Clash of Spears: Equites

 Cavalry was never the strongest arm of the Republican Roman army and was recruited mainly from citizens of the equestrian order. This meant it was well equipped but low in numbers. In the starter box we get only four heavy cavalry as opposed to the six Numidian light cavalry in the Carthaginian box.

The Equites come with a 4+ save and hit on 3's with their cavalry spear so like to be charging in to wavering heavy troops or using their extra speed to sweep enemy skirmishers from the field. With only four models in the unit they probably don't want to be shot at very much or engage large fresh units.

Troops in Clash are assigned to one of three rarities in order structure the building of forces. These go upwards from Civis to Milites to Rare. Generally the troop quality also improves with the rarity. At least half your force must be mustered from the Civis troop rarity which is an easy way to help balance out the forces seen on the table.

The Equites are Rare so in order to field them you would already need 1 Commander, 8 Civis and 4 Milites in your order of battle.

In the Roman starter box you get 12 Velites, 8 Samnites and 12 Hastati but only 6 Principes, the only Milites choice in the list, so this would limit you to only 6 Rare models in the army. Expanding the number of Principes would be a good starting point for expanding the Roman force it would seem. The inclusion of some allied veteran Iberian Scutarii or Greek City State Hoplites would also help increase the number of Milites troops in the army.

The Carthaginians have two Milites cavalry options in the light Numidian and heavy Iberian cavalry, so could field a 50% mounted force, which could be interesting.

Next up are the Velites who are a premium skirmish unit.