u/Jlynn1001

Today I spent 4 hours playing the hidden in the ashes campaign from the new city of ash spearhead. For those who haven't seen it, it's 3 games on the new board with the result of each game affecting deployment and relic placement of the next. However the final game, which determines the overall victory is decided by whoever controls the barrel of emberstone relic at the end of the final game. This relic has to be placed in the centre of the board in the final game causing a big central fight at the end... except there is a command 'fool's gold' which allows you to move a relic more than 3 inches from all enemies. In effect what this means is that to win the entire campaign all you have to do is play this card and move the relic next to one of your units and you win. 5 hours and all that actually mattered was who wins the rolloff in the last turn so that they can be the last person to play a card (if you win the rolloff you wont be the active player at the end of the game so play your cards last). Doesn't matter how many points you score in all the previous games, all you have to do to win the campaign is burn through your cards until you get fool's gold and hope you win the last rolloff. Fortunately I was able to do this and won the game, and I was well ahead on points so feel I won the campaign anyway, but the victory feels hollow becuase it was ulitmately decided by a single dice roll and not the 4 hours of strategy that led up to it. We could have sat down, rolled a dice and shook hands and that would have been all that was needed.

Edit: also while i’m complaining, In the last game one player has to deploy in a corner of the board. Keeping 6 inches from all enemy territory it’s literally impossible to deploy some spearhead armies into this limited space. I used the original SBG and there was no room for my general.

Edit 2: not wanting to end on a moan, we really enjoyed the vertical board split in game 1. Nice change.

Sorry for the long post but after reading through the new battlepack for cities of ash I thought I'd check the rules surrounding terrain and in doing so I realised I've been using it wrong. I've always treated the large pieces as a solid barrier (even the fence in sand and bone) that you cannot fight across and have to move around to get into combat. After reading other people's posts I've summarised my findings and would appreciate if anybody can clarify if I have it correct now.

• Visibility is a concept in spearhead (mentioned in various spells etc.) but there is no specific rule for it. Therefore we use the core rules 6.0 which state visibility is any part of a model to another.
• There is no direct mention that terrain breaks visibility in spearhead so again we use core rules. Therefore we can see through holes and see over terrain if tall enough.
• The units we can see through terrain are targetable; this is where spearhead specific rules come in.
• Having been targetted we look to see if terrain is crossed between attackers base and target's base on a per model basis. Terrain rules state that if terrain is crossed the unit is considered behind terrain. This doesn't mean they are invisible, just that we must now apply terrain keywords cover and obscurable (for large).
• Obscurable stops shooting but is only for shooting. Therefore melee attacks can go through the gaps if in combat range. Also some models in a unit may be able to shoot if they can draw a line to another model not through the terrain, if say they were spread out wide in front of the wall.
• Cover gives -1 to hit for attacks. This is the part that always confused me because I didnt see how it could be used if you cant attack through/over a wall. Logically you must be able to hit through a wall since you get -1 to that particulary attack.
• So i believe now, if the attacker has visibility through a gap they can charge the wall as long as they end the charge within 0.5 inch of the target. Most (not all) pieces are thinner than this so if the charge succeeds any models in my unit that can see the target through the gap may make an attack at -1 to hit because of cover. The defender can hit back without the -1 penalty because the attacker charged.

TLDR: I'm going to attack through walls...sometimes.

Do I have this right?