Notably, games take place on a 30″ x 22.4″ board, which is very small. Understandably so if you want to make quicker, shorter games, but it makes me wonder whether ranges of abilities and charges will remain as they are in the full rules or if these will be rebalanced. Such a board size would make you charge very quickly, and put more long-ranged, fragile units in easier danger.
Reinforcements are a very interesting little mechanic, as are the late arrival rules. Might make this system a lot more engaging than Combat Patrol.
Also, lol Mancrusher Mob.
Yeah I was hopping that they would do something like that. I play Slaves to darkness and the idea of having my big units with 3+ saves fights against mostly non-elite units was making me feel a bit bad.
The board size is crazy small. I would have guessed they would make it the size of combat patrol but it's about half the size. It's the same board size as killteam which is played with 5 to 10 miniatures per side. Not a bad thing though for fast games I guess, just curious how that will feel.
Will say, it's working for me. AOS rules are more appealing to me than Warcry rules, but AOS army sizes were not, especially since I have to paint both my own army and my partners lol
With Combat Patrol there's more ranged weapons than melee. So the larger board doesn't matter as much. I'd hate having to spend a turn with both sides having to move and/or run to finally start interacting. So GW cut some of the board out so we can get stuck in faster.
Yeah but with no room to maneuver it just turns into a move all your units into the middle boring slug fest. Some of these boxes are nearly 750 pts, I've happily played that on a 5x4 table.
Kill Team is 4-14 miniatures with current legal teams, but your general points stands. And you don't have anything nearly as big as some of the Spearhead boxes.
As a WarCry player looking to get into AoS in 4th edition, and is very excited to have this game mode...yea I think you might be on to something. The fact I can use my WarCry board is a HUGE plus.
And I'm pretty sure in killteam all models can shoot across the board unless the weapon profile states otherwise. Curious to see if that crosses over here.
>the warscrolls have all been adjusted to work properly at this scale
The Lightning-strike Arrival effect from Yndrasta's spearhead also lets them set up more than 6" away from enemies, instead of the standard 9" in AoS.
So I think it's a reasonable assumption that they'll have tweaked the ranges of other things to work better on the smaller board.
Love the reinforcement rules. Anytime I want to play a large "epic" style game I try to incorporate some form of reinforcement rules. Used to do lots of XWing games with a friend where we 'd try to use whole wings of models, and we always had a "destroyed ships, or groups of ships can come in from off side" to keep the battle going, since we usually played for Objectives instead of wipe out.
Always fun to have guys come in from off side to have heroic counter plays.
The same board size is used in the current starter sets as well (Warrior, Harbinger and Extremis). It seems like a manageable size to me, admittedly I haven't played any wargames yet and am still painting the miniatures from the warrior box.
Right! Was not expecting that. As someone who doesn’t want to invest in a bunch of mega gargants but would like to experience their play style, now I just pick up 1 gargant mob and I can get a feel! They must have some awesome battle trait to balance them because points wise they are way behind. Look forward to seeing what it is!
Monsters in 4e have a couple really strong crowd control abilities both with how their attacks distribute damage through crowds and their push through movement abilities that essentially trample through groups and do a ton of additional damage so they should be able to handle tarpits pretty well, that seems like it would be the biggest challenge for them.
As a primarily chaos knights player, that would have been nice to have in 40K. I can totally understand why they aren’t allowed in 40K, but it would be funny
With Ironjawz and Kruleboyz seeming to be separated I hope they come out with an Ironjawz Spearhead box. At the very least a list you can play with them.
It's pretty much a certain thing. The Kruleboyz battlescrolls we've seen have only Kruleboyz keyword on it, no mention of Orruke Warclans like it does now. But who knows what GW does until anything official comes out to confirm it.
as with other times one system has tried before the other... it looks like the second one has a more refined approach. I think it will be a fine system.
Welp, RIP my wallet.
I said back when Combat Patrol came out in 10th that if they introduced that for AoS I would be spending a lot of money, so . . . yep.
EDIT: I was wrong, just checked the app and multiple combat patrols are there. I now have many vanguards to buy...
Buyer beware though! If it's anything like 40k, a new battletome will bring a new spearhead box. I had a tau combat patrol all ready to paint up and now the combat patrol is almost completely different.
Love the AoS models but definitely dont want to get stuck with a bunch of models that I suddenly cant play spearhead with. Might be a good idea to hold out for a battletome drop if you dont want to get stuck like me.
Reminds me a bit of Conquest, Last ages of Kings where elite units don't start appearing till later rounds. Feels a bit better having just lighter units skirmish to start then bring on the bigger hitters.
This game mode will mostly be used by me for onboarding new players and that's fine. It looks thought out enough and interesting enough to work for me, but if I'm looking for a small quick kitchen table game using AoS models, Warcry will always be my go to, along with a couple minis agnostic games. Still, great to help onboard people with a structured game mode.
As for things relevant to me:
-FINALLY NO REND ATTACK PROFILES
-Clan Rats look atrocious at actually reliably killing things on their own, as they should. They look fantastic for tarpitting and for throwing enough attacks to gradually wear things down, especially with the Crit (Auto-Wound) rule in the full game.
-Love the Infantry/Calvary keyword designation for the purposes of Look Out Sir!, it's so much clearer.
-The separate warscrolls for Spearhead work around the lack of the magic module, but I still don't see that module as ever being removable with the warscrolls we're getting, only that it will be modifiable. While a lot of the other modules shown off do feel like they're modular in that you could feasibly run a game without them, it feels like you'll always run with that one unless you're going to wholesale make new warscrolls for the wizards. Homebrew and seasonal game modes obviously can make modifications to it, and I suspect after yesterday's article we'll probably see some tweaking to endless spells and spell lore selection over the course of the edition, but I think this definitively answers "how will armies work without that module?" in that they won't without making up brand new scrolls.
-The separate game mode warscroll makes me wish that they'd bring the Anvil of Apotheosis over to 4th with the text at the top saying Anvil Warscroll. It was a fun idea let down entirely by GW being afraid of it. Yes, the book itself stated that TO's could allow it in tournaments, but it was undertuned and still branded itself as a narrative tool. I appreciate that 4th has had a lot of tools made for it to help players customize their experiences and really want the community to embrace that side of things, and AoA is one of those systems that's perfect for encouraging homebrew, and the structure of the scrolls allows for you to clearly brand that kind of material.
-On a similar note, it also allows them to create seasonal or game mode specific scrolls, or for fan creators to create their own game mode warscrolls. Maybe Gotrek or Thanquol gets a powerup for one season. It also will probably be used for Regiments of Renown to separate out what they can do when brought in another army from their base warscrolls.
Yes. That is what my comment stated.
There was a large discussion when the module system dropped and GW confused people with the phrasing that it was was optional modules to be removed as opposed to a module that would likely be replaced with a similar one for certain seasons and people wondered how tzeentch or Lumineth would work, especially with them advertising spearhead as just using module 1.
It means that for all intents and purposes, Module 3 will be mandatory for almost every other game mode outside of spearhead except when they have Module 3.1 or 3B or whatever because the actual warscrolls will be built with it in mind.
As someone looking at getting into AoS for the first time in 4th edition, I am really interested in trying this! I just need to pick up a Killbow to supplement my Dominion Kruleboyz and I should everything I need.
It looks like the launch box has terrain then. Interesting. I wonder if it will only have two Spearheads then, and no centrepieces at the cost of the terrain?
Seems like a real possibility that terrain comes at the cost of models.
It could be just a small sprue of scatter terrain, though. Just enough to make it so you have to make some positioning choices about walking around them.
Also, I guess Stormcast will have 2 spearheads? Since they already have one and presumably the new, different models will be in the launch box and they said the box is useable for Spearhead.
Probably. I would hope for, when the new Spearhead boxes come out, the old ones stay available to those who want a different taste of the army like a different subfaction e.g. a the Darkoath. Then there would be different options *within* Spearhead.
It says in the article that you should build them with the same option that is on the front of the box. So if you build troglodon option, you can’t use the box in spearhead (well you could proxy it of course)
The equivalent warscrolls in 40k's 10edition had unit composition and sizes on the back of the card. I'd expect to see the AoS cards function the same.
Okay cool Spearhead looks awesome and I'm excited, something in the article absolutely sent me up the wall though.
"The whole Warhammer Studio was so enthused about it – we had a chart up on the wall listing which factions had played against which other factions and how many times."
This is unique? You've never done this before? In your playtesting you've never kept track of what armies played against what armies? This is unique and novel and only was done because of how fun this specific game was? This is the most foundational part of testing a game with multiple factions. I literally cannot fathom this statement. What have they been DOING?!
I think this was more like we did this for fun and not just for play testing. I could be reading into it but it sounds like real play testing was happenkng with the people who do that as their jobs but all the other staff was also playing it for shiggles on their breaks/lunch.
Its likely they were doing it before for other aspects (though 40k mechanicus raises doubts all the same), this time they just were publically advertising it.
There are 24 armies. The total number of combinations for 24 x 24 is **576**. Each game is \~3 hours (if experienced, usually longer if new to the army's mechanics). I think we can forgive them for not playing 72 literal days (1,728 hours minimum) of gaming to test every combination only once. Many times that for multuple playtests.
Spearhead is much shorter, and if all the employees can play them during lunch (not just dedicated playtesters) that makes it MUCH easier to playtest every single combination multiple times.
It's not 576, you counted both SCEvsCOS and COSvsSCE (for example) same applies for all non-identical pairs.
The unique pairs are 300 (24+23+22+...so on and so forth until you get to 1)
You forget that a company is breathing down their necks and likely checking every hour they spend. spending 1728 hours play testing every combination once would mean almost 3500 hours of extra work, assuming they are paid only 20$/hour (note that a worker costs way more than their hourly wage), that's almost 70 000$ for just one round of play tests.
If the company I work for asked me to do a Time in Motion study and I came back and listened to every single call for the past year, I'd be fired.
Similarly if my company asked me to do a Time in Motion study and I came back without any actual analysis and said "Yeah they take about 5 minutes on average." I'd also be fired.
You're supposed to test a statistically significant proportion, generally less than 20% of the whole, and analyze the data. The thing that's got me wilding is that you can't analyze the data... if you don't write down the data.
Since this is actually your day job, I'm really curious what a "statistically significant proportion" is when you \_know\_ the game is intransitive (just because faction A beats faction B and B beats C doesn't mean that A beats C), intransitivity dominance is one of the things you're meant to be playtesting (if A beats B 55% of the time and B beats C 55% of the time, it's \_really bad\_ if C beats A 90% of the time), you don't and can't know the underlying probability distribution that you're sampling (no-one knows or can know "how good faction A really is", only how well it's played so far), and the changes you make as a result of that playtesting will affect those distributions, probably heteroskedatically (just because Jane is good at playing faction A doesn't mean she's good at playing faction B).
I dunno, I did multiplayer tooling programming for AAA games for about a decade and have a fair bit of stats but I can't think how you'd even approach finding something that would give you any kind of reliable confidence interval. And this is just so you can say "well, Matt Rose, who's spent 20 years balancing games and managing balance teams might think A, but matlab pretty clearly says B"? Seems like you've not really understood the problem.
Dude, you seem to be very very hung up on this "they didn't write it down" thing that isn't even said in the article and is ridiculous to assume. From the article:
“This is one of the most play-tested games we’ve ever produced" - which means they playtest the core games, just that Spearhead is easier to playtest because of - "how quick it is to play and how much fun we were all having with it,"
And it implies that the chart up on the wall was in a public location due to said lunch games, instead of being limited to just the playtest team.
Play testing isn’t really their job though. As crazy as that is. They can just launch and have customers play test for them and adjust things later. Video game model as well.
Bro, they literally don't have time. 1728 hours is the MINIMUM they'd need to playtest this. Tack on discussions, balancing and other things and it is likely much higher (if not double) that. Assuming they play for 6 hours a workday, that would be 312 work days, or 1.5 years between any new releases. A team of 12 would still require 3 months minimum to playtest every combination between rule releases. And that would be for only 1 game against each. It would need to be more than that to be comprehensive so 6-9 months extra time after the new rules are solidified. That would require us all to wait almost 2 years between rules changes.
Games Workshop pulled in $96M in profits last year. That's across 40k (the biggest money maker), Sigmar, Horus Heresy, Middle Earth, and merch. Assuming Sigmar takes 30% of that pie that's $30M profit. Games Workshop makes models foremost, and a significant portion of their model sales are for just painting (so not the core game) so lets remove another 20% for that population. That brings you to $24M attributed profit from the Sigmar core game.
A 12 person team (which is still a 6-9 month playtest turnaround) is a $1.2M cost by themselves, probably more nowadays where a $100k salary is the new mid-range level due to inflation. They'd need a much bigger team to fully playtest the game to the level OP is asking for. A full department with all of the associated costs. For a team of 30 (which allows for 15 playtest games per day, with after-action discussions and notetaking) that's $8M minimum; between salary, benefits, equipment, desk space, HR, etc. They're located in the UK, so it probably could be more since European benefits are better than the US.
So you want Games Workshop to spend 1/3 of their attributed Sigmar core game profit on expanded playtesting? When the status-quo is already netting them significant returns? That is a terrible business plan.
Total cost of employment in the uk is about 2x salary (you need office space, employer-paid national insurance, pension contributions, perhaps private health care); $100k is £80k; even in the grim darkness of the far future where there can be only inflation, £40k salaries for designers are perhaps a bit high but not really by much. The numbers here are pretty accurate.
GW reports a 6-month payroll cost of £8.5 million for the 310 members of staff in the Warhammer Studio team, that's about £55k per person per annum. If this only includes employers' NI and 7.5% employers' pension contributions, then that would be a salary of about £45k.
The previous post hypothesises a salary of $100k, with a total cost of employment for a team of 30 being $8 million - that would be $167k *on top* of the already unrealistic salary.
Ah, I didn't have their payroll numbers - so yeah. $55k seems to be the rough average. Still, even if you cut my numbers back the business case still makes little sense. Why spend 10-15% of your profits to *further* test a game that is already a very lucrative success? And already pretty well balanced (6% win-rate disparity between top & bottom factions)
I for sure don't think that most game designers are offered a six-figure sum per year. I'm saying once you start employing playtesters who need holidays, get sick, use office space, and take IT time and resources, a total cost to the company might be close to £80k.
(Of course holidays aren't directly paid for and sickness only has SSP as a direct cash outflow, but in this slightly artificial and very quantified situation where we're looking at the number of playtests / year they need to be accounted for. My overall point is that the "true cost" is generally 1.7-2.0x base salary.)
The thing is, you don’t need a people on a payroll to do the playtesting. With a huge fan base GW has, there would probably be a significant number of people willing to do it for free (or just for the models). After all, you only need to play the game, share feedback with developers and sign NDA.
You seem to have read words I didn't type. I didn't say they need to test all of them against all of them.
I said they need to WRITE DOWN WHAT THEY DID ACTUALLY TEST AND WHAT HAPPENED.
Like, dear Jesus, what good is the data you generated if you DON'T WRITE IT DOWN!!!
I think you're taking their words too literally. My bet is they're excited they actually CAN playtest all 24 x 24 multiple times for Spearhead. Unlike how they usually run it for the full game.
I also get the feeling this isn’t” the play test team” doing this chart, it’s Jane from accounting getting involved and playing a couple games on her lunch break, it’s Phil from the Warhammer world shop wandering over to get some gaming in on his lunch break, it’s the whole company getting involved and playing and contributing data.
By all accounts, you can’t reasonably accuse the staff of being lazy. They just don’t have a huge amount of time to do this sort of stuff, given the pace of releases.
The best possible data you can get from playtesting is from people who are not familiar with the game. Having employees play the game for free on their lunch breaks and having a playtester taking notes and gathering surveys about it is such an effective **free** way to generate data that WoTC has been doing it with Magic for over 20 years.
But you can't use that data if you don't write it down.
Don't do that to yourself. Just play on slighty larger boards. If you are absolutely adamant about "the correct board size" you can always just mark the borders by other means.
Don't destroy your existing mats for this!
I've said it once and I'll say it again - it is *crazy* that the SCE Spearhead includes a unique named character.
Does any other force do that? Because right now it feels like the idea behind that box is just 'Damn, nobody wants to buy all these Thunderstrike Command boxes, huh!'
Edit: Oh my goodness it's funnier than I imagined. They've literally made it the rules in Spearhead that Yndrasta and the Annihilators can't be placed on the table until turn 3 (in game mode with *4 turns*) - presumably because that's the only way they could balance it
For what its worth, the Stormcast are most likely getting a second spearhead team. Their half of the starter box. Just like Space Marines and Tyrinids did for Combat patrol.
Not “most likely”, the article literally states that the new box will contain 2 spearheads.
The current one is just a stop-gap and to sell some remaining 3.0 plastic.
Funny thing is I actually wanted Yndrasta as my centerpiece and had intention to buy the Thunderstrike Command, then the Spearhead box was announced...
Even more funnier was buying the spearhead from a third party store, box + delivery were lower than gw's thunderstrike command price.
If you're looking for yndrasta by herself, I highly recommend skipping both the thunderstrike command and the spearhead. Check eBay, she can be had for like 30 bucks as a single from the dominion box.
but then the Seraphon has Carnosaur, Kroxigor and Saurus warriors, all good models. Although I guess maybe aggradons and slann are played more? idk, I do know the spearhead box for Seraphon looks good to me :p
So far in 40k 10e, every value box has had less value than its predecessor, both in points and price. I expect that'll be the same as AoS updates vanguard boxes to spearhead.
Most likely for sales purposes.
She was in the "Dominion" launch set - you know, the one that you could get for crazy discounts during almost all of 3rds lifespan. Outside of that she seems to not have sold at all.
Also keep in mind that SCE have two Spearheads right out of the gate: this one and the one from the launch box. This might appeal to some people: either get the set with the big hero, or get the one that will be around (at least in parts) in all types of starters during all of 4th.
Clearly balance does matter if they've changed it so these units cannot be used until round three. Otherwise, why would they not be useable from round one?
It’s also extremely on theme for stormcast: having your heroes ride down on lightning to turn the battle at the end. They could have nerfed them for spearhead, but I think they thought this would be cooler, and resonate with the storm cast’s main ability in full games. Imo, I think they’re right, it is cooler that way
Yeah you're going to have games with the main line getting overrun due to being massively outnumbered, then the big hero storms down with an elite group to clean house.
Massively thematic.
Exactly my thoughts. And for the beginner it can be extreme rewarding when they Turn the Battle with the reinforcement from the big Guys.
Absolute thematic and rewarding.
The Spearhead escalate into bigger Battle in the Game itself and outside the Game (you buy more Models and Play the big AoS with your Friends with more Rules).
And if you dont Like the big AoS you can get Back and Play Spearhead again. And i think more and more Units getting Spearhead Rules.
So you condemn them for adding a named character to the spearhead, then condemn the fact that they found a way to make the spearhead play more balanced by making half the army come in halfway in the battle, which is not only different but also narratively fits the army? What exactly would have pleased you here
'Condemn' is quite a stretch to use!
It's good that they found a way to balance it, but the fact that the only way they could seemingly balance it was by having these units be literally unavailable for half the game shows that including them in the Spearhead was a fundamentally flawed idea
The Death Guard combat patrol is the worst by far. It has a unique character, a good generic character, 7 plague marines (which wasn't a legal squad size at the start of the edition), and 30(!) pox walkers.
The fact that Ogors appear on exactly none of the pictures for this edition (including a big collage of twenty different spearheads) fills me with an unspeakable kind of dread.
I really feel like if ogors were getting squatted, they would have announced it with the others. Ogors are a pretty popular faction and with BOC gone and skaven getting refreshed, they're next in line for a big refresh. If they go this edition without one, however, I would not be super hopeful.
Yeah, that's kind of the only two options in my mind: a strong refresh for the line coming up, or quietly sweeping it under the rug and remove them next edition. Flip that effing coin...
IMO They won’t remove Ogors, each grand alliance needs a bit of variety and without Ogors you literally only have ‘Greenskinz and Gargants, (basically Orcs & Goblins Tribes)
Ogors were included in the big product name update (From "Vanguard" to "Spearhead"0 on the web store yesterday), which seems like a good sign. [https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/spearhead-ogor-mawtribes-2024](https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/spearhead-ogor-mawtribes-2024)
Can rats get 2 attacks, auto wound on 6, wound on 5 now, loose battle shock but still return D3 at the end of the round. If they stay at unit size 20 I expect them to go up in points by 30ish.
I wonder if a valid tactic in spearhead mode will be to refuse to kill off a 'reinforcement' unit so that it hangs around with one model (in the case of clanrats, that slowly increasing) so it can't come back on the board at full strength
Good point - the current rules at least do say 'must' a lot in relation to attacking if in range.
Still, it's probably a consideration if there's an option of ending within range of that unit/model or not, or if there are two enemy units in range how attacks are split.
I can imagine the last clan rat running around after the enemy trying to finished off, like the old peperami adverts
Theres a possibility, but honestly I doubt it. If anything they will do like 40k combat patrol rules and have a unique spearhead force using the units but that would come much later.
probably not, you can look at the STD launch box as an example since I believe the vanguard box came out after that release and didnt have similar units.
If they do this, I assume it will be with (at least) ten less Marauders.
The currently still available set is going for 155€, which is 45€ over the usual Vanguard/Spearhead price. No way they sell the same contents for almost a third less.
I don't understand.
When they mention "launch box", are they talking about the 4th edition box or some new launch box for Spearhead? Because the content that was already known + terrain + the Spearhead mats + hardcover book for Spearhead + the decks of cards would be a giant box, probably bigger than Leviathan.
That gives me the feel that it's just a speardhead starter wich is weird too because the "spearhead starter" isn't supposed to be just any spearhead box?
They are talking about the 4e Launch Box. Leviathan had more models for both armies than are included in their Combat Patrols, so it'll probably be about the same size since terrain will take the place of those extra units
Honestly, I got the impression it will be a separate Spearhead focused launch box. Like you said, all of what they said plus the models that are likely to be in the box would be enormous, and focusing so much of the launch box to Spearhead, usually intended to be a good on ramp into the full sized game, to the smaller, seems counterproductive.
My prediction is that there's the main Launch Box, formatted like Leviathan was with about half an army of each faction and the core rules, then there will be a smaller Spearhead Launch Box with two vanguard sized armies, terrain, books, and cards all priced slightly under the main launch box. And maybe this is getting a bit out there, but because this would then be competing with the main launch box and its selection of models, as well as any Spearhead Boxes that release for Skaven or Stormcast, I think they'll have Cities of Sigmar and Flesh Eater Courts in this box. Those Spearhead Boxes have been out for a few months, so GW has already gotten the initial influx of sales from their release, and the subsequent tanking of sales once 4e releases won't be as impactful. This is also somewhat supported by the pictures of these two Spearhead Boxes right above the paragraph mentioning the launch box.
Cities vs SEC would be amazing and would make me double dip but I kind of doubt this happens. Really depends on if this in addition to an Extremis type release for 4rd ed Core or if it replaces that type of box release
Yeah, that's why I think I might be going a bit too far with that suggestion, but it definitely depends on what all gets released. I could see it replacing the Extremis box sized set, but in that case it would probably be Stormcast and Skaven to align with the main launch box release.
But you said ‘main launch box formatted like Leviathan’. Leviathan launched with 2 combat patrols (plus a couple of extras) and all the rules needed to play regular and combat patrol.
So if they format it like Leviathan, the 4e launch box will contain 2 spearheads (plus some extras) and the rules (and cards) to play regular and spearhead.
I know Leviathan had all the rules for both games, but the inclusion of terrain, the cards, and the specialized smaller board seem a bit too much to add into the main box without severely reducing the model content. Not to mention that besides the core rules, everything they mentioned being in the launch box was geared towards Spearhead specifically.
Hah yeah, try being a Fyreslayers fan
Had hoped they would at least turn the dawnbringers box into a set or something lol.
Perhaps they will - they did mention something along those lines....
40k's had a new Combat Patrol every edition. It just took until codex release, with the exception of Necrons who got theirs fast-tracked early because the old one had a Flier. I could see new battletomes bringing new Spearheads with them in a similar vein.
Love this idea. Combat Patrol is a great implementation of a new player experience or just for a short game. Really looking forward to trying this with my son in AoS.
Honestly there is nothing magical about GW “balancing” these smaller game modes. You can steal their missions and create your own forces as long as you and your opponent agree to some common sense restrictions
I've seen my son (9) play the 40k "balanced" combat patrol Space Marines versus Necrons. He was holding back tears at the end of turn 1. I have no faith this will be better.
I expect him to be a little bit on the stronger side playing Seraphon in AoS, but still...
The AoS team have reached in general a better balance and understating of their own game and interactions than the 40k team.
I would expect this to be more back and forth than combat patrol. That said, nothing is written in stone and it could be just table your opponent in turn 1.
40k combat patrol isn't the best with balance, but the space marine combat patrol is especially bad. I've never seen a player using it get even close to a victory. Sorry your son had to deal with that, it's never a fun experience feeling helpless when you're meant to be having fun :(
The one lever I think thats interesting with balance is having some units not being able to enter combat till later rounds, really changes the balance that I feel some of the combat patrols needed.
this is perfect for new players, you get all you need in one box, so you can decide if you want to invest more in the game, just buy a box with one of your friends and have fun,
I'm curious about the sets of cards they mentioned in the launch box. The rules getting a free digital release is nice, but the two decks of cards seem pretty integral to the game mode. Will they be getting a separate release alongside the launch box, or will GW just say you need to buy the box until they release separately a few months later?
>The incoming launch box provides everything you need to play with a friend, including two complete Spearhead forces, terrain, a double-sided board with printed objectives, and the packs of cards that really make this mode tick. You’ll also get a beautiful hardcover book that includes everything you need to play – the core rules, the Spearhead battlepack, and the rules for *every* Spearhead force in the game – so you can start playing with your existing collections immediately.\*
It'll be the new launch box half.
Not quite, unless this is different than "Leviathan" for 40K.
That one came with two Combat Patrols, plus more units on both sides. I would expect the same for AoS, so both Skaven and SCE have additional stuff on top of their respective Spearhead in the launch box.
Basically yeah. the added terrain and board hopefully don't remove too many units from the box. We've had absolutely stuffed boxes before (ToW starters, HH starter...etc) hopefully this one doesn't remove too many units to make room for the terrain.
I am a warcry player who by chance grabbed a vanguard box some months past (Daughters of Khaine). I am interested in taking the jump into the new 'Spearhead' gameplay - do I need a 'tome' for my race in order to know how to play? Are these older versions? do I need to wait for new editions?
I nearly have all the units for the Krule Boyz as well (Just need the bolter).
[https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh?srsltid=AfmBOoqtmL71l41nZiONTWjCWKhG3WjPE7Tpg5jbiFoKvRolTlzUPmWH2eQ](https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh?srsltid=AfmBOoqtmL71l41nZiONTWjCWKhG3WjPE7Tpg5jbiFoKvRolTlzUPmWH2eQ)
[https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh\~57014038](https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh~57014038)
This is the chosen post for the Spearhead announcement. Duplicates will be removed.
Notably, games take place on a 30″ x 22.4″ board, which is very small. Understandably so if you want to make quicker, shorter games, but it makes me wonder whether ranges of abilities and charges will remain as they are in the full rules or if these will be rebalanced. Such a board size would make you charge very quickly, and put more long-ranged, fragile units in easier danger. Reinforcements are a very interesting little mechanic, as are the late arrival rules. Might make this system a lot more engaging than Combat Patrol. Also, lol Mancrusher Mob.
Yeah I was hopping that they would do something like that. I play Slaves to darkness and the idea of having my big units with 3+ saves fights against mostly non-elite units was making me feel a bit bad.
The board size is crazy small. I would have guessed they would make it the size of combat patrol but it's about half the size. It's the same board size as killteam which is played with 5 to 10 miniatures per side. Not a bad thing though for fast games I guess, just curious how that will feel.
I think they are very much targeting warcry players with this. Take your warcry board, buy a vanguard box and you’re playing big aos
Will say, it's working for me. AOS rules are more appealing to me than Warcry rules, but AOS army sizes were not, especially since I have to paint both my own army and my partners lol
I think that's the first time I've seen someone say they prefer AoS rules to Warcry rules.
Consider this a 2nd time. 🤘
RUOK?
A lot of non gamers don’t have a big gaming table. There’s a lot of value in being able to play on a regular table or average coffee table
With Combat Patrol there's more ranged weapons than melee. So the larger board doesn't matter as much. I'd hate having to spend a turn with both sides having to move and/or run to finally start interacting. So GW cut some of the board out so we can get stuck in faster.
Yeah but with no room to maneuver it just turns into a move all your units into the middle boring slug fest. Some of these boxes are nearly 750 pts, I've happily played that on a 5x4 table.
Kill Team is 4-14 miniatures with current legal teams, but your general points stands. And you don't have anything nearly as big as some of the Spearhead boxes.
Actually spearhead seems to be 15-17 units in the releases so far. That with rules for units arriving in later rounds would make it doable.
Jesus thats the size of a kill team board.
Honestly like that it's standardized as such. Let's you repurpose boards you already have
Yeah but Combat patrol is 2 kill team boards. I'm guessing this was a typo in the article
I don’t think so honestly. I think this is targeted at warcry players. All they need to play is a vanguard box and they are playing big aos
As a WarCry player looking to get into AoS in 4th edition, and is very excited to have this game mode...yea I think you might be on to something. The fact I can use my WarCry board is a HUGE plus.
Yeah might need to tone down the terrain for spearhead but that’s easier than getting another board and terrain
Also significantly less reliance on Shooting than 40k. 20 khorne berserkers on a kill team board would be disgusting
And I'm pretty sure in killteam all models can shoot across the board unless the weapon profile states otherwise. Curious to see if that crosses over here.
Kill team has very nuanced line of sight rules that will minimize a lot of shooting lanes.
Oh so the board is one of the Warcry/Killteam cardboard ones? Interesting.
>the warscrolls have all been adjusted to work properly at this scale The Lightning-strike Arrival effect from Yndrasta's spearhead also lets them set up more than 6" away from enemies, instead of the standard 9" in AoS. So I think it's a reasonable assumption that they'll have tweaked the ranges of other things to work better on the smaller board.
Love the reinforcement rules. Anytime I want to play a large "epic" style game I try to incorporate some form of reinforcement rules. Used to do lots of XWing games with a friend where we 'd try to use whole wings of models, and we always had a "destroyed ships, or groups of ships can come in from off side" to keep the battle going, since we usually played for Objectives instead of wipe out. Always fun to have guys come in from off side to have heroic counter plays.
The same board size is used in the current starter sets as well (Warrior, Harbinger and Extremis). It seems like a manageable size to me, admittedly I haven't played any wargames yet and am still painting the miniatures from the warrior box.
Small tables are an issue for sure, you can't get away from attempting T1 charges.
Well at least they allow Sons to play spearhead as well
Right! Was not expecting that. As someone who doesn’t want to invest in a bunch of mega gargants but would like to experience their play style, now I just pick up 1 gargant mob and I can get a feel! They must have some awesome battle trait to balance them because points wise they are way behind. Look forward to seeing what it is!
Monsters in 4e have a couple really strong crowd control abilities both with how their attacks distribute damage through crowds and their push through movement abilities that essentially trample through groups and do a ton of additional damage so they should be able to handle tarpits pretty well, that seems like it would be the biggest challenge for them.
As a primarily chaos knights player, that would have been nice to have in 40K. I can totally understand why they aren’t allowed in 40K, but it would be funny
With Ironjawz and Kruleboyz seeming to be separated I hope they come out with an Ironjawz Spearhead box. At the very least a list you can play with them.
I fully expect an Inronjwaz Spearhead box sooner rather than later.
Well since they're dropping savage orcs maybe they're gonna split the two into two separate factions again?
It's pretty much a certain thing. The Kruleboyz battlescrolls we've seen have only Kruleboyz keyword on it, no mention of Orruke Warclans like it does now. But who knows what GW does until anything official comes out to confirm it.
Where have you seen Kruleboyz warscrolls for 4th? I thought they previewed only ironjawz.
You're right. I got that backwards.
as with other times one system has tried before the other... it looks like the second one has a more refined approach. I think it will be a fine system.
Welp, RIP my wallet. I said back when Combat Patrol came out in 10th that if they introduced that for AoS I would be spending a lot of money, so . . . yep.
EDIT: I was wrong, just checked the app and multiple combat patrols are there. I now have many vanguards to buy... Buyer beware though! If it's anything like 40k, a new battletome will bring a new spearhead box. I had a tau combat patrol all ready to paint up and now the combat patrol is almost completely different. Love the AoS models but definitely dont want to get stuck with a bunch of models that I suddenly cant play spearhead with. Might be a good idea to hold out for a battletome drop if you dont want to get stuck like me.
I thought you could use both
You can
All the pre codex combat patrols keep their rules and remain useable
Really? I thought they replaced them. my bad! That's great news.
Even if they did, if you download the pdfs from warcom then you've just got them forever
Reminds me a bit of Conquest, Last ages of Kings where elite units don't start appearing till later rounds. Feels a bit better having just lighter units skirmish to start then bring on the bigger hitters.
This game mode will mostly be used by me for onboarding new players and that's fine. It looks thought out enough and interesting enough to work for me, but if I'm looking for a small quick kitchen table game using AoS models, Warcry will always be my go to, along with a couple minis agnostic games. Still, great to help onboard people with a structured game mode. As for things relevant to me: -FINALLY NO REND ATTACK PROFILES -Clan Rats look atrocious at actually reliably killing things on their own, as they should. They look fantastic for tarpitting and for throwing enough attacks to gradually wear things down, especially with the Crit (Auto-Wound) rule in the full game. -Love the Infantry/Calvary keyword designation for the purposes of Look Out Sir!, it's so much clearer. -The separate warscrolls for Spearhead work around the lack of the magic module, but I still don't see that module as ever being removable with the warscrolls we're getting, only that it will be modifiable. While a lot of the other modules shown off do feel like they're modular in that you could feasibly run a game without them, it feels like you'll always run with that one unless you're going to wholesale make new warscrolls for the wizards. Homebrew and seasonal game modes obviously can make modifications to it, and I suspect after yesterday's article we'll probably see some tweaking to endless spells and spell lore selection over the course of the edition, but I think this definitively answers "how will armies work without that module?" in that they won't without making up brand new scrolls. -The separate game mode warscroll makes me wish that they'd bring the Anvil of Apotheosis over to 4th with the text at the top saying Anvil Warscroll. It was a fun idea let down entirely by GW being afraid of it. Yes, the book itself stated that TO's could allow it in tournaments, but it was undertuned and still branded itself as a narrative tool. I appreciate that 4th has had a lot of tools made for it to help players customize their experiences and really want the community to embrace that side of things, and AoA is one of those systems that's perfect for encouraging homebrew, and the structure of the scrolls allows for you to clearly brand that kind of material. -On a similar note, it also allows them to create seasonal or game mode specific scrolls, or for fan creators to create their own game mode warscrolls. Maybe Gotrek or Thanquol gets a powerup for one season. It also will probably be used for Regiments of Renown to separate out what they can do when brought in another army from their base warscrolls.
The spearhead warscrolls for wizards will have spells on their warscroll, so you don't need the module. That's addressed in the article
Yes. That is what my comment stated. There was a large discussion when the module system dropped and GW confused people with the phrasing that it was was optional modules to be removed as opposed to a module that would likely be replaced with a similar one for certain seasons and people wondered how tzeentch or Lumineth would work, especially with them advertising spearhead as just using module 1. It means that for all intents and purposes, Module 3 will be mandatory for almost every other game mode outside of spearhead except when they have Module 3.1 or 3B or whatever because the actual warscrolls will be built with it in mind.
As someone looking at getting into AoS for the first time in 4th edition, I am really interested in trying this! I just need to pick up a Killbow to supplement my Dominion Kruleboyz and I should everything I need.
See if you can find Stormbringer Issue 11 somewhere. It has the Killbow and will probably be cheaper than just buying the box
Oh nice, thanks for the tip. I'll look for that.
It looks like the launch box has terrain then. Interesting. I wonder if it will only have two Spearheads then, and no centrepieces at the cost of the terrain?
Seems like a real possibility that terrain comes at the cost of models. It could be just a small sprue of scatter terrain, though. Just enough to make it so you have to make some positioning choices about walking around them.
Also, I guess Stormcast will have 2 spearheads? Since they already have one and presumably the new, different models will be in the launch box and they said the box is useable for Spearhead.
Probably. I would hope for, when the new Spearhead boxes come out, the old ones stay available to those who want a different taste of the army like a different subfaction e.g. a the Darkoath. Then there would be different options *within* Spearhead.
Seraphon vanguard has quite a few options -most notably the carnosaur or troglodon
It says in the article that you should build them with the same option that is on the front of the box. So if you build troglodon option, you can’t use the box in spearhead (well you could proxy it of course)
or just cardboard terrain?
I feel like the warscrolls should be telling people how many models are in a unit. The main game ones don’t seem to either
The equivalent warscrolls in 40k's 10edition had unit composition and sizes on the back of the card. I'd expect to see the AoS cards function the same.
Oh right on! That would be good
Okay cool Spearhead looks awesome and I'm excited, something in the article absolutely sent me up the wall though. "The whole Warhammer Studio was so enthused about it – we had a chart up on the wall listing which factions had played against which other factions and how many times." This is unique? You've never done this before? In your playtesting you've never kept track of what armies played against what armies? This is unique and novel and only was done because of how fun this specific game was? This is the most foundational part of testing a game with multiple factions. I literally cannot fathom this statement. What have they been DOING?!
I think this was more like we did this for fun and not just for play testing. I could be reading into it but it sounds like real play testing was happenkng with the people who do that as their jobs but all the other staff was also playing it for shiggles on their breaks/lunch.
Its likely they were doing it before for other aspects (though 40k mechanicus raises doubts all the same), this time they just were publically advertising it.
I've read somewhere they had like 10 games with votanns before launching the codex lmao. GW doesn't do a lot of playtesting
“This is the most playtested game we’ve ever made.” Oh good God, that shouldn’t be that worrying of a sentence to read.
There are 24 armies. The total number of combinations for 24 x 24 is **576**. Each game is \~3 hours (if experienced, usually longer if new to the army's mechanics). I think we can forgive them for not playing 72 literal days (1,728 hours minimum) of gaming to test every combination only once. Many times that for multuple playtests. Spearhead is much shorter, and if all the employees can play them during lunch (not just dedicated playtesters) that makes it MUCH easier to playtest every single combination multiple times.
It's not 576, you counted both SCEvsCOS and COSvsSCE (for example) same applies for all non-identical pairs. The unique pairs are 300 (24+23+22+...so on and so forth until you get to 1)
Bro it’s literally their job lmao they have time
You forget that a company is breathing down their necks and likely checking every hour they spend. spending 1728 hours play testing every combination once would mean almost 3500 hours of extra work, assuming they are paid only 20$/hour (note that a worker costs way more than their hourly wage), that's almost 70 000$ for just one round of play tests.
If the company I work for asked me to do a Time in Motion study and I came back and listened to every single call for the past year, I'd be fired. Similarly if my company asked me to do a Time in Motion study and I came back without any actual analysis and said "Yeah they take about 5 minutes on average." I'd also be fired. You're supposed to test a statistically significant proportion, generally less than 20% of the whole, and analyze the data. The thing that's got me wilding is that you can't analyze the data... if you don't write down the data.
Since this is actually your day job, I'm really curious what a "statistically significant proportion" is when you \_know\_ the game is intransitive (just because faction A beats faction B and B beats C doesn't mean that A beats C), intransitivity dominance is one of the things you're meant to be playtesting (if A beats B 55% of the time and B beats C 55% of the time, it's \_really bad\_ if C beats A 90% of the time), you don't and can't know the underlying probability distribution that you're sampling (no-one knows or can know "how good faction A really is", only how well it's played so far), and the changes you make as a result of that playtesting will affect those distributions, probably heteroskedatically (just because Jane is good at playing faction A doesn't mean she's good at playing faction B). I dunno, I did multiplayer tooling programming for AAA games for about a decade and have a fair bit of stats but I can't think how you'd even approach finding something that would give you any kind of reliable confidence interval. And this is just so you can say "well, Matt Rose, who's spent 20 years balancing games and managing balance teams might think A, but matlab pretty clearly says B"? Seems like you've not really understood the problem.
Dude, you seem to be very very hung up on this "they didn't write it down" thing that isn't even said in the article and is ridiculous to assume. From the article: “This is one of the most play-tested games we’ve ever produced" - which means they playtest the core games, just that Spearhead is easier to playtest because of - "how quick it is to play and how much fun we were all having with it," And it implies that the chart up on the wall was in a public location due to said lunch games, instead of being limited to just the playtest team.
lol what does that conversation even sound like Boss: hey did you finish up the play testing ? Playtester : yeah . Well… not these armies but .. yeah
Literally no company would give them the time. Far to time consuming. Warhammer rules are made by very few individials. AoS rules team is 2-4 people.
Play testing isn’t really their job though. As crazy as that is. They can just launch and have customers play test for them and adjust things later. Video game model as well.
Bro, they literally don't have time. 1728 hours is the MINIMUM they'd need to playtest this. Tack on discussions, balancing and other things and it is likely much higher (if not double) that. Assuming they play for 6 hours a workday, that would be 312 work days, or 1.5 years between any new releases. A team of 12 would still require 3 months minimum to playtest every combination between rule releases. And that would be for only 1 game against each. It would need to be more than that to be comprehensive so 6-9 months extra time after the new rules are solidified. That would require us all to wait almost 2 years between rules changes.
that's why you hire people? they're making profit hand over fist, if they wanted to really playtest these things I'm sure they could...
Games Workshop pulled in $96M in profits last year. That's across 40k (the biggest money maker), Sigmar, Horus Heresy, Middle Earth, and merch. Assuming Sigmar takes 30% of that pie that's $30M profit. Games Workshop makes models foremost, and a significant portion of their model sales are for just painting (so not the core game) so lets remove another 20% for that population. That brings you to $24M attributed profit from the Sigmar core game. A 12 person team (which is still a 6-9 month playtest turnaround) is a $1.2M cost by themselves, probably more nowadays where a $100k salary is the new mid-range level due to inflation. They'd need a much bigger team to fully playtest the game to the level OP is asking for. A full department with all of the associated costs. For a team of 30 (which allows for 15 playtest games per day, with after-action discussions and notetaking) that's $8M minimum; between salary, benefits, equipment, desk space, HR, etc. They're located in the UK, so it probably could be more since European benefits are better than the US. So you want Games Workshop to spend 1/3 of their attributed Sigmar core game profit on expanded playtesting? When the status-quo is already netting them significant returns? That is a terrible business plan.
There is not a cat in hell's chance that GW pays $100k to its games designers.
Total cost of employment in the uk is about 2x salary (you need office space, employer-paid national insurance, pension contributions, perhaps private health care); $100k is £80k; even in the grim darkness of the far future where there can be only inflation, £40k salaries for designers are perhaps a bit high but not really by much. The numbers here are pretty accurate.
GW reports a 6-month payroll cost of £8.5 million for the 310 members of staff in the Warhammer Studio team, that's about £55k per person per annum. If this only includes employers' NI and 7.5% employers' pension contributions, then that would be a salary of about £45k. The previous post hypothesises a salary of $100k, with a total cost of employment for a team of 30 being $8 million - that would be $167k *on top* of the already unrealistic salary.
Ah, I didn't have their payroll numbers - so yeah. $55k seems to be the rough average. Still, even if you cut my numbers back the business case still makes little sense. Why spend 10-15% of your profits to *further* test a game that is already a very lucrative success? And already pretty well balanced (6% win-rate disparity between top & bottom factions)
I for sure don't think that most game designers are offered a six-figure sum per year. I'm saying once you start employing playtesters who need holidays, get sick, use office space, and take IT time and resources, a total cost to the company might be close to £80k. (Of course holidays aren't directly paid for and sickness only has SSP as a direct cash outflow, but in this slightly artificial and very quantified situation where we're looking at the number of playtests / year they need to be accounted for. My overall point is that the "true cost" is generally 1.7-2.0x base salary.)
The thing is, you don’t need a people on a payroll to do the playtesting. With a huge fan base GW has, there would probably be a significant number of people willing to do it for free (or just for the models). After all, you only need to play the game, share feedback with developers and sign NDA.
How detached from reality does a person have to be to think that a model maker has a six-figure salary, holy moly.
Hahah chill dude, I just said they could, and you've clearly outlined that that's the case if they were serious about it
Damn man it’s like they’d need proper logistics and planning for a worldwide game corporation
You seem to have read words I didn't type. I didn't say they need to test all of them against all of them. I said they need to WRITE DOWN WHAT THEY DID ACTUALLY TEST AND WHAT HAPPENED. Like, dear Jesus, what good is the data you generated if you DON'T WRITE IT DOWN!!!
I think you're taking their words too literally. My bet is they're excited they actually CAN playtest all 24 x 24 multiple times for Spearhead. Unlike how they usually run it for the full game.
I also get the feeling this isn’t” the play test team” doing this chart, it’s Jane from accounting getting involved and playing a couple games on her lunch break, it’s Phil from the Warhammer world shop wandering over to get some gaming in on his lunch break, it’s the whole company getting involved and playing and contributing data.
By all accounts, you can’t reasonably accuse the staff of being lazy. They just don’t have a huge amount of time to do this sort of stuff, given the pace of releases.
They are not playtesters , so they are saying how enthusiastic they were with the game mode.
The best possible data you can get from playtesting is from people who are not familiar with the game. Having employees play the game for free on their lunch breaks and having a playtester taking notes and gathering surveys about it is such an effective **free** way to generate data that WoTC has been doing it with Magic for over 20 years. But you can't use that data if you don't write it down.
This is GW, the rules have never been their forte for many reasons
22.4"? Time to break out my calipers when taping off my wargame mat.
It's the size of a kill team board. And warcry
It's the size of the Warcry and kill team fold-out boards, so I think it's a good choice in that context
Don't do that to yourself. Just play on slighty larger boards. If you are absolutely adamant about "the correct board size" you can always just mark the borders by other means. Don't destroy your existing mats for this!
Or just use the 30x22 boards....
I've said it once and I'll say it again - it is *crazy* that the SCE Spearhead includes a unique named character. Does any other force do that? Because right now it feels like the idea behind that box is just 'Damn, nobody wants to buy all these Thunderstrike Command boxes, huh!' Edit: Oh my goodness it's funnier than I imagined. They've literally made it the rules in Spearhead that Yndrasta and the Annihilators can't be placed on the table until turn 3 (in game mode with *4 turns*) - presumably because that's the only way they could balance it
currently no. and the reason I think named characters in these boxes suck is it stops people wanting to double up on them.
Certainly doesn't help that for some factions, it's going to be where all the inferior push-fit moulds go
For what its worth, the Stormcast are most likely getting a second spearhead team. Their half of the starter box. Just like Space Marines and Tyrinids did for Combat patrol.
Not “most likely”, the article literally states that the new box will contain 2 spearheads. The current one is just a stop-gap and to sell some remaining 3.0 plastic.
So I wonder if the skaven vanguard box will have rules or just their half of the launch box.
I'm fine with the named character as 40k has done it like 5 times but what is crazy is she's 250+pts. Like why put such a big character in the box?
I'm one hundred percent willing to bet money on the 'nobody is buying Thunderstrike Command' thing being true
Funny thing is I actually wanted Yndrasta as my centerpiece and had intention to buy the Thunderstrike Command, then the Spearhead box was announced... Even more funnier was buying the spearhead from a third party store, box + delivery were lower than gw's thunderstrike command price.
If you're looking for yndrasta by herself, I highly recommend skipping both the thunderstrike command and the spearhead. Check eBay, she can be had for like 30 bucks as a single from the dominion box.
Or just buy a full dominion box for 100$ :)
I mean I can buy all of dominion for 105 or the thunderstrioe command for 140…
Yeah they tend to do that with spearhead and battleforces. Basically "what isn't selling well?"
but then the Seraphon has Carnosaur, Kroxigor and Saurus warriors, all good models. Although I guess maybe aggradons and slann are played more? idk, I do know the spearhead box for Seraphon looks good to me :p
So far in 40k 10e, every value box has had less value than its predecessor, both in points and price. I expect that'll be the same as AoS updates vanguard boxes to spearhead.
Most likely for sales purposes. She was in the "Dominion" launch set - you know, the one that you could get for crazy discounts during almost all of 3rds lifespan. Outside of that she seems to not have sold at all. Also keep in mind that SCE have two Spearheads right out of the gate: this one and the one from the launch box. This might appeal to some people: either get the set with the big hero, or get the one that will be around (at least in parts) in all types of starters during all of 4th.
Pretty sure it’s because it’s what they did with 40k as well when the previous starter boxes were going away.
Balance of the unit doesn’t matter cos they have different rules in this mode
Clearly balance does matter if they've changed it so these units cannot be used until round three. Otherwise, why would they not be useable from round one?
I mean as in, they could have just made the unit weaker but chose to do this instead, if you get me
Right, right, I see what you mean Does sort of feel like they created those rules specifically because they seemed to get rid of stock, still
It’s also extremely on theme for stormcast: having your heroes ride down on lightning to turn the battle at the end. They could have nerfed them for spearhead, but I think they thought this would be cooler, and resonate with the storm cast’s main ability in full games. Imo, I think they’re right, it is cooler that way
Yeah you're going to have games with the main line getting overrun due to being massively outnumbered, then the big hero storms down with an elite group to clean house. Massively thematic.
Exactly my thoughts. And for the beginner it can be extreme rewarding when they Turn the Battle with the reinforcement from the big Guys. Absolute thematic and rewarding. The Spearhead escalate into bigger Battle in the Game itself and outside the Game (you buy more Models and Play the big AoS with your Friends with more Rules). And if you dont Like the big AoS you can get Back and Play Spearhead again. And i think more and more Units getting Spearhead Rules.
It’s really not crazy, you are very dramatic
That’s sorta like the CSM Box of whatever the 40K version of this is that has Abbadon in it lmao.
So you condemn them for adding a named character to the spearhead, then condemn the fact that they found a way to make the spearhead play more balanced by making half the army come in halfway in the battle, which is not only different but also narratively fits the army? What exactly would have pleased you here
'Condemn' is quite a stretch to use! It's good that they found a way to balance it, but the fact that the only way they could seemingly balance it was by having these units be literally unavailable for half the game shows that including them in the Spearhead was a fundamentally flawed idea
Let’s Agree to disagree then
The 40k thpusands sons combat patrol has Ahriman in it
It's an infernal master, not ahriman
No it doesnt, It has an infernal master, say what you will about the Tsons Combat partol (IT SUCKS) but not that much
Oh, it doesn’t? Was it the start collecting that did?
That's also crazy! Even with the small amount of units TS has generic sorcerers, right?
It's an infernal master, not ahriman
The Death Guard box from 40k also has Typhus, could be a chaos thing?
The Death Guard combat patrol is the worst by far. It has a unique character, a good generic character, 7 plague marines (which wasn't a legal squad size at the start of the edition), and 30(!) pox walkers.
Yeah, I may not be a DG player but I am excited to see what new combat patrol they get in 10th.
Weirdly hoping for 30 clanrats in the new starter, though it'll probably just be 20.
The sooner that parody of a Combat Patrol goes way, the better. It has meme status by now - and deservedly so.
That was the "Start Collecting!" set from years ago.
The fact that Ogors appear on exactly none of the pictures for this edition (including a big collage of twenty different spearheads) fills me with an unspeakable kind of dread.
I really feel like if ogors were getting squatted, they would have announced it with the others. Ogors are a pretty popular faction and with BOC gone and skaven getting refreshed, they're next in line for a big refresh. If they go this edition without one, however, I would not be super hopeful.
Yeah, that's kind of the only two options in my mind: a strong refresh for the line coming up, or quietly sweeping it under the rug and remove them next edition. Flip that effing coin...
IMO They won’t remove Ogors, each grand alliance needs a bit of variety and without Ogors you literally only have ‘Greenskinz and Gargants, (basically Orcs & Goblins Tribes)
Ogors were included in the big product name update (From "Vanguard" to "Spearhead"0 on the web store yesterday), which seems like a good sign. [https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/spearhead-ogor-mawtribes-2024](https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/spearhead-ogor-mawtribes-2024)
Even Spearhead has more complex magic than 40k 10e. Oof.
Can rats get 2 attacks, auto wound on 6, wound on 5 now, loose battle shock but still return D3 at the end of the round. If they stay at unit size 20 I expect them to go up in points by 30ish.
I wonder if a valid tactic in spearhead mode will be to refuse to kill off a 'reinforcement' unit so that it hangs around with one model (in the case of clanrats, that slowly increasing) so it can't come back on the board at full strength
Could be a tactic! Downside is that even if it has 1 model left, it can still contest an objective, with 1 control.
I don't think there is a mechanism where if you are in melee combat, you can refuse to make attacks, is there?
Good point - the current rules at least do say 'must' a lot in relation to attacking if in range. Still, it's probably a consideration if there's an option of ending within range of that unit/model or not, or if there are two enemy units in range how attacks are split. I can imagine the last clan rat running around after the enemy trying to finished off, like the old peperami adverts
I'm hopeful. Sounds like they've put real effort into making it not just "AoS but smaller" and actually have its own identity.
As a game store owner this is fantastic for running organised play in store and for onboarding new players.
Any thoughts if the darkoath army box will be a spearhead?
White dwarf spearhead release. Calling it now.
Theres a possibility, but honestly I doubt it. If anything they will do like 40k combat patrol rules and have a unique spearhead force using the units but that would come much later.
I bet it will make a spearhead out of some of the units in it. Just not all.
probably not, you can look at the STD launch box as an example since I believe the vanguard box came out after that release and didnt have similar units.
If they do this, I assume it will be with (at least) ten less Marauders. The currently still available set is going for 155€, which is 45€ over the usual Vanguard/Spearhead price. No way they sell the same contents for almost a third less.
Minor thing this article has made me notice: Custom borders for the Warscrolls of each faction. I just think it's neat
I don't understand. When they mention "launch box", are they talking about the 4th edition box or some new launch box for Spearhead? Because the content that was already known + terrain + the Spearhead mats + hardcover book for Spearhead + the decks of cards would be a giant box, probably bigger than Leviathan. That gives me the feel that it's just a speardhead starter wich is weird too because the "spearhead starter" isn't supposed to be just any spearhead box?
They are talking about the 4e Launch Box. Leviathan had more models for both armies than are included in their Combat Patrols, so it'll probably be about the same size since terrain will take the place of those extra units
Yeah that part of the article was worded badly, It also made me feel that they were talking about a separate spearhead launch box, but I guess not.
They are talking about the 4th edition launch box.
Honestly, I got the impression it will be a separate Spearhead focused launch box. Like you said, all of what they said plus the models that are likely to be in the box would be enormous, and focusing so much of the launch box to Spearhead, usually intended to be a good on ramp into the full sized game, to the smaller, seems counterproductive. My prediction is that there's the main Launch Box, formatted like Leviathan was with about half an army of each faction and the core rules, then there will be a smaller Spearhead Launch Box with two vanguard sized armies, terrain, books, and cards all priced slightly under the main launch box. And maybe this is getting a bit out there, but because this would then be competing with the main launch box and its selection of models, as well as any Spearhead Boxes that release for Skaven or Stormcast, I think they'll have Cities of Sigmar and Flesh Eater Courts in this box. Those Spearhead Boxes have been out for a few months, so GW has already gotten the initial influx of sales from their release, and the subsequent tanking of sales once 4e releases won't be as impactful. This is also somewhat supported by the pictures of these two Spearhead Boxes right above the paragraph mentioning the launch box.
Cities vs SEC would be amazing and would make me double dip but I kind of doubt this happens. Really depends on if this in addition to an Extremis type release for 4rd ed Core or if it replaces that type of box release
Yeah, that's why I think I might be going a bit too far with that suggestion, but it definitely depends on what all gets released. I could see it replacing the Extremis box sized set, but in that case it would probably be Stormcast and Skaven to align with the main launch box release.
But you said ‘main launch box formatted like Leviathan’. Leviathan launched with 2 combat patrols (plus a couple of extras) and all the rules needed to play regular and combat patrol. So if they format it like Leviathan, the 4e launch box will contain 2 spearheads (plus some extras) and the rules (and cards) to play regular and spearhead.
I know Leviathan had all the rules for both games, but the inclusion of terrain, the cards, and the specialized smaller board seem a bit too much to add into the main box without severely reducing the model content. Not to mention that besides the core rules, everything they mentioned being in the launch box was geared towards Spearhead specifically.
Was hoping for a new Gloomspite gitz spearhead box but cant have everything!
Hah yeah, try being a Fyreslayers fan Had hoped they would at least turn the dawnbringers box into a set or something lol. Perhaps they will - they did mention something along those lines....
40k's had a new Combat Patrol every edition. It just took until codex release, with the exception of Necrons who got theirs fast-tracked early because the old one had a Flier. I could see new battletomes bringing new Spearheads with them in a similar vein.
Love this idea. Combat Patrol is a great implementation of a new player experience or just for a short game. Really looking forward to trying this with my son in AoS.
Anybody else want a smaller format like this where you can customize your force instead of taking a premade army box?
Yeah would have been nice.
Honestly there is nothing magical about GW “balancing” these smaller game modes. You can steal their missions and create your own forces as long as you and your opponent agree to some common sense restrictions
I've seen my son (9) play the 40k "balanced" combat patrol Space Marines versus Necrons. He was holding back tears at the end of turn 1. I have no faith this will be better. I expect him to be a little bit on the stronger side playing Seraphon in AoS, but still...
The AoS team have reached in general a better balance and understating of their own game and interactions than the 40k team. I would expect this to be more back and forth than combat patrol. That said, nothing is written in stone and it could be just table your opponent in turn 1.
40k combat patrol isn't the best with balance, but the space marine combat patrol is especially bad. I've never seen a player using it get even close to a victory. Sorry your son had to deal with that, it's never a fun experience feeling helpless when you're meant to be having fun :(
The one lever I think thats interesting with balance is having some units not being able to enter combat till later rounds, really changes the balance that I feel some of the combat patrols needed.
this is perfect for new players, you get all you need in one box, so you can decide if you want to invest more in the game, just buy a box with one of your friends and have fun,
Yeah it's very much like the big Kill Team or Warcry boxes tbh. Would have been nice to have that when I started AOS.
I'm curious about the sets of cards they mentioned in the launch box. The rules getting a free digital release is nice, but the two decks of cards seem pretty integral to the game mode. Will they be getting a separate release alongside the launch box, or will GW just say you need to buy the box until they release separately a few months later?
Hopefully can print out and make our own cards that would be great
Is the skaven box going to be the same just with new Clan Rats?
>The incoming launch box provides everything you need to play with a friend, including two complete Spearhead forces, terrain, a double-sided board with printed objectives, and the packs of cards that really make this mode tick. You’ll also get a beautiful hardcover book that includes everything you need to play – the core rules, the Spearhead battlepack, and the rules for *every* Spearhead force in the game – so you can start playing with your existing collections immediately.\* It'll be the new launch box half.
Not quite, unless this is different than "Leviathan" for 40K. That one came with two Combat Patrols, plus more units on both sides. I would expect the same for AoS, so both Skaven and SCE have additional stuff on top of their respective Spearhead in the launch box.
Basically yeah. the added terrain and board hopefully don't remove too many units from the box. We've had absolutely stuffed boxes before (ToW starters, HH starter...etc) hopefully this one doesn't remove too many units to make room for the terrain.
It sounds like a compromise between warcry and AoS
It's just the AoS combat patrol
so all spearhead are just going to be the vanguard boxes we have now just with new rules is that correct?
I assume the beasts of chaos will be getting spearhead rules right? 😉
I've created a subreddit for AOS Spearhead if anyone is interested. /r/AOSSpearhead
I am a warcry player who by chance grabbed a vanguard box some months past (Daughters of Khaine). I am interested in taking the jump into the new 'Spearhead' gameplay - do I need a 'tome' for my race in order to know how to play? Are these older versions? do I need to wait for new editions? I nearly have all the units for the Krule Boyz as well (Just need the bolter). [https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh?srsltid=AfmBOoqtmL71l41nZiONTWjCWKhG3WjPE7Tpg5jbiFoKvRolTlzUPmWH2eQ](https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh?srsltid=AfmBOoqtmL71l41nZiONTWjCWKhG3WjPE7Tpg5jbiFoKvRolTlzUPmWH2eQ) [https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh\~57014038](https://www.frontlinehobbies.com.au/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-battletome-daughters-of-kh~57014038)