Nerd Week Part 1: Spearhead

I'm on vacation this week.  Most of my time has been spent doing nothing but relaxing.  I'm working on finishing up a class and some odd random things around the house.  This has left a large hole open in my schedule for tiny plastic men.  It may be called nerd week, but it will probably take me more time to put everything up on the blog.  I've already played TWO games of 40k, nearly finished painting two units, and I am preparing to use my airbrush for the first time to base coat EVERYTHING I OWN!  (it looks like it will be too cold to do this however).

To start, Karl and I met at Chimera in Fondy for a game of spearhead.  For those not in the know spearhead is a form of 40k where you take an assload of tanks in formations.  These formations get a special rule or two and all vehicles get a bonus for shooting.  It can make for some quick, fun, and brutal games.  While our game wasn't super quick (for the point size I guess it was), it was fun and brutal.

My pre-game spread

We played 3000 points a side.  I was Blood Angels, Karl was IG.    I took two Stormravens, 1 with death company and a chaplain plus a cheater claw dreadnought.  The other had a furioso dreadnought, 5 assault marines and a terminator librarian.  This was my first spearhead (sky storm or something like that).  Essentially it allowed them a special move when they came in from reserve.  Next up I have a heavy armor formation (gives every tank a 5+ inv. save) that contained 1 vindicator and two predators.  Next I had two Land Raiders each with 5 man assault squads.  Their spearhead thingy allowed them to come in outflank style on turn 1.  Finally, I had 3 Baal Predators with the Tank Hunter formation.   Tank hunter gives them +1 their armor pen rolls.  Which combined with a str. 6 twin-linked rending assault cannon and their outflanking ability made for an awesome combo.  I held everything in reserve except for my vindicator unit.  I wanted to hold them in reserve, but the mission we rolled didn't allow it.

Karl's deployment

Karl won the roll off and went first (I failed to seize).  I cannot remember everything he took because he took a few new units.  Here is what I remember.  Two manticores, Three Lemon Russ' (1 plasmacutioner, and 2 battle tanks I believe), two vendetta's, two devil dogs, 2 blob squads, an outflanking Chimera with Harker and his boys, 1 heavy armor sentinal, 1 command squad, and a few various heavy weapon teams.  Karl had a spearhead formation that allowed him to shoot his Manticore's before turn 1!  They managed to kill off one of my Predators.  In his actual turn 1 his devil dogs infiltrated next to my tanks and combined with the rest of his shooting he finished off my vindicator leaving a lone Predator as my only unit on the table.  I was getting a bit concerned that I would piecemeal onto the table under a storm of IG firepower.

My deployment, 3 tanks enter, only one Tank survives

In my turn 1 I zoomed my Predator away from the devil dogs.  My Land Raiders came in as my only useful unit.  My assault units got out and I unleashed the full fire power of two land raiders and two assault squads into the heart of Karl's army.  The base spearhead rule allows any vehicle to fire an additional weapon, combine that with power of the machine spirit and my land raiders were able to fire everything right into Karl's side.  As you can guess I did nothing, maybe stunned something.  However, assault was different.  I managed to wreck 1 Leman Russ with a powerfist.  I was able to multi-assault a second Russ and a blob squad with my second unit.  My powerfist in that unit exploded the Leman Russ.  The resulting explosion then wiped out nearly half of Karl's infantry (both blob squads lost around 10 men each).

Kaboom goes the blob squad

As awesome as that assault phase was, I knew Karl still had two flyers filled with 1000 plasma shots and 15 suitcase bombs each.  On his turn two, they failed to come in.  As did Harker.  Karl had to use his turn two to swing his forces around to bring his fire into his backfield.  Things begin to get fuzzy around this point.  He poured a lot of fire into my Land Raiders, but failed to do anything to them.  I believe I lost a few assault marines to plasma gun fire.

I lucked out with Karl failing his reserve rolls, and then I lucked out by passing both of mine.  My two flyers came in as did my squad of Baal's.  These reserve rolls really turned out to decide the game.  My big birds flopped down, dropped off their units and opened fire.  The fast rule combined with spearhead and power of the machine spirit allowed me to fire everything.  I stunned or immobilized the manticores, my Baal unit blew up 1 devil dog and immobilized the other.  My Stormravens finished off 1 blob squad while my assault marines were slowly being killed off by the other.  My Librarian used his brain to blow up Karl's last Leman Russ and the sentinel got popped by my land raider.  I was able to charge some heavy weapons teams with my cheater dread, however I couldn't reach his command squad with my death company.  Dropping 2 land raiders 1 turn and 2 full stormravens in the next had crushed Karl's lines.  By his turn 3 he had a command squad, a few stunned tanks, and 1 tied up blob squad (and a fleeing heavy weapon team that had been tank shocked).

2000+ points of firepower proved to be very useful

My death company was just out of assault.

Karl managed to get Harker's squad on the table for turn 3, but failed to get his Valkyrie's on.  He unfortunately faced the fate I had feared for myself in turn 1.  His army was coming on piecemeal and besides 2 tanks and few assault marines I had everything left (it was all in his deployment zone too).  Harker popped up behind my Baal's and wrecked one and caused the other to lose a turn of shooting.  Besides some ineffectual shooting from his command squad, it was all he could do.  Everything else was stunned, immobilized or waiting to come on (my Assault marine had finished off the last of the blob).

Fearing that Karl's flyers would have clear shots at me next turn, I wanted to scatter my army across the board.  I have neglected to mention that this was an objective game.  Karl's command squad was on one,  My lone predator was parked on one (I haven't mentioned the predator because for the rest of the game it did basically nothing).  The third was in my deployment zone, Karl's remaining devil dog and my Baal's were all over that thing.

I moved my Baal's around to claim the objective in my zone, I shot Karl's devil dog but it held on.  After picking up the assault marines and Librarian my Stormravens zoomed towards Harker's Chimera and opened up.  They popped the transport, but the cover save the rubble game them allowed the squad to hang on with a handful of guys.  I managed to kill one of the manticore's with land raider shooting (I also finished off the fleeing heavy weapons team).  In assault my cheater dread killed the last Manticore and my death company with chaplain reached the command squad and ate them.

My death company was extra ragey that they had to wait an entire round to crush the command squad

For the start of Karl's round 4 he had only Harker's squad left.  Although they had held on strong, things were looking bleak.  It went from bleak to poopy as Karl once again failed to get his flyers out of reserve.

"C'mon boys, if we knock these birds down and kill this dreadnought there are only 2 land raiders, a second dreadnought and 8 raging lunatics in power armor behind them!"

Harker's squad managed to immobilize 1 stormraven, but that was it.  Karl's back field was eliminated.  I moved 1 land raider to his objective to claim it (vehicles can claim in spearhead).  I finished off his devil dog with my 2 Baal's and claimed that objective.  My useless Predator claimed the third.  Everything else moved to Harker and opened fire.

Spoiler alert, Harker died

Hoping to get revenge in a second game, Karl called it there.  His birdie's would have come in next turn automatically.  I'm sure they would have done a gross amount of damage, however I just had too much left.

Spearhead was a lot of fun.  With that many vehicles it focuses the game on big guns and the randomness of the vehicle damage chart can cause some swings within the game.  If I ever play another spearhead game I will take even less infantry and more tanks.  With the exception of the powerfist that popped Karl's Leman Russ and killed half his army, all of my foot soliders did jack shit.  Sure my Death Company crushed his command squad, but they certainly didn't earn their points back.  My Land Raiders were the star of the show thanks to AV 14.  The stormravens did awesome thanks to the sheer amount of firepower they were able to dish out.

Once again, as it seems to always be the case when Karl and I play, the game came down to a few dice rolls.  Most importantly his inability to get his flyers on and the exploding tank that wiped out Blobby Flishler.  If the tank hadn't wiped out his own army Karl's backfield would have been a hell of a battle ground.  I can also assume that if Karl's Vendetta's had come in around turn 3 or 4 I would have lost my Stormravens and a lot of mobile shooting with them.

We did play another game that day, but I'll post about it later, this was long enough.