My guess is a counterattack that counters before the attack .

Speaking of that, I really loved the 'repel' feature in Dom3 combat, where longer weapons have an advantage over shorter weapons. The wielder of short weapon had to have enough courage and skill to get past the point of the long weapon to be able to attack at all. Hence, experienced and battle hardened swordsman will chop up a peasant spearman with ease, but give that sword to another peasant and he will be to scared to move against the spearpoint. Makes perfect sense.

Oh noes, Dom3 again...

I don't think tying it to bog standard 'level 1 spear' would be a good idea, but as a Hero trait, a Magic tree spear ability, looted magic items, certain monsters possessing it inherently (that can be recruited with civic tech), etcetc

Currently, multi-figure units suffer disproportionately from taking the first hit in combat, having something to counteract it would be nice.

I almost think multi-figure units should be unable to lose more than 1-2 figures per attack, barring certain special attacks or other multi-figure attacks, but that would be another too-major change most likely.

I like it.

[quote who="Mtrixis" reply="9" id="3066137"]Quoting adaban, reply 7
How about a new ability called first strike that allows a unit with a spear, or equivalent long piercing weapon ,to select it as their first action.  Much like defend if they have a shield, but instead of defense bonus a preemtive first strike.  This would work with the initiative system allowing quicker units to "wait" to strike attackers.

Good idea, clean, I like it.

One issue is that right now, spears have armor piercing, which is pretty strong, so this would give them another edge over the other weapons - but they could add Pikes that give first strike, forcing you to choose between the two benefits.

even better

But this is different: a unit with first strike would gain the ability to possibly make a preemptive strike on an incoming melee attacker if they're defensively set to do so.

I like it.  There ought to be many actions like this to engange at the front end of a battle, instead of just standing around and waiting for the AI throw themselves upon your swords.  This sounds like a great Path of the Defender trait.