Have I been playing spears wrong?

[Wargame Website]

Hi guys,

Just had a battle today and the question of which models out of a spear unit can strike back came up.

The situation was this.  My block of High Elf Spearmen charged my opponent's Templar Grand Master who had the ASF sword.  The TGM killed 2 spearmen.

As HE spears fight in two ranks on the charge I went to take 4 attacks back but my opponent argued that as the 2 in the second rank were stepping up they couldn't attack. My counter to that was that models don't actually step up until the end of the phase as part of redressing the ranks but this went on for around 10 minutes (much to the bemusement of the his flatmate and sister).



In the end we just played 2 attacks although once combat was resolved i rolled the additional dice just to see what would have happened.

So, have I been playing spears wrong all this time?  Since I play HE I'm normally in the position where my spears are striking first so this hasn't affected my attacks much but when I've played against my friend Nick and have charged his Orc or Saurus spear blocks I've always played it that if I don't wipe out 2 ranks worth of models then any model not dead in the first two ranks gets to hit me back.

To be honest I'm kind of hoping I'm wrong as it makes Saurus spear blocks a lot less scary although at the same time it makes it even less likely that I'd want to field spears (unless they work differently in 8th edition)

[fatolaf]

The situation was this.  My block of High Elf Spearmen charged my opponent's Templar Grand Master who had the ASF sword.  The TGM killed 2 spearmen.

Firstly you dont get to use the 2nd rank if you charge, only in the 2nd round of Combat or if you have been charged yourself..

Otherwise I dont know what your opponent is talking about, if you have 2 ranks of 5 spears, and say 4 die, then 6 get to attack back..

This is why Saurus spears are so good now as they all have 2 attacks each (unlike the old book where the back rank only has 1A)

[Wargame Website]

Firstly you dont get to use the 2nd rank if you charge, only in the 2nd round of Combat or if you have been charged yourself..

Yes I do - As I said, I'm High Elves.  We get 2 ranks on the charge with spears and 3 if charged or in the second round of combat - it's the Martial Prowess rule.

[Tom Hale]

your right, your mate is wrong.

[fatolaf]

Yes I do - As I said, I'm High Elves.  We get 2 ranks on the charge with spears and 3 if charged or in the second round of combat - it's the Martial Prowess rule.

Oh yeah forgot about that rule...So rare you see HE spearmen nowadays..

Anyway your mate was still wrong though...

[Wargame Website]

Oh yeah forgot about that rule...So rare you see HE spearmen nowadays..

Well  I do try and field a couple of blocks in my army (I know, I know, rare outside of horde armies) and normally end up using Spearmen as my second.  It's rare they ever do anything but this game they had a Templar Grand Master running at the end of the game despite having lost their champion to a Conflagration of Doom earlier and despite the BSB in the unit not being in base contact with the TGM in order to be able to use his attacks on him.

Mind you, the TGM wasn't having the best day of it.  Although he'd single-handedly been responsible for destroying my Sword Masters for the second game in a row (opponents models with ASF... do I not like that  ), by the time he was in combat with the Spearmen he'd had his unit of 7 Knights shot and magic'ed out from around him (oh yes,  this game I was actually hitting with single bolts for once), was down to 1 wound and had taken 3 rounds of combat to kill my Archmage (who made four 5+ ward saves in the first round of their combat and one out of two required in the second round).

I'll try not to let this one success to go to my head though - one decent result for the spears in the last 15 or so games isn't quite the return I'm looking for.

Anyway your mate was still wrong though...

Well won't disagree with that.