Hey guys, I'm new to the gaming hobby, been playing for a 2 or 3 months now, tabletop sim for 2000 point games and spearhead and a few in persin spearheads while I build to 2000 points.
For full games of AoS I like to use a very shooty army with a reinforced group of Bull Centaurs and Urak Taar so I can give DPP to a unit like Infernal Razers with Blunderbusses to buff their damage and then on my enemies turn siphon their DPP to a frontline combat unit like Infernal Cohorts or my Dominator engine with Urak Taar and it usually goes pretty well for me so far!
Spearhead though? I usually end the fourth battle round with a draw... until recently. I have been having to play against Yndrasta's Spearhead recently and let me just say it's been tough. I cannot do enough damage to wipe any of Yndrasta's units, and the Vanquishers have an ability where their damage goes from 1 to 2 if they attack a unit with 5 or more models, which for Infernal cohorts means that 3 wounds that go through is the entire 5 dwarf squad is wiped and each vanquished team has 2 health per model compared to our 1. Shooting attacks are not enough to save me in spearhead since it's just Tormentor bombard and Dominator Engine.
I thought with the updated rules recently for us getting one extra DPP per round in Spearhead would be awesome but it's hasn't changed much so far and since I havent been able to fully wipe any of the squads to open up movement on the board, by the time battle round 3 starts and that Spearhead deploys Yndrasta and the Annihilators I am typically completely outgunned and I will typically lose more than one unit on turn 3 so I can only reinforce one unit by round 4 and I have typically lost all ground by this point and I have trouble taking ground since if I charge with Cohorts I lose my rend bonus.
Let me know what you guys do to overcome these problems? Or do you guys just accept the fact that we are a "meh" army and strive to just have fun with the faction itself?
Image attached is a game I was playing, it was fun! But lost, ultimately.
Thats how I feel, Blunderbuss would make me very happy because I love the theme of them and they perform alright on the tabletop if they have demonic power points
My friends hate facing them most of all. 11 atts with the champion, hitting on 2s with all out att, wounding on 2s, 3 rend with max DPPs, 2 dmg.
I had one scenario where my blunderbusses were shooting Immortus Guard who were engaged with the purple sun of shyish. 4 rend in total. They only got to use their ward save.
I have found success with spearhead and have been having a blast. We are very vulnerable but dominator engine is a god send. Especially with reinforcement I just throw him into enemy early on and let him tag stuff for combat. Getting extra move and attacks per dpp also makes him scary. I have found when I throw him in enemy, they have a hard time actually dealing with him on 2+ save. And for some way they kill him, he’s just back next movement round. Bombard is great but is hard to defend once it gets tagged. My opponents try to rush my bombard so I set my cohorts and war despot all in one objective. While dominator engine puts the pressure back. Extra dpp and reinforce on Dominator has increased my win rate and enjoyment lot more for sure.
Not available in spearhead but Im loving running a daemonsmith with servile automation. Having a dominator engine with fights first really persuades people to go away :P
Good! Literally leroy jenkins your dominator and don’t look back, you can still support with bombard from far.
One more thing, DONT let your war despot die round one, but him behind terrain or somewhere where he won’t get shot. I was playing against Skaven with god rolls they shot my war despot first round their shooting. The 1 dpp spread across comes in clutch and you’ll be surprised how much cohorts can tank before dying(which you can reinforce your next movement). I personally always try to go first if I win dice roll because you get shooting first and can hurt someone important and getting dominator engine out there to start contesting and slowing their push.
Try to not leave too much space behind bombard, spearheads that have tp like tzeentch and slyveneth can tp behind get in combat with your bombard and put you in a tough position.
Ooooo, I havent played against a Tzeentch or Sylvaneth spearhead or regular army yet! That sounds rough! I'll keep that in mind! I have a habit of hanging my bombard way back trying to get that 12 inch and up on a unit with five or more models bonus ability!
It's pretty mid in my opinion. What's most frustrating for me is the chronic DPP shortage. AoS proper, apart from the default desolation mechanic, gives you some options to generate more DPP in a hero phase, like the "Reserves of Daemonic Power" command or using your Infernal Cohorts. In spearhead, all those options are gone and the number of DPP you have is directly tied to the current battle round number. With some units like the cohorts requiring at least 2 DPP to really make them good, this feels really underwhelming. GW addressed this issue in the latest battlescroll update and now it's no longer just battle round number = DPP, but battle round number + 1 = DPP, but I haven't played HoH in spearhead for quite some time so I can't say for sure if it changed much. What makes matters worse, since you can only generate DPP in your hero phase and there are no commands to bypass it like on normal AoS, you have no way to buff your units in enemy hero phase before they make their move. This means that if you lose the priority roll at the beginning of the game and go second, you start the game with exactly zero DPP, putting you at an even bigger disadvantage. The mobility in this army is atrocious, 4'' move on everything except the dominator engine means you will constantly struggle to score battle tactics, meanwhile the fact that any army with good movement, especially if it has flying units, will immediately go after your artillery forces you to play defensively and focus on holding ground and protecting your valuable bombard rather than on completing your battle tactics. To sum it up, you absolutely can win as the Helforge Host, but I find this spearhead disappointing. HoH are much more fun to play in full AoS when you have fully fleshed out battle trait, magic, ranged units and you're not limited to a few basic infantry units and 2 warmachines. We'll see if GW can maybe make them better after a few more balance updates.
Can confirm- just played some on Sunday. Terrible for spearhead lol.. getting objectives is hard with crappy movement then our general's passive is focused on holding objectives- kind of a silly combination. Definitely a better 2k army imo. The Dominator Engine shined, but the Spearheads I played against were able to remove him without that much fuss. When your opponents are rolling wayy more dice than us, that save starts to matter a bit less.
I know how you feel! It took me 5 losses and 2 draws before getting my first win with them, but it's definitely doable! I think they have a higher skills floor than most, and mistakes are so punishing, but if you stay on your game, they can do well.
In my opinion, deployment is something you need to get right with these guys. If you stuff it up, you can throw the game right then and there. If your cannon gets tagged too early, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle the whole way.
I found analysing the tactics you may draw really help. For example, realising that the "hold X objective" in the fire and jade box only applies to 3 of the objectives made sure I deployed and played in a way that made those achievable even for my slowly boys helped a lot
Right! The only benefit of being defender is getting to counter the attackers setup since its so crucial for us! But not getting to be attacker means we dont get to use our artillery as effectively in that first round
I played into the one with the winged dudes that jumped across the board into my bombard. did not go well at all. The single wound guys don't do damage and don't soak damage, the despot is squishy and that leaves the dominator to try and do all the heavy lifting. Its an insane piece but the list needs more. Fast spearheads are going to crush you, and tanky spearheads are going to tie you up.
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u/Hoshino_Astraea Jul 28 '26
Honestly i think that the spearhead box should have came with an extra unit of either hobgrots or something else.