Clash of Spears - Small Actions rules for Ancients/Medieval

[seldon]

Wow.. that was a very interesting post.

So, I have to confess that indeed our cavalry rules are not nearly as sophisticated to take all that into account but some of it is there. Let me explain what we cover and hopefully it will be acceptable.

I mentioned previously why we didn't want to force people to have figures to dismount the cavalry even if this was not uncommon in ancient times.

Also mentioned that because at least in this first book we don't cover warhorses, later saddle and stirrup combinations that allow for the use of the lance we don't really have shock cavalry.

Of course if you nation nobles liked riding to battle they might be good but mainly because of them being accomplished warriors.

The big advantage you get in CLASH from the "mounted" trait is mobility, your mounted troops move 8" not 4", and during the engagement phase they can take more engagement moves before they gain fatigue.

Once the battle starts what happens is that ancient cavarly are usually less armored than infantry ( cataphracts aside for now ) so they are vulnerable to missile attacks. Foot troops can have large shields and overlap them.. cav can't..  What we did was to say that while the cavalry are active ( ie. performing their actions ) anyone shooting on reaction has negatives to hit. With that if you use your cav for swift actions and then you screen them you can protect them. However, if you move your cavalry and leave them at the end of their activation within arms reach of the enemy they will suffer. With the standard three actions and 8" move you should be able to get in and get out. ( this covers what you said about corralling cav, a good player usually will not leave the cav at arms reach of the enemy unless they have been trapped through maneuvering... just like you said in your post )

The final thing is that in CLASH when units have accumulated fatigue they are very vulnerable, so even tough cav might not have strong advantages against tough infantry with spears and closing shields, since they have mobility they can sit back in reserve and when those troops get tired you snap at them..

In summary cavalry units operate very different than infantry and very different than what you might have seen in other rules. My only fear is that people not paying attention to these details could incorrectly extract the conclusion that "cavalry such in CLASH" , which they don't ... But maybe with some tutorials an examples we can teach these concepts...

All this is about the combat cav armed with spears and javelins, skirmishing cav like numidians and tarantines you can imagine are great at their role.

Finally cav also have another good use, dealing with light troops.. light troops find it easier to react to enemies within 4", meaning infantry, cavalry can attack them from 8" making it harder for them to run away..

One last comment is terrain. Many large battle rules put lots of negatives to cav in bad terrain which is logical. We don't abstract as much, we simply say that when cav goes into bad terrain they loose their mounted trait and they regain it when they leave that terrain, no extra negatives.
That is because at this scale we are assuming that they just dismount and fight on foot, we just don't ask you to have the extra figures. So, if you send your cav to the woods, yes you are wasting all the points from your mounted and related traits, but if you are a psiloi in the woods, don't count on defeating a noble vetaran gallic warrior that just dismounted and is attacking you. Most of the effects of terrain in clash do that, they cancel your special rules, but there are no abstracted negatives usually related to larger battles due to losing formation and similar things since troops don't move in "large battle formations" in CLASH.

It took a lot of playtesting to get cavalry to where it is now and we are quite happy with it..hopefully you guys will like it too..

And if you want to incorporate some of the concepts you mentioned maybe the core mechanics will allow you to add some of your own house rules to fit your details ... we just needed to keep it manageable for the general public ... we wanted the rules to have advanced concepts but they must flow.... so lots of very complex mechanics have been tremendously streamlined through playtesting ( kudos to our playtest groups in US, UK, Argentina, Poland, Spain, Australia )

[pallard]

Hi Seldon
Thank you for your comments.
I don't change my mind: your rules answer my wishes.
I used to be a core detailed simulation player, but I have come to the conclusion that historicity as such is a myth: we for a start still do not know what war really looked like at individual level in ancient-medieval times.
And besides I now accept that simplicity is not an issue in the realism perspective. You just have to start with sound principals who do not contradict what we know of historical facts. Otherwise you play in a fantasy world which is fine but different as a project.
I do think however that rule writers should be honest with their public: if you mean a basic fun game open to new players and kids you should say so. Simulation, however simple in its mechanics, need knowledge and involvement. For me the big difference between our days and the eighties is in these points. You have to figure that in France to wargame at that time was to have a reasonable level in english. But we had players from blue-collar background with no capacity in that field but they had PASSION! We helped each other and shared what few wargames documents we had at the time. We were a real, small, involved community.
Now, and you just have to be looking at a recent deleted post to realize it, it is almost obscene to talk with some authority due to sound dedicated research. The lazy people can't stand that. Very sad indeed.
Philippe

[seldon]

OK great... then hopefully you’ll like clash.

We do our best to observe commonly accepted principles and streamline the mechanic.. it has to feel historical.. still be fun...

no system is perfect but that should not be an excuse to be careless...

I understand what you say quite well...

cheers
Francisco

[seldon]

by the way, I don’t think I’ve posted this before..

some nice comments on a v-log that got a playtest version of the rules

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vRnkm1lEf6s

[racm32]

Will the rules include any recommendations for measurements for different scales?

[seldon]

We’ve playtested in 15mm and 28mm not changing scales and worked well..

one of our playtesters is doing some 15 using cm = 2 x dist in inches just to play on smaller boards...

beyond that we will have to se what the community of players try..

one of our playtesters in Spain has done games using individual stands of 6mm as a “figure” in CLASH and using the standard distances, and he said it was fun...

[pws]

Totally convinced, I'm looking forward to see the rules available.

[pallard]

Ok Francisco I'm hooked too. I checked my painted greek hoplite force intended for Mortal Heroes (wich I'll test soon) as well as my unpainted Etruscans-Campanians-Epirotes-Italiotes and... well I should be back to the painting shelf soon too! For I have almost what I need for a clash campaign in Italy-Sicily apart from Celts and Carthaginians, if I follow the lists of troops exposed online.
Excellent!
Philippe

[MikeRC97]

Francisco I’m really looking forward to these rules.  Question about basing - I have some Greek hoplites based 6 figures in two ranks on a 60mm x 40mm.  I’ve read your post here and on TMP and it seems like 6 figures is a good size for a unit but individual basing is ideal for CLASH.  What are the differences for a unit of hoplites multi-based vs. individually based other than figure removal?  I prefer to keep them based as-is to use for L’Art de la Guerre.

Thanks for being so accessible with the wargaming community I think it will contribute to the success of your game in the long run.

[seldon]

if you have them in 6 man stands what will happen is that your units will usually be 6 or 12  obviously but you should be fine with casualty removal just by using markers.. what you could do is paint one or two individual figures to give you flexibility of having 7 or 8 man units by simply placing the other guys next to the stand..

The only other thing is that figures can transition between loose order and close order.. they all do that.. even hoplites.. so if most of your army will have them in stands what I would do is use a "close order" token and when the token is not there you just assume them to be in loose order..

Of course when the unit is down to two figures you might feel strange occupying the same space as a six man stand but that should not be too dramatic.. plus when fatigue exceeds number of models times two they go away so usually those don't last long..

We will add a close order token to our download sheet..

So ... with those considerations it should work... the only template we have in the rules is for cohesion to avoid units getting too spread out, which will not happen with stands... 

So, what do you think ? I think that should work ...

when we get a video of gameplay soon you'll see the rules in action and you will be able to get an impression..

I think it should work.. we've playtested with 28mm figures in 4x1 man stands  and saw no problems


PS: when your authoring team is also your marketing team and also your social media team... you need to be available... 

[MikeRC97]

I think painting spares is a great solution - a unit reduced to 2-3 models simply gets swapped with the spares.

Amazing how quickly you replied - you’re clearly passionate about this project if you’re willing to put in all of this extra work, I’m sure it will make CLASH a success.

[seldon]

there you go... I though half the solution and you thought the other half

I’m on vacation from regular job this week so extra time for the fun job

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Ok Francisco I'm hooked too. I checked my painted greek hoplite force intended for Mortal Heroes (wich I'll test soon) as well as my unpainted Etruscans-Campanians-Epirotes-Italiotes and... well I should be back to the painting shelf soon too! For I have almost what I need for a clash campaign in Italy-Sicily apart from Celts and Carthaginians, if I follow the lists of troops exposed online.
Excellent!
Philippe

I highly recommend this rules. Francisco sent me a draft and my son and I tried them a few times using our Viking and Anglo-Saxon collection. After a couple of game turns we had learnt to play and only needed to check the tables. The only "mistake" we made was that we used a table too big for the number of figures we deployed. It took a while until our forces got to grips. In this case, smaller is better. Also, we did use too much terrain, which slowed the game; a couple of woodlets and, perhaps, an isolated farm would have been better suited to our game than the small village and big woods we deployed on the table. We learnt the lesson and other games went smoother.

We didnt' deployed mounted troops, so I can't speak about how horses behave in Clash. What I liked -and a lot!- was how fatigue works. In our last game, I made the mistake of acting a time too many with my huscarles... lets say that those apparently puny Saxon ceorls can be more than a nuisance when just breathing takes all the strength you got left! Even elites are at risk when they are exhausted. I learnt a lesson, though: keep your heavy armored guys as your reserve, don't exhaust them with pointless movements back and forth (have a plan and stick to it!) and remember that this is a skirmish, i.e. two units of lightly armored lads are more efficient than one of full metal jacket guys.

[seldon]

Thanks for the comments !
Great analysis on the fatigue and heavies..

Out of curiosity.. what table are you referencing to? If there is an opportunity to prevent such mistake for new players when we do online videos I want to make sure you address it..

BTW, when the rules come out we will make the playtest lists for dark ages such, as the ones Antonio was using, available to everyone..

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Thanks for the comments !
Great analysis on the fatigue and heavies..

Out of curiosity.. what table are you referencing to? If there is an opportunity to prevent such mistake for new players when we do online videos I want to make sure you address it..

BTW, when the rules come out we will make the playtest lists for dark ages such, as the ones Antonio was using, available to everyone..

We used a 6'x4' and started deployed too far. My son's Anglo-Saxons were nearer to the target than my Vikings were, so he reached it in just one move. However, it took me several moves to get into combat distance and as I had accumulated fatigue doing so, I needed to rest my troops just to be in shape to fight. Also, we used too much scenery (woods and fences) which impeded movement and made difficult to deploy. That only happened in the first game, though. In the other games we went for smaller table (3'x3' works pretty well) and less clutter. Also we reduced the number of "heavies" (which was another reason why it took so long to get into combat the first games) and increased the number of lighter armed units. My son's slingers gave me hell for a while (I don't know if he was using stones or guided missiles!), until my two surviving berserkers managed to charge them and made short work of them.

It's something that I have become to realize, and it is that in CoS heavy armored troops are a double edged weapon. If you got them in the right place, at the right moment and they are rested, then they are really powerful and can win you a game. Problem is that a clever opponent with enough light troops won't let you get your heavies neither in the right place, nor at the right moment, and if they do, then they will be near exhaustion! It can be frustrating