[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by PvK:
Hmm. My main concern is a basic one - a significantly longer weapon should usually have the first opportunity to strike. This is generally a deterrant to closing ranks, so the repel morale check is nice.

While we see the whole combat played out in detail in dom to me what is key is that the unit vs unit balence is good.

In understanding how different units interacted individual weapon usage considerations should largely be put aside in favour of trying to understand how the two bodies literally physically impacted upon each other - the results of which are very counter intuitive at times. We are not modeling a man with two handed sword vs a man with a spear but a body of men with two handed swords vs a body opf men with spears.

HI with two handed weapons fought very differently to how people often imagine. Some of the best known examples (Huskarls, Varangians) fought in a dense body wielding their weapon over handed in a regular chopping motion and relying on their close support of each other, good armour and a large shield hung over their shoulders. Others such as medievil halbadiers relied on the greated length of their weapon but must have still wielded in a fairly regular fashion or they would have become a hopeless tangle. Such troops were resilient to frontal knight charges because of their high morale, high defense, and dense formation. Despite the fact that the lances of the Knights are longer the knights are described as struggling to close. Hastings and Dyrrachium were won by the Normans and the Huskarls/Varangians beaten - but not through direct frontal assault and only after repulsing the Normans many times.

Hopilties vs other foot relied physically on acting as concerted unified body which litterly drove their oponents front ranks flying off their feet and then trampled them undefoot. One of the uses of the spike on the bottom of spear was to dispatch foe trodden underfoot.

Hopilites Vs other hopilties was a pushing match -if both sides stood up to the initial terrifying charge. Brave, veteran, soldiers pissed themselves and shook in fear as they approached the enemy - but when the crunch comes they did their job. Grind out the victory and the deaths don't really come until one side breaks. At times units were pushed back over long distances due to their high morale and refusal to break and be slaughtered.

Part of what I'm trying to say is that ancients combat is not something you reason out using commen sense. You need to read as many primary and secondary sourcs as possible and focus on what the ancients consider the salient features of combat. The Spartans focused on fear - phobos - and how to deal with it.

With dom the key for me is how the overall matchups work. The details are cute but I would not change one to be more "realistic" unless it improved general balence so I think thats the sort of question we need to ask. How does a body of Knights match up to a body of Pike, of armoured Axe men, of heavy cavalry and so on.

So how should a Giant hitting a body of spearmen be represented? I think if the Giant manages to close then there is no problem in it getting the first real strike. It has brushed aside the opposing spears as the holders trembled in fear and burst into their ranks.

Cheers

Keir