Large spear units

[tyronec]

Probably not a great time to bring this up but I have just played three mirror matches in the HOML where one side was using large spear units.
Welsh vs Irish 1050-1130
Scots vs Irish 1050-1130
Low Countries 1275-1319 vs German
In every one the army with the large spear units came off worst. The extra men in the unit just doesn't compensate for the more units that their opponent will have, or their better quality.
The Irish Picked foot would often trash the spears on contact for a unit that is a similar cost and then the Irish army had more units so they could get around the flanks too.
Low Countries are just facing too many enemy units, dismounted MAA can defeat their spears and defensive spears can hold them up long enough for other units to get around the flanks and/or exploit gaps that open up in the main line.
The heavy foot large spear units spears are not so bad because they can hold out for several rounds when outmatched but the medium foot large spears are particularly poor because the often drop cohesion early and seldom lasted until an autobreak.

Maybe reduce the large heavy foot units by 1-2 points and the large medium foot spears by 3-4 points.
Similar to what was done with regular warbands which also suffered from not getting full value from their manpower.

But how about doing a test first in a Slitherine tournament. Could do an English one with English vs Scots (heavy foot)and English vs Welsh North (medium foot) and see how the results compared. That is if you can look at the stats for game results.

[SimonLancaster]

You do have to differentiate between the medium foot and the heavies. That is the first thing.

A couple of years ago I produced some top ten worst units for all the periods. Welsh Spear were amongst the absolute worst. I noted as you do their weakness and relatively high cost. Maybe someone watched the video because they came down in price from 50 to I think 47.

Maybe you think they are still overpriced?

Heavy foot variations are not so bad. Also note that they are only 50 down v MAA on impact as opposed to 100 even for Dismounted Knights and regular spear. Even Billmen are 150 down v MMA on impact so large spear does have its uses.

[SnuggleBunnies]

But how about doing a test first in a Slitherine tournament. Could do an English one with English vs Scots (heavy foot)and English vs Welsh North (medium foot) and see how the results compared. That is if you can look at the stats for game results.

The more recent discount was 3 points. I suspect that in both Ancients and Medieval they could go a bit cheaper, but I am unsure, especially about the HF ones - a swarm of such units can be pretty effective. Testing via Slith tournaments is not necessarily a bad idea, but I always advise caution reading into them too much - there are units that will not do as well in the hands of less experienced players, but units should ultimately be balanced for good play as much as possible.