I play with my group of friend twice a month or so. We go to someone’s house, setup a massive board and just go banana.
It’s fantastic.
But due to life, our number varies quite a lot, from up to 8 one day to 3 the following time.
So we need flexible games and missions, such as “The Tower” mission which I already presented a few weeks back.
We all love Warcry (though I’m banned from taking Reclusians due to how great they are), but you want a bit a variety.
You also need to keep the time spent on it under control.
And after playing some 1v1 Spearhead I was like “Wait. That’s actually a good party game”.
After a few games playtesting, I think we found a solid recipe in order to play Spearhead at more than 2 players!
Overview
Let’s summarise it for those that just want the rules!
Board size should be allowing each player to have a 15’’x11’’ territory
You don’t use the objective cards
Twists are used
Underdogs are equal to half the players rounded down
If people are equal in points, roll off to define who is the underdog
When it acts on specific pieces of terrain, define at the start what pieces are important
Deployment is as explained in the base rules, but make sure that everyone has a similar sized territory
Place terrain so it’s pretty but outside of 6 from each other
You can also follow the base rules for it
The number of objectives are equal to the number of player + half the players divided by 2 rounded down
Eg: 5 players => 5 + 5/2 => 5+ 2 = 7 objectives
Deploy an objective wholly within the center of everyone’s territory
The other objectives are put at equal distance from each player deployment as much as possible
Abilities using the “any” keyword (eg: any fight phase) can be used once during your turn and once during any other per round
Reinforcement should come wholly within your territory as explained in the rules, but make it so it’s only 5’’ away from the center if you use a bigger board
During the fight phase, you can fight only if you’ve been targeted by the active player and you can only retaliate against that active player
Now let’s dig into the reasoning of each.
Deployment & terrain
You’re not playing competitively.
You’re playing with 3+ players.
You’re playing for the fun!
So make a board that looks cool. You do want to keep each piece 6 inches away from each other to allow big armies to go through easily though. And don’t add those massive Warcry platform, keep it with bits of walls and such.
The general idea for terrain is to make it look cinematic! You can alternatively follow the rules if you don’t feel comfortable doing as I explained. No judgement here, only fun.
Deployment is as described in the rules, it works well and there’s no problem with it.
That part was the easiest to figure out really!
Scoring
In classic spearhead you use the deck of cards and have to make some great strategic thinking about using card A for their power or for their objective scoring.
In this case, I wanted to make the most party-game possible… So no cards. They take time and brain power. Let’s focus on what matters : rolling 6s!
Twists are great because they change the entire dynamic of the game, strongly recommend to keep them (and house rule them when you have effects on terrain).
The underdog rule was quite straightforward to figure out - you want enough to trigger abilities. So half the player since you can have only 1 underdog playing 1v1!
Easy.
Sometimes twists will talk about “large piece of terrain” and “small piece of terrain”, in this case just agree with all players to select a piece of terrain that’s the smallest wholly within a specific territory.
You’re all here to have a great time, don’t get sweaty over it.
For the objectives, I wanted to allow people to backstab their opponents with the deployment on turn 3. That’s why one in the centre of each friendly territory.
It creates some amazing “aha” moment on round 3 when stuff just appears out of nowhere. And if your army doesn’t have that, it just means you have to think around it a bit!
Then I wanted to give an incentive for fighting. You don’t people to sit on their objective because that’s TECHNICALLY the most optimal way to play right?
So we need middle objectives. But you want to make sure that everyone can easily access it, thus why you try to place them so no one can access them in an easier way than any other.
You don’t want anyone to feel like they had no way of winning! Party game yes, but also fair game. The best games I had is when people get healthily competitive about it (no rage quitting! Only laughters).
Abilities
In fighters your have 2 types of abilities.
The ones that say “Your XXX” such as “Your Hero Phase”. So just play them on your turn! You have only one per round anyway.
The abilities saying “Any XXX” such as “Any Hero Phase” were a bit more tricky to think about. Picture Ironjawz having 3 inches move at every single hero phase - absolutely broken.
Again, simpler is better for any rule resolution. It needs to feel organic.
So “Any XXX” abilities can be used twice per round - once during your turn and once during one of your opponent turn.
This allows for some strategic thinking and placement without totally making the mechanic broken or unplayable. Overall good resolution.
Reinforcement
That’s the part I like the least about this ruleset.
In normal Spearhead, Reinforcement really feels… irritating.
On the board we’re playing, it just feels underwhelming as a whole. I usually have some stormcasts coming back Round 3 on my edge of the board doing nothing until Round 4 and even there it’s not a whole lot.
In our latest game, we doubled the reinforcement range (from 6’’ to the edge to 12 instead) due to the size of our board. But overall, I think allow them to deploy wholly within friendly territory and outside of 5’’ from the center line seem to be a good middle ground.
Sadly it means that reinforcement armies will be more defensive than armies that have half of their units spawning on round 3 (such as Maggotkin or Ironjawz)
Fighting
When I tried to resolve this, it was an absolute nightmare of a rule.
My rule was :
The active player clearly define which units are “in fight” this turn
A unit “in fight” is a unit that is within the 3’’ of fighting range of any active player unit
If there are no more than the active player and another player in one or more fight categorise it as a “front”
A front is define as an interaction between 2 players
The active player can solve any front as he wishes
Think about it like if you were playing Spearhead 1v1
If you have more than 1 player involved, then the front includes a third or even fourth player
The active player always goes first
The 2 others roll-off and take turns (Active player => other player 1 => other player 2)
As you can see, absolute nightmare.
And you got cases where this didn’t fit.
A friend of mine found a fantastic way to solve it with lean and elegant solution, which we tried and straight loved it.
“Only the player attacked by the active player can attack, and that attack can only be against the active player as a retalation”.
This means that in a 1v1 environment, all is usual.
In a melee of 3+ players, only some are fighting.
Not very cinematic, but very fair for everyone involved!
Conclusion
Spearhead has been designed at its core for 2 players.
But with the rules I presented today, I hope you can see now an option to play with more people!
Spearhead is fundamentally, for me, a party game. The strategy and depth is fairly shallow and doesn’t allow the level of competitiveness that a Warcry game could give you.
But it’s a great game nonetheless and I’m collecting spearheads because of it!
Preview
Well next week is Game Expo.
So I’m gonna talk about Game Expo!
I’m just so looking forward to that one… I have a warcry tournament (you know which faction I’ll take) and a lot of money to be well spent on plastic crack.