Reply To: the Phalangites of Ur

[A Lot of Gaul]

Okay, I will offer a reply. Just this one time, and against my better judgment.

In this thread, to which rules designers are you referring? My favourite commercially-produced rulebook for ancients does represent Bronze Age Mesopotamian spearmen as being in a phalanx. It also treats units armed with angons (or soliferra, spicula, plumbatae, etc.) as if they were employing pila. I also don’t believe that my favourite rule set is particularly unique in that regard. So I can only assume that your stated critique is either misinformed, deliberately selective, or simply typical hyperbole intended to drum up interest in a ‘new and different’ rule set.

Speaking of which, on the one hand you have said that you are striving for “fifty types of armor meticulously graded against weapon types in a coma-inducing detonation of 1000kt granularity,” while on the other you apparently wish to collapse all types of heavy throwing weapons into a single category, and make no distinction between ‘phalangites’ armed with bronze-pointed spears and much later ones bearing pikes with iron/steel points. Those two sets of goals don’t seem very compatible to me, but YMMV.

I apologize if my comments seem overly harsh. I don’t intend them to be, and that is why I initially chose not to post them at all. As I said previously, I wish you luck in your rules-designing endeavours, and I mean that sincerely. But now I think I am done with these particular conversations – brevior est vita.

Cheers,
Scott

"Ventosa viri restabit." ~ Harry Field