8th Ed. spears and shield or hand weapon and shield?

Hey people im new to lizardmen and am building the battalion boxset now and was wondering what was better to put in the saurus warriors spears or hand weapons im leaning toward the spears as they are a free upgrade and they will synagize better with predatory fighter i also have a troglodon which will work well with then also?
p.s. sorry if this is in the wrong topic area

 

General consensus is Hand-weapon & shield > Spears. But there isn't a definitive, black-and-white answer. Lots of scenarios make spears optimal.

I should point out that spears do NOT synergize with Predatory Fighter. The Supporting Attacks Special Rule limits saurus models making supporting attacks to "only ever make a single Attack, regardless of the number of Attacks on his profile, or any bonus Attacks he might otherwise be entitled to because of special rules or other unusual effects". So only models in the front rank may gain additional attacks from the PF Special Rule (you have to roll them separately from supporting attacks).

 

Can anyone comment if this is how it is played in tournaments? I don't argue with your logic, but people always bring up the "army book beats WHB" shenanigans. My local GW store's rep said it works on all models, but of course he is only human.

Personally I like the spears, but that is based on your original assessment of how PF works. I think regardless, consider the STR of what you are fighting. If you are getting hit by str 5+ go with shields, if you are up against 4-, go with spears (this is assuming there is no armor piercing).

 

Actually, MODs, I'd like to request a sticky in the rules section. No offense to themuffinman873, but so many people miss what actually has to happen to invoke Army Book > Rulebook (that there has to be actual conflict between rules), and it's such a Frequently Asked Question (so much so, that you might think GW would FAQ it), it would just be great to be able to point people toward an explanation of why the AB>BRB does not apply here and thus why Supporting Attacks and PF don't play together. With almost zero exception, once you take a person through the "why" they get it and (begrudgingly in some cases) accept that the rule is marvelously clear for once, but it's such a pain to have to walk the path over and over again.


As to the OP's question, yeah, the debate is out there still, with HW+SH being the more generally useful build but Spears not being a total waste either.

If you think you can get an Ancient Stegadon Engine Thingie to live, then the Spear version gets a nice tick upward. If you have a way to consistently make the extra 5-10 Attacks have a real impact, then Spears get the nod.

If, on the other hand, you want a unit that is a little more self-reliant on Defense and/or you don't trust those extra few Attacks to do much, then HW+SH is the way to go.

Point of note to tie it all together - If GW ever did make an errata to change the rules for Supporting Attacks (or if 9th changes them), then Spears will merit significantly more consideration.

 

Thanks for the help im thinking that is pf does not go with the ranked fighters that the sword amd board may be the way to go.

 

That's what I wanted to happen with the original post in this thread, but it didn't happen.
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/lizardmen-8th-ed-faq.13582/
The items addressed in that link aren't perfect, but it's a great start.

 

I would LOVE it if you guys could produce something akin to this: http://www.druchii.net/FAQ/.

 

Questions about Predatory Fighter aside, it generally depends what role you envisage for your Saurus.

Do you want them to be killing stuff? Then Spears are better for the additional attacks.
Do you want them to be tanking stuff? Then Hand Weapon and Shields to get the Parry Save.

Generally speaking, I don't find Saurus to be actually very good at killing anything, despite the S4 A2 on the profile. The extra attacks that Spears bring either won't inflict any significant additional damage (vs high WS/high T/high AS opponents), or won't be around to attack (vs high S/high A/high Initiative opponents). Or both. So if you want to go down that route, then you probably want to consider building a list to maximise it: Wandering Deliberations or High Magic Slann, Wildform Priest spam, Fear-bomb lists, Skavenpelt BSBs, hell even using Jungle Swarms, etc. Anything which improves their to-hit or to-wound ratio.

Whilst HW&S Saurus suffer from similar problems, they trade a little more killy for a little more survivability. Given that they aren't that killy to begin with (Against most stuff out there these days), its probably better to make them a little more survivable instead. Go 5 wide against uber-killy things for Steadfast, or maximise models in B2B against anything that's weaker.

 

Oh no! 2 Ghost Warriors! Sounds like we need a Highlander-style fight to determine who gets rights to the name!

On the topic - I am using spears in my Saurus unit, but I feel that HW Shield is the better stand-alone choice. GCPD's description on when to take spears for more killing power is correct.

To add to that on the survivability side: If taking an Ancient Stegadon with an Engine, you get the same survivability (in fact slightly better) vs. HW/Shield warriors. You definitely pay for it, and that choice should only be as part of a greater combined arms type strategy.

 

The easy answer to your question is the same reason why you're taking saurus in the first place.
If you wanted something tougher than skinks take shields.
If you wanted something that throws out a bunch of low skill S4 attacks, take spears.

As for the PF thing, it's not a big deal.
At most, saurus are usually throwing out 18 attacks (6 wide) or 24 attacks (6 wide with spears).
That's a whopping 1 or 2 extra S4 hits; IF you get PF in all ranks.

With init 1, you don't really want to go too wide. Most things that are as wide or wider than you will only kill you faster if you go wide. If init was higher where we could front load the damage output, going wide would be a gamble that sometimes pays off.

-Matt