Played a short game of these new rules the other day, splitting my Impetus HYW English army into two, one side being the English, and the other side portraying the French, and so I thought I’d do a review of them. They use the same basing as Impetus (you can also use 4 bases of DB* or FoG in place of a unit), but as the Impetus bases look better with their mini dioramas, and since I don’t have anything based up for DB* / FoG any more, Impetus basing it is then. For those not in the know, that’s 80mm base widths, with varying base depths depending on type of unit, from 10-15mm for skirmishers to 60mm for cavalry. The book does suggest that the game can be played with any basing as long as its the same for both sides though.
Sword and Spear rules
The book itself is quite short – only 40 pages – though that’s mostly because it doesn’t contain any army lists. That’s definitely a down side, but the upside is twofold – first, it keeps the cost down (the pdf was £6, the hardcopy is £14), and secondly, the army lists are available for free at the website (http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/4583102656). At the time of writing, there are about 70 army lists, in 7 categories (Biblical, Greek and Macedonian Wars, Rome and her Enemies, Dark Ages [which we all know is really Early Medieval], Byzantium, the Middle East and Crusades, and Medieval), but the author is working on getting more online too, and is happy to take suggestions for lists if you have a burning need for a particular one.
The author’s intent was to create a set of quite large scale wargaming rules that play quickly and focus on the outcome rather than get bogged down in detail. A game with around 8-15 units per side should take about 2-3 hours, the author suggests. Having read through the rules and having now played a short test game, I can attest that it is pretty quick to play, and easy to pick up too. We had a couple of questions on rules, but the author is very quick to respond to questions on the forum he’s set up for the game, and most of what we weren’t sure on were easy to rectify using common sense.
I’ll do a proper AAR in another blog entry (I didn’t have my camera with me when we played, and prefer to have plenty of pics of games in play when I do an AAR), as I’ll be demoing these rules at the club sometime soon. My HYW army lent itself quite nicely to be split in half though. The “English” had a unit of Irish Kern with javelins, a unit of billmen and another of dismounted knights, a unit of Welsh spear, and five units of Longbow, along with a captain and a general, for around 350 points (most games are around 500 points, it seems, but 350 was a good number for a trial run of the rules, I think). The “French” had a unit of dismounted knights, 2 units of crossbowmen, a unit of brigans, a unit of artillery, and 3 units of mounted knights, and a captain and general, again for around 350 points in total. The English were defending their camp, the French were attacking.
The rulebook itself is set out well enough, with the usual assortment of photos of wargaming figures and quite a few helpful diagrams. The text is nice and legible too, and not written in Barkerese. Each chapter begins with a pithy phrase from some classical notable (Caesar, Thucydides, Heroditus etc) often connected in some way with the subject of that chapter. The first few chapters involved setting up the game and battlefield and introduce various concepts, including detailing each of the types of units, which are similar to those used in Impetus (Heavy Foot, Light Foot, Heavy Horse, Light Horse, Elephants, etc), and the concept of Large units (similar to those in Impetus too). Unlike with Impetus, a pike phalanx is just a large unit rather than 3 or so units attached to each other. There are relatively few large units too – Gallic warbands, phalanges and some Crusader-era Spearmen are the only ones I can remember seeing.
The next few chapters consider movement, discipline tests, shooting and melee, while the last few focus on ending the game, special features (special rules for elephants, scythed chariots, war wagons and the like, unit characteristics (which seems oddly placed toward the back, I’d have thought it would have been better placed at the beginning with the introduction of other concepts), and stratagems – things like archers’ stakes, flank marches, scouts etc that are available to some armies for a set cost. The rules end with several scenarios that can be used in place of the usual pitched battles (which you can still do if you prefer that), and a rudimentary index that covers most of the things you need to know.
In our game, we quickly discovered that longbowmen protected by stakes can really do a number on mounted knights, hurting them on the way in, and reducing their ability to use their impetus and charge impact – so much so that we were rolling even dice for the resulting combats. Caught without stakes in the open, however, the longbowmen are toast. This gave a pretty historical outcome, with a band of longbowmen anchored with spear and dismounted knights to one flank, rough terrain on the other. The French knights charged at some of the dismounted men on the right flank and some of the longbowmen, with their infantry taking on the rest of the longbowmen. The cavalry that attacked the archers came a cropper, but they did far better against the billmen and dismounted knights on the English flank. By the time the French infantry had reached the longbowmen, they’d been peppered with arrows and were in bad shape. Despite the French being victorious on the flank, the English won the day in the centre and were in the process of turning to face the rest of the French knights before they became demoralised at the loss of too many units and fled, leaving the victorious English in control of the field and their camp safe.
There are two basic mechanics used in the game, one reminiscent of Bolt Action, and one somewhat innovative. The game is one of those hybrid IGOUGO types where activation is partially random. In this case, as in Bolt Action, a bag containing a die for each unit in each side is used, and at the start of a new turn, 7 dice are drawn from it. After these units have been activated, a further 7 dice are drawn from the bag, etc, until all have been used up, then all the dice are put back in the bag for the second turn. We found that mostly we pulled out 3 dice for one side, 4 for the other, with an occasional 5/2 split, a rare 6/1 split, and only one where all the dice were for one side (though then there were only 4 dice left in the bag). These dice can be used to activate units similarly to Bolt Action (ie you can choose which units to activate), but in contrast to that system, you can use more than one die to activate a unit. There’s a nifty activation sequence – units usually require a 3 or 4 or more to activate, dependent on their discipline rating (with undrilled troops requiring higher numbers still if they want to perform a manouever). Unlike with Bolt Action, where every unit has a turn, some of your units in S&S won’t be doing anything in some turns – a result of 1 or 2 is usually a failed action, and you can double up dice for a unit if you want to give them some bonus, which might be an extra die in combat or an extra bit of movement – handy if your opponent tries to place his unstaked longbowmen (makes them sound like vampires, doesn’t it?) just out of normal charge range.
“But wait,” I hear you cry, “what happens if I pull out 3 dice and my opponent pulls out 4? How do we know who can activate a unit first?” Each player allocates the dice he rolls to units, and the unit with the lowest die allocated to it goes first. “But we both have units with dice allocated that have 3 on them, we still don’t know who goes first!” you whine. That’s why you pull out an odd number of dice from the bag each phase – the active player will go first in the event of a draw, the active player being the one who pulls out the most dice for that phase. In the example above, then, the opponent would get to activate first, since he pulled out 4 dice to your 3. Of course, if at the end of the turn, there are only 4 dice in the bag, two for each player, then you’re still at an impasse, but the author has thought of that – in that case, the last phase’s active player becomes the reactive player this phase.
That, in a nutshell, is the activation mechanic. We found it to be ok as a mechanism, and didn’t have any problems with it, but were still on the fence about it. It’s far from the worst activation mechanism out there, and does what its intended to do pretty well, so we had no complaints. I did have one turn where I think I rolled more 1s and 2s than 3+s for the entire turn, so couldn’t do a great deal, but then when your roll comes up 5s and 6s, after you’ve pulled out 5 dice to your opponent’s 2 and hes in a perfect position for you to shoot the crap out of him, that makes up for it. We found that at the start fo the game, we weren’t worrying too much about where to put which dice (since my opponent was defending, I was moving), the middle game saw us spending more time thinking about where to allocate dice (I want this unit to go as soon as possible, but then if I put the 2 6s on it instead, it’ll go last but will really pack a punch when it hits), and by the end of the game, we were running pretty quickly again.
The other mechanism is the combat mechanism. This one I really liked, and can see stealing it for a simple and fast home brew game. Basically, each unit in the fight roll a number of dice equal to its strength plus or minus any modifying factors, such as if its charging and has impact weapons, is in rough ground, if you’re attacking in the flank; the usual ones you’ll find in most games, but not an overwhelming number of them as in some complex games (I’m looking at you, Empire, with your bonus if you attack on a wednesday after 4pm but only if the angle to the sun is more than 30 degrees, your unit’s uniforms have been washed within the last week, if the sergeant’s name ends in a vowel, and if there are more dark-coloured horses than pale-coloured ones in the unit you’re attacking). Once you know the number of dice you’re rolling, you roll them and after lining them up in order from highest to lowest result, you compare the best four with your opponent. If I roll a 6, 2, 5, 3, 1 and 2 for example, an my opponent rolls 3, 3, 3, 3, we’d end up with the following pairs – 6-3, 5-3, 3-3 and 2-3. Armour affects these results, as decent armour allows you to boost a die or two – If I had decent armour, I could boost my 2 to a 3, or that 3 to a 4. When comparing, any even result (that 3-3 there) means neither of us took a hit. The 2-3 result means I have to take a discipline test – if I fail, I take a hit, if I pass, I’m ok. Same for that 5-3, my opponent has to make a discipline test with the same outcome if he passes or fails. That 6-3 result is great for me though – that’s an automatic hit, no discipline roll needed since I got double his result.
We found this to be a nice, simple mechanism. If you’re in a bad way, especially when facing fresh troops, you’re going to be throwing fewer dice, which means your results are going to be more random. We had a few occasions where one unit was rolling 3 dice, and other was rolling 5 or 6, which meant the better unit had a better choice of which dice to use to compare, and higher discipline troops (which ironically have a lower discipline number, since you want to roll that or higher) tend to be able to take hits better and thus survive longer. This is one of those games where casualties and morale are all wrapped together (as in Maurice, Lasalle etc), so a rally roll will see your unit seemingly gather zombie troops to re-fortify itself, and the mechanism works really well. You want to be careful which units you send to attack your enemy units – knights crashing into stakes is not good for their health, especially when they’re already battered by the storm of arrows they’ve faced getting into contact. That heavy armour can help them, as can their high discipline, but only for so long before they flee the field or get cut down or drowned in the mud by those dastardly longbowmen.
All in all, I enjoyed our game, and will be doing a demo at the club soon (several others have already bought copies too). I like the combat mechanic immensely (it’s really quick in practice too), and we got a game in within 2 hours including explanations and set up at 350 points. I think a 500 point game would be fine for an evening’s game without worrying about time, which is ideal for us, while still offering us enough variety in troops etc. I’ll still be playing Impetus too (and looking forward to the second edition of those rules when they come out), but I’d be just as happy playing these rules. Sword and Spear gets the Lemming recommendation. Try them for yourself and see what you think.
