Clash of Spears: The First Clash

 Having just completed the Roman and Carthaginian starter boxes for Clash of Spears I was able to put the figures to immediate use with a game over in Cirencester. Stu provided the terrain, tea, and a willing opponent to try the rules out with.

I went with 2 evenly matched starter forces with the Carthaginians fielding:

2 * Level 3 Leaders

1 * 8 Javelinmen

1 * 6 Iberian Scutarii

1 * 10 Punic Infantry

1 * 8 Veteran Punic Infantry

The two level 3 leaders both gave 3 command points which seemed a decent number in game, not so few that you couldn't react but not so many that you didn't have any choices to make.

The Roman force consisted of:

2 * Level 3 Leaders

1 * 8 Velites

1 * 8 Samnite Allies

1 * 8 Hastati

1 * 6 Principes

The initial exchanges of javelins produced only light casualties on the Romans who pushed onto the Carthaginians so it looked like shooting wouldn't be that over whelming in the game. Of course it was at this point that the 8 Hastati wiped out all 6 Iberians with a deadly volley of pilums which swiftly put pay to that theory!

The main mechanic seems to be a gradual wearing down of units by building up fatigue until they start losing men to tiredness rather than deadly and overwhelming combat. The loss of a whole unit in one go was therefore a bit of a shock, but sometimes the dice-gods go against you and you get the result from the wrong end of the bell chart.

Other than that the game played as you would expect, heavy infantry with locked shields proved difficult to kill, but tired out, and light infantry caught by heavy melee specialists died unless they got lucky.

It proved to be an enjoyable first game of Clash and gave lots to think about, with the addition of cavalry in future games and the balance of command points to number of units something to try out. 

It's tempting to think that more points could be sunk into commanders to give more flexibility but they aren't cheap. So for example the top level commander with 5 command points is almost the same cost as a unit of 8 Hastati, and considering that games around 1000 points are recommended (we played at around 740 point) you don't want to overspend on commanders and have no troops to command.

I've also completed the Pegasus riders for my Kingdoms of Men Kings of War army. I went with two armoured hero types and two unarmoured to use as Wizards. The armoured models will probably see duty as Generals on Winged Beasts as we heard this week that League of Infamy is delayed until January. This means the Drakon rider models I have ordered to convert into Generals on Winged beast are delayed.

The Pegasus riding General and Hero options are not as tough or powerful in combat as the Beast version but they are very cheap and offer a fast, flying chaff unit that can score as well. These could prove useful at the end of game for grabbing or contesting objectives.

The Wizard option is much in the same vein but can also carry a ranged threat if equipped with lightning bolt.