Two units of 18 with spears or one unit of 30 with spears and the option of buying another unit? @ points limit: 800.
phhh... either are good, if correctly utilized. I tend to run spear block 6 wide and 4 deep and regular block 5 wide and 4 o r5 deep.
Do you mean the 6+ Parry save? Only Str. 5 or higher will bring into play, and I'd say the only thing that scare Saurus are Chaos units and maybe a charge from 10-strong knights unit (depending on what type of knights they are). I was thinking spears because you'd get 25 attacks back in comparison to 16 and a 6+ parry save. Any comments?
How are you counting attacks? Without spear you get 2 atks from the front rank and 1 support, which means 18 attacks with shield (19 with champ) assuming you use a 3x6 formation. With spears they get 24 attacks as they get 1 extra rank fighting with 1 attack. If you play with 30 Saurus and go Horde formation then you get the same amount of attacks with spear as you do with hand weapon. Parry save is good against anything, regardless of Str, but it can make a big difference against S6 stuff that otherwise just crushes saurus.
You get an armour save followed by parry, so it works whenever. Its been discussed a lot and the difference is quite minimal, though from playing a few battles with both I personally prefer hand weapon and shield. More importantly, in an 800 point game two units of 18 is probably the better choice. In larger games, you will want to bump saurus up to 24 minimum.
I have a unit of 30 each and have never once been disappointed. My thoughts are that if I'm going against a S6 unit then my chances are slim anyways, and my tactics have gone horribly wrong. Even if I get 15 6+ parry saves what does that mean? 5-6 on a lucky roll...? More likely probably 2-3... and then possibly... none! Either way you're probably gonna lost combat... I have good success with both of my units, it really comes down to how you play with them.
am i the only one who gets the impression that several people have misunderstood how parry works? just to be sure: it works (and is) just like a ward save, except you can only use it against certain types of attacks (check the BRB). therefore the 6+ parry save is IN ADDITION to your armour save. you get both the normal 4+ armour save AND a 6+ wardsave if you have hand weapon and shield. I for one think Hand weapons are the stronger option in this edition simply because of the lower point cost, but as has been mentioned, both are perfectly valid options. I tend to be agressive and doing combo charges, so my combats rarely last more than one round. hence spears are less useful for me. for grindfests though they might be worth it if you have enough models left to fight in 3 ranks.
hmm, your logic seems backwards to me, lol. I would think that you would want a better chance of staying in a grindfest so a 6++ save would be more beneficial, whereas spears would be better for an aggressive playlist since you can rack up more kills. I don't use spears until I am at a unit of 24, like n810 said. At this level of play, I would go with 2 units of 18 w/hand weapons. Once you get into combat, that 3rd row will only give you around 3 extra attacks due to casualties.
@ Qupakoco spears can not be used on the turn you charge. since i tend to make sure i get the charge, and i tend to make sure that i charge with multiple units at once, thus ending the combat in one round i would rarely get to use the spears. the only effect then would be to lose the parry save
@ Lord Tsunami Well played, sir. Well played. (I forgot about not using them on the charge... ) As for 2 units of 20 with spears, I like it. That way you can have a 3rd rank for at least one or two rounds of combat. Just remember not to forget (like I did) that you can't use them on the charge. You probably wont need it, but if you wanted to add a hammer unit in there you could swap out one unit of Saurus spearmen with a unit Cold One Cavalry. Then you'd re-direct with the Salamander, receive an unintentional charge with the spearmen, and smash the enemy to bits with a nasty flank charge from the cavalry. That would assume everything went as planned though, which rarely happens.
Being renowned in my small gaming group for my excellent parry save rolling, I may be slightly biased... But despite my minimal cohorts sticking around far longer then they should some times, I find the parry invaluable. Coming from sonmeone who used to run 24 strong units of spearmen exclusively in 6th edition, I find spears vs Handweapon and shield equally usefull at all times... however hw + shields are cheaper, and in smaller games like I've been playing recently, that's a fair bit of points.Larger games too. Modelwise, I've got two units of twenty sword and board, and a unit of twenty four spearmen. I'll use them all in a large game, but I'll use the sword and board before the more expensive spearmen pretty well every time.
Hello, If you want to play on a 800 point army than If you use a unit of 30 saurus warriors with spears you use 30 more points, and thats is over a half of a skink kohort unit, or a FCG on the sauruses. I'd use HW+Shield The 5 attacks more(counting 5 wide) aren't worth the extra cost
If I know who I'm fighting and we're making lists to face each other armies off I take spears against S3 and below oponents and HW against S4 and above oponents. Parry is still a good thing when facing lower strenght oponents but I think that more attacks that will probably wound (S3 usually means T3) are a better turn around in points. In games smaller than 2k I stick with HW.