Spartan/Unsullied inspired idea

[danekelly86]

Okay, so i love spears but I always thought they were not as useful as they should be.

So how do you guys who know more about this game than me think this would work?

6-8 Bros with spears shields + backup weapons consisting of a useful mix

Footwork on all bros (even 2h because its so much fun)

When the spearwall gets broken you either can sheild bash and reset or tactically use footwork to drop off and reset, the goal being can you hold a line.

all the while you have ranged units pelting the enemy lines.

Could also equip a few with javelins to harass like so. S=spear T=Throw

STSTSTS, STSSTS, etc so the space is always covered.

Whilst i dont think it would be the optimal way of playing it could be fun ?

oh just a quick edit:

you could alternate recover on the line SRSRSR next turn RSRSRS which hopefully would give enough fatique to keep up the wall

you could also use footwork to open the line and slide in a 2hander or give rotation aswell.

[Percussigant]

Go for it and let us know how it went ! :)

[Whatever100500]

I use spear-hammer QH bros, with Polearm/Ranged backline and it works just fine. Frontline to backline ratio is 5/7 for normal companies, 7/8 for militia.
Best placement pattern is S - P - P -^(diagonally) S . This way you secure 2 Polearm/Thrower spots between 2 spearmen, instead of just 1.

Footwork/Shield bash are very fatigue expensive, especially if you want to use spearwall same turn. I prefer to either try clear up the enemy who got through spearwall with backline or switch the breached spearman into shieldwall or armor-bashing mode.

You don't need whole frontline of spears though. 3-4 well placed spearwalls are enough even for 16 sized militia, maintaining more is waste of fatigue. Up to 5 is still good insurance against barbarians, but for last 2 frontline spots I'd rather have 2h.

Also, spear-hammer build needs fairly high quality recruits (85+ Matk, 20+ Mdef, decent fat + hp + resolve), so finding enough will be a problem.

PS: spear-hammer because spears are bad against armor, hammers cover the weakness. High Matk is necessary to use hammer at all and get as close as possible to 95% spearwall against hard to hit enemies.

[MattE/Bierbaron]

Unsullied would not work. eunuch backgrounds will never have the tool to penetrate the enemy properly.

[danekelly86]

lol the Cockless Brotherhood :P i meant more about there style.

[Malarky Enthusiast]

You might have trouble killing large enemy forces before your fatigue starts to run out if you are constantly using spearwall/shieldwall

[Whatever100500]

Originally posted by The Spicy Flashbang:

You might have trouble killing large enemy forces before your fatigue starts to run out if you are constantly using spearwall/shieldwall

1) You can use adrenaline+recovery cycle to keep them indefinitely as long as you aren't fighting barbs. Can even cycle spearwall+shieldwall with high enough free fat, but that's overkill. I'd rather reserve some fat for hammer bashing.
2) Spearmen accumulate only 8 fat per turn. A good spearman can hold wall at least 8 turns, by this time you'll wear out both primary and spare spears against armored foes, if you still didn't win.

[LDiCesare]

Also consider spare spears. They tend to break easily when repelling hordes of wiedergangers or instance. Wiedergangers also tend to resurrect jsut in front of your bros, so you may have to retreat when facing them. Otherwise, sounds fun, but I'm a bit worried about initiative: If an enemy acts in-between your guys and wrecks the line, can you manage it?

[msunavygrad]

Originally posted by Whatever100500:

I use spear-hammer QH bros, with Polearm/Ranged backline and it works just fine. Frontline to backline ratio is 5/7 for normal companies, 7/8 for militia.
Best placement pattern is S - P - P -^(diagonally) S . This way you secure 2 Polearm/Thrower spots between 2 spearmen, instead of just 1.

Footwork/Shield bash are very fatigue expensive, especially if you want to use spearwall same turn. I prefer to either try clear up the enemy who got through spearwall with backline or switch the breached spearman into shieldwall or armor-bashing mode.

You don't need whole frontline of spears though. 3-4 well placed spearwalls are enough even for 16 sized militia, maintaining more is waste of fatigue. Up to 5 is still good insurance against barbarians, but for last 2 frontline spots I'd rather have 2h.

Also, spear-hammer build needs fairly high quality recruits (85+ Matk, 20+ Mdef, decent fat + hp + resolve), so finding enough will be a problem.

PS: spear-hammer because spears are bad against armor, hammers cover the weakness. High Matk is necessary to use hammer at all and get as close as possible to 95% spearwall against hard to hit enemies.

Try putting a Polehammer guy in the front line between your spearmen. This allows for the destruction of armor while the spear wall holds, he can also be rotated/footwork back if needed or QH to another weapon. Best way to destroy Orc hoards.

[Whatever100500]

Originally posted by msunavygrad:

Try putting a Polehammer guy in the front line between your spearmen. This allows for the destruction of armor while the spear wall holds, he can also be rotated/footwork back if needed or QH to another weapon. Best way to destroy Orc hoards.

Billhooks are second-best 2-tile anti-armor, so they are ok. Polehammers are good at beating armor, but:
- 6AP attack is much less flexible, it needs to be combined either into 2h Hammer QH build (which needs godlike stats, so rare by definition) or Polearm+Polehammer QH.
- Beating armor doesn't trigger berserk/kf, so it's something I prefer to delegate to spear-hammer bros, once spearwall is breached (who don't have berserk+kf anyway).
- It's very fat expensive, bros who qualify for it also qualify for Whip/Polearm QH, which I find more interesting.

Not that Polehammers won't work though. They just have their downsides to consider as well.