Spearhead is the small game format for Age of Sigmar. Armies have fixed lists (based on the Spearhead starter boxes), and the rules follow those of Age of Sigmar. There are three big changes.
First, while the core rules are very similar to Age of Sigmar, the units themselves will get rebalanced, getting or losing abilities or stats, and sometimes being able to come back after being destroyed.
Second, Spearhead is a game based around set lists; each faction has a handful of valid Spearhead configurations which are a bespoke list of models and rules.
Last, Spearhead has a heavy card element. You have a twist deck which will add a special rule for each turn. Additionally, you score points for capturing objectives, but also for scoring battle tactics cards. These cards will give you a specific objective to score or can be used for a special ability in game.
I’d only played one game of Spearhead prior to this and brought a Spearhead I’d never played before to the event, the Cities of Sigmar Fusil Platoon. This is a very shooting-focused Spearhead, which is rare. All but one of your units shoots and generally they don’t want to be in melee. This is a challenge as Spearhead is played on a 30x22” board; more on this later.
Round 1 - Andrew’s Ossiarch Elite
Funnily enough I was playing against the other Spearhead I have painted, and luckily for me, I know how it works.
Turn one seemed like it went pretty well: I almost wiped out his unit of Necropolis Stalkers; however, it survived with one or two wounds and would be a thorn in my side for the rest of the game. One turn I whiffed 8 ranged attacks on it, which really hurt, more so because I’d not moved a few more models into range of it which could have finished it off.
His Spearhead starts with its most powerful unit, the Morghast Archai, off the table, and he elected to not bring them in on turn 2. However, I was still unable to kill the Stalkers; they were healed a little but the last model survived until round 4, ending every turn on 1 or 2 health.
On turn 3 he brought in the Archai and everything fell apart; the close first few turns turned into pretty lopsided turns 3 & 4 and he ran away with the game.
Round 2 - Gabe’s Warpspark Clawpack
Gabe brought Skaven to the table; he had a list with a lot of models that can come back, which would prove a problem.
Initially things looked pretty good. His big threat, the Stormfiends, went off to kill one of my units that could come back, leaving them somewhat out of position (they could still shoot). I wiped out one of his clanrat units (for it to come back), but the game really came apart with some close fights that didn’t end the way I needed them to. My largest and most powerful unit, the Wildercorps Hunters, was reduced to 2 models and stayed at 2 models across several fight phases. If they’d been able to die I could have brought them back full strength. Meanwhile, his clan rat units get 1d6 models back per turn, and despite some weak rolls he had multiple turns where I could get a unit to 1 or 2 models but not wipe it out.
In the end that did me in: his stuff kept coming back; my stuff was stuck on the table in ineffective positions. I did take his general out near the end, making this one of the closest games I had on the day, but another loss.
Round 3 - Alex’s Bleak Host
This was not what I was hoping to face in the 0-2 bracket; I’d looked up some info on Spearhead online and knew this was considered one of the stronger lists. Beyond that I think this is just a very bad matchup for my shooting army. His army is slow, but in Spearhead that just means you’re losing 1-2” of movement a turn over a more typical army, not a huge amount, and they are very tough; it will be hard for me to take his units off the board, which I have to do to win.
Turn one I didn’t deploy far enough back and he made 8” and 9” charges to tag my Wildercorps. As usual, their 11 wounds meant they didn’t die but lost almost all their fighting power and were trapped on the table.
The Blightkings are very tough, very killy units and once they were in my lines there wasn’t much I could do. I picked off one, and some Plague Bearers, but those come back. Late in the game I was able to kill one of his Pusgoyle Blightlords but that was the only unit that went down. He probably could have tabled me on round 2 but declined a charge to score more points.
Alex was very gracious and I felt a little bad here: I did not give him a good game; it was completely one-sided. I was pretty sanguine about it but felt bad about him feeling bad, totally not his fault; a bad deployment from me and a bad matchup led to kinda a non-game this round.
Conclusion
Doing poorly in my first event in a new game is pretty typical; I think I’ve always been 1-X or 0-X in those events. Of course, it being usual doesn’t mean I like it. I think this Spearhead is going on the shelf. I want to expand it for full Age of Sigmar, but shooting lists in Spearhead are really awkward. The board is so small you need to deploy on your back edge to avoid turn one charges, then you need to go out to actually take objectives, and meanwhile you’re really hoping the turn order doesn’t screw you over when you need to get one more round of shooting before they can charge.
Outside of getting blasted, the event was a lot of fun. The organizer Andy really wants to promote Spearhead and does a great job. The little bookstore we play at is perfect for a game of Spearhead’s size and being able to run 16 person events there is great.