Clash of Spears - Small Actions rules for Ancients/Medieval

[seldon]

ok .. I see.. I guess with a 6x4 with 600 points it does get too big, you need more points on that table.

the scenarios are aimed at 4x4 in a way such as that if you use a 3x3 you can play them by simply removing 6" from each base edge and not having to worry about any other effects... I think one thing we will do is provide the main scenarios already recalculated to tables that are 3' deep online to make it easier for people...

again thanks for your comments... yes I tend to have no more than one unit of heavies when I build my armies and their role is usually to hold terrain.. their success depends on how well you manage to use your lights and mediums as if not they will get fatigued to death...

When I have time I should to a simple overview of the core mechanics..  I'm just swamped with final editing right now..

[wmyers]

You mentioned small remains of units going away.

Can units that have sustained casualties form/join other units?

(It is a skirmish game and the forces are all part of the same army.)

[seldon]

Interesting...

we’ve done so much playtesting and it never came up..

We could add it in future expansions.. or you could house rule .. however to be honest it might not be needed... A unit goes away when it has more than twice number of models infatigue.. yet every point of fatigue above six costs two casualties rather than accumulating..  so , only when a unit is down to two figures this really becomes an issue and even at that point you can recover them..

I really need to do some good examples but I’m subsumed by proofreading and stuff ( don’t want to muck it up )..

Here is the deal:
every unit can take up to three actions per turn, but at the end of the turn all units remove one point of fatigue per action that they didn’t take.. they rest...

So if i have two units of velites down to three models each.. I would much rather have them recover fatigue and continue to be independent units.. trust me three velites are not to be ignored.. where if I have to join them it will take me time and actions.. my units of velites are usually going to be far from each other, the game is very tactical so dramatic redeployments are equivalent to undoing moves in chess... you just avoid them..

for all this is that I believe the need has not been brought up..

once we get our playetest video up you will see how in the game I did with my brother there was never a chance to do that, I simply just never had the time to do somehing like that... I would rather recover fatigue and have two or three guys back alive with javelins..

It is very interesting how the game evolved through playtesting, without artificial restrictions large units are not a meta on the game.. “combine arms” and tactical flexibility is...

I really enjoy answering these questions... 

[pallard]

This fatigue concept seems very much the core of the rules: I like it! Is suits the level of simulation, individual close combat is too limited in time for fatigue to counterweight the adrenaline shot effect. Platoon level is the right place for fatigue and company up for full morale consequences. This of course considering that at each level you make the turn-round-phase longer.

[Nick2729]

I like the sound of your rules and I will certainly keep an eye on videos and reviews.

My main interest is, however, in seeing late medieval Western European (War of the Roses, 100YW etc) skirmish - there seems to be a real gap in the market for that. Will you be releasing supplements in date order - if not will we see this period?

What does your release  schedule look like (appreciating you are not a "company" with dedicated staff and more resources!)?

[seldon]

I like the sound of your rules and I will certainly keep an eye on videos and reviews.

My main interest is, however, in seeing late medieval Western European (War of the Roses, 100YW etc) skirmish - there seems to be a real gap in the market for that. Will you be releasing supplements in date order - if not will we see this period?

What does your release  schedule look like (appreciating you are not a "company" with dedicated staff and more resources!)?

So we have a lot of material that have been working on that of course is for future releases since otherwise the first book would be bible sized and that would be impractical.

Other lists and periods will require playtesting, yet as I've mentioned before there are good news. Together with the rules we will make available to players the point and design system to make your own lists. Our playtest lists will cover all the way up to dark ages, yet the points and traits that we'll make available will reach to medievals.

This means that you will have most of what you need to start working on your War of the Roses etc, you will just not have official lists. Also through the playtesting processs many times we create new traits that better represent military doctrine or that are required to streamline some mechanics... So hopefully if people like the rules we will have an extended playtest community to work towards the other official lists.

Getting people to playtest is not that easy and I understand why, there are lots of rules out there and it is hard to start playing something that might not be fully baked, that is why we did about 6 months of playtesting before extending to our blind playtest groups, and even like that it took them some time to get gears in motion. With the main book out this will be much easier and hopefully we'll get feedback faster... 

So in summary once the rules are out you will have what you need to start playing, albeit in playtest form, medieval skirmish games... we have rules for longbows, crossbows, handguns, traits for volley shooting , shock cavalry, enclosed armor, enclosed plate armor...  and all that will be in the playtest material released with online at the time of the book launch..

I've done games with LoTR minis, with OldHammer armies, with Dark Ages... hope to try some Samurais soon... 

So I hope that keeps you interested...

[seldon]

This fatigue concept seems very much the core of the rules: I like it! Is suits the level of simulation, individual close combat is too limited in time for fatigue to counterweight the adrenaline shot effect. Platoon level is the right place for fatigue and company up for full morale consequences. This of course considering that at each level you make the turn-round-phase longer.

Yes that was the challenge. There are some great WWII platoon level rules out there but of course the key mechanics for WWII is suppression and similar aspects of combat. For ancients it would be kind of silly to reskin those mechanics so there had to be something there that would push for those game decisions that make it fun.

By reducing the scale of a turn you can imagine that a normal turn of FOG, Hail Cesar, Mortem et Gloriam, whatever your large rules of choice are, actually includes a few turns of CLASH. That is why heavy troops move slower in those games, they advance and pause to rest, but that is all abstracted in that larger game turn.. In CLASH it is not, so troops move at the same speed, but heavy troops get tired faster so by choice or forced by the system, over a couple of turns they move slower.. it is just that on one specific turn they can push themselves...

The resting mechanic is very integral to the system and provide a lot of fun allowing you to support units with each other by having one unit fight while you let the other unit rest and it results driectly from the the core rules, there is no need for a "support" rule !!

Finally the other element is command and control, commonly more associated with larger games, here the characters get the units moving and reacting. The friction happens because when units are tired sometimes you give them a command and instead of executing it they ignore you and rest ..  The idea is that you have some of these low level officers, a veteran warrior, a decanus, a lochagos and Option, etc who keep trying to execute a plan of action...

I'm eager to get the first gameplay videos out, it is just taking some time due to the extra work we are doing on proofreading and getting everything ready so that the book can start printing and get here on time for end of year..

As soon as that is done I'll go back to posting more AAR and detailed explanations of the game turn... Ideally I would like people interested in the game understand like a basic quick start version of the rules through videos and posts before the game is out... That is how I learned Chain of Command before it came out.

[commissarmoody]

Lots of great information in this thread. This should motivate me to finally put together my vixtrix plastics.
Also up above you mentioned posable rules in thr future for high medieval/early Reinassonce (WOTR, Italian Wars, 100 year Wars..Etc) with rules for long bows, cross bows, handguns...etc.
So yes i am very interested.