"Hi Kirby,
I've been reading your blog for quite a while and like the straightforward way you approach army lists and hope you can help me out. I haven't seen you comment on expansions, but was hoping you might give me some advice on a Spearhead tournamant a local gaming group is organising, seeing as all the rules are free. It will be a 2v2 with 1000 points for each player and the teams randomly allocated. I'm a C:SM player and have a bit of a quandry, do I go for a spearhead heavy list and gain the extra shot at cruising speed plus the spearhead specific bonus, or just try to get as many vehicles on the table at once?
The group I'm playing have a mix of armies although I know one Ork player is trying to get 18 Killa-Kans in his army.
My first list is a simple Spearhead Heavy list, 995.
Tank Hunter Spearhead 60
RifleDread 125
RifleDread 125
RifleDread 125
Armoured Spearhead 60
Dakka Pred 85
Dakka Pred 85
Dakka Pred 85
Skyfall Spearhead 45
Land Speeder, HF/MM 70
Land Speeder, HF/MM 70
Land Speeder, MM 60
I'm concerned that I'll need an awful lot of shots to kill the Kans, and considering all 18 will be scoring, thats a lot of damage I need to deal.
My second list is as follows.
Elites
RifleDread 125
RifleDread 125
RifleDread 125
Heavy
Dakka Pred 85
Dakka Pred 85
Fast
Land Speeder, HF/MM 70
Land Speeder, HF/MM 70
Land Speeder, HF/MM 70
Crusher Spearhead 15
Las/plas Razorback 75
Las/plas Razorback 75
Las/plas Razorback 75
This list seems more balanced although I only have 1 Spearhead. I will have 11 vehicles compared to 9 in the other list, and I'll be more free to move them independantly as I won't be worried about losing their spearhead bonus. I was thinking of swapping the 3 razorbacks for another 3 land-speeders, then have 3 squadrons of 2 but then I'll have a lot of vulnerable vehicles.
Thanks for your help and advice in advance.
XionXxen"
I don't really deal with the expansions as they are always unbalanced. So take everything I say from the understanding that I have no idea what a Spearhead bonus is :P. However, I think your 2nd list is better even though you don't get those bonuses simply because you have more firepower and saturation. With all the vehicles that are going to be on the table the excellent mix of S5-9 shots are going to give every single armor pause and you've got the MMs on the Land Speeders to slow down heavier armor, block and reliably pop lighter armor.
From what I can tell spearhead is pure tanks? If so you don't need the Heavy Flamers on the Speeders and the Dakka Preds are going to be better off as ACLC Preds. They are a bit static and the S5 helps against AV10-11 but those extra lascannon shots can help a lot against higher AVs. However, you're not really going to be able to squeeze in multiple ACLC Preds (you'd be looking at perhaps one) so maybe dropping the HF and HBs for another Speeder or Predator could give you another spearhead bonus. This is of course assuming there is no infantry.
