Had a magnificent game of Sword and Spear with my old mate Ernie last night at Meeplemart, and it was by far the closest game I’ve played. We used the standard forces I’ve been using for these forces, with myself taking on the role of the English (I gave Ernie the choice, he chose the French, so he can only blame himself. Has he learned nothing from watching me defeat Markus’ French in every game ever?), which consisted of 5 longbowmen with stakes, some dismounted knights, some billmen, and some Welsh Spearmen, along with a General and a Captain. Ernie had 3 French knights, one dismounted knights, 2 crossbowmen, and some brigans and artillery, along with a camp to defend (and which gave him the ability to use more than one bonus), along with a general and captain. So far in this match up, the English have tended to win (one of their losses was of course when I was playing with them – kind of how a falling cat with buttered toast strapped to it will somehow manage to land on its feet and on the buttered toast at the same time, this of course meant that the English would win (because they often have) while I would lose (which I often do). Initial positions were as follows:
Initial Positions, the English facing the French
On my left (the white bases are the English, the vaguely brown bases are the French, which again are proxied English figures), I had a unit of longbowmen, next to them the dismounted knights (with general attached), then more longbowmen, billmen, and two sets of longbowmen. My final unit of longbowmen didn’t have their stakes deployed, and were ready to climb over that rugged hill, while on my right flank waited my Welsh Spear (just in case Ernie tried to go around my flank – hopefully the speed bump would allow me to get someone else to cover that flank. Facing opposite them were, on my left, two units of knights, with the third behind them, Ernie’s dismounted knights, his two crossbowmen, and then at a slight angle, his artillery, guarded by his brigans. His camp is out of shot on my right at the back, behind another small hill.
Here come the French
The first turn or so had the French knights making their advance, with the rest of their line slowly heading for my line, which stayed where it was other than my mountaineering longbowmen who got into a better position, and my Welsh spear, who decided to try a sneaky flank march around to go for Ernie’s camp.
And here are the French!
The next turn saw the French knights charge into my left flank, but luckily for me, the stakes they faced denied them their fearsome impetus bonuses, cavalry bonuses and that nasty Impact ability. The only other thing of note was my longbowmen on the hill forcing Ernie’s brigans to run away a little. Cowards!
Uh-oh
The action on my left flank. I had high hoped for my dismounted knights – they’re probably the toughest unit in the game, being discipline 3, heavy armour, strength 4, and with two handed weapons to ignore an enemy’s armour – but my longbowmen, while they can usually withstand an initial charge,tend to fall apart after the cavalry get past those stakes.
And so it goes.
See the disappearing third unit of knights who were behind the others? They didn’t actually disappear – the unit attacking my dismounted knights lost horrendously, and were replaced in a charge by the second unit. My longbowmen managed to hang on for another turn too, thanks to some decent dice rolling from me and some truly abysmal rolling from Ernie.
Sneaky Welshmen.
On the right flank, my Welshmen continued their sneak attack, supported by my longbowmen, but Ernie’s brigans were heading them off at the pass (literally!).
A wider shot of the centre and left flank.
Meanwhile, Ernie’s centre was still moving slowly forward, and finally got within longbow / crossbow range. So this wasn’t going to be settled just on the flanks then.
Welsh vs Brigans
A little bit of manoeuvering saw the French brigans getting into position to attack the Welsh, who themselves manoeuvered around so that they could repel all boarders.
Ouch!
Meanwhile, everything was occurring on the other flank. My dismounted knights managed to see off another unit of French knights, and I was starting to feel confident of victory. What could possibly go wrong? Apart from the remaining French knights destroying my longbowmen and the French crossbowmen destroying a second unit of longbowmen in one blaze of crossbow bolts all within second of each other? I then managed to turn my dismounted knights, in order to do something about those last remaining French knights. If I could get a dice to them before the French, I could charge them in the flank.
Ouch II.
Which is exactly what I did, though sadly Ernie managed to survive the onslaught. And then his artillery destroyed another of my longbowmen in one hit. Not feeling so confident now.
The endless fight
At the end of the turn, Ernie could turn his knights to face my dismounted knights, and they spent several turn hacking at each other, both with a commander present, and both throwing about 5-6 dice each turn because we both put bonus dice into them. This is one of the things about Sword and Spear – put two heavy armoured forces against each other that are throwing a lot of dice, and since you pick out the best 4 dice for each, chances are you’re only going to be beating your opponent by one or two pips, if at all (we had several rounds where neither of us landed a hit because our dice were equal across the board after adjustments). There’s very little chance of doubling an opponent, which means discipline rolls, which when both have a commander attached, means you’re rolling and a 2+ is a save. Even if you fail, at the end of the turn, your commander gets a chance to get rid of a casualty, rolling a 3+ usually to do so. With 3 and 4 hits respectively, it’s going to take a great dice roll and luck to defeat an enemy in this situation.
A great dice roll!
Something remarkably like that, in fact. Unfortunately for me, despite that devastating roll, Ernie managed to roll similar results himself (and after he’d been rolling so badly earlier!), so the net result was…the same as before.
Hurrah for the Welsh!
My luck was changing back again though – my Welsh managed to destroy the brigans, and started back on their path toward the enemy camp. Which they’d need to be quick about – I’d just passed my first morale threshold and every base in my army had to make a morale check.
There they go!
And here they go, haring off! Though I don’t like the look of that artillery. I can tell Ernie;s going to manoeuvre it around to fire at me in the back as I head for that camp.
Hrm.
Perhaps I have time for a quick detour to see them off first?
Hurrah!
Shockingly, artillery aren’t much good in hand to hand fighting. That also made Ernie have to take morale tests for everyone too. In the final turn, we had three battles to complete. The endless knight fight didn’t return a victor; that left the hopeless longbowmen vs dismounted knights conflict (did I mention my longbowmen were on 2 casaulties of their 3 strength, against fresh dismounted knights?), and the Welsh vs the crossbowmen. I put a low die with my Welsh, and sent them in, and by sheer luck of the dice, managed to sweep the board, sending the crossbowmen into rout. That meant the game was going to end in a draw, since Ernie would destroy my longbowmen in the same turn.
And so it comes down to this…
And by totting up the morale losses, it became obvious that if either of us defeated one more enemy unit, we’d win. So, with the endless knight / dismounted knight combat going on and with no hope in sight of a result there, Ernie’s dismounted knights finally managed to struggle across the battlefield and get stuck in to my last remaining longbow unit. It was fairly obvious what the result of that was going to be, so my Welsh decided to forego sacking the enemy camp (it was too far away) and instead attack the French crossbowmen who had their backs to them. In the final turn,
VICTORY!
Ernie’s dismounted knights in heavy armour were rolling 7 dice, my longbowmen in no armour at all were rolling three dice. I rolled two sixes and a 5. Ernie beat me on one of the four resulting match-ups, which meant I had to make one discipline test. With a commander attached, I needed a 3+ to survive, and if I failed the roll, I’d lose the unit and the game would be a draw. I rolled a 5. RAWR! Dual men of the match for me were my dismounted knights, who vanquished two units of French knights and stopped the third from wreaking havoc behind my lines, and my Welsh, who took out brigans, artillery and finally crossbowmen to win the game in extra time. Ernie’s best were probably those same crossbowmen, who had gouged a massive hole in my line. A great game, which we both enjoyed, in which we were both confident of victory at different times, and which despite the end result was as close to a draw as we could possibly have gotten. In the history books, this one would have been designated a draw rather than a victory.
