"ADG vs Spear and Sword" Topic

All,

I'm a long time player of DBM. I still enjoy playing at the few competitions, that are going in the UK. Sadly though it is certainly a game declining in numbers. I am looking into a new rules set. I was wondering what peoples thought were of art de la guerre vs Spear and sword. I'm not interested in FOG AM, but I would like to keep playing both at competitions. I'd be happy to hear everyone's opinions.

Cheers,
LS

Also an ex DBM'er love adlg didn't like Spear & Sword.

I'm also a former dedicated DBM player and would still be playing, teaching others to play and running tournaments if it weren't for DBM 3.0 (etc.)

I've recently found near complete happiness playing DBA 3.0 using the HOTT Big Battle system.

Strongly recommended – it would be great to get "full army" tournaments going again.

TomT

Well, I'm a fan of Sword & Spear. You'll be able to use your DBM armies, and the price of the PDF is well worth a punt.
I've never played ADG so can't compare.

Hi LS

You can find out a lot about Sword & Spear by reading reviews – there are extracts and links to the full reviews on my website here:
link
There are also lots of battle reports on my forum:
link

There doesn't seem to be that much information available in English about ADLG, but madaxeman Tim has done a review and battle report here:
link
It appears to be similar to DBM, but with less elements/bases and less PIPs to control them, and there are no recoils but each base can suffer casualties.

The main differences seem to be that ADLG has elements whilst S&S has larger units, and ADLG is IGOUGO whilst S&S has a very interactive turn sequence, with both players involved at all times.
They both feature mechanics which restrict the ability of players to activate their troops, and include attritional losses to units/elements.

I'm sure players will prefer one or the other (or like neither) depending on what they want in a game. The best thing is to try them out if you can. Sword & Spear is only £6.00 GBP for the pdf so you can try it out quite cheaply. Maybe there are some other players near you – whereabouts are you ?

Hi,

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm in Clapham, south west London. The nearest club only really plays fantasy, otherwise it's quite a trek to get any where else.

I was also wondering about competitions. Do either sets of rules work as well as DBM for competition play? Or are they too laid back?

Also thanks for the idea of using dba v3, (if you can find a copy, it is like rocking horse sh**) I've got a friend who plays saga and had seen a few games of DBM and was interested in getting involved. Probably a good into if nothing else!

LS

Any set of rules can be made to work in a competition format. Some are more suited than others but from what I have seen of S&S and heard of ADG both are in the more suited category.

You should try and see if you can make it to the Central London club they would certainly know something more about ADG.

LazyStudent3, our club in Central London has 20+ members that currently play ADG, they are currently running a ADG competition and one of our members helped with playtesting the rules. We also play just about every other historical period you can think of including one or two DBM players. We are near Morning Crescent station so it's straight up the Northern Line from Clapham.

If you want to get in touch you can join our Yahoo group:
link
or
clwc.org.uk

Hi JJMicromegas,

I went along a couple of times last year. Sadly I must have been just before the big ADG rush as everyone was playing FOG of some variant. I'll try and grab some time this year to make it up. Annoyingly working outside of London makes getting up to Euston a bit of a pain.

Cheers,
LS