? I think you had 3 of them shooting at their one artillery and even then wasn't doing too good. Maybe swap 2 of the artillery for something else?
Yeah I don't think they really did anything. I was too focused on micro-ing everything else so I didn't pay much attention to the cannons but I don't think they ever actually took out the Doom Divers, which is dumb! Swapping 2 out seems good, keeping 1 to at least make the enemy come to you. What would you swap them for? I like the idea of Outriders but that'll be even more micro
Hell fire for example
Do the Swedish brigades.
Oh they're gonna be next on this epic journey of discovery haha
What did You like more in the game Tercio or Dutch system?
Of the two I think I enjoyed using the Dutch system more, it was a bit less cumbersome than then the Tercio and seemed like it had more offensive power. It didn't seem as durable though
@@MalleusGaming57 thanks for the reply and for the video. Realy smth unique.
I wonder how army full of outriders with handguns would work? They have lower number then handgunners but higher dps and they dont need melee infantry screen cause they can run away. Split army in two several groups and just reposition whene enemy comes closer, shooting enemy with another group. Full on mongol mode. Lack of 360 degrees shooting is a concern but they have decent range and ap.
That sounds like it'd be really cool, I could see it requiring an absolute ton of micro though. Also I feel like ranged cavalry, or at least a lot of them anyways, may be a bit underpowered. I dunno if they'll have enough ammo to do enough damage to the enemy for close combat to clean up the rest. I absolutely adore the idea of going full Mongol though haha maybe that's an idea for another video?
@@MalleusGaming57 outrider with handgun is basically a handgunner on a horse - same nasty ap damage but with lower entities and high firing speed. They dont need melee infantry screen or cavalry flank protection. Even without ammo they can still be usefull - they can finish off routing units in melee, they can kill artillery crews in melee, they can maybe kill enemy archers with cycle charging. Sounds like a great strategy if you can pay the micro tax.
Handgunners should get a bayonet upgrade, turning them into tier 1 spears. They also still need to fix the firing arcs for ranged units, especially on walls
Bayonets would be so cool! You could set them up in all sorts of cool formations then like Infantry Squares to repel Cavalry and such
NGL i freaking love these
Haha thanks so much bro! I love to hear that! 😁 glad you’ve been enjoying the content bud cheers!
It would work much better if you fight with more than 20 units. Instead of 1 halberd you can use 2 in each segments. Have a hero each to increase their survivability. Optimum is 30 units. 3 melee heroes 2 spell casters 7 halberds 10 handgunners 2 outriders 2 knights 4 cannons CA can use the three kingdoms army mechanic but instead of each general have their own retinue, the main general can command 10-15 units each captains or hero can improve the army limit by 5. 30 unit maximum per stack. With this we could detach small number of troops commanded by captain or hero for a mission. But they cannot leave far because they will suffer attrition after a number of turns. The only way to mitigate this is garrisoning a settlement.
That is such an awesome mechanic!! That's set up in Three Kingdoms? I never played it but that sounds soooo epic! CA WHEN?! Haha I'd love some larger armies, cheers bro that'd be an amazing composition, able to have a good amount of everything you need!
The burning head in the first one wiped 2 archers quickly, so that contributed a lot. I would say the dutch formation was superior.
Hm, I didn't think about that. Good call! Cheers bud!
id love to see thunderers and organ guns in some tercio action
Bro Organ Guns would be so good! I did do a video with a Dutch Reforms Dwarf army with Organ Guns vs a Double Stack of Greenskins
@@MalleusGaming57 oh man i must of over looked it, i actually did look to see if you had a dwarven tercio video before posting this and didnt see one
@@trolltalwar I’ve got 2 vids with Dwarfs so far, one in Testing the Tercio and the other is the Flame Anvil, which uses Dutch tactics
Did my earlier suggestion lead you to switch to Greenskins?
It definitely helped bro! There were a couple of comments about fighting a more "balanced" army and Greenskins are definitely a good option thanks to their variety
@@MalleusGaming57 Welcome!
Try adding mortars to deal with archers. Two cannon units and two mortar units.
I would spread out the cannons against Skaven just so they don't shut down all 3 with that stupid rat summon, but I like how it performed overall. Like your channel so far a lot
Yeah that’s a good point, the AI is so annoying with those summons. I really liked how this worked out as well and that it seems adaptable to a lot of different factions. Cheers brother!
I wonder how this handles with Ironsides and/or Long Rifles?
I haven't tested it out yet but going back and testing all these Pike and Shot formations with the new units is definitely something I'm planning on doing. Just from what I've seen of the units though I feel they'll be pretty effective
@@MalleusGaming57 Yeah, beyond just their ranged power, ironsides are a lot better at holding in melee than handgunners, and I think that's a big stress point in many of these formations
How does Cathay do with this formation?
Pretty well, I've actually got a modified version for them I'll be doing a video on soon!
Pike and shot works best with steam tanks to soak all the damage. Since the tank is a single unit you don’t need to worry about line of sight. Hero units also work as an alternative to the steam tank.
Yeah using Heroes and Steam Tanks to get enemy infantry to blob around works, it kind of defeats the whole idea of what these vids are about though.
Think total war needs to increase the number of units in armies lol 😂😂 however the final handgunner line isn’t active until the orca break through the first 2 lines. That’s 4 units inactive not causing any casualties to the enemy. You might as well replace that reserve line with front line infantry.
at 3:28 I'd be curious how this composition would hold up against something more common to face against in WH3. You have 4 archer units, 4 cav units, and 2 artillery for an Orc army. Plainly, this is just not efficient. Orcs are primarily focused around getting stuck in melee, so if you replace all 10 of those units with orc boyz...I'd be curious how your frontline of 4 halbards (and 2 reiksguard if you want to frontline with them) would hold against almost 20 melee units who have tons of shields. This is the problem I always have when playing as the Empire, if I build too many handgunners/artillery the greenskins demolish me by just spamming boyz or goblins or whatever. Frankly, my x amount of handgunners do nothing when Empire Infantry has to fight 2v1 (when they are already the worse unit in 1v1) and routs within 5 seconds. And if I hold back on making handgunners, my infantry is just worse than every other factions.
some formation mods would probably make that work really well.
...FORMATION MODS?! What are they called?!
Not quite sure anymore. But back in TWW2 I’d give my empire guys to do squares and cavalry wedges. Pikes as well. I’d just explore the workshop on steam.
once you get past the dutch and then swedish reforms, what's next? you trying to make your own based on what you learned or trying viewer suggestions?
I'm definitely down for viewer suggestions! Also I'd be really interested in looking at other periods of history and seeing what I can grab from there. A viewer had suggested a Viking Infantry Formation I wanna look into, also I'd like to cover some classics like Alexander the Great's tactics.
@@MalleusGaming57 would you consider giving the one I mentioned on a previous video a try? the one that mixes small groups of missile, melee, light cav, and heavy cav?
@@bello9740 absolutely! Do you have a name for it?
@@MalleusGaming57 I've been calling it the Olio (Oh-lee-oh) meaning a dish of many ingredients.
i guess the main Problem here was a lack of interaction as you stated in the intro, it was supposed to be mobile, so doing almost nothing and lettign the units fight it out kinda ruins that part. seeing the battle the right Battallion should have been moved around to flank the Orks attacking the center.
For sure! Showing its use but actually playing it effectively are totally different things haha something like this needs practice on how to use, which I didn't have at the time of recording. Cheers bro!
@@MalleusGaming57 No Worries, i also tend to forgett half my Army when actually plaing battles in total war. Interestingly enough your shocases made me Try to implement Frederick the greats Line Infantry tactics in Total War Empire, using his version of the Oblique Order, (one line two 3 men strong lines of Line infantry with a concentration of Force on one flank hereby the "reserve line will advance together with the front line and be stationed next to the front line of the next "Divison" (division here meaning one segment of the front and Reserve Line)
Faith Gunpowder and Steel 😉
For Sigmar!!
👍
For the algorithm!
Greetings praise algorithm gods!
Why cannons and not hellfire? Better anti artillery fire?
I wanted to build something relatively close to the historical units just to see if it’d work. You can totally bring more esoteric units which would probably make this even more effective
I think these pike and shot formations are better tested inside historical total war games like shogun 2
Interesting video. I think you would have been better using the Roman maniple formation, that was the chequerboard, it was designed so enemies would flood into the spaces and end up being surrounded by the other units deeper formation. If I'm not mistaken the 3 axis was just the concept of having progressively better equipped and experienced troops the further the enemy got. - this formation would arguably be more useful as a faction like the greenskins as the black orcs are gonna go in fresh against tired units and not be subject to morale debufs due to the bigger and arder trait. Plus by this point you can use goblin archers to perfect effect as a skirmishing infantry for harassing
You know, I never thought to use Greenskins for something like that but that's a really good idea! I do plan on looking at the Roman Maniple in more detail some time, thanks for the idea! Cheers bro!
The Triples Acies and the manipular formation are one and the same thing. It was "three lines" of troops, with each line broken into maniples and the whole thing checkerboarded. The Romans abandoned the triples acies/checkerboard when they replaced the manipular system with the cohort system during the Marian Reforms
"we're gonna look at real life pike and shot tactics" *pikemen gets attacked by freaking giants in the background.* I know you're reviewing but the visuals made it look funny.
Haha I feel ya, when I was editing this it really hit me just how big Orcs are
As a Dutchman, i approve.
I got the Seal of Dutch Approval! Yes!! Haha cheers bud glad you enjoyed it!
Next test could be the Swedish formation.
Definitely gonna be exploring that down the line!
I don't know how your halberdiers don't instantly fold over the second they touch the enemy but okay