Shield wall feat

It's there a Shield Wall feat in one of the WoTC books? I want my hobgoblins for my next adventure to have two guys form a wall while another uses either a bow from the cover of the shields or a reach weapon. Anyone know where its at or am I just making it up?

You might want to check (or ask someone here about) the Fiendish Codex from Hell. Dispator, Arch Duke of the Second, has a Priests' portfolio that includes something like this. There's even a picture in the FCII of one of his dwarven priestesses in full plate and tower shield acting like the Wall of Dis.

-W. E. Ray

It's there a Shield Wall feat in one of the WoTC books? I want my hobgoblins for my next adventure to have two guys form a wall while another uses either a bow from the cover of the shields or a reach weapon. Anyone know where its at or am I just making it up?

There's a feat in the Complete Warrior called 'Phalanx Fighting' that allowed adjacent characters who have the feat and a shield equipped to grant an additional +1 AC to allies within 5' (I believe). That's the closest thing I can think of.

There's a feat in the Complete Warrior called 'Phalanx Fighting' that allowed adjacent characters who have the feat and a shield equipped to grant an additional +1 AC to allies within 5' (I believe). That's the closest thing I can think of.

That sounds right. Thanks

I want my hobgoblins for my next adventure to have two guys form a wall while another uses either a bow from the cover of the shields or a reach weapon.

Have a pair of Hobgoblins armed with Tower Shields provide cover for the guy behind them without wasting Feats.

HTH,

Rez

Update: There is also a Shield Wall feat in Heroes of Battle, which grants a +2 bonus to shield AC if wielding a shield and next to an ally with a shield, but does not provide any cover nor any bonus to other allies.

Further update: In Miniatures Handbook there is the Shieldmate and Improved Shieldmate feats. Probably what you are looking for, in that they grant adjacent creatures a shield bonus.

Further update: In Miniatures Handbook there is the Shieldmate and Improved Shieldmate feats. Probably what you are looking for, in that they grant adjacent creatures a shield bonus.

Thanks maybe that's where I saw it. I'll check it out when I get home.

I am sort of a antique warfare geek, and I don't think any of the mentioned feats gives sufficient merit to shield walls. But as suggested, you can use the existing rules to model the advantages of spear walls and shield walls.

Basically, second row and further back has close to 90% cover from frontal attacks.

You can squeze medium sized characters into the same squares.

You can use very long reach weapons (there is historical evidence supporting such weapons), reaching into the third square.

This way, anyone wanting to approach such a formation will receive approximately 6 attacks of opportunity, namely from the 6 people squeezed into the 3 first rows, if attacking in a formation. A single individual will receive a lot more, since the with of the wall will also be able to attack.

Remember that spear walls using shields are hard to turn, but that a spear wall with no shields and special training can turn in 4 directions as a move action when commanded so. Historically, Spear walls covered pretty well against arrows (wierd, huh?), simply by having a lot of long sticks up in the air. But nothing as a good old turtle formation....

This does not do a lot for your hobgoblin archers, but if you want to make your "combo"-unit, put archers in 5th row and behind, but just remember that they can only shoot indirect fire. Historically Archers where used as skirmishers (foot or mounted), which had the purpose of breaking up spear/shield wall formations, or artillery, shooting over the wall formation units.

You can use very long reach weapons (there is historical evidence supporting such weapons), reaching into the third square.

I made some House Rule changes to Reach weapons, which included a "double reach" category. I put the pike/longspear into this, so that it has 15' reach, the spear has 10' and the shortspear 5' (or effectively none). It makes for more distinction between them.

Short-spear - thrown or thrust, no reach
Spear - throw or thrust, reach
Long-spear - thrust only, extra reach

FWIW,

Rez

One of the longest spears was the Sarissa, used in spear walls, 14-21 feet (4 squares), see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarissa

Very good in formation, useless outside formation (unless you are drying laundry).

Front 5 rows could attack.

Also, for magic shields see the linked shield property described right after the spells in miniatures handbook. Multiple linked shields grant improved AC bonuses to neighbouring shields.