Offensive Spearmen vs Impact Foot

[jomni]

Do Offensive Spears ever come back into the army lists?

It’s the era of defensive spearmen.

[rbodleyscott]

But it should be kept in mind that, for infantry, offensive spearmen are not bad at charging, they just aren't as good as impact foot and pikemen. These units only really meet each other in battle from 4th century bc to the end of millennium and then pikes and spears again during late medieval period. Outside of those periods the offensive spear is still usually among the best infantry for charging when available.

That's a very good point. My understanding is that Offensive Spears predate pikes and impact foot and are the dominant melee infantry in the Biblical Era, but then Pikes and Impact foot take over in Classical and Late Antiquity, and then Impact Foot remain up into Early Medieval. Do Offensive Spears ever come back into the army lists?

After 600 AD, yes, they will, and there will be very few impact foot and no pikes.

As a general trend: Offensive Spearmen come in with Greek hoplites circa 680 BC, and then dominate infantry close combat until trumped by pikes in the later 4th century BC and legions in the 3rd century BC. There was then a general switch to shieldwall tactics (treated as Spearmen - Offensive or Defensive depending on army and date) from circa 600 AD.

[Geffalrus]

Mmmmm, that sounds like Medieval will be quite fun, then.

Only other thing I want to bring up is that it does seem like there is a relatively high amount of variety for Impact Foot units within their time frame compared to Offensive Spears and Pikes (I think Light Spear probably has the highest variety as it's the basic infantry unit). By which I mean, Impact Foot ranges all over the heavy to medium spectrum with many levels of armor combined with the most levels of morale, courtesy of the Romans. I think this is partly why we have the Jewish Zealot situation where the multiple permutations of Impact Foot + armor + morale = cost has resulted in the Zealot that maximizes the impact variables and minimizes the melee variables, resulting in a very effective charge unit for a rather low cost. I'm not against variety, to be clear - definitely helps make the army lists unique. My only point is that high variety can result in units that are more focused and cost effective for one type of fight than other units.

Armored horse archers with melee capability are a great example of this. They're very flexible, but the cost you take to have many units in one can cause problems. If all you want is a horse archer.......paying extra for things you don't want can be frustrating. That's how I feel about pikes some times. The extra amount I pay for Square, an ability I rarely use and rarely use well, is a bit of a waste from - my - perspective. Again, not saying that Offensive Spears and Pikes are necessarily bad, just that there is a limit to what types of those units you can have, compared to Impact Foot, where there seem to be a lot of armies with different approaches to Impact Foot, allowing you to better choose the Impact Foot type you want. Do you want super durable impact foot in open terrain? Have some Romans. Cost effective heavy impact foot? Have some Gauls. Sturdy rough terrain impact foot? Have some Samnites. Hard charging cheap impact foot? Jewish Revolt. Cheap impact foot swarm? Spanish. There is variety within Hellenistic armies, but much less so when it comes to the pike and hoplite units, is all I'm saying.