A horde of spear.

Discuss your tactics for the 8th Ed army book here.

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Selvhan
Posts: 276
Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2011 6:35 pm

A horde of spear.

#1 Post by Selvhan »

Hey guys !

Since a couple of games, I have been fielding a horde of 50+ spear elves as my Core Tax. The result was pretty good.

Here is how I was using them :

1st of all, I drop my Annointed with them. They receive a lots of bonuses from him. I had the Archmage with High magic. I also use a mage lvl 2 with Beast ( Always taking the Sig spell). Finally I put the BSB in the unit or in a unit close by.

The result is the following :

50+ Spear elves with Fear, immune psychology, 6++, Magic resist 2.

With my Archmage I cast every spell I can to raise their wardsave. I also try to keep wyssan on them.

Yes this unit take a lot of points ( but you are forced to have 25% at least in core.. ). Yes they depend a little on magic to be very efficient ( But which HE unit isn't ? ). That unit can be a good anvil and even better if you successfully cast some spell. Since I'm often playing with 2500 pts, I still can add 5 silverhelm or a unit of archer or reaver.

What do you guys think about it ?
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Rip.dk
Posts: 72
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:37 pm

Re: A horde of spear.

#2 Post by Rip.dk »

and if must be fun too hit that units with a lord with 1+ reroll save and Crown of Command

8)
cptcosmic
Posts: 656
Joined: Wed Mar 23, 2011 2:12 pm

Re: A horde of spear.

#3 Post by cptcosmic »

Rip.dk wrote:and if must be fun too hit that units with a lord with 1+ reroll save and Crown of Command

8)
must be fun if he gets challenged, then messes up because of ward saves and in the end scores zero points while the HE special units clear the rest 8)
Rip.dk
Posts: 72
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 9:37 pm

Re: A horde of spear.

#4 Post by Rip.dk »

he dont need too scores points just holde that big unit from doing eny thing

it all come dont too what weapon the Anointed of Asuryan have
Nagashias
Posts: 209
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 6:13 pm

Re: A horde of spear.

#5 Post by Nagashias »

Lore of Shadows are sadly restricted alot.

But Lore of Beasts could be potent as well! 50 attacks with reroll and S4 brings alot of pain to the enemy :)
Wicksi
Posts: 417
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2009 6:51 pm

Re: A horde of spear.

#6 Post by Wicksi »

Rip.dk wrote:and if must be fun too hit that units with a lord with 1+ reroll save and Crown of Command

8)
Im not so sure thats a worthwile tactic, you are tying up your supposedly hardcore combat lord with High elf core units, its basicly the same as slamming him into a 60slave unit (granted you will get a heck load of points if you actually do break them)

And when your lord is there slashing away spears you got about 1000 points of special running rampage on the rest of your army.

And lets face it assuming you dont have a Daemon prince on a star dragon you are probably going to loose combat every turn against that block, they are gonna have (without bsb) a 4 static cr and you will only get cr from kills. and assuming the archmage can get 1 spell through per magic phase you will statisticly have to do 6 wounds to get to 4cr (due to wardsave).

In short unless you got a decent ammount of attacks + thunderstomp you are most likely going to loose that combat every round.
Sure you are stubborn but that doesnt mean you wont roll that 10 - 11 - 12 and for your bsb to stick around all game just to prevent that well then the rest of your army got no general or bsb to help them out from panic checks.

So well might work but personally I would just divert the s**t out of them and deal with the rest of his army until he only have that huge block left and then if I felt confident attack it from all sides.

OR Dwellers/final transmutation.
Eirik
Posts: 2103
Joined: Sun May 08, 2011 9:14 am

Re: A horde of spear.

#7 Post by Eirik »

Wicksi wrote:
Im not so sure thats a worthwile tactic, you are tying up your supposedly hardcore combat lord with High elf core units, its basicly the same as slamming him into a 60slave unit (granted you will get a heck load of points if you actually do break them)

And when your lord is there slashing away spears you got about 1000 points of special running rampage on the rest of your army.
Yeah, which is a landslide victory for the player with the stubborn character. He's invested 300 or 400 points into tieing up your 450pts of spears, BSB, annointed and mage. You're down at least 1k point. Most armies out there will trounce 1000pts of high elf special with a 500 point lead, especially the armies that can field 1+ rerollable armor characters. We beat such armies by outmaneuvering, outshooting, outcasting. We can't do any of those well when our core, bsb, characters and potentially casters are tied up in a deathstar that can be tarpitted by one daemon prince, disc lord, ogre, dark elf, etc.

I think the story here is that it's not worth investing character points into making spearmen better. I'd rather just have a mage with magic buffs in the army, who can use them on the spears when convenient but isn't dedicated to them. It's also nice to use spears alongside cav or chariots to break enemy steadfast.
Ah, Floorhammer. A time honored tradition. Sadly, I no longer play since my brother tripped and right-angled the spears of a 15-man regiment.
-Original Dragon Prince, July 2011
Findolfin
Posts: 349
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2011 8:06 pm
Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: A horde of spear.

#8 Post by Findolfin »

As others said, too much characters invested.

On the other hand, Spears do work correctly as a 50 strong horde if your intention is point denial and controlling the center. I`ve had a similar unit take on both an Empire halberdiers and greatswords at same time, and come up on top thanks to wyssan.

My suggestion would be to use the lichbone pendant, place your BoH loremaster in there. Maybe give him the iron curse. With the 5+ ward from signature life and wyssan, it should be interesting while not overly priced.
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Eirik
Posts: 2103
Joined: Sun May 08, 2011 9:14 am

Re: A horde of spear.

#9 Post by Eirik »

And while the spear horde without character support is a viable unit in some ways, it has a lot of weaknesses you need to be aware of in the current meta. Many monsters, monstrous cav and other units that are common this edition are good at dealing a lot of casualties very quickly to large infantry blocks. Lots of stuff has a 2+ or 1+ armor save and multiple S4 or highter attacks. There are a lot of 150-300 point units that can charge your 450+pts of spearmen and either tie them up all game or break them.

I mean, lets say a unit of mournfangs charges you, 4 with no special stuff, and assume you get all 50 attacks. You'll do about 2 wounds to them ASF, assuming they don't do much with their impacts (they will). They do about 20 back to you. That's almost 1/4 of their unit and almost 1/2 of yours. They also cost 240pts to your 450pts. Spearmen can't have a razor banner.

Almost anything that's good at buffing spears is better spent buffing our elite infantry. A razor standard in a unit of SM or dragon princes, an annotated or high mage in a unit of white lions. The things that are really best with spears are shadow magic, with things like mindrazor and toughness debuffs (agianst unarmored enemies). For the price of 2 spears you get a reaver. For just under the price of 3 you get a silver helm. For about the same price you get an archer.
Ah, Floorhammer. A time honored tradition. Sadly, I no longer play since my brother tripped and right-angled the spears of a 15-man regiment.
-Original Dragon Prince, July 2011
SpellArcher
Green Istari
Posts: 13841
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:26 am
Location: Otherworld

Re: A horde of spear.

#10 Post by SpellArcher »

I agree it's interesting and it does have ways of doing damage to the enemy. But they are not as reliable as starting with high strength attacks and being able to do damage is really, really important. So I feel the buffed horde thing is probably best done with White Lions. Yes the Spears are Core but these days there are several decent options there.
Zefiris
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:50 am

Re: A horde of spear.

#11 Post by Zefiris »

Eirik wrote:And while the spear horde without character support is a viable unit in some ways, it has a lot of weaknesses you need to be aware of in the current meta. Many monsters, monstrous cav and other units that are common this edition are good at dealing a lot of casualties very quickly to large infantry blocks. Lots of stuff has a 2+ or 1+ armor save and multiple S4 or highter attacks. There are a lot of 150-300 point units that can charge your 450+pts of spearmen and either tie them up all game or break them.

I mean, lets say a unit of mournfangs charges you, 4 with no special stuff, and assume you get all 50 attacks. You'll do about 2 wounds to them ASF, assuming they don't do much with their impacts (they will). They do about 20 back to you. That's almost 1/4 of their unit and almost 1/2 of yours. They also cost 240pts to your 450pts. Spearmen can't have a razor banner.

Almost anything that's good at buffing spears is better spent buffing our elite infantry. A razor standard in a unit of SM or dragon princes, an annotated or high mage in a unit of white lions. The things that are really best with spears are shadow magic, with things like mindrazor and toughness debuffs (agianst unarmored enemies). For the price of 2 spears you get a reaver. For just under the price of 3 you get a silver helm. For about the same price you get an archer.
Spears can take the Flaming banner = fear vs war beasts, chariots & cavalry.
But I am not sure how the flaming rules will work vs impact hits and the riders.
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Eirik
Posts: 2103
Joined: Sun May 08, 2011 9:14 am

Re: A horde of spear.

#12 Post by Eirik »

Zefiris wrote: Spears can take the Flaming banner = fear vs war beasts, chariots & cavalry.
But I am not sure how the flaming rules will work vs impact hits and the riders.
Fear doesn't affect impact hits. It will affect the rider for monstrous cav or a chariot, though in many cases having fear is better for avoiding fear/terror checks than it is for causing fear.
Ah, Floorhammer. A time honored tradition. Sadly, I no longer play since my brother tripped and right-angled the spears of a 15-man regiment.
-Original Dragon Prince, July 2011
Drakova
Posts: 296
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:11 am

Re: A horde of spear.

#13 Post by Drakova »

Spears are all about what magic you run. LEVEL 4 SHADOW BOH and LEVEL 2 BEAST DS make spears pretty great. You don't even need the buffs against some armies especially with the Phoenix guy in the front.

IF you're liking your spears try Teclis with these spells. Another very good way to buff them.

Teclis 475
-Scroll of Hoeth
-Staff of Lileath
-Crown of Saphery
-Lore of Life: Flesh to Stone
-Lore of Light: Speed of Battle
-Lore of Death: Soulblight
-Lore of Fire: Flamming Sword of Ruin
-Lore of Heavens: Harmonic Convergence
-Lore of Shadow: Okkam's Mindrazor
-Lore of Beast: The Amber Spear
-Lore of Metal: Enchanted Blades of Aiban
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