Slitherine

and khurasanian in Decline&fall

My Welsh spearmen were rather effective today. They smashed several BGs of Dominate Roman armoured medium foot.

I found the key to not failing CTs as well..... just never lose a combat

OK the initial 2 BGs of Romans charged up a hill into a BG of 10 spear so the Romans were at - on impact and overlapped and - in melee, it was a short and brutal fight.

hammy wrote:My Welsh spearmen were rather effective today. They smashed several BGs of Dominate Roman armoured medium foot.

I found the key to not failing CTs as well..... just never lose a combat

OK the initial 2 BGs of Romans charged up a hill into a BG of 10 spear so the Romans were at - on impact and overlapped and - in melee, it was a short and brutal fight.

Well, that goes with my rationale of Poor Mob being the kings of the battlefield. All they have to do is roll nothing but 5's

Ian

No one can argue with a poor longbow army that only rolls 5's!

The SantaHermanthingummybob can have up to 20 Armoured drilled Def Sp - though you can also have that many of Off Sp as well

hammy wrote:My Welsh spearmen were rather effective today. They smashed several BGs of Dominate Roman armoured medium foot.

I found the key to not failing CTs as well..... just never lose a combat

OK the initial 2 BGs of Romans charged up a hill into a BG of 10 spear so the Romans were at - on impact and overlapped and - in melee, it was a short and brutal fight.

Yes, but can someone who is not good enough to persuade their opponents to charge overlapped uphill at them achieve anything with these unprotected MF spear?

At 6pts apiece you cannot expect a lot. It seems reasonable that they get shot to bits if not screened. They seem ok against mounted opponents when you take account of their cost. It's not unreasonable that they shd be down against most decent close-fighting infantry.

What I find frustrating is that even after using a bit of skill and time to get them into softer types - run of the mill crossbowmen for example - you are still at evens at best. The + at contact is usually negated by the second-rank shot. Thereafter the + for spear is cancelled out by virtually everything bar LF and LH having better armour.

I tried a small tournament taking Illyrians - identical to Welsh spear, but protected rather than not. For just one extra point (7 rather than 6) I found these much more effective. Realise that no point system is perfect, but in this particular case the extra protection seems cheap for what it does. Just as others have observed that for spears the further upgrade from protected to armoured is usually good value.

Still trying to sort out a way to work the unarmoured Welsh types though. Any thoughts?

Alan

acl wrote:

hammy wrote:My Welsh spearmen were rather effective today. They smashed several BGs of Dominate Roman armoured medium foot.

I found the key to not failing CTs as well..... just never lose a combat

OK the initial 2 BGs of Romans charged up a hill into a BG of 10 spear so the Romans were at - on impact and overlapped and - in melee, it was a short and brutal fight.

Yes, but can someone who is not good enough to persuade their opponents to charge overlapped uphill at them achieve anything with these unprotected MF spear?

At 6pts apiece you cannot expect a lot. It seems reasonable that they get shot to bits if not screened. They seem ok against mounted opponents when you take account of their cost. It's not unreasonable that they shd be down against most decent close-fighting infantry.

Actually unprotected offensive spear are even against any sword armed types. They are not good against other spear but you can't have everything The key is screening them well, on top of making sure you have ideally rear support and commanders when needed.

What I find frustrating is that even after using a bit of skill and time to get them into softer types - run of the mill crossbowmen for example - you are still at evens at best. The + at contact is usually negated by the second-rank shot. Thereafter the + for spear is cancelled out by virtually everything bar LF and LH having better armour.

True indeed

I tried a small tournament taking Illyrians - identical to Welsh spear, but protected rather than not. For just one extra point (7 rather than 6) I found these much more effective. Realise that no point system is perfect, but in this particular case the extra protection seems cheap for what it does. Just as others have observed that for spears the further upgrade from protected to armoured is usually good value.

Still trying to sort out a way to work the unarmoured Welsh types though. Any thoughts?

The upgrade to protected is handy if you end up fighting other protected troops but it is no good at all against armoured chaps. I am still not sure about the overall effectiveness of them but in the right situation they are very good value. The key is getting them into that right situation. it is far easier to get Catalan Alughavars into the right place and when they get there they are superior as well.

hammy wrote:

acl wrote:

hammy wrote:My Welsh spearmen were rather effective today. They smashed several BGs of Dominate Roman armoured medium foot.

I found the key to not failing CTs as well..... just never lose a combat

OK the initial 2 BGs of Romans charged up a hill into a BG of 10 spear so the Romans were at - on impact and overlapped and - in melee, it was a short and brutal fight.

Yes, but can someone who is not good enough to persuade their opponents to charge overlapped uphill at them achieve anything with these unprotected MF spear?

At 6pts apiece you cannot expect a lot. It seems reasonable that they get shot to bits if not screened. They seem ok against mounted opponents when you take account of their cost. It's not unreasonable that they shd be down against most decent close-fighting infantry.

Actually unprotected offensive spear are even against any sword armed types. They are not good against other spear but you can't have everything The key is screening them well, on top of making sure you have ideally rear support and commanders when needed.


Up to a point. Facing av armoured sword-armed legionaries they were even. However when chance turned against the legionaries they had opportunity to recover. The spear are on -- as soon as they cease to be steady. So they needed their generals and rear supports. Tho that feels right in melee with more expensive opponents.

What I find frustrating is that even after using a bit of skill and time to get them into softer types - run of the mill crossbowmen for example - you are still at evens at best. The + at contact is usually negated by the second-rank shot. Thereafter the + for spear is cancelled out by virtually everything bar LF and LH having better armour.

True indeed

I tried a small tournament taking Illyrians - identical to Welsh spear, but protected rather than not. For just one extra point (7 rather than 6) I found these much more effective. Realise that no point system is perfect, but in this particular case the extra protection seems cheap for what it does. Just as others have observed that for spears the further upgrade from protected to armoured is usually good value.

Still trying to sort out a way to work the unarmoured Welsh types though. Any thoughts?

The upgrade to protected is handy if you end up fighting other protected troops but it is no good at all against armoured chaps. I am still not sure about the overall effectiveness of them but in the right situation they are very good value. The key is getting them into that right situation. it is far easier to get Catalan Alughavars into the right place and when they get there they are superior as well.

Thats' a good point. In period it is satisfying to find you have a chance v heavily armoured knights. However, I think that even against a pedominantly armoured army (like Romans) the extra point was worth it. Because it gives that extra value v second-line troops. It seems to me that an army of cheap but cumbersome troops (irregular and usually in large units) depends to an extent on bringing the enemy second-class troops to battle.

It's silly to judge things on just three battles, but against everything I tried the Illyrians - Parthians, Romans, Indians I was pleased to have paid the extra point for the protection. Can you think of many armies against which you wd prefer to take 7 unprotected MF spearmen as against 6 protected?

Alan

If you like off sp can I recommend Arab Conquest. An excellent army.

Si

shall wrote:If you like off sp can I recommend Arab Conquest. An excellent army.

Si

If the Arab Conquest look very much like Vikings, do you think that would matter?

Ian

Well for the record guys I took the Catalan Company up against Christian Nubians tonight at 650 AP. I lost initiative and he chose desert and I expected a bloodbath for my unprotected almughavars.

A couple of hours later and my opponent conceded defeat after 2 of his 6 base BG's of spear/sword cavalry had routed and I had fragmented a couple of 8 base MF superior bow.

All his losses were from my almughavars !!

Rob

For the last month my regular opponents and I have been using the starter armies around the Welsh. We got into two Welsh armies. WE twiked the Welsh Medieval starter army. Our armies are similar but not identical.

Both of the armies have two 6 base, protected, with swords, long bow BGs. When they are in the offensive spear BGs faces, the offensive spears (unprotected) don't do too well.

IMHO, hit the unprotected offensive spears BGs with protected/armoured foot with at the least swords, those o spears BGs do not do well.

The 10 base size of the o spear's BGs is what keeps them alive/steady....for a couple of rounds of HtH.

Still and all......we ARE having fun with the Welsh and their offensive spears. I did teach last night's opponent that those raiders and followers are NOT knights.

If you like off sp can I recommend Arab Conquest. An excellent army.

Si

If the Arab Conquest look very much like Vikings, do you think that would matter?

Ian

Well just finishing my 25mm vikings off so can't disagree. The Arab Conquest gives you more superior but no armoured. It also gives good cavalry whicht he Viking doesn't. But the Vikings can deal head on with armoured Romans.

You pays your money, you take syour choice ...

Si

So far this post has confirmed my fears and experience Spear are tough nuts to with either other foot (Impact/Pike) or tough impact mounted troops like Heavy Armour Knights.

Any ideas how to defeat Spear based armies with Cav Lance type armies.

Peter

peter777 wrote:Any ideas how to defeat Spear based armies with Cav Lance type armies

With pure lancer cavalry you are going to struggle

Add in some LH or LF bow or sling and you start to have a chance. The key is to get one enemy BG dissrupted or even better fragmented then hit it with lancers. Often easier said that done though.

Outflanking marches can give spear armies problems as well. Once you have them outflanked they have little option but to turtle up into Orb.

peter777 wrote:So far this post has confirmed my fears and experience Spear are tough nuts to with either other foot (Impact/Pike) or tough impact mounted troops like Heavy Armour Knights.

Any ideas how to defeat Spear based armies with Cav Lance type armies.

Peter

HF spear fear Uneven terrrain. It isn't just the disruption it is the major speed impact. Approach the spear from angles make them manuver and they start having issues.

shall wrote:If you like off sp can I recommend Arab Conquest. An excellent army.

Si

You mean the ones that routed with abandon as I described in my previous post?

Perhaps I was just unlucky, but about the only troops they beat were protected average
spearmen. Anything else just went through them. Like I said, if they went disrupted, it
seemed impossible to stop them routing.

REF: Arabs wrote:You mean the ones that routed with abandon as I described in my previous post?

I had a BG of 8 Arab OF. Shot to disruption, charged simultaneously by 2 BG of Lancers to front and one to flank. Lasted three bounds. I had won the game elsewhere and they were still going, only 5 bases left though.

peter777 wrote:Any ideas how to defeat Spear based armies with Cav Lance type armies.

Peter

Well, if you take a one-dimentional army into a comp then it's likely you will come across other one dimentional armies that you will not have an answer to.

For the most part you would have difficulty with this combination, but you will be able to manouver and concentrate your forces where the spear would not be able to do the same.

Ian

Hi Ian

I agree about the risks of running one dimension armies, however there many good Cav Lancer type armies in Wolves from Sea, where there are also few a tough spear armies, like your Vikings.

Many Cav Lance based armies dominated the dark ages defeating armies that are largely Spear based, so I am interested in how to do this in FoG.

I consider Spear to be hard to beat with my favourite ex DBM armies , hence my questions about defeating Spear.

It is always good to have bit of plan on how defeat your worst match up.

Peter777