Shield walls?

[Poster Boy]

Is there anything in the RAW to cover shield walls? Most of my players are die-hard fans of Bernard Cornwell's Arthur books and are therefore indoctrinated into the 'supremacy of the shield wall' mindset, but I'm not sure how I'd adjudicate them. Any thoughts?

 

[Dan True]

Is there anything in the RAW to cover shield walls? Most of my players are die-hard fans of Bernard Cornwell's Arthur books and are therefore indoctrinated into the 'supremacy of the shield wall' mindset, but I'm not sure how I'd adjudicate them. Any thoughts?

There isn't any raw, except for the natural effects. People in a shield wall stand close together, so any opponents facing them in looser formations will be outnumbered locally. With the additional CA from the shield, opponents will be facing a lot of parries (especially because you could rule that you can parry attacks against your left shield-partner) and probably some attacks as well.

I don't think any numerical effect would properly describe it, but it some possible effects could be:

- Can parry attacks against allies nearby (perhaps limited to the left ally) with the shield.
- Spearmen in the second row can thrust past and attack any opponent who is at medium or shorter engagement range with the first row.
- Because the shield wall is so closed, it is next to impossible to attack a single opponent without also engaging his nearby allies. Therefore when engaged with a person in a shield wall, you are also engaged to either his left partner or right partner, unless of course he is occupied elsewhere. The effect of this is that you are facing a flurry of CAs.
- Due to the mass of people backing you up, when facing a charge head-on you negate any and all charge bonusses the opponent would get. However, you still get all the benefits of preparing against a charge (such as preparing a spear for instance).

Note however that a real shield wall fight will take an extremely long time to go through, unless limited to your characters hitting an enemy shield wall in detail and handling the rest of the battle in broad terms. This could be cool, to make a secret objective like "if Lors and Igmyn can break through the shield wall, they win the battle in the long run. If not, the battle is decided by Jarluf and the cavalry he is leading on the right flank" or some such. If you make them detailed and varied, a battle can be very interesting

- Dan

 

[Mixster]

I'd rule that anyone in a shield wall with allies can lose 2 steps of range per person in between them to count themselves as being in that combat.

For example:
A, B, C and D are all in a continous shield wall carrying Kite Shields and Shortspears (although D has a longspear) with the following formation:
XXABCXX
XXXDXXX
Our enemy, K (with an S ranged weapon) approaches them:
XXK
ABC
XDX
C gets to make an attack at K when he changes to his engagement range, because his shortspear is 2 ranges longer than Ks. B can attack K while K remains in his engagement range with C, K cannot attack back at B, because that would require him to sacrifice 2 reach levels to hit him. D, armed with a VL weapon, would lose 4 Ranges and be at T range, which is sufficient to attack K. A, would lose the same, but only having an L weapon would be at too close a range to attack K.
C would be too close to parry from K with his shortspear, but could still use his Kite Shield for it.

This way, any enemy facing a shield wall, faces multiple short ranged weapons and is thus at a CA disadvantage when using a short range weapon, but if using something with longer reach, he would be at no remarkable difference.

I'd also rule that a shield walled character can parry for any guy next to him.
However, I'd rule that anyone on the edge of such a shield wall, or not facing the right direction would gain none of these benefits, and instead be on a penalty since his shield is docked with the others.

It might seem a bit complicated at first, but once you wrap your head around it, it is actually pretty simple.

Nothing in the RAW though.