The Checkerboard Formation

"Moving along with established infantry tactics, I’ll now describe a tactic that I see more often used by our Human Empire allies. I’m afraid that, even with our skilled levies and well trained elite units, without a standing army we may not be able to react as quickly as some of the more well-trained human formations, but that does not mean we should ignore the strategy altogether."

Using the checkerboard

Ryo began arranging his wooden blocks on the table as he continued, "in its most simplified format, the checkerboard formation will look like something like this."

"In the front, you have the units that are most able to accept an enemy charge. Strength of arms is less important than the resolve to delay the enemy should they attack. These will more typically be your citizen levies, your spear blocks.

"To the rear, you have your counterstrike units. These will more typically be your elite infantry, better able to defeat your opponents, but unfortunately more fragile due to the smaller numbers you shall usually find yourself fielding.

"In this form, this is a mostly defensive formation, as you are expecting to cede the charge to the enemy, though you can apply pressure to an enemy by marching this formation forward. Keep in mind that by staggering your infantry units, you may be protecting your elites from enemy charges, but you are also placing your spear blocks in a more exposed position. Be careful not to let any of your own units move to a position that they can be outflanked.

"Now, in practice, at the time that you expect to receive your opponent’s charge, you do not wish to have your lines properly dressed such as this. You will want your counterattacking units to have a strait run into the enemy’s flanks instead of forcing them to spend time maneuvering, or charging the front of the enemy’s unit. Thus, the moment before the enemy commits, you will want your units of spears to perform a partial wheel, like so."

As Ryo turned the blocks as described, he removed some of the units off to the side. "Let’s focus on a single combat for now, as the concept of this maneuver will be the same for each of your teams comprised of a levy unit and elite unit.

"As you can probably begin to see, the effect of this wheel is two-fold. First, as mentioned before, your counter strike units will quickly be able to move in on the enemy flank. Second, if you are particularly worried that one of your units may break from the charge, you can prepare a line of flight in advance that will both avoid any of your remaining units and pass through areas threatened by your unit ready to counter charge."

"As you can see, whether the unit of spears to the right of the line holds or flees, the counter strike unit assigned to it is positioned to charge into the flank of the attacker. If the rightmost unit of spears breaks, we also see that any pursuit will draw the attacker to the side of our formation instead of through it. Obviously, you will not be able to achieve this effect with all of your forward units, especially as your battle line gets larger. This is the effect that you should always strive for, however, whether you are confident or not in the ability of your citizen levies to hold the charge, as the vagrancies of war can ruin even the best-laid plans.

"Note, however, the two major weaknesses of this positioning. I mentioned earlier that must be careful not to allow your front line to be flanked. Be sure to interdict or otherwise tie up any enemy support units on the vulnerable flank. Be also sure that the enemy does not have the speed available to ignore the units that are directly in front of his own formations and charge into the unprotected flanks of the next bait unit in line. The second major vulnerability is shown here as well. If our spearmen to the left here break away from combat, they will be leading the enemy directly into the support unit that is positioned to counter charge into the combat on the right. The leftmost countercharge unit that had been tasked to aid the fleeing spearmen should have enough time to redirect their charge into the fray, mitigating the possible catastrophe, but that will leave your other unit of spearmen without any support at all. This is why it is usually critical to have a solid center more than solid flanks in this formation. With combats on the flanks, one can direct any possible pursuit outwards, away from our battle lines. We do not have that extra security with any combats in the center of our line."


"However, if the line holds the original assault, our opponent will quickly find themselves in a bad position, fighting against superior numbers on two sides. Even if they have moved a second unit up to support that hasn’t yet reached the melee, there are very few units that can hold long enough for those support units to arrive in the face of such a disadvantage.

"With this as the basis for your strategy, there are a number of ways that you can vary your exact implementation. I, for example, often use groups of heavy cavalry for my counterstrike units. This gives the added advantage of allowing both the forward spearmen units and my Silver Helms to charge the enemy simultaneously if the enemy isn’t generous enough to charge my ready traps.

"Another example is more useful in smaller skirmishes. If you have only two spearmen units, you can easily create an ‘umbrella’ by keeping the two units at a small distance from each other, but turning them towards each other instead of having your entire forward line wheel in the same direction. If either or both of those units break, this will cause any pursuit to be directed towards the flanks, as mentioned before, and your smaller elite units, which were all safely protected in the middle of the umbrella, can react accordingly.

"For those generals more defensively inclined, you can, in some circumstances, use archers to both draw the enemy to your lines, as well as having them act as the countercharge units once the battle is engaged. Please remember that our archers are lightly armoured, if at all, when choosing to use them in this fashion. One should usually only try this against enemies more likely to panic at the moment they are fighting on multiple fronts, or of a significantly inferior skill at arms."

Dealing with the Checkerboard: Double charge

"Dealing with this style of formation is sometimes difficult, but hardly impossible. As this is really only a staggered line, you can, should you have the maneuverability, still be able to flank and encircle, just as you would a standard battle line. Just always be aware of what areas each of the reserve units are protecting and be prepared to deal with a charge should you venture into it without support. This is, of course, where our friends, the Great Eagles, come in the handiest: protecting the flanks of the cavalry as they envelop the foremost combatants.

"If you are trying to take on this formation from the front, however, you have to use careful judgement. Just breaking the forward units will usually not be sufficient, as an experienced general will be ready to hit you in the flanks anyway. However, you can usually use two units in tandem to mitigate the effect of the counter-charge. Allow me to explain.

"If you have two units charge the enemy’s bait, then you have a number of advantages over having a single unit charge. Firstly, you can choose which unit receives the enemy’s counter-charge. Although they have lesser numbers, I will usually elect to have my support units do so, as I can then still rely on my levy unit of spears, which unfortunately needs the weight of their numbers, to remain combat effective. Secondly, you can occasionally position yourself so that there are enough unengaged warriors ready to intercept any incoming counterstrike, negating any advantage that they might have received for charging your attack in the soft flanks completely."

"Here we can see an example of two units attacking a single enemy. In this example, the enemy was not ready for our tack, and if they countercharge, the support unit is ready for them, and will not allow them to turn their flank. We now have a strait-out fight, though hopefully things are to your advantage due to having made the original charge. Even if the enemy had been ready, we can rely on our spears being a steadying force for our out-flanked support unit, and we should still be able to carry through if our skill is sufficiently superior.

"So there you have it: the general usage of this tactic perfected by our human allies. I now open up the floor for discussion and questions."



Lesson notes: Okay, this is pretty much an article on how to pretend we have the Empire’s detachment rule without actually having detachments. Keep in mind that this will not be quite as effective, as we need to wheel appropriately to reveal the enemy flanks, as well as wait for a round of combat before charging in ourselves. The major rule of Warhammer that we are using this time is that the enemy will always wheel to line up to your unit, not the other way around.

As mentioned you have two lines. The forward line should be your larger blocks of infantry. I use spears for this since they are as cheap as units get for us. The second line is comprised of your support units. These are the ones with the offensive punch, and as they are supporting ranked units, you can keep these units small to minimize cost. No sense in having two large ranked units in the same combat. You can only get that rank bonus once.

If the enemy charges, one of three things will happen. You could hold the charge, in which case, you’ve hopefully placed yourself so that you will get to return the favour into his flank, causing a panic check. He could break your unit and give chase, which is why I will usually try to position my countercharge unit wheeled slightly in that direction so that it can still charge the enemy in the flank if such happens. Or he could break your unit and hold position, in which case you charge his flank as if your spears (or other ranked unit) had held. In any case you are negating his ranks, and getting the extra bonus for a flank charge.

There are a lot of ways you can vary the setup. I gave two (using cavalry as your reserve counterattacking forces, the “umbrella”). In fact, as long as you have one unit to accept the charge, and one to counterattack, you can run this tactic. However, the more units you have involved with this strategy, the more pressure you can put on his general battle line.

Double charge: I also call this “generating overhang”. If you have two units charge a single enemy, then each must try to engage half the defending unit’s frontage. This will often mean that you’ll have a few extra models of each of your units hanging off the edge unengaged. However, this also moves the “center” of the unit that will get countercharged outwards, making it much less likely that the enemy is in your flank arc. Even if he is, you can usually make sure that he is attacking a support unit, not the one that is providing your rank bonus. And if the enemy flees? If you have your units hold position, he may be in the flank arc of your ranked unit, but your support unit is in the way, and there will be no way for him to do anything other than charging the front of your units.

As always, any questions or comments are welcome. If I make any revisions as a result, I will certainly also note the source.

Edit: Added a paragraph about the problems with this implementation of the checkerboard as per Flame-Blade and Elthair's comments that the weaknesses needed expanding on. As Flame-Blade stated, due to the wheeling necessary for us to get a line on the enemy's flank, the flanks of our own line units are pretty well exposed. His suggestion is stubborn units, which is certainly viable if one has the proper characters (though I would probably use the stubborn unit in the center of the line, assuming three or more units in the foremost line). Otherwise it will depend on your own support: your flanking cavalry, your eagles, or your archery and magic to engage or negate the effect of those units. The reasoning behind holding the center I think is pretty well described in the article at this point. If you don't think the center will hold due to the matchup of units, you may want to refuse the center instead (threaten the area, but don't move to within charge distance: It should keep the enemy unit that you were worried about from being able to easily wheel to support either of the units flanking his own. Careful maneuver may still put him in an advantageus position, but you can at least make it harder on him while simultaneously buying a little time.

I also added a third variation on the theme: using archers as support/countercharge in a defensive formation. I'd probably only really try this against units with low leadership, in hopes that either the panic test will break the enemy, or that I can afford to accept a few more casualties than I cause and still break the enemy with the static CR of ranks, banner, flank, and probably outnumber.