[Bubblematrix]

Well did you?

After the initial weekend of GW stores playing big spearhead games did anyone bother with it?

My initial impression was one of poorly balanced and poorly designed rules suplement, but did anyone feel otherwise?

 

[Stella Cadente]

I don't think I've seen or heard anyone round my area play it, there was interest hearing about it, then once released it sort of got forgotten about very quickly, and even though I love tanks even I wasn't interested, some of the formations were just rubbish or boring, the tank hunter one was the only one that made me think "hmm 2 vanquishers with co-axial stubbers and pask in an exterminator/annihilator would be nice here"

 

[Aramoro]

I would have played it if anyone here was interested, the problem being I play armies like Chaos Daemons so there is absolutely no reason to ever take a Spearhead for me.

Aramoro

 

[Capt.Al'rahhem]

I haven't got to play it yet, I will play it someday though. I doubt my roommate would want to play it with me, as I have allot more tanks for my IG then he has for his Tau, by about 24 to 3. When I have the time and we can schedule a game I have a few friends that play IG and SM with lots of tanks, so I'm sure they'll want to play.

I also think the spearhead formations are an interesting thing to add to Apoc. games. Hopeful they'll be allowed in the next Apoc. game I play. I've been thinking about organizing a huge Apoc./Spearhead tank battle.

 

[Don_Keyballs]

For me, I've never played a game for 2 reasons. 1 being no one in my area is interested in playing spearhead, and 2, I don't want to have to go out and buy 2-4 more tanks to make the spearheads worth while. And to spend $100-250 on tanks I will never use outside of spearhead seems a bit pointless. Not to forget, most armies other then Guard don't have THAT many options in terms of mech and it can get pretty boring.

 

[Bubblematrix]

So it sounds like our play group was pretty typical, did ANYONE on the boards actually play this after release?

To me it seemed like it would be better to just play an apocalypse game

 

[BucketWalrus]

I did, I told about it in a different thread but ill tell it here too.

Spearhead, the quickly forgotten game type.

My friend, who plays apocalypse almost died with joy when he saw the super-heavy spearhead.

He forced me (which I don't own any super-heavies) to play him, he agreed to place his heavy on the field so it takes a hit according to the rule, to be fair.

So i decided on the three walkers with ambush.

I didn't know what super heavy he was going to bring so I prepared for the worst, and brought 3 CC defilers (2 extra arms each)

And just as I feared, he had a decked out reaver battle titan sitting on his table, and he placed it right at the front. and what little of what his points to allow of a army behind it
I placed my army down and stuck my 3 defilers within 12 inches of his titan, luckily there was a very nice high wall placed there (no LoS)

He stopped me and said "defilers have fleet, not infiltrate dumby! put them back" I sneered and said "ambush spearhead, three walkers gain infiltrate!"

The game begins. titan takes an instant penetrating hit for starting on the field, takes a point off it.

To his very horror I gently moved my defilers 6 inches towards his reaver, and then ran another 3 (CHARGE RANGE BABY) (ofcourse i did other stuff with my army, mostly moving my rhinos up and fireing my oblits at one of his tanks) Guess what? spearheads dont use up heavy spots, YAY MOAR OBLITS WHILE KEEPING DEFILERS!

The defilers assaulted. being higher initiative, and having 2 extra arms each. thats 3 sets of 7 str 10 attacks. I WRECKED his reaver on turn one before it could do ANYTHING (sadly the resulting explosion inflicted two stuns and immobalized on of the defilers (luckily the two who were stunned are fine cus of daemonic posession)

Now the fun part is, the explosion ALSO killed a large portion of his army too! (stunning most of his tanks, killing the weaker ones)

i wiped him off the table by turn 3.

Now to my expectation my friend was quite pissed and said a few colorful words (cheater being one of the lesser ones)

A guy who brings a fricking REAVER to a non-apoc game should be kicked in the balls.
I mearly used 450 points worth of defilers, used a spearhead that got me closer to the enemy, and molested his reaver, and his ego (why would he put the fricking thing so far forward?)

Either way spearhead is a new excuse to bring cheese to a game, as well as grow those beards. (have you SEEN the monstrous creature one? the only ones who get to benefit are the nids and daemons(slightly)) and it makes nid-zilla lists even more scary.

 

[Capt.Al'rahhem]

Anybody who thinks sneaking a Titan into a friendly game is someone I wouldn't play with, at least not twice.

In any friendly game, especialy one with as much lee-way as Spearhead or Apoc., you should discuse with your opponent/friend what your going bring to the table.

Somebody just tries to pop a Titan on table on me, I'd simply put my army back in the box and leave. I wouldn't even use a Baneblade or one of it's variants without asking my opponent if they were ok with it.

Spearhead and Apoc. do allow for a whole lot of cheese and beardiness but that's why you should only play them with people who won't take it that far. I like Apoc., and to a lesser extent Spearhead, because they allow me to field the majority of my IG army. I would never pull some crazy crap by surprise on my opponents and I wouldn't expect them to pull it on me.

The exception being Big Games of Apoc. in GW stores, then you have to expect the craziest, cheesiest crap you can think of and then some. I still just being my normal old IG army, put together with the FOC but that includes a full Tank Company, which some people consider cheesy.

I don't know that's just my opinion, luckly I only mostly play with like minded players.

 

[HOBO]

Same here Capt..Apoc should only be played with like-minded people, stops all the crap dead. So if one side is taking heaps of super-heavies then so is the other side, same goes for competitive levels etc...they are all balanced out so no side has an advantage.

Titans/SH's in standard games - we have had some idiots try that our Club in the past, but they are just refused to field it and turned away if they don't comply. At a FLGS/GW if someone tried that with me, I'd just refuse to play them period.

We play a lot of Apoc/Narrative/Campaign games, but Spearhead just hasn't sparked interest in my area, and even at our Club it hasn't been played once despite us having over 200 Vehicles between us. That said, there are some good formations in the book..might just be lasiness as to why we haven't taken the effort to get into it.

 

[Bubblematrix]

Spearhead struck me as the way a cheese player would try to pull these tactics in a "legitimate" way, I personally play apocalypse with the understanding that everyone is cheesing up to the max and that is what is expected. In our apoc games you are expecting armies built to try and roll you early on, but spearhead just tried to bring these into regular 40k.
Rather than being a springboard into large tank battle games as in apocalypse it just meant people were put off when they fought some stupid spearhead formation which rolled the game.

I much prefer a properly constucted apoc army where it has been designed (or is by accident) to play in larger points games, not just my wallet beats your wallet games with a tagged on spearhead formation.

 

[HOBO]

I much prefer a properly constucted apoc army where it has been designed (or is by accident) to play in larger points games, not just my wallet beats your wallet games with a tagged on spearhead formation.

I don't see that in my area...I agree with the rest of your post but this 'my wallet beats your wallet' is a statement that only applies to one model in the majority of cases - Titans. Around my area every man and his dog own Baneblades and other Races SH's, or already own a ton of 'standard' vehicles anyway, and seen as games are 2-3+ players each side it's quite easy to balance out the lists. People in Australia can buy a Baneblade from a UK discounter for about the same as a retail -priced Leman Russ bought from GW here. Titans are quite easy to destroy anyway, especially with the amount of other SH's been fielded.

I wouldn't buy a Titan anyway because I don't see the value in them..nice models but not worth 1/2 week's wages.

 

[Bubblematrix]

I had only one experience of group spearhead, it was loads of screaming teenagers and a poorly organised game - but I could see your point - group spearhead would make it much more interesting and the cheese effect would dilute. Maybe I will try this out again with our games club.

I don't see the value in them..nice models but not worth 1/2 week's wages.

I agree, the only reason I have ended up with one is a good few player wanting to play some big apoc games and I had a full paypal (selling some random games stuff) and itchy BiN fingers

 

[fynn]

now fielding a titan is taking the piss, its fair enough to take a baneblade or skull hammer, as most non apoc players can probaly deal with it, but theres not many non apoc players that can kill a titan with a basic army, hell even i would probaly struggle with my guiard useing a shadow sword and large formations of tanks, just out of intrest, how many points did you use in that game against the reaver? seei9ng as the raver is about 1500pts, give or take a few

 

[Arvelen]

A couple of guys at the FLGS that I frequent love it, as do I... One of them (from whom I am purchasing a significant addition to my Tau army) gave me a Star Wars Trade Federation Battle Tank (from Ep. 1) to field as a superheavy... Spent about 6 hours coming up with rules for it, and I've been able to field it twice. Rules need tweaking, but it's far more interesting and engaging than the standard game, IMO.

 

[cragnes417]

For me, I've never played a game for 2 reasons. 1 being no one in my area is interested in playing spearhead, and 2, I don't want to have to go out and buy 2-4 more tanks to make the spearheads worth while. And to spend $100-250 on tanks I will never use outside of spearhead seems a bit pointless. Not to forget, most armies other then Guard don't have THAT many options in terms of mech and it can get pretty boring.

actually you don't need expensive tank's to do a spearhead there's different tactic formation's that allow's the player use skimmers and bikes to attack your enemy

 

[Stella Cadente]

not just my wallet beats your wallet games

isn't that the major design flaw of all GW games these days?

 

[The Thunder of KayVaan]

Yeah in my group we haven't played it once (one reason due to most of them don't even know the rules yet) but it seemed nice but lost its Fajazz quickly.

 

[The Boz]

isn't that the major design flaw of all GW games these days?

Since Mech is considered better than all the other compositions, and is, per point, cheaper, easier to set up, and easier on the paints, I'd say no.

 

[thisisaguard111]

at my shop we only played it on the saturday after the release, afterwards it got sucked into the warp...never to be heard from again