Introducing CLASH of Spears !

Ok time to introduce CLASH of Spears.

Since 2018 we have been working on a set of rules for ancients skirmish. By Skirmish we mean 30-60 figures per side operating in small units.

Many of us love ancients wargaming, and we have tried many rules for large battles over the years. However, for large battles it is common to rely on our 10mm or 15mm armies since using 28s makes it difficult to move around or play.
Some of us might have some armies in 28s but even then we keep to just a few factions.

We have all seen how skirmish games have expanded over past years, either what you would call squad level games, such as Brink of Battle, Frostgrave, Forager, etc where you play 10-15 figures per side or the next level up which we could call platoon level ( borrowing from WWII ) such as Bolt Action, SAGA, Sharp Practice, where you tend to have in the range of 30-80 figures per side.

For a long time I was hoping we would get something like that for ancients/medieval and although a few alternatives popped up nothing so specific was released so we decided it was time to try some concepts that we had been developing over time.

In order to come up with something that could fit in this space, rules for “platoon level” actions for ancients/medieval and that would allow us to build colorful armies in 28s without breaking the bank we established some key core concepts:

1)A pure wargame. We seek to provide tactical depth through troops characteristics and specialization, terrain utilization and resource management. Our system does not rely on cards, battleboards and other boardgame related elements which are popular in games like Saga, Mortal Gods, Test of Honor, Star Wars Legion. Those are all great games so why doing more of the same ? We wanted to come up the alternative for skirmish gaming.

2) We wanted the mechanics to provide interesting tactical options but they had to be anchored on small actions, we didn’t want to extrapolate large battle rules to a “pretend is skirmish game”. So for example, in our game you would not have manipular rules, or macedonian pike phalanx etc. But you will have rules that interpret how troops with that training could interact in small actions such as alternating between open and close order, changing combat stance based on terrain, critical impact of fatigue on intense actions, etc.

3) We want the rules to be gritty and personal while remaining fun and fast paced. It has a good amount of chrome to convey the sensation of close action among small units. In this kind of action troops fatigue and good leadership would have dramatic impact on the outcome. We have worked hard to streamline these elements into the game avoiding the need of onerous charts or complex book keeping.

4) We want the system to be flexible, the idea is that the mechanics can eventually be used for anything from ancients to medieval and even include fantasy at some point. But we wanted to start somewhere specific to provide a deep and well defined setting. This is why we started with the Western Mediterranean 4th to 1st century BC. Those are the armies that will be included in the first book (Rome, Carthage, Greeks, Gauls, Iberians, Italians, Macedonians). 
We will provide FULL disclosure to the point system so you would be able to build any armies you want that might not have been covered by us yet. No secret sauce here, you will be able to use army lists designed by us or you will be able to create whatever list that you have set your mind on and that you might have been researching for some time !

5) Flexibility principle must also extend to army building. The army lists give a lot of freedom, there are no % of troop types since those really apply for large battles. At a scale of action of 30-80 men per side you could easily find whatever. So if you want your army to be all peltasts.. go ahead…
We do have an option to build a warband observing restrictions, which gives you an advantage when taking a fore break test, but you can forfeit that advantage if you choose to build an ad-hoc force with what you want to have and it is fully within the rules.

6) Finally, the rules have to portray the feeling of a good representation of ancients combat. There is a lot of contradictory information regarding ancients and even more when you move away from the documented main battles. So of course there is always room for argument, but at least this system takes some of those interpretations and puts them into a game to present a valid interpretation of how this type of combat might have taken place.

After months of playtesting by multiple groups the rules are now complete, fully functional and could be released today. However, we are working on print test runs to ensure the quality of the final product and fine tuning critical details of the commercial release.

While we are working on all that we want to take advantage of the time we have until our planned released in Q4 2019 to engage other groups in blind playtesting ( by invitation ) to test things such as army list balance, blind spots and those things that are easier to catch when playtesters push rules to the limit away from the eyes of the authors.

If you are interested in participating in this playtesting please reach out to us and we can include you on our closed playtesting groups. In such cases we would ask that you provide us with good feedback on how your games go what armies you are trying and what unexpected situations you might have encountered when playing the game.

As I said there rules allow for many periods but in particular if you have Punics-Wars, Greco-Punic wars, or any armies in that 4th-1st BC period in Spain, Italy, Sicily, North Africa, etc, it would be great.

You’ve seen a couple of battle reports over the past months on this blog and there are many more coming.

Here you can see some sample pages:

Figures should ideally be individually based but doesn’t matter if based on squares, round bases, triangular, hex.. whatever, you might be able to use stands if you have few models per stand but the system shines with individual bases. And you can probably also use it with 15s.

A 600pts game lasts about 2-3hs, played on a 4×4 table and with 30-40 figures per side.

Anyone interested let me know. The plan is to release the rules before end of year once we finish the playtesting and we identify the go to market strategy.

So if we caught your eye keep stopping by the blog for our progress updates !

Here you can see a sample 600 pts Carthaginian warband for Clash

Here you can see a sample 600 pts Mid Republican Roman army for Clash.

You can see a couple of previous after action reports here :

Raid in Tarando

Clash of Spears in Italy

You can also follow through the blog’s facebook group here

cheers,
Francisco