Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
In my (very) limited sparring experience, when you're looking at eight per side, complicated formations aren't worth the bother. Sticking together so the enemy doesn't gang up on you and stick pointy things in your kidneys is worthwhile, but the shortness of any line makes the flanks too vulnerable for the formation to really persist. Stacking up to any great depth is simply not feasible - sure you start with the spear guy behind you, but after about forty seconds of contact, who knows where people end up.
This is a game, though. I was simply mentioning a tactic that would arise from the premises of a given game environment.

I have no sparring experience of that kind, at all. Would the experience work well in a video game trying to emulate X-Com? Hmm. This type of game could actually be prototyped pretty well with a chess set and some dice for randomization.