I had a game of Sword and Spear against Ernie this week to teach him the rules (and to drum up some more interest in these rules – we had a couple of people watching, and a few of the club members have now also bought these rules or are planning to do so). I have a sizable English Hundred Years War army for Impetus, and since the two games use the same basing, it’s a cinch to use them in both games. It also meant I could split my army into two equal forces, one taking on the role of the French.
I took on the role of the French for this game (same as the last time), Ernie had the English. He won the scouting, so I had to set up my units first (heavies and train, then mediums – we had no lights in this battle). Our initial positions looked like this:
Initial positions
On my far left I had some artillery (which due to the distance between our two forces and Ernie’s reluctance to leave his initial lines, I never actually managed to use), with some Brigans next to them to protect them. Behind the field (rough ground) were two units of crossbowmen, alongside them in the open were three units of knights, and on the far right next to the woods were my dismounted knights.
Facing them on my left were dismounted knights and billmen, with Ernie’s camp just behind them, followed by 5 units of longbowmen, all with stakes, and on my right were Ernie’s Welsh Spear. Both sides came to exactly 351 points, so it was an even match-up. We both had a general and a captain.
The first turn didn’t see much going on – I moved some of my units up, Ernie stayed in position waiting for me to get within longbow range.
The French start their move against the enemy.
I tried to move all my units, but thanks to a couple of 1s and 2s, my dismounted knights stayed behind. On reflection, I should have used a double or a 6 to move them up and leave one of the knights behind, as heavy foot are slooooow, but I did also manage to get both my crossbowmen moving through the field.
Almost there!
After 2-3 turns, we were in this position – my knights were now easily within charge reach, though my dismounted knights were far away from the action. My knights had taken some arrows moving forward, so much so that my rightmost unit was in danger of imminent death, but thanks to some lucky defence rolls from me and some lousy rolls from Ernie, my other two units were still ok.
So close!
My general was bouncing around the three knight units trying to rally off hits – Ernie was doing roughly one hit a round to my knights, which I was then able to rally off with my general. That unit on the right is still very vulnerable though…
At this stage of the game, the dice you pull out really has an effect. If I could get fairly low dice and attach them to my knights, they’d be charging in before Ernie could react. Longbowmen have a nice little rule that allows them to fire at a charging unit if they have an activation dice though, and Ernie certainly took advantage of that.
And in they go!
With some decent dice for me, I managed to get two of my knights to charge, and my crossbowmen up into range too. Knights facing longbowmen behind stakes don’t do very well, but their heavy armour does help. Basically, my knights lost their usual impetus (which also meant they lost their impact ability, their cavalry bonus etc), so we were rolling even dice. I could adjust dice a little because of my armour, which helped, but this initial melee was inconclusive – we both did a little damage to each other, but nothing too worrying.
Breakthrough!
The next turn, however, my knights’ strength made all the difference. In a prolonged combat, they managed to get behind the stakes, which meant they could use their fearsome abilities more easily, especially when coupled with some great dice. The longbowmen started to rout, though they did pick off that unit of the right before they did so. We (by which I mean me) forgot a couple of things here – when the longbowmen routed, the units next to them should have made a discipline test, which they didn’t, and my knights should have pursued too, but didn’t. Ernie’s Welsh also rather sneakily attacked me in the flank with their spears, which I wasn’t keen on, so I turned to face them at the end of the turn.
Final stages
And so we reached the final stages of the battle. Both Ernie and I reached our morale levels, so all of our units had to make discipline tests, and both of us were within one more unit routing away from complete loss of the field. I’d manouevered around to destroy another of Ernie’s longbowmen and taken out his billmen with some nice crossbow shooting, and finally got my dismounted knights into action (hitting Ernie’s Welsh spear in the flank to boot!), but I’d also lost one of my crossbowmen and that second knight unit, so it all came down to this turn. Ernie’s longbowmen had left their stakes behind, so if I could charge in with my knights, I’d win. If my crossbowmen could destroy Ernie’s dismounted knights this turn (which was possible, since their crossbows could ignore Ernie’s armour), then I’d win. If Ernie took out my knights before they charged in, however, I’d lose. We drew dice, my crossbowmen went first, but didn’t do enough to kill off the dismounted knights. Ernie’s longbowmen went next, needing to only do 1 damage to me. Longbowmen can decrease armour level by 1, but that still left me a decent chance, since I could adjust one die down at least, and we were both rolling three dice. Unfortunately, I rolled a collection of 1s and 2s, while the lowest of Ernie’s dice was a 4. No matter which die I changed, I was going to take an automatic hit, and with it, would lose my knights before they could charge in.
We both enjoyed these rules; they supply a quick, fun game. Even with explaining rules and concepts, we only took about 2 1/2 hours total from when we arrived to having packed things away. We (again, by which I mean me) missed a few things here and there, but those things affected both of us equally and wouldn’t have changed the final score. A couple of others at the club were playing a Biblical game of S&S on the table next to us, and seemed to be having fun too, and the people watching had a few questions about the rules etc as we went along. It was a close run game, but Ernie’s defences were too tough a nut to crack in the end – and it did at least give us a historically accurate result, since the French lost battle after battle using the same tactics as I used (until they finally got wise and started to use artillery and dismounted knights to counter the longbowmen and their stakes). We’ll be playing more Sword and Spear in the future, though I’m still going to be keeping Impetus in the mix too. There are some similarities in feel with the two games, but at least with this number of points, S&S feels a little like DBA to Impetus’ DBM or FoG – S&S is easier to get to grips with and faster, which I really like, but I still enjoy the complexity of Impetus too. Expect to see both games played more regularly and reported on here, especially when the War and Empire kickstarter figures start arriving and get painted up.
