Halfling Spearmen | ||
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Race | Halflings | |
Req. Town Buildings | None | |
Construction Cost | 15 | |
Upkeep Cost | 1 | |
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# of figures | 8 | |
Moves | 1 | |
Melee Attack per figure | 1 | |
Defense per figure | 2 | |
Resistance | 6 | |
Hit Points per figure | 1 | |
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Lucky |
Halfling Spearmen are a type of Normal Unit. This unit may be created from any Halfling town, for the Construction Cost of 15.
Like all Spearmen, Halfling Spearmen are a very basic combat unit which doesn't pose much of a threat to any serious opponent, though they can become a little stronger through Experience. While slightly more expensive than other Spearmen, they possess the Lucky ability which increases both their offense and defense, though this does not amount to much of a bonus until sufficient Experience is accumulated.
Halfling Spearmen require an Upkeep Cost of only 1 to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically.
Unit Properties
Physical Description
Halfling Spearmen are a group of short humanoids, no more than a few feet in height. They are dressed in green tunics with brown belts, and have no need to wear shoes thanks to their rugged, furry feet. Halfling Spearmen carry spears - long shafts of wood tipped with sharp metal points. These are used for stabbing at enemies within hand-to-hand combat range.
Halfling Spearmen are a Multi-Figure unit, containing 8 figures when fully healed.
Attack Properties
Halfling Spearmen initially possess a very weak Melee Attack, which will only be threatening to other low-tier Normal Units. It gets a little stronger with Experience.
Each Spearman makes a Melee Attack with a strength of 1. Thanks to the Lucky trait, the unit's To Hit score is 10% higher than normal, though this doesn't amount to much - it gives each Spearman an average damage output of only 0.4, or rather, there is only a 40% chance for each Spearman to inflict any damage on the opponent, before allowing the opponent to make Defense rolls to deflect damage. Therefore the Halfling Spearmen are highly unlikely to get through any armor at all.
Mitigating this slightly, a fully healed unit contains 8 Spearmen, so there are 8 separate chances to inflict damage. This still isn't much, so the Halfling Spearmen's Melee Attack should not be counted upon to do any significant amount of damage to anything but the weakest enemy units, at least until they gain some Experience.
Defense Properties
The Halfling Spearmen possess a Defense score of 2 - just slightly stronger than their attack score. Thanks again to the Lucky trait, the Spearmen receive a +10% To Block bonus, so they can deflect about 0.8 points of Damage from any damage source, on average. This is still barely enough to save them from anything but the weakest attackers.
As with most Normal Units, each Halfling Spearman possesses only 1 Hit Point. In other words, each point of Damage inflicted on this unit will kill off one of its figures.
However, with 8 figures in a unit of Halfling Spearmen they are hardier than they might appear at first, and benefit greatly from the added bonuses to their Defense score as they gain Experience. As per the rules of combat, each time an incoming attack deals enough damage to kill one Spearman, the Halfling Spearmen unit get to roll again for Defense to block more damage -- so each Defense point comes into play at least 8 times before the unit is destroyed. If you add in the To Block bonus from the Lucky trait, the result is that each extra Defense point has a greater impact on this unit than it has elsewhere in the game. Experienced Halfling Spearmen are therefore remarkably hard to kill, despite being individually weak!
For purposes of defending against Curses and other combat maledictions, the Halfling Spearmen have an above-average Resistance score of 6, and receive an extra +1 during battle thanks to the Lucky trait. This can protect them from some ill effects, but will probably fail about as often as it succeeds. With Experience however, Halfling Spearmen can become surprisingly resistant - possibly even immune - to a large variety of ill effects.
Other Properties
Halfling Spearmen move at a slow 1, and can only traverse land tiles. The unit has no special movement properties.
Basic Strategy
Halfling Spearmen are the most basic (and weakest) Normal Unit available to the Halfling race. These units are unlikely to pose a threat to anything other than enemy low-tier Normal Units.
A horde of Spearmen can gang up on a stronger unit in order to whittle it down. Fortunately, Halfling Spearmen are fairly cheap to produce, and thus hordes of them are not too difficult to acquire.
Do not expect Halfling Spearmen to stand up to any Fantastic Creature, at least not until they gain plenty of Experience. Even then, they are probably not going to win such an encounter.
Note that thanks to their Lucky trait, Halfling Spearmen become significantly stronger (at least compared to their initial poor performance) as they gain Experience, and can potentially become adequately-powerful for combat. Of course, getting the Spearmen to a higher Experience Level is itself unlikely.
Ability Overview
Lucky
- During combat, this unit receives +10% To Hit, +1 Resistance, and +10% To Block.
- Furthermore, it causes a -10% To Hit penalty on any enemy that engages the Lucky unit in melee combat. This feature was removed in the 1.40 Insecticide patch.
- The To Hit bonus increases the unit's average damage output, putting it closer to the unit's maximum damage potential without increasing that maximum.
- The To Block bonus allows the unit to block more damage on average, though it doesn't increase the maximum amount of damage it can block.
- The Resistance bonus is more straightforward, simply increasing the unit's Resistance score by +1. Note however that this bonus is only applied during combat, and won't help the unit resist enemy spells on the overland map.
Experience Table
The following table illustrates how Halfling Spearmen improve as they gain Experience. Any properties that are not listed here do not improve with Experience in any way.
Level Icon | Level Name | EP | Melee | To Hit | Defense | Resist | Hits |
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Recruit | 0 - 19 | 1 | 40% | 2 | 6 | 1 | |
Regular | 20 - 59 | 2 | 40% | 2 | 7 | 1 | |
Veteran | 60 - 119 | 2 | 40% | 3 | 8 | 1 | |
Elite | 120 | 3 | 50% | 3 | 9 | 2 | |
Ultra-Elite | 120 * | 3 | 60% | 4 | 10 | 2 | |
Champion | 120 ** | 4 | 70% | 4 | 11 | 3 |
* To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the Crusade spell must be in play.
** To achieve this level, both the Warlord Retort and the Crusade spell must be in play simultaneously.
Average Damage Output
The table below details the average amount of damage that each Figure in a Halfling Spearmen unit will deliver with each type of attack, based on Experience Level. It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to figure out the chance of hurting that target.
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Acquisition
Halfling Spearmen may be produced in any Halfling Town. The town does not require any special Town Buildings to be constructed in order to create Halfling Spearmen.
The Construction Cost of this unit is 15.
Halfling Spearmen may appear for hire as Mercenaries. They may already have some Experience on being hired, and several units may be hired simultaneously. Hiring these units requires a certain cost in Gold that depends on many different factors. Halfling Spearmen Mercenaries have the same Upkeep Cost as a normally-constructed unit.