What's the point of a spear wall if you can hop past it and even wolves know to avoid it?

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

Every time I think I'll try a defensive setup, the enemy just optimizes a route around the sides or jumps seemingly through a speared square to cause havoc in my back lines. The more defensive I try to be, the worse my position ends up being. The only thing I can consistently do to ensure the positioning on the field is to engage ASAP so that enemy movement stops entirely.

Direwolves annoy me because they're whole plan is to rush into battle and overwhelm you with speed, yet you can clearly feel them change course the moment you raise a spear wall. If they've chosen to flank you, and you move a spear to the back, they'll turn around instantly as if they're battle strategists. If the unit specifically designed to rush into battle won't fall for it, what's the point?

[Sebslocker]

Its pretty good against charging orcs.

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Spearwall is for area denial - they avoided the area, so it was a success

I don't think it's supposed to be an insta-win for every situation

Spears suck fullstop, they're only good for bros who can't hit with anything else

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

I suppose, given the small size of bands and the fact that almost every battlefield is wide open, the idea of forcing an opponent to engage with spears is kind of dubious at best.

It'd be nice if there was variation to the starting arrangements, like if the initiator of battle could choose from a set of 4 random maps or shift the initial spawn up or down to get an advantage. It's really hard to plan any sort of tactics if everything devolves into an arena. Even just some impassable terrain or the occasional passive village would help create more usable funnels. Random plants are more likely to help an AI which won't be surprised by the clipped firing angles every time they move an archer.

[CHOO CHOO]

Spears at the flanks are for forcing enemies to take the long way around the flank, so as to give you more time to either shoot them before they get too close, or to adjust your formation to protect your backline brothers. This might not kill those flankers, but it will have them run around in circles, and enemies that are running around are enemies that aren't chewing on any brothers for the time being. Alternatively you can also use spears to funnel enemies into the center of your frontline where they will be hit by as many brothers as possible.

In any case, spears at the flank are for protecting the flank, not for killing enemies.

[Santo]

Yeah, forcing the enemy to take a path is a powerful tactical tool by itself -- either you make them take the longest route or you direct them towards your damage-dealers or tankier bros. In battles where there are choke points (like in forests), a single bro in spearwall can win the battle.

[CHOO CHOO]

Oh, and of course spears are great against any careless attackers with poor melee defense or low durability. Webknechte, Nachzehrer, young Orcs and the like will often demoralize themselves (and possibly their allies) by repeatedly running into and being repelled by a spearwall.

Naturally, having a single brother with low melee attack hold up a spearwall will fail sooner rather than later. The more brothers you have holding it up, the more effective it becomes. Having a spear specialist with decent melee attack skill can also greatly increase the effectiveness of the spearwall. But spearwall does nothing against ranged attacks, is unreliable against enemies with high melee defense, and spears are poor weapons once the fighting gets to close range, so in my opinion they're very situational.

[Heron]

Wiedergangers don't know how to avoid it. I think it's a very cool feature that AI routines are highly varied and generally pretty smart, but sometimes intentionally dumb depending on enemy type.

[Uncle Khai]

It a trap skill! You waste fatigue absolutely for nothing!

[Uncle Khai]

to fight wolf create 3 line formation and stay cover together!
Also stay away any jungle or snow or mud! Always choice fight wolf at open terran! With high mobility and pathfinder you don’t want end up bad position 3vs1

[Rat]

spearwall imba against nachzerers

[Uncle Khai]

To fight nach you want block engaged and prevent them eat corpse! Spearwall deny engaged create space for them to eat! That is not a good tactic!

[Hasefrexx]

Spearwall can allow more offensive bros to engage (and be engaged by) a single enemy. If you put it in inconvenient enough places the AI ("smart" human AI) will sometimes try to go for it or waste turns pathing around. You can also force a very long route around your formation if you have two spear bros one tile away from your main line.

Most of the time it's not a good ability especially as it's very fat intensive but from time to time it's very handy. Just don't use it as a literal wall.

[Tlewnipla]

There is not one battle in the last 650h of BB where I did not use a spearwall. It is just so good to dictate where and when the opponent will move. Against beasts like Nachzehrers, wolves or Wiedergangers it will rack up damage, too. Even in the Arena it is a useful skill to overcome more numerous opponent groups.

[Coldoge]

Double grip spearwall against webknechts for the easy win.

[madracc00n]

Spears are good early game,to actually hit stuff.U can always use them later on tanks to protect the flanks.