Another Sword and Spear Fantasy rules AAR

Well, there will be pictures and a few comments about the battle, but really I want to muse on the subject of using the rules to create killer armies and whether this is a Good Thing or not.

The battle was between my Hyborian Barbarian horde and Nick's Orcs, augmented by some Meerkats who clearly didn't fancy a career in selling insurance products. Both sides were pretty equally matched in numerical terms.

I decided to put all my heavy foot units on my centre-left and place my cavalry out on my right.

Nick had a lot of medium foot, some heavy foot and a lot of shooty types, including Orc cannon.

Unhappily, his cannon were directly opposite my shieldwall of heavy foot, supported by longbows. My elite foot were soon getting shot at. The problem with Heavy Foot in S&SF is that they are slow moving and pretty much useless until they get into combat, assuming that they don't get killed off by ranged attacks.

I had skirmishers out on my left. I had no great expectations from them, they were just there to slow things down a bit.

My cavalry on the right were there with one aim, sweeping through all the defenders and then trying to roll up Nick's line. After all, they aren't much use for anything else.

My skirmishing bows were typically hopeless at turning Orcs into pin cushions. I sent a pack of wolves into combat and some light horse with javelins. Neither lasted very long.

My heavy foot plodded across the gap to try and assault the Orc cannon battery.

Elsewhere, I got my Giant and a Hero into action. The Giant huffed and puffed, and was then swiftly vanquished. The Hero held on for a bit longer, but soon joined the tribal ancestors, feasting with the Gods of Battle .

Progress was slow. My activation dice rolls weren't helping. Most of my barbarians are Discipline 4, so I have to consistently roll high numbers to do anything.

My cavalry had some success, seeing off some annoying bow-armed Orcs, but my line was disrupted by some stupid manoeuvres on my part.

The long, slow march of the Hyborian heavy foot was nearly over and they would soon be wielding their axes and war hammers against the Orcish artillery.

Because of my hopeless handling of my cavalry, I ended up with my right flank exposed to attack. I hastily reorganised things.

A unit of Trolls assaulted my heavy foot Luckily, I had been able to get them to face their attack and not get hit in the flank.

Finally, my heavy foot were fighting, and making short work of those guns. Hurrah, a success at last. My second shieldwall unit was ready to charge the archers. Surely, this would be a mere formality?

My lonely cavalry unit was unable to do anything, being marooned in a forest, which negated all their advantages.

The titanic struggle for the hill would decide the battle. Unfortunately, my barbarians were obviously a bit puffed out from all the walking they had had to do to get there and were making hard work of actually fighting.

Before long, the Trolls and Orc cavalry were around behind my shieldwall. Not a good thing.

My cave-dweller foot were fighting for their lives against the Meerkat cavalry. I have no idea what those longbowmen were going to do.

This was where we called time. I had lost a lot of troops and simply couldn't win. 

So, this is where I start musing. Nick made the sensible observation that my army is too difficult to control, because the units have mostly poor discipline or are undrilled, so that their heavy-hitting impact abilities are wasted because they are tricky to get into combat positions where they have the advantage. I agree with this, but it seems to me that apart from the well-drilled Shieldwall veteran foot, barbarians should be hard to control. That is why they hang around in hordes, pillaging stuff and feasting to the sound of the lamentations of the women of their enemies, instead of building cities and holding symposiums on subjects like "Is pillaging a dying art and would reviving it be a backwards step?".

It seems to me that making more of the units Discipline 3 and removing the Undrilled attribute wherever possible is inherently antithetical to the whole Barbarian Horde way of doing things. I could try and create a killer army, smaller and more expensive, but with biddable units of well-drilled and obedient soldiers, but that would mean that they were no longer barbarians., so, on balance, I much prefer them to charge off impetuously and hope that the War Gods are with them rather than employing those sneaky civilised ideas of strategy, tactics and obeying orders. Yes, the worse the discipline, the harder it is to remove the effects of broken morale, but that is surely part and parcel of being a barbarian? Winning and smiting is great, but when the going gets tough, the horde melts away. That is, after all, why smart barbarian warlords fairly soon tend to look for alternate employment as generals and mercenary commanders in civilised armies (where, of course there is always the possibility of mounting a successful coup d'etat and replacing the incumbent ruler).

I do think, though, that my army needs more than three commanders, so next time, there will be an additional captain on the field of glory.

Barbarian Horde vs Mountain Dwarves: A Sword and Spear Fantasy AAR

Just before Christmas, there was an epic Sword and Spear Fantasy encounter at the club between my Hyborian Barbarian Horde and Clive's new Magister Militum Dwarven army. There is a report of this on the Mödlhafen blog, but it seems only right and proper that the Barbarian point of view is also put on record.

Both armies were huge, around 1850pts of Dwarves and maybe 2000pts of Barbarians. Yes, we could have scaled things down a bit, but the chance to get everything on the table was too great to resist. You can see the size of the forces involved in this titanic clash in the first few pictures.

The two armies needed a 9ft long table to accommodate them.

I decided that I would have to get my Impact troops into combat as soon as possible, because that is pretty much what the Barbarians have to do. It is an army that lacks finesse, so it needs to get up close and personal as soon as possible.

I placed all my shooty troops in woods, not that I actually have many of them in the first place. 

My centre was packed with all my powerful heavy foot, supported by my L3 Magic user. I also had an Arcane Artifact to give my magicians as much of a boost as possible. The Artifact means that I get to roll an extra Magic D6 (giving me 4D6 in this game) and discard the lowest scoring dice.

Ignoring the Dwarven flying boat, I get my heavy cavalry, supported by  a Hero and led by a Captain) moving on my left as quickly as possible.

On my right, I send my Light Horse (out of view) on a flanking manoeuvre while I dash my packs of Wolves into action. I fully expect the wolves to get beaten, but hopefully cause a few casualties along the way.

My skirmishing archers start hitting the Dwarf flying boat. I really want to puncture this particular balloon.

My light horse move forwards, outflanking the Dwarf chariots. I hope that they will take this vehicles out.

As hoped, over on my left, the heavy cavalry wipe out the Dwarf crossbows and leave the Dwarf wizard exposed. Now, I just need to get these cavalry units through the Dwarf line, and start attacking them from behind.

My remaining heavy cavalry support the wolves and get into action. 

Charging my Hero on an Elk into the flank of the Dwarf cavalry, the unit is wiped out. The Hero is counter-charged by some Dwarf crossbows, who are melee capable.

My light horse charge a chariot unit in the flank, winning the combat with ease. I am hoping to roll up the Dwarf left flank.

Elsewhere, disaster strikes as my heavy cavalry are charged in the flank and, in successive combats, both units are wiped out. Disaster!

I blame those mammoths, personally!

My heavy infantry make slow progress across the battlefield. I really need them to get into combat with the Dwarven artillery, the kind of sneaky unit that the noble Barbarians just treat as cheating. Where is the honour in blowing your enemies up from a distance? Surely honour and fame only come when you "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women!" after the clash of steel on steel?

On my left flank, a Dwarf Hero destroys my skirmishing bowmen, meaning that I need to send my Medium Infantry into combat to stop him causing chaos.

My Troll heavy infantry close on on the Dwarf centre

My right flank makes much better viewing than my left. I seem to be gaining the upper hand here.

Unhappily, we are running out of time, just as I destroy one of the Dwarf chariots, allowing my light horse to get behind the Dwarf line. 

I never did manage to puncture that annoying balloon.

And, just as my main infantry units get into charge range, we have to call time. I like to think that this encounter would have seen my Barbarians victorious.

So, a truly epic battle that ended in a draw. It was good to see big armies on the table, even though the sheer size of them makes control difficult. I never even got my Giant into combat, so he was pretty much wasted. 

I can imagine that concentrating all my mobile units on one flank might have worked better, with the main infantry line just holding a defensive position. Perhaps that would be for another day.

The Barbarian Hordes are gathered for battle

I've wanted to photograph all my Hyborian barbarian troops, using 15mm Copplestone barbarians together for ages  and on Sunday I had the chance, when I played my first game of Sword and Spear Fantasy at the club. I wasn't able to use the entire horde for the game, but here it is in all its glory;

I think that is a pretty impressive horde, but I'd like to add some more units at some point, although it isn't a priority.

As for the game, Pete and I fought a game with twelve units a side without worrying about points values. His army is based upon the Eastern Roman Empire of the Komnenian period.

I began by pushing all my cavalry forward on my left, while holding back on the right.

Pete advanced with horse archers against my Heavy Infantry Trolls and a unit of skirmisher archers, who wouldn't last long.

I slowly pushed my heavy infantry forward, supported by medium foot archers.

The central battle developed into one between Pete's armoured lancers and my foot. Amazingly, my foot triumphed, forcing the cream of Pete's cavalry off the table. My pack of savage wolves were also engaged against some heavy infantry as my heavy cavalry attacked Pete's Giants.

Pete threw more cavalry into the fray against my infantry shieldwall.

Unhappily for Pete, the dice fairies weren't helping him and he continued to lose units, making his position pretty hopeless, conceding the victory to my hairy chaps with loincloths and bad table manners.

Of course, for a first game, we both made mistakes with the rules, which helped me more than it did him, but we will learn from that. We also took a while to really understand how to use magic users and how the magic rules work, but we'll get there.

We are basing our units on an 8 cm frontage, mostly with two 4 cm wide units together, which means that we can use figures already based for HOTT, DBA, DBM etc.

Overall, a fun game. I am looking forward to playing these rules again.