Sword & Spear

[Belisarius]

The Basementeers played they,re first game this week, cobbling together two WotRoses lists of 350 points each. One list consisting of better but fewer troops and the second lesser armed but more numerous units. The game progressed quite well,  although no doubt we got some things wrong , adding dice of the same value for instance for bonus moves. We,ll certainly be giving them another go. We used 6 X figures for a normal unit.

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[Dilettante Gamer]

I would be very interested in the how S&S compares to your experience with other rules sets - e.g. Hail Caesar or whatever you play customarily.

Thanks for sharing!

[Belisarius]

Hi DG, our group play Lion Rampant and Dux Britaniarum mostly. My own preference is for L.R. For the following reasons, it's fast, throws up tactical choices throughout the game, has an elegant yet subtle mechanism , is unpredictable but above all its FUN to play . Sword and Spear has a more abstract feel about it for me , which some people may prefer. At the risk of bringing down howls of protest , it still reminds me ,at times , of an expanded version of DBA. We have the Hail Ceaser rules and have tried a couple of games ,but I,m afraid the whole Black Powder stable of rules have fallen out of favour lately with the guys I game with.           Colin.

[Dilettante Gamer]

Hi DG, our group play Lion Rampant and Dux Britaniarum mostly. My own preference is for L.R. For the following reasons, it's fast, throws up tactical choices throughout the game, has an elegant yet subtle mechanism , is unpredictable but above all its FUN to play . Sword and Spear has a more abstract feel about it for me , which some people may prefer. At the risk of bringing down howls of protest , it still reminds me ,at times , of an expanded version of DBA. We have the Hail Ceaser rules and have tried a couple of games ,but I,m afraid the whole Black Powder stable of rules have fallen out of favour lately with the guys I game with.           Colin.

Hi Colin, that's a very helpful response! I too play/adore both LR and DB. LR is more flexible, DB has edge on color (fate card mechanic) and the campaign structure.

A follow up on your reference to Hail Caesar -

It sounds like your group sees Sword & Spear as a preferable "big battle" rule set to scale up your LR/DB games. If I'm reading that right, what are S&S merits over HC?

I've been on the verge of buying S&S but exercising restraint until I know more about it.

[Belisarius]

Hi DG, I c,ant comment on HC as I hav,ent played enough games using them.  We,ll be playing our second game of S&S tomorrow night so I,ll let you know how it goes, plus a few pics. Other guys at my club are aiming to play large battles of S&S set in the Punic Wars so I guess you could say that they are the rules of choice for big battles. The new set of S&S are not different to the old set, new index some editing ect, so if you can pick up a PDF of the old set it may save you some money.                           Colin.