Sword and Spear Wargames Rules Unit Size Question(???)

[Atheling]

Hi,

My quest for finding decent sets of rules for the Classical, Early Medieval and Late Medieval period continues. I'm considering buying Sword and Spear but wanted to make sure that it lined up with my collection as it is based. My days of rebasing units are long in the past.

So, can Sword and spear be used with units of the sizes depicted below:
Anglo Danes- based on 6 x 40mm x 40mm bases


Early Byzantines- Infantry based on 6 x 40mm frontage by 60mm depth- Cavalry on 6 x 50mm x 50mm bases
Goths are the same as the Early Byzantines

[pogo]

As long as both sites have units of same width there is no problem

[Atheling]

As long as both sites have units of same width there is no problem

What sort of table size would I be looking at for armies based on my metric? Quite large games in 28mm?

[pallard]

Hi Atheling
I don't know much about Sword and Spear, but what I see about these rules make me think of trying to make a burger with Beluga caviar... is it "decent" food?
Come on! such beautifully painted miniatures deserve much better.
Why not try Comitatus, with adaptations for the bases ready as you can fix the level of troops represented.
Just my opinion.
Philippe

[Phil Portway]

Sword & spear is great as a set of rules, been playing it for years and I have probably got many opponents to play as they are easy to learn but have subtleties within the units.

My 15mm are based as DBM/ ADLG, but my 28mm are all based with 5 man frontage, whether it be Foot of horse.

The answer to your question is this:
You can keep your troops based as is as the DU (Distant Unit - move & and shoot distance) is half your unit Frontage. This means Bow armed foot could move 3DU and shoot 4DU. If your frontage if 120mm this DU would be 60mm, hence move 180mm and shoot 240mm.

My Foot units are 100mm wide and Horse are 125mm wide, but I still use 1 DU to equal 60mm. It does not matter if units are slightly larger or smaller, because when the fight the units are always offset. None f this corner to corner fighting nonsense!

FB Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/173753339627986

Website:
http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/4583102656

A 400 point game in 28mm fits on a 6x4 but really an 8 by 4 is better!

 

[Atheling]

Hi Atheling
I don't know much about Sword and Spear, but what I see about these rules make me think of trying to make a burger with Beluga caviar... is it "decent" food?
Come on! such beautifully painted miniatures deserve much better.
Why not try Comitatus, with adaptations for the bases ready as you can fix the level of troops represented.
Just my opinion.
Philippe

First of all thank you for the kind words 

It's the size of the units in Comitatus that puts me off Phillipe. Every image of a Comitatus game i have seen seems to involve quite thin lines of single miniatures, which just doesn't fit my own personal preferences.

Am I wrong? Does Comitatus have flexible basing so that i could use units say, with a 120mm frontage by 80-120mm depth?

Sword & spear is great as a set of rules, been playing it for years and I have probably got many opponents to play as they are easy to learn but have subtleties within the units.

My 15mm are based as DBM/ ADLG, but my 28mm are all based with 5 man frontage, whether it be Foot of horse.

What is the depth of such units Phil?

The answer to your question is this:
You can keep your troops based as is as the DU (Distant Unit - move & and shoot distance) is half your unit Frontage. This means Bow armed foot could move 3DU and shoot 4DU. If your frontage if 120mm this DU would be 60mm, hence move 180mm and shoot 240mm.

So my deep units would not be effected by the rules in any adverse way? For example- making flank attacks on deeper units easier?

My Foot units are 100mm wide and Horse are 125mm wide, but I still use 1 DU to equal 60mm. It does not matter if units are slightly larger or smaller, because when the fight the units are always offset. None f this corner to corner fighting nonsense!

I've never been a fan of "clipping". I was hoping in this day and age that sort of stuff would have died with DBM etc

It's the depth that I'm concerned about not the frontage. I get the frontage equated to it's movement but how would my deeper units (dimensions in my original post) be effected by the rules?

FB Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/173753339627986

Website:
http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/4583102656

Funnily enough I was just looking at the Polkovnik Forum earlier and getting bombarded by some sort of credit system! I moved swiftly on. No offence but I felt harassed!

A 400 point game in 28mm fits on a 6x4 but really an 8 by 4 is better!
[/quote]

[mellis1644]

I like sword and spear and it will work for any base size. But be careful of army min/maxing as it is not to from my experience a great game when people are too competitive.

Before covid we tried a few systems in our group. Here is the write up for Sword and Spear https://mellis1644.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/age-of-arthur-game-of-sword-and-spear/

In the end we decided to use ADLG. We did not try impetus but that was something we wanted to try.

[SJWi]

Atheling, I have never played "Sword and Spear" but do have a copy that I bought at a show a few years ago. Reading them, I guess the answer to your original question is in the line from the book "Groups of figures are organised into units. These should be of equal frontage.  The depth is not so important, but it is best that they have roughly equal depths for the same types of units"

Our group's "go to" rules are Simon Miller's "To the Strongest", but I realise they are not everybody's cup of tea .I bought "Sword and Spear" as an impulse buy as the author was demo-ing them at the show. I read them once and thought they weren't a better bet than TTS and I have got to the age where I only want one set of rules per period as I get easily confused and forget which mechanisms are from which ruleset.  I have played Impetus but didn't particularly like them and dumped them when TTs came on the market.

If you do want Sword and Spear you could have my pristine copy for £10 including P&P.

Regards

       

 

[Atheling]

I like sword and spear and it will work for any base size.

Interesting as that's not the impression I'm getting thus far. Units seem to be one base width in depth? Is this correct? If not can you give me examples of units of a similar size to mine that you have used please?

But be careful of army min/maxing as it is not to from my experience a great game when people are too competitive.

That's really not my style anyway so not to worry at all. I cannot stand Win at All Costs players. I tend to avoid them like the plague as is sensible.

Before covid we tried a few systems in our group. Here is the write up for Sword and Spear https://mellis1644.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/age-of-arthur-game-of-sword-and-spear/

Cheers, I'll take a peek this morning.

In the end we decided to use ADLG. We did not try impetus but that was something we wanted to try.

I've used Impetus a few years ago (in fact, if you take the front rank of bases on all my units they could easily be used for Impetus) and quite enjoyed the games. Still, no one I know is playing and I want to try a few new rules systems but they have to be able to take the size of the units above as it is for a display game which is why, among a few other reasons, the units were based in such a manner- for visual effect.

[Atheling]

I like sword and spear and it will work for any base size.

Interesting as that's not the impression I'm getting thus far. Units seem to be one base width in depth? Is this correct? If not can you give me examples of units of a similar size to mine that you have used please?

But be careful of army min/maxing as it is not to from my experience a great game when people are too competitive.

That's really not my style anyway so not to worry at all. I cannot stand Win at All Costs players. I tend to avoid them like the plague as is sensible.

Before covid we tried a few systems in our group. Here is the write up for Sword and Spear https://mellis1644.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/age-of-arthur-game-of-sword-and-spear/

Cheers, I'll take a peek this morning.

In the end we decided to use ADLG. We did not try impetus but that was something we wanted to try.

I've used Impetus a few years ago (in fact, if you take the front rank of bases on all my units they could easily be used for Impetus) and quite enjoyed the games. Still, no one I know is playing and I want to try a few new rules systems but they have to be able to take the size of the units above as it is for a display game which is why, among a few other reasons, the units were based in such a manner- for visual effect.

Atheling, I have never played "Sword and Spear" but do have a copy that I bought at a show a few years ago. Reading them, I guess the answer to your original question is in the line from the book "Groups of figures are organised into units. These should be of equal frontage.  The depth is not so important, but it is best that they have roughly equal depths for the same types of units"

I don't understand, how can depth not be important when it comes to flank charge opportunities?

Our group's "go to" rules are Simon Miller's "To the Strongest", but I realise they are not everybody's cup of tea .I bought "Sword and Spear" as an impulse buy as the author was demo-ing them at the show. I read them once and thought they weren't a better bet than TTS and I have got to the age where I only want one set of rules per period as I get easily confused and forget which mechanisms are from which ruleset.  I have played Impetus but didn't particularly like them and dumped them when TTs came on the market.

I've played TtS a number of times when it was first released and enjoyed the games immensely. In fact, I think we were the first HYW players Simon encountered and we was a bit of info exchanged to and fro. Unfortunately, no one at the club plays it anymore.

I'm looking for a set of rules for the Battle of Dara Display game me and ma good mate of mine have planned (Covid dependent) so I really need to know about the relation of the depth of the flanks of a unit and how this effects the likely hood of said unit being flanked? 

If you do want Sword and Spear you could have my pristine copy for £10 including P&P.

If it's pristine and you're in the UK, I may well take you up on that SJWi- do you want to PM me the details please?

Cheers all.

[monkeylite]

Interesting as that's not the impression I'm getting thus far. Units seem to be one base width in depth? Is this correct? If not can you give me examples of units of a similar size to mine that you have used please?

That's really not my style anyway so not to worry at all. I cannot stand Win at All Costs players. I tend to avoid them like the plague as is sensible.

It will work for any base size but not at the same time, iyswim. You can have 60mm frontage if your opponent has 60mm frontage. As has already been mentioned, however, it's not vital to the millimetre. Eg, I play with 110mm frontage but have played games against 100mm and 120mm with no problems. And I'm pretty sure I could play with even bigger disparities without any issues.

I'd have no problem with fielding slightly different frontage in the same army, but fwiw, I might consider fielding your cavalry as 100mm frontage to go slightly better with your 120mm infantry units.

Depth isn't really an issue with flanking because you can only ever fit one unit into the flank of an opponent. I suppose if you have more depth than frontage you could maybe make the rule that you can only be flanked by one unit.

'Large units' are recognised by depth, so if you are fielding large units (and there aren't that many in the historical lists) you should make it clear which are which, but apart from that depth doesn't really come into it.

fwiw I play with 70mm depth for normal infantry and 110mm for the depth of Large units. But because of the size of horse models, I play 110mm depth for cavalry. It's never been an issue, especially as you don't get Large units of cavalry. In another period I play all units are 110mm * 110mm (except large units) simply because I have more figures.

With my 15mm figures, I regularly play my 50mm depth units against DBM or HotT units of what? 20mm and 15mm depth? without any problems.

I think there is an issue with points costs for some abilities. Armour especially feels a bit cheap. If you use historical army lists then it probably won't be much of a problem. I regularly play with some pretty competitive fantasy opponents and there's been a definite creep towards high discipline armoured troops, to get the best bang for your buck.

[Phil Portway]

I think there is an issue with points costs for some abilities. Armour especially feels a bit cheap. If you use historical army lists then it probably won't be much of a problem. I regularly play with some pretty competitive fantasy opponents and there's been a definite creep towards high discipline armoured troops, to get the best bang for your buck.

But their armies would be smaller as higher unit costs. Restricted troops as well will negate some power players unless they are cheating.... Wargamers cheat?  no surely not! 

[monkeylite]

But their armies would be smaller as higher unit costs. Restricted troops as well will negate some power players unless they are cheating.... Wargamers cheat?  no surely not! 

Yeah, we had a phase of tournaments with 15mm fantasy, with just creating whatever armies you wanted without referencing the fantasy army lists, and even though more dice means more options, you could see that the armies were getting smaller and smaller but more effective. I teased one opponent because he turned up with an entire Orc army of discipline 3, but he got revenge when I decided my eagles were armoured.

[SteveBurt]

I use my 28mm figures for Sword and Spear. They are all based DBx style, so with 60mm frontage. Units for S&S are two of those bases wide, and one, two, three of four bases deep, depending on troop type. Unit depth doesn’t matter, and a 6x4 table allows a good size game.

[Atheling]

Thanks to monkeylite, Phil Portway and SteveBurt.

It will work for any base size but not at the same time, iyswim. You can have 60mm frontage if your opponent has 60mm frontage. As has already been mentioned, however, it's not vital to the millimetre. Eg, I play with 110mm frontage but have played games against 100mm and 120mm with no problems. And I'm pretty sure I could play with even bigger disparities without any issues.

iyswim?

That sounds good for the frontage as all  my units tend to be on 40mm wide bases, three to a unit (but obviously these can be expanded to suit taste/rules)

I'd have no problem with fielding slightly different frontage in the same army, but fwiw, I might consider fielding your cavalry as 100mm frontage to go slightly better with your 120mm infantry units.

The Cavalry would look really odd 100mm wide. I could only manage 80mm which would destroy the aesthetic that I have carefully put together for each unit- these are 120mm wide and just wouldn't have the same visual impact with a lesser frontage- the rules I'm looking for are for a display game:

Depth isn't really an issue with flanking because you can only ever fit one unit into the flank of an opponent. I suppose if you have more depth than frontage you could maybe make the rule that you can only be flanked by one unit.

That's great but with a frontage of what would be 80mm for Cavalry it is just not going to work for me.

'Large units' are recognised by depth, so if you are fielding large units (and there aren't that many in the historical lists) you should make it clear which are which, but apart from that depth doesn't really come into it.

If there aren't many deep units (mostly infantry and classical Cataphracts right?) it's looking very much like these rules aren't going to work for Belisarius' Wars/Early Byzantine Wars. Bummer 

I think there is an issue with points costs for some abilities. Armour especially feels a bit cheap. If you use historical army lists then it probably won't be much of a problem. I regularly play with some pretty competitive fantasy opponents and there's been a definite creep towards high discipline armoured troops, to get the best bang for your buck.

There are always issues with points in any system. As it's for a display game that wouldn't really come into it anyway. The game will be lopsided in terms of troops etc