Up to three.
SELECTING A SPEARHEAD
When you fight a Spearhead battle, each player is
allowed to include one spearhead of each type in his
army. Simply look through the spearheads on the
following pages and pick which ones you will use.
There are 12 different spearhead types, although each
of these can be composed in many different ways
leaving countless tactical possibilities. Picking the right
spearheads to use, and deciding which models to build
them with is important and worth careful thought. If
you are an aggressive player, then you may want to
consider formations like a Super-heavy Spearhead. If,
on the other hand, you prefer to out-manoeuvre an
enemy, then the Mechanised Assault Spearhead may be
more your cup of tea, and so on.
CHOOSING UNITS
Once you’ve selected the spearheads you will use, you
can then pick the specific units that make them up.
Each spearhead lists what type of units you can pick –
in general you will select the units from a Codex, but
some will allow you to pick from other sources.
Unless stated otherwise, all of the units in a spearhead
must be chosen from the same entry in the army list,
though they may take different options and upgrades.
Remember that even though normally an entry allows
you to buy a single vehicle, in some army lists an entry
will allow you to buy an entire squadron of vehicles!
When selected as part of a spearhead, dedicated
transports count as Heavy Support units instead, and
therefore are selected without a transported unit.
The units in a spearhead do not come for free – you
must still pay the points for the units in the spearhead
from the point’s allocation you have agreed with you
opponent. So, if you were playing a 2,000 point
Spearhead battle, then the points for the spearhead
units you use in your army would count towards the
total points value of your army.
In addition, most spearheads have an additional cost,
that covers the special rules associated with the
spearhead.
Note that you don’t have to take any spearhead units
at all if you don’t want to. However, as spearhead units
can eat up your points allocation quite quickly, if you
are going to take any, it is a good idea to select these
important formations first.
We have found playing our regular sized armies and
‘topping them up’ with a spearhead or two is a good
way to get started. We usually allow an extra 500 to a
1,000 points for spearhead units, and use these to top
up a standard army to a total of 2,000 points or so.
However, it is also great fun to play a larger game with
several spearheads on both sides.
SPECIAL RULES
Each spearhead includes one or more special rules that
are listed on the spearhead datasheets. In addition, the
following special rules also apply. Unless noted
otherwise, these rules apply only to the units that make
up the spearhead.
THE SPEARHEAD RULE
Spearheads are either specially trained units or elite
veterans that know how to act in unison and provide
each other with covering fire. To represent this, units in
a spearhead benefit from the following special
'Spearhead rule' when they are within 4" of another
unit from the same spearhead at the start of the
Shooting phase:
• Vehicles other than Walkers, that are moving at up to
cruising speed, can fire one more weapon than would
normally be permitted. In addition, this weapon can be
fired at a different target unit to any other weapons,
subject to the normal rules for Shooting. Note that
vehicles which are moving flat out may not take
advantage of this rule.
• Walkers and Monstrous Creatures may fire one
weapon after they run. Note that they may not shoot
and then run, they must always run first.
DEPLOYING SPEARHEADS
Each spearhead counts as a single unit for the purposes
of deployment and arriving from reserve, unless noted
otherwise in its entry. This means that all units in the
spearhead must either be deployed on the battlefield,
or held in reserve, and that when rolling for the arrival
of reserves a single dice roll is made for the whole
spearhead. In effect, all of the models in the spearhead
(apart from casualties) must either be on the table or
off it.
