Games Workshop uses a three-year rolling cycle for its big box games. Every three years Warhammer 40,000 or Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is given a brand new box and a rules overhaul. For those of us with families, it feels like a new box comes around every five minutes. Amazingly, Age of Sigmar is already on its fourth iteration with a brand new box looming on the horizon, Skaventide. I’ve never managed to get to grips with the full version of the game, having neither the time nor brain power to devote to it. Skaventide, however, brings something new to the party, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Spearhead.
What follows is not a review of the full Warhammer: Age of Sigmar system. Instead, I’m focusing on the family-friendly, busy-life-accommodating Spearhead ruleset.
Games Workshop has made the rules of Age of Sigmar freely available and they can be found on their community pages. It’s worth noting that Speathead uses only the game’s Core Rules. You don’t need to read the advanced rules to play it. These downloads also include the Spearhead rules discussed in this post.
What Is Age of Sigmar: Spearhead?
Spearhead is a quick way to play Warhammer. Unlike previous ease-of-entry ideas by Games Workshop, like the similar Combat Patrol for Warhammer 40,000 (which is essentially just the main game with small armies), Spearhead has its own rules tweaks, board, and specifically designed army lists.
For those who are unaware, Games Workshop has made “Vanguard” boxes for many of its armies for quite some time now. Each of these contains a basic set of models that you can use in small games, but you can then build upon them to create an army for the full game. They retail at around $145. The Vanguard boxes have all been (or are going to be) rebranded as “Spearhead” boxes. These “Spearheads” will each have rules for the Spearhead version game using all the miniatures from the box. These rules will be freely available for people to use.
If you pick up a copy of the new Skaventide box, you’ll immediately be able to play Spearhead. In the box, you’ll find a book called “Fire and Jade.” This details everything you need to play a Spearhead game, with not only the armies included in the box but also the other 22 armies that have Spearhead boxes.
A potential flaw with this approach is that, if you don’t want to buy the Skaventide box, you’ll be without the board and cards needed to play. Fear not, as a Fire and Jade Gaming Pack will be available priced at $65. This will contain all the things needed for a Spearhead game, though you’ll need two armies and the relevant Spearhead lists.
At the time of writing, the Spearhead lists are being released onto the Warhammer Community web pages. They’re releasing the armies for each of the 4 Grand Alliances, one day after another. These lists are at the bottom of the main faction list. This is a clumsy way of organizing things, and I hope GW will create a central repository and separate the Spearheads from the main army lists.
What’s Different About Spearhead?
There are a number of key differences between Spearhead and the main Age of Sigmar game. Each change contributes to making the game much easier to pick up and play. You can be up and running in a game of Spearhead in under half an hour, and by turn 2, you’ll be comfortable with your units and how they operate on the battlefield.
- It uses the core rules only. The main Age of Sigmar rules are split in two: Core and Advanced. This saves roughly 1/3 of the rules you need to learn.
- Small board (30″ x 22″). The Fire and Jade board is double-sided (giving two different playing arenas) with the objectives printed on it. Pop it on the table and you’re good to go.
- The game has minimal scenery. Just four pieces. These are included in the Fire and Jade Gaming Pack, but one small and one large(r) piece per player is all that’s needed. Each piece of scenery has a specific effect in the game, so you never need to worry about forgetting what they do. Less scenery also means less painting.
- Each Spearhead has 4 units. This makes it easy to get to grips with what each one does. (And again means less painting!)
- No list building! For me, this is the big one. You can only use what is in the Spearhead box to play and you can build your models how you like as there are no in-game options. For complete accuracy build them according to the box art. Age of Sigmar can become bogged down in the pre-planning. Worrying about which units to take and what to equip them with is not an issue when playing Spearhead.
- Minimal special rules. Each Spearhead has a defined Battle trait(s)—usually, just one, as you pick one Regiment ability out of a choice of two, and each general can have one “Enhancement” from a choice of four. Picking is fairly straightforward and, because you have limited choices, remembering which one you picked is easy too.
- Each player is given one of two (identical) “Battle Tactic” decks. You’ll draw up to 3 of these each turn of the game. Battle tactic cards can be used in two ways—either to score extra victory points or to gain a one-off boon for your army. Each card has a mission on it, which, if you complete it on your turn, can score an extra victory point. Alternatively, you can use the card’s command ability, which will boost a unit in your army in some small way. You can only use one of these. Once a card is used, it is discarded, so you can’t use the boon and then score the victory point. As a general rule, you want to score with these as often as possible, but sometimes you’ll find it impossible, in which case look for opportunities to use the command ability.
There is one big “quality of life” change common across all of the new Age of Sigmar. Rules and abilities are now color-coded, so it’s easy to see at a glance which phase in the game an ability can be used. In the past, I’ve struggled to remember at which point I can use the abilities my units have. No longer. You can very quickly see which ability can be used in which phase by its color code. In case it still isn’t clear enough, each ability is labeled with exactly which point in the game it can be used.
How to Play a Spearhead Game
Games are played over 4 turns. On a given turn, a player will move and fight with all of their models, and score victory points before handing over to their opponent. There’s a step-by-step process for setting up a Spearhead game, which I won’t regurgitate, but rest assured it’s nice and easy to follow. The person with the most victory points is the winner. There is no tie-breaker, so games can end in a draw.
Using the Fire & Jade pack, you will have the option of two battlefields (each side of the board) that correspond to two of the realms of the Age of Sigmar universe. Whichever side is used will also have a corresponding “twist” deck. For each round, a twist card is drawn adding a small difference to one. The twist card also has an extra rule for the “underdog.” This is a mechanic which helps the player who is behind to catch up.
Each Spearhead army consists of 4 units. Each unit has a “warscroll” that details the combat stats and abilities that the unit can use. In the top left corner, you can see the distance a unit can move (in inches), the health score (how much damage they can take before being destroyed), and their Save score—the number you have to roll in order to stop the damage from being done. The final statistic is “Control.” This is a measure of how much each model in the unit contributes when contesting an objective. A unit of control 1 with 10 models, all within range of an objective, would score 10 points towards seeing which player controls that objective.
Turns in a game of Age of Sigmar are broken down into 7 phases, and this is the same for Spearhead.
- Start of Turn – Not much happens in this phase for Spearhead games, but if you have any Start of Turn abilities, this is when you use them.
- Hero Phase – Again usually a quiet phase in Spearhead. Players may have a hero ability they can use at this point.
- Movement Phase – The player whose turn it is can move any and all of their units up to their move characteristic in inches. Units can also run or retreat in this phase.
- Shooting Phase – The player whose turn it is, picks a unit that has missile weapons and makes shooting attacks with them. They repeat this until all units with missile attacks have used them. Most units can’t shoot if they are in combat, but it is possible to shoot at units that are in combat.
- Charge Phase – Units that did not run or retreat in the move phase may make a charge. They can roll 2d6 and charge towards an opposing unit. The charging unit must finish within 1/2″ of an opposing unit.
- Combat Phase – Units within each other’s combat range may now fight in melee combat. Starting with the player whose turn it is, players pick a unit and resolve all its attacks before moving on to the next. Players take turns to pick a unit until all units, that are in combat, have made their attacks.
- End of Turn – Use any end-of-turn abilities, count up how many objectives you hold, and any battle tactics cards you have scored.
Objectives are scored as follows:
1 Victory point for 1 objective held. 1 Victory point if you hold 2 objectives, and 1 Victory point if you hold more objectives than your opponent.
After that, it’s your opponent’s turn to repeat the same seven phases.
Once both players have had turns, that is the end of the round.
A new twist card is drawn and players may replenish used Battle Tactic cards (drawing back up to 3). Players also roll off to see who goes first in the next round. Note: If you went second in the previous turn, win the roll-off, and choose to go first, you have invoked the famous “Double Turn.” If you take a double turn, you are not allowed to draw any new Battle Tactic cards. The double turn can be incredibly powerful, but it does have a drawback. (Note: There is a similar mechanic in the full version of Age of Sigmar.)
Play continues across 4 rounds. Whoever has the most victory points at the end is the winner!
Why Should You Play Spearhead?
Since having a family (so for nearly 20 years!) I have found it simply not worth investing time and effort into playing any of Games Workshop’s big box games. I have played Spearhead several times now and I love it. I’ve enjoyed every match and they never outstay their welcome nor require too much upfront preparation.
It’s the perfect beer and pretzels game. I can see why it won’t appeal to people who are committed Warhammer players, but if you’re interested in dipping a toe in, having a little of that Warhammer experience without the heavy commitment, it’s great.
The game is perfect for those who:
- Are time-poor.
- Want the Warhammer experience in a single evening.
- Don’t like list building.
- Want to build, paint, & play. You can just build your models without worrying about weapons configurations.
- Want the game done in an evening with no preparation.
- Want to try lots of different armies. The hobby is getting chunkier by this point, but Spearhead is a cost-effective way of dabbling with different forces.
- Don’t want to keep worrying about lots of special rules and synergies.
- Like a flowing intuitive system
- Don’t want to finish the evening with a banging headache.
- Have long lunch breaks! This is a tongue-in-cheek jibe at Games Workshop’s insistence you can play in your lunch break. I think this would be very hard to do, especially, if you include setting up and breaking down the game. It’s quick but it’s not that quick!
There are perhaps a few things to look out for.
- The games I have played with the two armies in the Skaventide box have been well-balanced, but I can’t comment on the other 22 armies. My one foray out of the box would suggest they might not be balanced quite so well, but that particular game could have been an aberration. GW isn’t famed for balanced lists, so there is reason to be cautious. That said, with rules being available online, it should be fairly easy for them to tweak the Spearhead armies. Balance updates are the way they like to go.
- It might get stale. I guess, Games Workshop would like you to progress to the main game, and I will admit that, on the basis of my Spearhead experience, I am tempted to. It’s possible that by playing purely Spearhead, things might become staid. Both sides always using the same 12 Battle Tactics cards means you soon learn what they are, and what your opponent has too. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d love to see them introduce some variation. There’s every reason to suspect that more Spearhead battleplans in other realms are on their way, so I remain optimistic about that.
- You do need lots of dice to play the game. It’s not usually a problem for gamers, but it’s something to be aware of.
- Some counters to denote who is controlling objectives are also desirable. It would be nice to have seen some control counters in the box/in the Spearhead pack.
I haven’t been this excited about Warhammer in a very long time. The Spearhead ruleset and the feeling that the Games Workshop design team has put proper effort into making it work and feel like a real game, and it’s very encouraging. I hope they continue supporting it for those who don’t want to graduate to bigger things. It’s the perfect entry for new and returning hobbyists, and it’s great for the casual gamer. Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaventide (and, in particular, Spearhead), is the most rounded version of Warhammer yet.
The new Age of Sigmar 4.0 is available for preorder now. The Skaventide box is available now. The separate Fire and Jade box arrives releases on July 20th, 2024.
Many thanks to Games Workshop for sending me a Skaventide box.
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