Trying out Age of Sigmar Spearhead

 A few weeks ago, I received an invitation from my Underworlds group to come over for a day of trying out the new Spearhead rules from Age of Sigmar 4.

So I gladly accepted... but there was one minor detail.  I didn't have an army assembled, let alone painted...

 

 

Luckily Vincent stepped up, assembled his Idoneth spearhead box, and shoved them into my hands so I could get some good trashings coming my way. So with the camera and stuff packed, off we went to Philip's for some Spearhead try-out gaming!

We where four to the party, and you can fit two games on one table, to that is already a bonus.  The armies present would be the Idoneth Deepkin, the Maggotkin of Nurgle, the Ossiarch Bonereapers and the Cities of Sigmar, so a bit of all different tastes.

Peter and his Ossiarch faced off the Maggotkin, while I faced Vincent and his Cities of Sigmar.  Now before we commence, I had some reservations about Spearhead from what I've seen.  That is that the small table would severly limit manoeuvring in my idea, especially with the recycling of some units.  

Disclaimer: we will definitly have made mistakes in these games, as it was the first time trying it out.

My (well, as said, Vincent's) force consisted of a Soulscryer (whose shooting attack I forgot all day long), 3 Morsarr eel riders, the shark (still my favorite Idoneth model) and two groups of Namarthi Thralls.  

The first battle tactics where drawn, abilities picked (the healing on my cavalry and the bonus to cast Creeping Mist).  And as both sides deployed, we where off to our first dabblings into the Spearhead game system!

As the Cities marched forward, deploying diagonally for more space of my eels to move, I braced for the first turn.

Vincent's cannon quickly decimated a regiment of thralls in one blast, before my mist enshrouded riders assaulted it, yet failed to take it down doing only 3 wounds with their blast and tons of attacks.  The Namarti and Shark assaulted the warriors, as the other unit returned to the table.  Here we made the mistake of having them come back anywhere, something that would hit harder even later on.

 

This resulted in a 6-5 lead for the Cities after round 1.

 

 

Given the chance, I took the double turn for round 2, as the warriors had been annihilated and the Namarti advanced towards the knights.  They duly charges, while the second unit and the shark engaged his general.

The stalwart Cities leader went down in a flurry of teeth and blades, and the cannon was finally taken down as well.

In Vincent's turn, the Cities warriors returned next to my general (see above playmistake), quickly dispatching the Soulscryer.  Turn 2 ended as such with an 11 to 9 lead for the Cities on the scoreboard.

Fresh tactics where drawn for turn 3, where it now was High Tide so I would be always striking first.  

The Eels where engaged by the knights who had ridden themselves earlier of the Thralls, but the second unit charged in in support, together with the shark.  Yet a lonely knight with 1 wound left remained after the whole attack phase, before finally succumbing in Vincent's turn.

The cities still led 14 to 13, so it would be all to play for in the final turn.

Vincent went first, solidifying his hold on the central objective.  But now I must retract my statement of movement on the small boards, as I drew objectives, and managed to score all three by, well, movement.  Spreading across the board with the returning Thralls and my high speed troops, I claimed all four others, and the cards for taking the objective top right, reclaiming objectives lost etc, I turned the game round in the final turn for a 18 - 19 victory.

 

So this first game was already a close and fun affair, and with the playmistakes now sorted out, it was time to face the winner of the other table, Philip and the Maggotkin of Nurgle.

And what a devilish army that is: 5+ ward all over the board (with 3+ saves on his Blight King basic), and that disease mechanic that can toss around mortal wounds.

I opted again for the cavalry healing ability, but went for the general not getting save modifiers.  And will duly forget that later on when it mattered, but bear with me.

We moved to Ghyran, and again opted for diagonal deployment.  Philip had a whole lot of stuff still in reserve for turn 3, so I needed to hit hard and fast before they arrived, aiming to assassinate his general to prevent healing and hopefully halving at least the Blight Kings.

The Nurgle forces advanced on the centre, my thralls coming to meet them as the Eels swooped around his line with their impressive movement.  

They charged his general and took it out, but that would be, in hindsight, the last time I would roll even above 1/3th of hits, let alone that what came through wouldn't be saved or warded...

So round 1 ended, and Nurgle was behind 4-3.

In the second turn, the shark and the eels assualted the Blight Kings, but all their attacks, the blast and stuff resulted in... 0 wounds on the unit. Ouch.  

The thralls engaged the Plaguebearers, but they didn't make a dent either in those, this was not going well (and that was with 2 attacks each and -2 rend due to their anti-infantry ability).  

The other thralls returned to occupy an objective, as my Soulscryer was engaged by one of the big flies, and fell (yep, remember that armour save I said at the beginning...).  The charge of the thralls didn't help either, as they failed to wound the fly.

Momentum swung to Nurgle, and they now led 7 to 9 in the scores.

 

 

The shark now fallen to the disease mechanic, the third turn would be all about hanging on and hopefully finally hit decent with my strike first, but alas. This resulted in my eels and thralls all being decimated, effectively tabling me and although I had a 14-12 lead again thanks to tactics, it looked grim.

Or did it?  I still had the Call Reinforcements card in hand, and would bring back D3 (aka 2 in the end) thralls.  I had hoped for Philip to get first turn, in order to bring them on and see what I could score without a counter chance or him playing cards, but that was not to be.  Never the less, the daring duo managed to grab two more points, so it all came down to the objectices Philip picked up.

And it would become a nailbiter.  He could maybe score two of them, and that would win him the game.  But in order to do so, he would need to kill both Namarthi, as his lone Plaguebearer wouldn't be able to do so.  He lined up three charges, being the fly needing a 10, the second plaguebearers a six, and the Blight Kings a three.

The fly failed her roll, so then came this tense moment... and it became VERY tense.

So, they quickly dispatched the two warriors, and Nurgle snatched a 16-18 victory in the end due to as as such the twist and tactic cards, sadly.  had I rolled even closer to 50% hits with a force hitting on 3's and 4's it could have been a whole different story, but now I must admit defeat, my raiding force totally wiped out.

So, thoughts?

It is definitly a fun game system, and it does indeed allow for either slow armies beating stuff up "en blocque" or swift armies playing the objective game.

My feel is also that you need to score 4 to 5 points per round to stay in the race though, botching a single turn in scoring that will almost become an unsurmountable cliff though.  Is it better then WarCry as the AoS skirmish system of choice?  No, as it might become predictable once you get to know the objectives and twists.  Is it something easier to organise things for then WarCry?  It definintly is though, and it does it's intended job nicely to become a step up stone for "regular" Age of Sigmar.

So now I'll be painting up my own models, aiming to have the force ready by the end of the year still, as I like the system for what it is: a small scale, low time needed, casual little wargame.