Slitherine

Given the choice between def. spear and lgt spear for lf bow supported heavy foot in tourney play which one would people choose ?

cheers

I'm assuming you mean Light Spear/Swordsman as LS only are not much use.

After that, it depends on the use you intend to put them to. Neither are going to be a great attacking force so I'd go for the Defensive Spear as they can stand up to more enemies, especially mounted, so you can use them as a mobile terrain feature that your other stuff works around. Unless of course, you expect to face a lot of bowmen, when LS/Sw is the better choice as they will be able to charge them with + at Impact.

If it weren't for the supporting LF I would take the DS everytime. But with DS what you really need in your third rank is more spearmen so I'd probably have to go for LS/Sw guys. Even though they're not that good at anything in particular they are reasonable all round troops and the LF bulk them up, especially if the LS are armoured

Difficult call. I think it would depend very much on what the rest of my army looks like, and what my likely strategy will be. If I'm intending to hold with a chunk of infantry in the centre and win with strong cavalry on the flanks I'd probably go for def spear. OTOH if I'm mostly infantry then I can't afford to have too high a proportion of the army as a purely defensive option so would take LS,Sw for more options.

Good point from Graham...whether LF supporting bow are cost-effective or not is contested. Some people love them, some disdain them. I'm sort of undecided - sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't, depending on how many spare points I have left over after I have bought everything else I really want. With LS in front of them, the BG can lose a single base with no effect on their fighting power. With def spear in the front ranks, loss of a single base will mean no loss of dice in combat, but will lose you a POA on one file, so appear to be less cost-effective than if they had light spear in front.

The spear

As ever, thanks for the replies. Yes they are -LS Sw armed troops in the North African Dynasty list. The bulk of the fighting will be done by the lance armed cavalry, so the foot are there to take up space as a mobile terrain piece.

Scrumpy wrote:As ever, thanks for the replies. Yes they are -LS Sw armed troops in the North African Dynasty list. The bulk of the fighting will be done by the lance armed cavalry, so the foot are there to take up space as a mobile terrain piece.

Then the def spear will be far more surviveable. Everyone will get thier POA's against Lt Sp, but Def Sp can at least take away sword, whilst steady, then its really no worse until fragmented, when its pooh. The only problem is if you need to charge off shooty battle troops. You need to take your balls in your hands and hope then.