[commercial] CLASH of Spears coming Nov 13th

[pallard]

Francisco
I'll be waiting impatiently for your rules to be available through  a retail point here in France: remember, England is no more Europe, or shortly won't be. No abuse intended here: I'll still order from GB (depending mostly on french customs). But you should make your rules available also inside Europe and hopefully in France (one retailer should be in your list at the very least, in Strasbourg, if not saying too much). Ordering directly from the US is much expensive from here and puts you in the claws of mafia-like intermediaries who collect taxes for the french customs, and charge ridiculously heavy "file opening" racket money along. Can you believe that: a private company with absolutely no one speaking a single word of french (I verified) is commissioned by the french state to collect custom taxes!!! Global times...
Philippe

[custosarmorum]

I must say I am in the camp of not including pikes in a true skirmish game since I suspect that a group of 6-10 pikemen engaged in a raid, etc., would have either made use of other weapons, as has been mentioned, or fought in extremis with their sword or other hand weapon. Or, I may just be missing some scenario where they would try to hang on to them...

If I were to do a list for a Hellenistic army I would likely have simply gone for a throwing spear (so I am looking forward to a points system and since I play with a small group, this won't be a problem).  The reason is that the logche referenced in Arrian's description of the death of Kleitos is more than a javelin.  The troops who were present were the somatophylakes, royal bodyguards drawn from the Macedonian aristocracy, and the hypaspists who seem to have been outside since Alexander called for them (interestingly we are told by Plutarch that he called  for them in Macedonian).  Arrian then gives two versions, that Alexander seized a logche from a somataphylax and struck (paisanta in Greek so no indication of throwing) or he took a sarissa from a guard (phylax).  Given the sentence construction, I assume he is relating two accounts for completeness, but given the men involved (somatophylakes or possibly hypaspists) the former seems more likely.  I suspect Arrian, who was a Roman general and used the term logche/logchophoroi for the lancea/ lancea-armed troops.  The lancea is light throwing spear with a thong in the middle (Isadore of Servile:  Lancea est hasta amentum habens in medio), several times in his own Taktika and hie Array against the Alani, we might go with this as a spear rather than a javelin (more properly akontion in Greek).

As to the question of the sarissa being made of two parts connected by a sleeve, I only know of one example of a sleeve from antiquity, excavated by M. Andronikos at Vergina (there might be more but I don't recall having come across them).  It is also, as I recall, concave with the ends flaring a bit which would be odd if it connected two pieces (at least it is odd to me).  The best articles on the sarissa are by Minor M. Markle III in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1977 and 1978 and I am guessing they are cited by some of the other studies mentioned.

Finally, I played a small solo game from my PDF of Clash of Spears using Carthaginians versus Sicilian Greeks and it was a fun game.  While I was not too concerned with the tokens, I did find that the various traits slowed the game down a bit.  But I suspect when my regular gaming partner and I play a few games, they will be easier to manage.

[Silent bob]

I have always wondered about 'struck' in the classic sense.......(hypothetically) I was one struck by a house brick thrown from a distance.....I caught the culprit and threw a punch - which struck him......sorry just being stoopid.....

On a more interesting point - why was it noted that he called for the guard in 'Macedonian'?

ta

SB

ps - of all the troop types in the ancient world - pikemen are the ones I can't quite see carrying their 'normal' weapon in a 'skirmish' situation but you never know, its only (as you say) a game.

[Arrigo]

Custos,

I said it was a Latin translation so some change of term is possible,  and, on top of that, it was probably 2nd or 3rd year of High School... Soviet Union was still around, even my famous memory can be fuzzy at times, so I can remember wrong!

As the macedonian language, my guess is that Arrian is nothing that because Alexander and their companions being Greek schooled and high nobility, were supposed to speak proper greek, rather than Macedonian dialect between themselves. The reference to 'macedonian' could be a way to represent the 'barbarization' of Alexander through drink (and his association with Persians in this specific period). If, as it is usually accepted, Arrian was basing his research on Ptolemy original account, there is also some form of political justification for what the generals did later (basically rebelling against the Dynasty...)  in that.

As for the pike debate... from Clash (Erize, 2019, p. 9)

a unit from six to eight models can represent anything from six to eight soldiers or up to something like twenty to thirty men

Small unit action are also part of larger actions, like set piece battles, but at a zoomed in level.

PS: the 3 miles phalanx with elephants is Raphia, 317 BC.

[custosarmorum]

Silent Bob:  the Greek verb paiso means to strike or smite with a weapon in hand.  If one wanted to say threw a weapon, you would probably use verbs like ballo (hurl a missile, hence ballistics) or akontizo/exakontizo (hurl a javelin).

As to Alexander's use of Macedonian. it demonstrates that although the nobility was thoroughly Hellenized (a process started by Alexander I at the time of the Persian War), the army, in this case the hypaspists, were much less so -- they may not have had any Greek.  This is anathema to those who want to see Macedonia as part of the Greek world -- this is tied to modern political rhetoric.

I am with you on not seeing pikemen in a skirmish game, but if people want to do so, they can do so.  My pikemen will remain in the box for games of CoS. 

Arrigo:  I know what you mean... I am in my sixties and while my memory is pretty good, there are times I cannot remember details, or where I read something! 

The reference to Macedonian is in Plutarch's Life of Alexander not Arrian, but your point about Alexander reverting to type when drinking may well be part of it too.  Most Greeks were appalled that Macedonians did not cut their wine with water and so got quite drunk at such events; this and Philip stumbling when going after Alexander in 336 are two good examples.

I saw that quote in CoS on page 9... but the next paragraph, for me, explains why we would never see pikes in the game:

"What is important to understand in CLASH is that the largest unit is always smaller than the smallest battlefield organizational element encounter (sic!) in historical armies." 

[seldon]

I must say I am in the camp of not including pikes in a true skirmish game since I suspect that a group of 6-10 pikemen engaged in a raid, etc., would have either made use of other weapons, as has been mentioned, or fought in extremis with their sword or other hand weapon. Or, I may just be missing some scenario where they would try to hang on to them...

If I were to do a list for a Hellenistic army I would likely have simply gone for a throwing spear (so I am looking forward to a points system and since I play with a small group, this won't be a problem).  The reason is that the logche referenced in Arrian's description of the death of Kleitos is more than a javelin.  The troops who were present were the somatophylakes, royal bodyguards drawn from the Macedonian aristocracy and the hypaspists who seem to have been outside since Alexander called for them (interestingly we are told by Plutarch that he called  for them in Macedonian).  Arrian then gives two versions, that Alexander seized a logche from a somataphylax and struck (paisanta in Greek so no indication of throwing) or he took a sarissa from a guard (phylax).  Given the sentence construction, I assume he is relating two accounts for completeness, but given the men involved (somatophylakes or possibly hypaspists) the former seems more likely.  I suspect Arrian, who was a Roman general and used the term logche/logchophoroi for the lancea/ lancea-armed troops.  The lancea is light throwing spear with a thong in the middle (Isadore of Servile:  Lancea est hasta amentum habens in medio), several times in his own Taktika and hie Array against the Alani, we might go with this as a spear rather than a javelin (more properly akontion in Greek).

As to the question of the sarissa being made of two parts connected by a sleeve, I only know of one example of a sleeve from antiquity, excavated by M. Andronikos at Vergina (there might be more but I don't recall having come across them).  It is also, as I recall, concave with the ends flaring a bit which would be odd if it connected two pieces (at least it is odd to me).  The best articles on the sarissa are by Minor M. Markle III in the American Journal of Archaeology in 1977 and 1978 and I am guessing they are cited by some of the other studies mentioned.

Finally, I played a small solo game from my PDF of Clash of Spears using Carthaginians versus Sicilian Greeks and it was a fun game.  While I was not too concerned with the tokens, I did find that the various traits slowed the game down a bit.  But I suspect when my regular gaming partner and I play a few games, they will be easier to manage.

Excellent reference for the Alexandrian equipment for foot companions ! We specifically dig for such references when defining equipments and traits !
Bear in mind that we do not have Alexandrian list, we have a Pyrrhic list since we only cover west mediterranean..

Alexandrian will come in future elements...

But yes the point system will be made available for you guys to come up with alternatives such as the ones you mention...

Glad you have fun, in my experience over time people get very familiar with the traits and that helps a lot... but when I do demo games I don’t use the maximum vairety of troops to keep it simple for players...

[seldon]

Silent Bob:  the Greek verb paiso means to strike or smite with a weapon in hand.  If one wanted to say threw a weapon, you would probably use verbs like ballo (hurl a missile, hence ballistics) or akontizo/exakontizo (hurl a javelin).

As to Alexander's use of Macedonian. it demonstrates that although the nobility was thoroughly Hellenized (a process started by Alexander I at the time of the Persian War), the army, in this case the hypaspists, were much less so -- they may not have had any Greek.  This is anathema to those who want to see Macedonia as part of the Greek world -- this is tied to modern political rhetoric.

I am with you on not seeing pikemen in a skirmish game, but if people want to do so, they can do so.  My pikemen will remain in the box for games of CoS. 

Arrigo:  I know what you mean... I am in my sixties and while my memory is pretty good, there are times I cannot remember details, or where I read something! 

The reference to Macedonian is in Plutarch's Life of Alexander not Arrian, but your point about Alexander reverting to type when drinking may well be part of it too.  Most Greeks were appalled that Macedonians did not cut their wine with water and so got quite drunk at such events this and Philip stumbling when going after Alexander in 336 are two good examples.

I saw that quote in CoS on page 9... but the next paragraph, for me, explains why we would never see pikes in the game:

"What is important to understand in CLASH is that the largest unit is always smaller than the smallest battlefield organizational element encounter (sic!) in historical armies."

that is the idea, a pike syntagma would have to have special rules to account for the depth of the formation and things like that and in CLASH we don’t have such rules... as a result of this you don’t get all the benefits that such units would get... For that reason the pike ends up being a poor choice for the point cost. They cost the same as a hoplite spear but have disadvantages..
The macedonian drill trail simply allows you to count the shield against front attacks when using the pike since else you would not be allowed by the rules. Yet this is a suboptimal trait when you compare it to shield overlap when you use a hoplite shield..

For that reason my Pyrrhic forces for clash do not use pike troops. But again, they are there because in a narrative scenario you could find a reason to include them...

The concept is to provide as many options as possible and have rules favor what we believe are the optimal choices rather than not provide de options...

It is true like Arrigo said that you could use the rules to zoom in into a small portion of a big battle were formations have lost organization but still some of the troops from the large battle are present...

ps: damned typos  

[seldon]

Francisco
I'll be waiting impatiently for your rules to be available through  a retail point here in France: remember, England is no more Europe, or shortly won't be. No abuse intended here: I'll still order from GB (depending mostly on french customs). But you should make your rules available also inside Europe and hopefully in France (one retailer should be in your list at the very least, in Strasbourg, if not saying too much). Ordering directly from the US is much expensive from here and puts you in the claws of mafia-like intermediaries who collect taxes for the french customs, and charge ridiculously heavy "file opening" racket money along. Can you believe that: a private company with absolutely no one speaking a single word of french (I verified) is commissioned by the french state to collect custom taxes!!! Global times...
Philippe

Yes rules should be going to retail in March, in Europe as well. I’ve been reading on the practical effects of Brexit and even after Jan 31st they will still operate under current structure with EU so we won’t need to use plan B and we’ll be able to fulfill EU from our Uk distributor.

Francisco

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Yes rules should be going to retail in March, in Europe as well. I’ve been reading on the practical effects of Brexit and even after Jan 31st they will still operate under current structure with EU so we won’t need to use plan B and we’ll be able to fulfill EU from our Uk distributor.

Francisco

Until 31st December next year we should be OK. Afterwards, none knows yet. The EU is willing to negotiate but the timeline is short. We'll see how it goes.

[D. Brownie]

Hi,
20/30 pikemen are useless as 6/8. A zoomed battle employing pikemen is nonsense, since pikemen are part of enormous formations in 8 or 16 ranks, so there are 2 choices: if they are in formation and you charge them frontally you die, if they are not in formation the pikemen are died...
so like Silent Bob I think sarissae or pikes are the only weapon impossible to see in a ancient skirmish situation, totally unhistorical and even illogical... For me the option to give pikes is like to give guns only because it's a game....
Some lost pikemen would have thrown away immediately their sarissae.

Polybius said:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D18%3Achapter%3D32

And in all these cases the Macedonian phalanx is difficult, and sometimes impossible to handle, because the men cannot act either in squads or separately.

And Polybius was even a general of the II century BC...
P. S. I hope that in Errata you will cancel the possibility of using pikes....

[Tonhel]

Hi,
20/30 pikemen are useless as 6/8. A zoomed battle employing pikemen is nonsense, since pikemen are part of enormous formations in 8 or 16 ranks, so there are 2 choices: if they are in formation and you charge them frontally you die, if they are not in formation the pikemen are died...
so like Silent Bob I think sarissae or pikes are the only weapon impossible to see in a ancient skirmish situation, totally unhistorical and even illogical... For me the option to give pikes is like to give guns only because it's a game....
Some lost pikemen would have thrown away immediately their sarissae.

Polybius said:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D18%3Achapter%3D32

And in all these cases the Macedonian phalanx is difficult, and sometimes impossible to handle, because the men cannot act either in squads or separately.

And Polybius was even a general of the II century BC...
P. S. I hope that in Errata you will cancel the possibility of using pikes....

Why should an errata cancel the possibility? It's good that it is there, so if you want to use it you can. Like Seldon said it is a suboptimal choice. If you don't want pikes, I assume you / your gaming group can houserule (forbid) it. But please don't ask to be it removed from the official ruleset as there are other players that like the possibility to have it.

@Seldon.

What timeframes / expansions are you planning to release in the near future?

[Andrew_McGuire]

PS: the 3 miles phalanx with elephants is Raphia, 317 BC.

OK. Raphia was in 217 BC, as you are doubtless aware.

[seldon]

seems like annobvious typo I’ve cited battles in 2119 BC that were not intended as such

[seldon]

I wouldn’t loose to much sleep over that D.Browinie.. players tend not to like using suboptimal troops and you can use that as a way to teach new ancient players ..  To me the problem is when rules give those kinds of units some little advantage just for flavor and fail to notice that they have now favored a troop type they shouldn’t .. We’ve all seen this...

I’ve been converting some figures I have but I was thinking that there is probably a good way to convert some victrix to be foot companions with javelins..

It would be great if some company makes some nice minis for that troop type.. you need some
linothorax armed troops with the macedonian style helmet and the smaller shield and armed with javelins...

D.Brownie, do you have some pics of yours to post ?

[Silent bob]

Ok, I have a 'wargamers' knowledge of Raphia......ie Antiochus 0:Ptolomy 1 but a 3 mile long phalanx?

OK so Raphia was a big battle  and I can see/imagine the whole battle line by that wide but could the Phalanx have been three miles long (given the pikes deployed in depth) unless there were large intervals between the units.

Just wondering like and not wishing to cause a fight......