Art De La Guerre

[Joseph DiCamillo]

Why are Assyrian Infantry swordsmen?
Pictures of Assyrian infantry (including in the rulebook, under the Assyrian Empire Army list) show the infantry as spear armed.

Why are no Late or Patrician Roman Infantry spearmen?
The Late Romans did have spear armed infantry.

[Hazelbark]

These kinds of questions are long standing in rules like ADLG.

The general answer is, the designation is to balance the historical behavior not the literal equipment.

Units are generally designated swordsmen when they are better versus foot than versus mounted. The opposite for Spearman.

The authors appear to believe both troops are better versus foot than mounted.

[plefebvre]

Assyrians and late romans were armed with short spears.
Spearmen classification is supposed to describe warriors using long spears (about 3 meters long) and fighting shoulders to shoulders in a phalanx style tactic.

So , if you are infantry fighting in compact line, but not trained as pike men or long spear men , then you fall into the heavy infantry classification which can have impact or 2HW special ability.
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patrick lefebvre

"sic transit gloria mundi"