"Swordpoint - The new big battle rules for the Ancient and..." Topic

…Medieval Era.

Swordpoint is Gripping Beast's new big battle rules for the ancient and medieval period. This is a pretty crowded space, but one chased by many WAB gamers looking for a replacement.

You certainly get a very nice rule book, with the production values you would expect from Gripping Beast. Plenty of eye candy, but not overly gratuitous.

Units are made up of variable numbers of bases. Typically 4 figures to a base for foot, 2 for cavalry and 2 for skirmishers. The 4 to a base (in two ranks, 40mm x 40mm) for foot is a bit irritating for us ex-wabbers who usually start with 3 to base on a 60mm frontage. However, as a typical unit will have six bases it's not a huge problem and doesn't require rebasing. There are a number of army lists in the main rulebook to get you going and the first separate book is for the Dark Ages. The standard army is 1000 points and that means around 150-200 figures a side on a 6' x 4' table. The profiles for each base are much simpler than many rules with factors for defence and cohesion only…"

Full review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

So what I got out of that review was:

Armies of approx 8-14 units each mostly of 6 stands of figs.

'Command' by a PIP system but with simultaneous moves (I wonder how that works in practice), not sure if PIPs are for any/all moves or if they are PIP-free.

Combat by hits-and-saves, some requiring a % throw. Stand removal.

Unusual feature – combat hits on a unit might be dispursed to neighbours.

David F Brown.

Momentum tokens in Swordpoint are not really like 'PIPs' in DBA. Rather, they function as 'bonus points' that can be tactically employed to acquire a possible edge in initiative and combat resolution.

Sort of like War and Conquest?

Momentum tokens work a little like the Strategy Intervention Points in WAC, but are also rather different. Swordpoint is very much its own rule set.

More info here: link

And the official Swordpoint discussion forum may be found here: link

Sorry to plow a little puff into this thread but how do four figures look on a 40 by 40 base. Seems damned small to me.

They look fine – DBx uses 4 figures on a 60mm frontage for dense infantry and that looks good. 20x20 is the WAB standard for foot infantry so 4 figures on 40x40 shouldn't be a problem.

Might be interesting for DBX players and the like but I do not see any interest for it from WAB people.

My observation is that most of the UK Swordpoint players, including author Martin Gibbins, are in fact 'WAB people.' Just look at the 2018 tournament schedule thus far:

SWORDPOINT BEACHHEAD 2018: BOURNEMOUTH, DORSET, UK: 17 FEBRUARY 2018
Classical period – 28mm – 1000 pts – 6' x 4' table

SWORDPOINT MEDIEVAL BASH: SWINDON, WILTSHIRE, UK: 17-18 FEBRUARY 2018
Medieval period – 28mm – 1000 pts – 6' x 4' table

SWORDPOINT COLD STEEL OPEN EVENT: CARDIFF, WALES, UK: APRIL/MAY 2018
Open – 28mm – 1000 pts – 6' x 4' table

PORTSMOUTH PILLAGE: HORNDEAN, HAMPSHIRE, UK: 11-12 AUGUST 2018
Classical period – 28mm – 500, 1000 & 1500 pts – 6' x 4' table

The above list doesn't yet include the Swordpoint events for Derby Worlds in October or Warfare in November, which were quite well attended in 2017. And then there are all of the individual gamers like myself, who play Swordpoint with different-sized figures and/or using personal scenarios rather than tournament competitions.

I have been looking at Swordpoint for quite awhile and was about to grab a set when I checked the basing, 3-4 figures on a 40mm x 40mm base! are you kidding? it's very tight given the size and animation of today's figure sculpts. It's a shame that more rules authors do not START their writing efforts with a thought to basing. Most people who are going to purchase your rules already have armies or at least some figures done for another rule set and REBASING will be for most a huge factor a decision to go with a set of rules or not! In fact many times its a deal breaker. Too often they base their base sizes on the sizes they and their play testers use. I also find that many, many, rule sets use far to small bases for today's figures. Rules should be written with options for basing size to allow player to play with out rebasing in some form. Many players play different games with the same figures or they play with groups that fancy different rules. I play a lot of SAGA and have over half a dozen very nice warbands. My group would also like to do some bigger battles with a more traditional rule set than SAGA at times but our figure basing will not work (easily). You would have thought that Swordpoint coming from a publisher that also has SAGA under its roof the writer would have given some thought to attracting those players? A simple increase of 10mm in size to 50mm x 50mm would have allowed all the players with figures mounted singely on a typical base size of 25mm (1") either square or round to EASILY put their figure on a 50mm x 50mm secondary tray. No re-basing, and figures still work with other games. If I'm wrong let me know because I would really like to try Swordpoint!

You are not wrong. 20mm per figure is a common base size though. Hail Caesar uses the same, warhammer, kings of war etc. All my historical are on 40mm squares 4 figures.
I can see why you'd want to uses sabots for your saga figures, and I guess if both armies are based the same it wouldn't matter, but you May struggle to find opponents,I wouldn't care in a friendly game but some might.
If it were me I'd use sabots to start with, then as you build up your army use 40mm. You'll need lots more figures for swordpoint anyway, so might as well base them properly going forward. 40mm would be a good base size for using other rules later too.

But the problem HappyHiker is that the new, larger, more animated figures simply won't fit on to the old basing standards. WRG/DBx basing was developed when were figures were true 25mm and quite rigid in design. One of the reasons I really like Impetus is because with the larger bases and no hard number for troop types the basing is easier and more attractive.

Unless the system requires figures to be removed then space your dynamic figures so they fit the base and still look dense. If the units are wider (25mm instead of 20mm) then all those more static minis out there would look wrong as they'd be too far apart.
25mm is a great size for skirmishing but not mass battles, even the old warhammer fantasy used 20mm square bases.

Agree 100% with Damion. Most 28mm infantry figures fit quite easily when based on 20mm squares, which is standard for WAB and its successor army-level rule sets, including Swordpoint. Entirely different from WRG/DBx rectangular basing or Saga skirmish basing.

Heck, I still fit most of my minis on 15mm frontage. Old skool!

Maybe, Simon, but most people do not rank up their miniatures like this:

or

;)

I might have exaggerated a bit in my previous posting but the reality is that basing conventions haven't evolved to match the changing sizes of our figures. Sure you can technically jam in 4 Aventine figures on a 40mm square base but that doesn't mean one would want to do that. I generally put 14 figures on a 12cm Impetus heavy infantry base and even then it can get pretty tight depending on the figures.

Some examples of 28mm figures mounted on 40mm square bases:

link

link

link

"20 x 20 is way too small for modern 28mm figures"

Oh….wait…

A Lot of Gaul, I think your pictures actually prove my point. The figures are just jammed on the bases and I think lose some of their charm because of it. I don't find the Warlord Ancient British Warriors picture very attractive at all in its presentation. I think a little extra space would do wonders to the visual effect.

"One man's meat," and all that, Mark.

Cheers,
Scott

Agreed re: 20mm frontage, it's not too small. I've recently based up some Swiss for Fornovo and Gerignola (using Furioso) with 8 mini's on a 60mm frontage by 50mm depth base:

Whilst keeping the 20mm frontage I have kind of gone the other way for my Swordpoint Early Byzantine armies with a 50mm or even 60mm depth- if I get outflanked so be it lol
40 x 50mm:

40 x 60mm:

The Heavy Cavalry sit nicely on a 50mm x 50mm base wth no problems:

For my Anglo-Danes I kept to the 40mm x 40mm base sizes as the whole army needs to have the look of fighting in a densely packed Shieldwall:
40 x 40mm