[commercial] CLASH of Spears coming Nov 13th

[Andrew_McGuire]

I read about the two-part sarissa in a biography of Alexander, probably one published in the 1980's, though as I didn't read the entire book I'm afraid the title and author escape me. There was a drawing of a pikeman which clearly showed the metal band around the centre of the shaft. Unfortunately I don't recall where this was merely the author's pet theory, or established fact. Only archaeology can provide a definite answer, though, as I mentioned, it seems perfectly plausible to me.

With regard to the use of the shortened sarissa, I didn't mean to suggest that this required a new category of soldier, merely that the pikeman could become a type of hoplite when circumstances determined it, albeit with a smaller shield.

[Silent bob]

There does tend to be a tendency amongst wargamers to believe that troops never dismounted, did not wear lighter armour, were always close/loose order, never left behind weapons for specific operations.......

The Romans certainly used legionaries without armour for assaulting hilltop forts (I think it was against the Numidians - I can look it up if anyone desperately needs to know), King Harold Godwinson's Huscarls left behind their mail and heavy weapons , whilst in North Wales.

Its hard to imagine pikemen attacking any kind of fortification (I tried it in the Sealed Knot - 40 years ago at Lichfield Close).....I think sword and  shield (at times slung or sheathed) would be the order of the day.....especially if ladders were involved....not even long spears......3 points of contact......H&S....

[seldon]

I read about the two-part sarissa in a biography of Alexander, probably one published in the 1980's, though as I didn't read the entire book I'm afraid the title and author escape me. There was a drawing of a pikeman which clearly showed the metal band around the centre of the shaft. Unfortunately I don't recall where this was merely the author's pet theory, or established fact. only archaeology can provide a definite answer, though, as I mentioned, it seems perfectly plausible to me.

With regard to the use of the shortened sarissa, I didn't mean to suggest that this required a new category of soldier, merely that the pikeman could become a type of hoplite when circumstances determined it, albeit with a smaller shield.

Yup, I fully understand your point..

Cool now you and I need to go find out where we read it or it will linger in our conscience

[seldon]

There does tend to be a tendency amongst wargamers to believe that troops never dismounted, did not wear lighter armour, were always close/loose order, never left behind weapons for specific operations.......

The Romans certainly used legionaries without armour for assaulting hilltop forts (I think it was against the Numidians - I can look it up if anyone desperately needs to know), King Harold Godwinson's Huscarls left behind their mail and heavy weapons , whilst in North Wales.

Its hard to imagine pikemen attacking any kind of fortification (I tried it in the Sealed Knot - 40 years ago at Lichfield Close).....I think sword and  shield (at times slung or sheathed) would be the order of the day.....especially if ladders were involved....not even long spears......3 points of contact......H&S....

The dismounting particularly, even in large battles there is plenty of references of cavalry battles becoming a dismounted affair ! Such a crazy thing to imagine yet it makes sense given the lack of saddle and stirrups of later times..

Of course rules find it hard to incorporate all those things but.. one can always come up with narrative scenarios and such..

[Tokhuah]

The primary focus of ALL game design should be engaging play.  It is better to include options that a general gamer will find fun and let the rivet counters omit or house rule out from their play experience.  Arguing against including options unecessarily restricts play for those of us who are interested in experiencing what would happen if a small group of troops from a larger unit suddenly found themselves separated from the safety of that unit; now equipped with less than efficient weapons.  By arguing against these options in the rules that person becomes a reason for the general gaming community not to wargame.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

There does tend to be a tendency amongst wargamers to believe that troops never dismounted, did not wear lighter armour, were always close/loose order, never left behind weapons for specific operations.......

The Romans certainly used legionaries without armour for assaulting hilltop forts (I think it was against the Numidians - I can look it up if anyone desperately needs to know), King Harold Godwinson's Huscarls left behind their mail and heavy weapons , whilst in North Wales.

Its hard to imagine pikemen attacking any kind of fortification (I tried it in the Sealed Knot - 40 years ago at Lichfield Close).....I think sword and  shield (at times slung or sheathed) would be the order of the day.....especially if ladders were involved....not even long spears......3 points of contact......H&S....

It reminds me what the Spanish Tercios did in the Netherlands: they launched incursions armed with their swords. a dagger (called "misericordia" as it was used to "give mercy" to wounded enemies!) and a brace of pistols. The raids were known as "encamisadas", because they left behind their clothes except their shirts and shoes. It didn't matter if they usually fought as pikemen or musketeers, when in formation.

[Silent bob]

I remember back in the 'good' old days of WRG 6th Ed - you could dismount cavalry - except 'Irregular A or B class' - who were far too noble to get of their horses in view of the enemy.....

[seldon]

It reminds me what the Spanish Tercios did in the Netherlands: they launched incursions armed with their swords. a dagger (called "misericordia" as it was used to "give mercy" to wounded enemies!) and a brace of pistols. The raids were known as "encamisadas", because they left behind their clothes except their shirts and shoes. It didn't matter if they usually fought as pikemen or musketeers, when in formation.

Thanks for that... now I NEED to go watch Alatriste again...

[seldon]

I remember back in the 'good' old days of WRG 6th Ed - you could dismount cavalry - except 'Irregular A or B class' - who were far too noble to get of their horses in view of the enemy.....

In CLASH one thing we did is that when you get to rough terrain mounted troops just lose their mounted trait, which is equivalent to saying they dismount. In large battle rules that is always abstracted into the mechanics which makes sense for that scale of action.

I hope to release some extra rules for narrative games to do things like that, but has to be done in a way that makes sense so that it is not a false choice...

But I expect to see a lot of experimentation in such things from players and we want to encourage that, since we have the advantage of not having “corporate shackles” so we have more flexibility in player driven stuff...

[seldon]

The primary focus of ALL game design should be engaging play.  It is better to include options that a general gamer will find fun and let the rivet counters omit or house rule out from their play experience.  Arguing against including options unecessarily restricts play for those of us who are interested in experiencing what would happen if a small group of troops from a larger unit suddenly found themselves separated from the safety of that unit; now equipped with less than efficient weapons.  By arguing against these options in the rules that person becomes a reason for the general gaming community not to wargame.

yes having the flexibility to cater to both types of players is critical for us..

as mentioned before some people will not like the mechanics of our rules, and that is understandable, we all have different preferences, but when it comes to troop types and historical interpretations we try to be open an inclusive to allow for different types of gameplay... we do try to keep underlaying principles, for example trying to provide contemporary matchups .. that is why we worked to have many different lists that are contemporary and fun so that you don’t need to go across periods to gain variety...

[pallard]

Dear Youngsters
The book you mention out of your grandad's memories is Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars by Duncan Head, WRG 1982.
Duncan mentioned about the sarissa that "the shaft was made in two pieces joined by an iron tubular sleeve 6 and a half inches (17cm) long" as shown by remains at Chaironeia, and in a macedoniam tomb at Vergina.
There may be later doubts emited on this deduction (no wooden part of course remain)  but let me point to this: you need many very tall trees to produce 5m cornel shafts in thousands!
About the use of javelins, or longche-spears by Macedonian foot soldiers: I wrote years ago (25 more or less)  an article in a french magazine about the army of Alexander the Great, and I remember having suggested that the 12 or so taxeis of pezetairoi were regional in Macedonia. From memory two of them needed be recruited from double provinces (there were fourteen regions in Macedonia, still from memory). Some of these provinces were coastal and included hellenized people but some were from the mountains and the macedonians in them were rough-ground people who traditionaly fought in open order as javelinmen. These people could and were heavily used in special operations (that is everything apart from large battles) by Alexander, leaving their sarissai in camp and turning back to javelins-lonche-swords to deal with opposition. 
Alexander killed one of his generals, Kleitos, during a late night drunken brawl , and the sources are refering to two possible weapons: a sarissa or a longche. Now imagine a drunken bully taking a 5 m weapon out of a bodyguard's hands (whose main job may have been not to damage anything with it!) and brandishing it in a symposium room, not to say killing another bully with it! Better be a smaller weapon, but the sources may be right nonetheless: just imagine that the hypaspist's longche was the forward half of a sarissa... and you have your answer for the macedonian double weaponry, and a cheap one at that.
Philippe

[Silent bob]

Alexander killed one of his generals, Kleitos, during a late night drunken brawl , and the sources are refering to two possible weapons: a sarissa or a longche. Now imagine a drunken bully taking a 5 m weapon out of a bodyguard's hands (whose main job may have been not to damage anything with it!) and brandishing it in a symposium room, not to say killing another bully with it!

Its hard to see a bodyguard having a pike in the room......he'd end up poking it through the ceiling or at least knocking the ornaments off the shelves in a crisis.....

[Arrigo]

I also find difficult to picture a drunken man wielding a full sarissa...  but if it was a main room in a persia palace, the ceiling would have been quite tall...

Said that, in my fuzzy memory... I recall the word 'throwing' in reference to the incident, but caution, it was probably a translation of Arrian in Latin, given to us to translate to Italian... do not as me why we were not using original Latin stuff...

as for...

The primary focus of ALL game design should be engaging play.  It is better to include options that a general gamer will find fun and let the rivet counters omit or house rule out from their play experience.  Arguing against including options unecessarily restricts play for those of us who are interested in experiencing what would happen if a small group of troops from a larger unit suddenly found themselves separated from the safety of that unit; now equipped with less than efficient weapons.  By arguing against these options in the rules that person becomes a reason for the general gaming community not to wargame.

I fully disagree. The primary focus of an historical wargame should not be 'engaging play' especially because it is just an empty sentence with plenty of meaning (usually uttered by people who a) have no idea of what they are talking about,  b) seems to have an ax to grind against supposed rivet counters). Said that I am the first to say that in  surprisingly frequent occasions the rivet counters know less about their rivets than they pretend...  I think option should be included if it is reasonable to include them and  they could be supported by research and evidence, not just for option sake.  To a certain extent this reminds me of a debate on an old total war forum about the fantasy Ptolemaic Egyptians CA had deployed,  with the 'game first' crowd arguing, before the game was ever released, that that would have made the game 'better' rather than sheepishly following history...

Now I think Francisco (I have read the backer PDF, being a backer myself...) made the right call. In the introduction he also made some good observations on the kind of game he and his brother wanted to achieve (or was his brother writing that bit... ), and even sarissa have a place in it. Clash is covering not just independent skirmishes but part of battles zoomed out. I just do not expect a 3 miles long phalanx supported by a hundred of elephants on the table, except as a part of a mega-game with score of players... (in my dreams...).

Oh... what battle I am referring about? 

[Andrew_McGuire]

"I also find difficult to picture a drunken man wielding a full sarissa... "

Lending further credibility to the half-sized sarissa concept. BTW, I'm pretty sure that the biography I referred to was Alexander The Great: King, Commander And Statesman by N GL Hammond, though it is hardly surprising that the same information should have appeared in the WRG book, or for that matter an Osprey MAA, or Peter Connolly's Greece and Rome at War; it's simply a long time since I looked at them. It had also occurred to me that, for reasons of ease of manufacturing alone, a two part design would be far more practicable.

"I just do not expect a 3 miles long phalanx supported by a hundred of elephants on the table, except as a part of a mega-game with score of players... (in my dreams...)

Oh... what battle I am referring about? 

Ipsus would be my guess.

[seldon]

I also find difficult to picture a drunken man wielding a full sarissa...  but if it was a main room in a persia palace, the ceiling would have been quite tall...

Said that, in my fuzzy memory... I recall the word 'throwing' in reference to the incident, but caution, it was probably a translation of Arrian in Latin, given to us to translate to Italian... do not as me why we were not using original Latin stuff...

as for...

I fully disagree. The primary focus of an historical wargame should not be 'engaging play' especially because it is just an empty sentence with plenty of meaning (usually uttered by people who a) have no idea of what they are talking about,  b) seems to have an ax to grind against supposed rivet counters). Said that I am the first to say that in  surprisingly frequent occasions the rivet counters know less about their rivets than they pretend...  I think option should be included if it is reasonable to include them and  they could be supported by research and evidence, not just for option sake.  To a certain extent this reminds me of a debate on an old total war forum about the fantasy Ptolemaic Egyptians CA had deployed,  with the 'game first' crowd arguing, before the game was ever released, that that would have made the game 'better' rather than sheepishly following history...

Now I think Francisco (I have read the backer PDF, being a backer myself...) made the right call. In the introduction he also made some good observations on the kind of game he and his brother wanted to achieve (or was his brother writing that bit... ), and even sarissa have a place in it. Clash is covering not just independent skirmishes but part of battles zoomed out. I just do not expect a 3 miles long phalanx supported by a hundred of elephants on the table, except as a part of a mega-game with score of players... (in my dreams...).

Oh... what battle I am referring about? 

thanks for your kind comments..
and as always thank you very much for backing our rules.. we appreciate each of you guys very much for making this possible.

yes, we try to walk that thin line where fans of military history and new ancient gamers can share interest in the game ..

cheers
Francisco