 Maurice called for a deployment of his battalions in three offset lines, each line giving the one in front of it close support by means of a checkerboard formation, another similarity to Roman military systems, in this case the Legion's Quincunx deployment.In the end, Maurice's armies depended primarily on defensive siege warfare to wear down the Spanish attempting to wrest control of the heavily fortified towns of the Seven Provinces, rather than risking the loss of all through open battle.On the rare occasion that open battle occurred, this reformed army, as many reformed armies have done in the past, behaved variably, running cravenly from the Spanish tercios one day, fighting those same tercios only a few days later, at the Battle of Nieuwpoort, and crushing them.