AoS Saurus warriors, Spears or clubs?

[Sirbrokensword]

So, I'm just getting into AoS and I'm deciding what I want out of my saurus. I've been running full units of 40 of them and while clubs are good, I wonder if in big units the spears are always better? It seems liek the extra rank attacking over the 32mm bases is really powerful. What do you guys think?

In general I'm using saurus as a tarpit with the -1 to hit spell and teleporting them onto objectives.

 

[Aginor]

If you are really good with placement then clubs can work very well, especially if you play strategies that try to maximize jaws damage, because then you have to get them within 1" anyway.

I tend to prefer spears though, it is just a bit easier to play.

I am not a Saurus expert though, I don't play Saurus centered lists.

 

[ILKAIN]

Clubs are hands down better. if you honeycomb the bases when you pile, now that in 2.0 Bases are the actual rule AND you can now slide models around an enemy model they are in base to base contact with (where as before they couldn't), you can get two ranks of the 1" clubs in, where as even if you honeycomb you cannot get the 3rd rank of spears in. 4/3 in two ranks beats 4/4. and if you are 20 or more deep in the unit those clubs just became 3/3. I am in the process of building up several larger units of Saurus, with clubs, specifically because of these changes.

 

[Sirbrokensword]

That seems like it would only be true when fighting other infantry on 32mm bases that have spread out to the maximum of 1 inch apart. I don't see how that works in most cases, such as a horde of 25mm guys. one inch is 25.4 mm.

 

[ILKAIN]

when you honeycomb them the size of the opponents base is irrelevant. you are getting in the one inch range because the circular portion of the base is getting past the far edge of the base that's in base to base contact. someone posted an actual image in here with the math and ill see if I can find it and link it.

 

[Aginor]

when you honeycomb them the size of the opponents base is irrelevant. you are getting in the one inch range because the circular portion of the base is getting past the far edge of the base that's in base to base contact. someone posted an actual image in here with the math and ill see if I can find it and link it.

It still makes your line considerably wider. From your experience: Do you usually have enough space to do that?

 

[ILKAIN]

yes. unless there is significant terrain in the way. and I don't mind a wider line, helps prevents deep strike tricks (ripperdactyls, LoSaT, etc)

 

[Canas]

That's still only going to work against relativly big opponents though. If your opponent is of relative small size, or just aware of the trick spears are going to be more reliable.

 

[Putzfrau]

That's still only going to work against relativly big opponents though. If your opponent is of relative small size, or just aware of the trick spears are going to be more reliable.

It's not really a trick. How would your opponent mitigate this?

 

[Sirbrokensword]

One thing that comes to mind is putting his 25mm base infantry base to base with each other.

 

[ILKAIN]

even then there is the curve of the base. it wont be perfect, but it will still get you more attacks in. in all these scenarios we can do math in the sterile environment, but in the real world application you are not going to have perfect line ups most of the time. working off of best case math, you have 40 attacks 3/3 for the clubs and 40 at 3/4 for the spears. worst case scenario you have 1 attack at 4/3 for the club and1 at 4/4 for the spear. now the clubs could hit from a rank past their intended design if you are smart, where as the spears will NEVER hit past their designed rank no matter how you place them.

 

[Sirbrokensword]

I don't understand what your saying. I'm not trying to be difficult. spears will never not be able to fight in 2 ranks, clubs sometimes will be capable of fighting in 2 ranks. It seems to me the sometimes for clubs are fairly rare, since your opponent gets to just not give you the space in between his models to move in far enough with your front line. I certainly could be missing something, but in the several games I've played I've been able to get back rank clubs to fight only in cornercase situations.

 

[Putzfrau]

The attached PDF helped me understand. There's almost no way for your opponent to be able to completely mitigate this. It also maximizes the jaw attacks, which is a good chunk of your damage. I'm not sure what you mean about your opponent just "not giving you the space." The curve of the base is what gives you the space.

I think what is trying to be said is that you can sometimes get a second rank to attack with clubs. You'll never be able to get a third rank to attack with spears. Could be wrong tho.

You'd have to do like, 20% more attacks or something with spears to mitigate the difference in hit anyways. I think clubs usually work out to be better in most cases, but I don't think you'll see a massive difference in real world scenarios one way or the other.

 

[Seraphage]

@ILKAIN While it is indeed a cool idea, unfortunately most of the times you won't be having the chance of honeycombing your opponent. He will either have his unit equally wide as yours or have other dangerous units that will also be dragged to combat or even have a small numbered elite unit where a low account of your models get to hit.

Then again, my meta consists of an overly competitive scene where no big mistakes are made and the placements are always in such a way that you cannot utilize teleport, honeycombing or good pile in without getting hit back with a second unit to totally destroy yours Or you can hit a unit well - but a meatshield one that you don't really wanna attack

 

[Asamu]

The attached PDF helped me understand. There's almost no way for your opponent to be able to completely mitigate this. It also maximizes the jaw attacks, which is a good chunk of your damage. I'm not sure what you mean about your opponent just "not giving you the space." The curve of the base is what gives you the space.

I think what is trying to be said is that you can sometimes get a second rank to attack with clubs. You'll never be able to get a third rank to attack with spears. Could be wrong tho.

You'd have to do like, 20% more attacks or something with spears to mitigate the difference in hit anyways. I think clubs usually work out to be better in most cases, but I don't think you'll see a massive difference in real world scenarios one way or the other.

This. You need 1/3 more models attacking for spears to be equal to clubs. If you're honeycombing properly to maximize attacks, that won't actually happen very often if your opponent is minimizing surface area.
The most extreme case of spears being better is against isolated single entities, where you can get 50% more models attacking with spears on a full surround, but in that instance, the extra spear attacks are usually irrelevant, since saurus with a full surround are likely to kill the target regardless of what it is. 12 Saurus put 6-~48 damage into the target on average, depending on buffs and unit size.

So, vs units, clubs are usually better, but vs single models, spears are usually better. Really it just comes down to preference.

 

[Canas]

The attached PDF helped me understand. There's almost no way for your opponent to be able to completely mitigate this. It also maximizes the jaw attacks, which is a good chunk of your damage. I'm not sure what you mean about your opponent just "not giving you the space." The curve of the base is what gives you the space.

I think what is trying to be said is that you can sometimes get a second rank to attack with clubs. You'll never be able to get a third rank to attack with spears. Could be wrong tho.

You'd have to do like, 20% more attacks or something with spears to mitigate the difference in hit anyways. I think clubs usually work out to be better in most cases, but I don't think you'll see a massive difference in real world scenarios one way or the other.

the only reason that picture "works" is cuz your opponent is so kind as to neatly honeycomb against your stuff as well. If your opponent makes it impossible to neatly honeycomb against him you'd get in far less. For example, if that one green circle that is within 1" for the maximum range wasn't there you would no longer be able to honeycomb in that situation.

I'l add a picture once I'm home of how you should be able to block honeycombing (need to draw it properly and neatly measure it out)

Admittadly it might still be pulling just slightly ahead (in theory) even then, but it'd require near perfect position and a cooperative opponent & no annoying obstacles in the way.

Anyways; tl:dr: spears are more reliable to actually get in range, clubs have the best, theoretical, maximum.

 

[Putzfrau]

the only reason that picture "works" is cuz your opponent is so kind as to neatly honeycomb against your stuff as well. If your opponent makes it impossible to neatly honeycomb against him you'd get in far less. For example, if that one green circle that is within 1" for the maximum range wasn't there you would no longer be able to honeycomb in that situation.

I'l add a picture once I'm home of how you should be able to block honeycombing (need to draw it properly and neatly measure it out)

Admittadly it might still be pulling just slightly ahead (in theory) even then, but it'd require near perfect position and a cooperative opponent & no annoying obstacles in the way.

Anyways; tl:dr: spears are more reliable to actually get in range, clubs have the best, theoretical, maximum.

Yeah, but if that green circle wasn't there you would simply adjust your troops so you could do it. There's no way for an opponent to completely mitigate against this because it largely depends on how you position your troops, not your opponent.

I'm having a really hard time understanding how anyones opponent is making sure they can't honeycomb their models.

Spears are often worse, regardless, simply because of the reduce hit. As mentioned, you'd have to get almost 20% more attacks using spears, which is unlikely, just to make up for the difference in hit.

 

[Canas]

@Putzfrau: I give you my amazing microsoft paint skills. Minor caveat, my amazing paint skills only show the general outline of the formation, I cannot draw the distances properly like this but it should hold up unless I'm making some weird mistakes somewhere.


Assume that the black things are obstacles so we can't simply surround red to keep the example simple. The theory holds up regardless but I don't want too put too much effort into this

The idea is now as follows. Red takes this formation.
The space in between 2 reds is too small to slid the green one's neatly.
Now the yellow ones consistantly face an empty space in his formation even when honeycombing. Thus the yellow ones can't attack

Alternativly you could try to slot your the greens on as much into the empty space as possible resulting in the following (ignore the even more amazing paint skills)



This'd perform worse as you can see even less green ones.

Given by the example I'd say it's possible to deny about half of the second line when honeycombing. This puts clubs at roughly the same effectiveness as spears. However, spears retain a higher maximum. E.g. with 2 lines of 10 for a total of 20. Both spears would now have 20 attacks, clubs 15, both average 6.66 wounds, but spears have the possibility of going over the maximum number of wounds the clubs can cause. Also, this means spears benefit far more from any buffs you might have laying around as it simply affects more attacks. Overal this still gives a slight advantage to spears in large groups, becoming more significant if your opponent tries to actually counter it (even without countering spears will be easier to get into position.)

That was what I was on about. I hope my amazing drawings don't cause even more confusion

 

[Putzfrau]

Just so i'm understanding, red is the enemy, and the green + yellow is saurus, correct?

I think the images are a little misleading because the saurus player (in the first image) hasn't maximized their base to base contact. With a little shifting, i'm pretty confident i could get at least 8 of the 10 saurus attacking.

Regardless, how often are you charging an enemy unit in this exact scenario?

I think if you're saying in this very specific scenario spears have "the possibility of going over the maximum wounds clubs can cause" it kind of just starts to fall apart. The whole argument is spears are practically better, even if the math doesn't support it. It seems like now we are saying "spears are better in these very very specific cases where everything is advantageous for spears" which i'm fine agreeing to - since the difference was never that pronounced to begin with.

Maybe i just have to see it in person.

 

[Canas]

Just so i'm understanding, red is the enemy, and the green + yellow is saurus, correct?

I think the images are a little misleading because the saurus player (in the first image) hasn't maximized their base to base contact. With a little shifting, i'm pretty confident i could get at least 8 of the 10 saurus attacking.

Regardless, how often are you charging an enemy unit in this exact scenario?

I think if you're saying in this very specific scenario spears have "the possibility of going over the maximum wounds clubs can cause" it kind of just starts to fall apart. The whole argument is spears are practically better, even if the math doesn't support it. It seems like now we are saying "spears are better in these very very specific cases where everything is advantageous for spears" which i'm fine agreeing to - since the difference was never that pronounced to begin with.

Maybe i just have to see it in person.

I am an idiot, I'm at home and only just now realized I got something better than crappy paint.. I got models…

Let's retry:
First situation:

In this case the yellow ones are my saurus with banners. As you can see they're consistently opposite empty spaces in the tzaangor's line and thus can't reach. This means 3 out of 5 in my back line can't reach. Now there's still some room for movement since it's such a small example, but the larger the group the closer you will come to 50% of the 2nd line being out of range.

second situation:

Slotting them into them into the gaps left by the tzaangor actually makes it impossible for the saurus to effectivly honey comb as the "first rank" would now be the ones slotted. The banner guy is now effectivly the third rank. Thus you do even worse than I thought on my intial drawings. First situation 8 guys hit, second only 6.

As for how likely it is to happen. All the enemy is doing is just honeycombing in return. His tzaangor can still all hit thanks to it. Hence it's quite likely that you'l get into a fight like this.

I'm not going to take into account surrounding since obviously if you surround you have more in your first rank which removes the need to honeycomb.

As for "the possibility of going over the maximum wounds clubs can cause". The point is that for spears in this situation the chance of scoring 16+ wounds exists, for clubs it doesn't. It's only a minor advantage though as it's only the trail at the end of the bell-curve that's a bit nicer. The average is the same, and curve around the average should be fairly similar as well.

Anyways, long story short; honeycombing can be countered, even on accident and spears are simply more reliable in larger groups as even without your enemy trying these situations happen on accident. Which was to be expected as it is kind of the point of spears. The difference most likely won't be noticeable though in most situations and games.