Andrew Tullsen
United States
Tigard
Oregon
Game Parts, Custom prototypes, Print & Play Games
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Intro
Spearpoint is a game just released by Collins Epic Wargames.
Components
You get a small box which is full of a 175 cards - full color, very good quality.
There is a deck of Germany Units, US units, a command deck, and a damage deck. You also get 4 d10s and a full color sheet of rules.
Setup
There are several situations - scenarios which have specific directions for setting up.
A standard game has you picking 100 points of units from your deck, and several units for your starting hand.
Game Turn Sequence
Each turn has several phases.
Commit Units:
-Each player secretly picks whatever units from their hands they want to commit to the line. Infantry units can be committed by themselves, but other units, like tanks, artillery and planes have to be committed with a crew unit of the appropriate type.
Pick Targets:
-Each player verbally declares the targets each unit has. You point the cards to the other cards to remind who is attacking whom.
Initiative:
-Roll initiative to see who gets to fire first
Fire:
-Each unit then fires (one at a time, switching players) at their chosen target. You first roll to see if you hit, based on your weapon's "to hit" value. If you hit, you roll another d10 to find the "intensity"- how much extra damage you inflict. Then you add your base damage.
There are some exceptions - Certain weapons can't hit highly armored vehicles, certain weapons can only be fired once, etc.
Damage done = damage - armor value of the target (hardly original!)
If you do enough damage to bring them to half health (called endurance), then they draw a damage card. This might do more damage or give firing/armor penalties.
Once you do enough damage to finish a unit off, you take it for it's point value. First one to 51 points (half of your total point value in your deck) wins.
Draw phase:
-You get to draw a command card (Command cards can be played anytime for a +1 to your roll, or at their appropriate time for various effects - more armor, surprise attack, reconnaissance) and two other cards from your other decks.
The interesting parts
Each player has frontline and a rearline. Artillery are played to the rear line and can fire from their. Other units are played to the frontline. Air units are not played in the line, but are played off to the side. Air units have a number of turns they can stay in the battlefield. The cool thing is that once you lose your frontline, your rearline becomes your frontline, and all your artillery are now exposed.
A big part of the game is building your deck at the beginning. You can experiment with different kinds of decks, decks with lots of infantry, decks with artillery and tanks, decks with air units, etc. You can even download some pre-set decks if you would like to skip the first part.
Rule clarity
Gamers like to have every situation clarified and every phase to have a particular order. This game assumes that you can just reasonably figure things out. For example, during the choose targets phase, the rules say you both are to verbally assign targets. No rules for who picks first, no rules for what happens if you keep on changing as you see what your opponent does. It assumes you are a sensible person and can take turns talking to assign targets. Of course, we're gamers, and therefore not sensible people - there have been several questions asking about stuff like "what happens if both players keep on changing targets?" and "who starts targeting first?". Gamers like to have a strict order for things like this.
My Rating
I'm not a heavy wargamer. I dislike lots of extra rules just for "historical accuracy". I like fast moving games, games that don't bog down. I really like this game. Fast playing, small footprint.
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Phil Crompton
United Kingdom
St Helens
Merseyside
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Great review ! And exactly my sentiments about the game (so far). It's very quick to get into and also quick to play.
One 'fun' thing to mention is the friendly fire roll. If the attacker rolls 2-3 on his/her attack then their own units are lost. This happened to me twice in one game resulting in me destroying my own tanks.
Haven't tried the scenarios yet - 2 games of 100point battles and I'm 2-0 down to those pesky Germans.
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Mark Buetow
United States
Du Quoin
Illinois
Best game company ever?
GMT Games, of course!
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philcrompton wrote: Great review ! And exactly my sentiments about the game (so far). It's very quick to get into and also quick to play.
One 'fun' thing to mention is the friendly fire roll. If the attacker rolls 2-3 on his/her attack then their own units are lost. This happened to me twice in one game resulting in me destroying my own tanks.
Haven't tried the scenarios yet - 2 games of 100point battles and I'm 2-0 down to those pesky Germans.
Just to be clear...Friendly Fire is not auto kill. You still have to roll damage against the unit your opponent selects. Just making sure as it sounded a little like you might have just killed them outright... 
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Phil Crompton
United Kingdom
St Helens
Merseyside
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Yeah I Know. But my opponent still managed to wipe them off the board !!
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Mark Buetow
United States
Du Quoin
Illinois
Best game company ever?
GMT Games, of course!
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philcrompton wrote: Yeah I Know. But my opponent still managed to wipe them off the board !!
Then, yeah, ouch! 
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Jan Willem
Netherlands
Unspecified
Unspecified
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Thanks for this review.
How does this game compare to the older card game "The last crusade" . it seems to have similar mechanics and cards.
I own the last crusade and almost all the cards, like and played it a lot. Is there a reason I should buy and play this?
.
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LTC Smith
United States
Unspecified
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Jan:
It's fun, a high quality product and the simple economics is if we don't support good games and companies they go away!
Smitty
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Game Parts, Custom prototypes, Print & Play Games
