One of those Nights

This week Frazer and decided to give Sword and Spear another try.  I have had a couple of games, but not for a while and barely remembered the rules.

We opted for 500 points and I went for a Late Roman army list, while Frazer went for German Tribes.

Romans are not exactly cheap, so I managed to squeeze the following inot my list:

4 Heavy Armoured Infantry
2 Medium Infantry Archers
2 Armoured Cavalry
1 Cataphract
2 Skirmishers
1 Light Cavalry

Roman Army ready for action.

Frazer's army turned out to be huge:

8 Impact Heavy Infantry
1 Cavalry
2 Light Cavalry
1 Chariot
4 Skirmishers (2 Javelin, 2 Bow)
7 Medium Infantry

A bucketload of hairy barbarians.

He had 19 units to my 12, which was a bit daunting.

I deployed my infantry on my right, with my cavalry in the centre. My plan was to hold my right  while my Cavalry got stuck in, but the plan was going to struggle against so many enemy units.

Sword and Spear has a slightly different turn mechanic.  At the start of the turn each player takes 1 die for each unit in their army and they are all out together in a bag.  In each phase of the game you remove 7 dice, with each player then getting whichever of those dice belong to their side to use for activation.  Those dice are then rolled, and each dice can then be assigned to a unit, providing the dice roll is equal to or higher than the quality of the troops (4+ is ok, 3+ elite and 5+ for rubbish troops).  Troops are then activated using the die scores assigned, starting at the lowest so quality 3 troops can activate before everyone else, and a score a 5 or 6 will go later in the phase.  Every activated units takes its action until they are all completed, and then you remove another 7 dice from the bag and do the same again. You do this until all the dice have been used, which signals the end of the turn.  Then you put them all back and do it again next turn.

The two armies advanced as quickly as possible and not much happened in the first turn. Second turn we were in missile range and started to take some pot shots at each other, with little effect.

Turn 3 and 4 is where it really went pear shaped for the Romans.  It turned out that the Romans were incapable to winning a single combat and got pretty much stuffed. Even the Cataphracts couldn't do any damage to the incredibly tough German tribesmen. 

Roman left flank is wiped out.

By about turn 4 or 5 it was pretty much all over, with the indestructible Germans breaking the Romans without losing a single stand.

Last couple of Roman units left on the table.

Post game discussion involved the seemingly massive difference in cost between the two forces, with German Heavy infantry being as good as the Roman heavies, but almost half the cost.  As it turns out all the infantry points values in the German list were wrong, and Frazer had in fact been playing with over 600 points. This explained the massive difference in the sizes of our armies, although the way the dice went it probably wont have made much of a difference.  We are going to have another bash at this in the new year and se how we get on.

Sword & Spear has some very simple mechanics, but there are a few things that grate somewhat.

The fact that you can only carry out charges one unit at a time can be a but odd, as if your opponent is deployed in a line you need to pick one brave bunch of soldiers to make the first move.

My biggest bugbear is the difference between undrilled and normal troops, as when your forces are stretched from one side of the board to the other not being very manoeuvrable is not much of a problem (at least so far anyway).

However I have only played 3 games so far so need to play a few more to see if these problems will work themselves out with experience. 

Sword and Spear

So this week we had a go at Sword and Spear, which is a fairly recent set of ancients rules.

I have a decent sized Late Roman army, based for Impetus and Impetus has been a bit quiet at the club of late. I was looking for another set of rules that would allow me to use the same bases, and Sword and Spear seemed to fit the bill.

I used my troops as Sub-Roman British, while John brought his Picts, supported by some Saxon and British Allies.

I looked at what I had a cobbled together a force for my first game, totalling 10 infantry units and 4 cavalry, while John brought 3 cavalry units and about 15 infantry.  I had the better cavalry and some heavy foot, while john had lots of troops, many of which had the impact rule.

Pictish Horde

Stout Romano British

Both side line up.

The main thing that differentiates Sword and Spear from other games if the way the units are activated.  At the start of the turn you take one coloured dice for every one of your units, and one different coloured dice for every one of you opponents units and place them all in a bag.  The game turn is then broken into phases, and at the start of each phase you randomly draw 7 dice, and hand the amount of relevant coloured dice to each controlling player.  The player with the most dice becomes the active player, who then takes his dice and rolls them.   The controlling player can then take these dice and put them against units so that they can be activated, as long as the dice roll is equal to or exceeds the discipline value of the troops you wish to activate.  The other player then does the same.  After this you will be able to see which troops will be activated in the current phase. 

Once the dice are assigned you start activating your troops, starting with the lower dice roll and working your way up until everyone has been activated.  Troops complete their actions when they are activated, including concluding any combats before moving on to the next unit.

After everyone who has a dice assigned to them has been activated you draw another seven dice, and do it all again. You repeat this until all the dice are used then put them all back in the bag (minus any casualties) and do it again next turn.  Quite clever but requires a lot of thought and makes co-ordinating your troops a bit tricky.

Dave and I opted to hang back and let the Pictish hordes come to us, while trying to turn one flank with our superior cavalry.  We held our ground and let them advance, and when the moment came Dave sent the cavalry crashing into the Pictish Flank.  With 2 hard hitting units charging in we thought that we would make an impact but to sets of fluffed dice rolls later and our mighty charge had splutterd out, having virtually no impact on the game.  

 In the centre the Pictish line advanced and John got lucky with his activation and managed to attack my lines with virtually all of his troops at once.  A massive melees erupted in the centre, with no side gaining any advantage in the first round of the combat. 

 At this point both sides were committed to the combat and almost everyone’s dice were getting used ti instigate combats. The cavalry managed ot inflict some damage, but certainly not enough to be worth their cost! In the centre some rather unfortunate dice rolling saw the Romano- British line start to crack under the pressure, before we ran out of time.  We declared a winning draw for the Picts, but in reality it just a matter of time before our forces were destroyed.

So an interesting game, with some pretty awful combats from our side.  All in all I enjoyed the game and there was lots of thinking to be done about how best to manage a limited resource, which always makes for an interesting game.  I will definitely give it another go soon, as one game is never enough to get an idea of how good a game is, and I am always looking for an excuse to get my Roman army on the table.

Next week we are back to Necromunda.  I know I said I was unlikely to play any more but I decided that sa I had signed up to the campaign it was only fair that I see it through to the end.