Slitherine

whitehorses wrote:Off. sp. if of same quality & armour & roughly the same numbers as the Def. Sp. should cut through them like a knife through butter.

And why should that be?

It's the principle of the thing, really:

Cheap tat just standing in a line waiting to be charged v decent impetuous troops trying to force the issue.

To me, it's just morally wrong that Def. Sp should win anything against Off. Sp.


Ho-hum, ours not to reason why, ours but to clean the sty.....*sigh*

whitehorses wrote:Off. sp. if of same quality & armour & roughly the same numbers as the Def. Sp. should cut through them like a knife through butter.

how do you figure?

See above.

the level of skill and equipment is more reflected by superior and armour quality rather than offensive or defensive spear.
Defensive spear mearly indicates no tendancy to charge in in spearwall formation.
poor protected italiote hoplites should not be tangling with later german armoured mercenaries.

So no reason offensive spear should be significantly better than defensive spear except on the charge.

Ben

whitehorses wrote:Off. sp. if of same quality & armour & roughly the same numbers as the Def. Sp. should cut through them like a knife through butter.

Why? The factors are the same. Assuming the DS are sensible and wait for the OS to lose control and charge.

I've found drilled protected DS in large numbers very good in the Akkadians. They're cheap and effective. I've even taken to having some poor ones (supported by mob) in the middle of the line to tempt enemy in.

Most things the DS really don't want to charge tend to be shock troops, so all you need to do is walk up and wait. And since you'll have more points elsewhere the enemy often needs to make things happen anyway. If you do have to force the action you're often only down in the impact phase. Survive that and you're as good as any other spears.

Yes, it's good to have a strike force as well, but with DS being cheap you can afford one.

whitehorses wrote:Cheap tat just standing in a line waiting to be charged v decent impetuous troops trying to force the issue.

Classification as 'Defensive spear' indicates a style of drill or low-level tactical doctrine, not ingrained cowardice. Yes, some troops so classified are 'cheap tat'; they are the ones graded as 'Poor'. (And 'decent impetuous troops' must deserve an award for best oxymoron of the thread.)

Best wishes,
Matthew

Poor undrilled protected spear is one of the most cost effective units in the game at 4pts!

I always field them if possible. The trick is to use them carefully in large units, usually with a 1/3 rank of archers.

They fight at impact at +1 POA against any mounted and at worst at 0 POA during melee. Also at melee being a large unit they often have overlaps. Add a general and the odds are you should win any encounter against mounted.

Against foot the worst they suffer is a -1 POA at impact vs impact foot or pike. During melee they are +1 POA or 0 POA against most foot apart from pike.

madmike111 wrote:Poor undrilled protected spear is one of the most cost effective units in the game at 4pts!

I always field them if possible. The trick is to use them carefully in large units, usually with a 1/3 rank of archers.

They fight at impact at +1 POA against any mounted and at worst at 0 POA during melee. Also at melee being a large unit they often have overlaps. Add a general and the odds are you should win any encounter against mounted.

Against foot the worst they suffer is a -1 POA at impact vs impact foot or pike. During melee they are +1 POA or 0 POA against most foot apart from pike.

Thats presuming they don't charge (although they wouldn't need to unless facing archers)

Still I like your point, The poor athdath milita in some of the arab lists in Swords and Scimitar caught my eye as cheap, yet fairly effective road blocks, that work well with mounted

The poor athdath milita in some of the arab lists in Swords and Scimitar caught my eye as cheap, yet fairly effective road blocks, that work well with mounted

It NEVER gets old bringing up the pt that your 4pt spearmen just killed a +20pt knight when it happens in a game

Glas to see I'm not the only idiot with an absurd hankering to deploy large blocks of poor foot as my centre in a significant proportion of my battles

So far I've been doing it with light spear, swordsman types (Foederati Romans and Armorican allies) - with mixed success, it must be said - but it does make for an interesting battle! I'm lusting after being able to use defensive spear for this purpose, so morphing my army towards being able to do Maurikian Byzantine is the plan.