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Someone has to let me know why the entire core of the empire army is now halberdiers?

Other than the +1 str and running them in the ridiculous horde formations this edition
seems to require why why why choose them? Fluff? Insanity? WHY? Is it simply a math hammer thing?

The models are poo, even the old ones (which I prefer to the new) are not good

Frustrated

Papasmurf

because choosing swordsmen is BOOOORING

I still see people taking knights, swordsmen, handgunners, crossbowmen, free company, and flagellants; in addition to halberdiers.
The only core choices I very rarely see are archers.
Yes, people are loading up on halberdiers because they are cheap, and do more damage than the other core choices, but the others still have a place.


-Matt

I like swordsmen (old models at least) Better WS, IN and parry

Halberdiers are boring to me, Here's your pointed stick go die in droves over there! At least fluff wise swordsmen are swashbuckling and wear jaunty hats with feathers!

Cheers

Papasmurf

In the fluff it also says every state has several regiments of halberdiers. It's also manditory for the states.

Step up really helped them. In 7th they were overlooked due to low numbers of attacks.

Swordsmen are still good.
Spearmen are a bit undesireable now with 2 ranks fighitng already and they have none of the advantages the other two state troops have.

VikingScott wrote:In the fluff it also says every state has several regiments of halberdiers. It's also manditory for the states.

Step up really helped them. In 7th they were overlooked due to low numbers of attacks.

Swordsmen are still good.
Spearmen are a bit undesireable now with 2 ranks fighitng already and they have none of the advantages the other two state troops have.

Spearmen are a half measure, more survivable than halberds, less than swordsmen. More choppy than swordsmen, less than halberds. The extra rank of attacks is useful when coupled with buff spells; such as mindrazor or the beast +1 S/ +1 toughness.
None of the fighting infantry are so bad that I'd say avoid them.

-Matt

PapaSmurf wrote:I like swordsmen (old models at least) Better WS, IN and parry

Halberdiers are boring to me, Here's your pointed stick go die in droves over there! At least fluff wise swordsmen are swashbuckling and wear jaunty hats with feathers!

Cheers

Papasmurf

Fluff wise, I sort of picture most of the empire cc core troops to be either cowering before their approaching doom or charging ahead in a religious frenzy unaware of their approaching doom.

As far as reasons to take hallies over swrodsmen or spearmen... Because of the horde formation, stepping up, and 2nd rank attacks, static combat resolution has become less important. You must do wounds to win most combats, so a little extra strength is worth more that a moderate amount of better saves. Most things are going to kill your state troops no mater what, so you might as well go out fighting.

I like to take at least one large block of Swordsmen, Halberds, and Spearmen. The actually performance difference between them is minuscule, and it makes the army look and play a little more exciting.

S4 is pretty significant in Fantasy, you can actually hurt things.
WS4 and I4 only make you better defensively, with S3 you dont score many wounds and wont modify armor saves.
Not saying you shouldnt take swords, but halberds actually have their use this edition.

Overall, I would say the big change is steadfast and step up, meaning a unit only needs bodies to survive, not really defense. If you can buy enough bodies you can fight at 100% efficiency forever no matter what is beating on you, and still give up 0 points.

If you could make halberds or marauders WS3, Str7, T1, I1 W1 with no save but still 4 points everyone would take nothing but.

I'll be starting Empire very shortly. My plan right now is to have one unit of Swordsmen and one unit of Halberdiers, each starting at 20-men and growing as I increase my Empire collection.

After playing Skaven for the past few months I do not discount the ability of the parry save to keep a few models on the table. The WS4 and I4 will come in handy, often.
On the other hand, S4 can be real helpful.

Personally I say, albeit without experience, that there is room for both Swords and Halberds.

I usually take one unit of swords (bus of ~50) and one unit of halberds (horde of ~50) at most point values. Halberds are the only core state troops that actually do any killing (excludes greatswords), but they do melt awfully fast, getting no save at all against almost everything these days. The swordsmen will tar pit nearly anything nearly forever (definitely long enough for the old tank in the flank prank).

As for spearmen, low str and no parry mean they're a bad cross between the other two, specializing in nothing. I discover, as I play, that extra s3 attacks mainly mean you can just fail to wound more impressively.

As far as the shooty versions, bs3 makes them of questionable utility vs outriders (more shots, can chargebait in some situations), a helblaster (higher str), or a mortar (large template), or pistoliers (mobile, versatile).

I run a very nearly all-halberdier combat list. for how it did at adepticon, see my thread in the battle reports forum.

Halbs are fluffy. And have a role.

It all depends on how you want to play them. A popular strategy: Bombard the enemy with war machines until he limps into hth with you and you play points denial until the end of the game hoping to grind down a few of his units. This tactic may be better suited for the defensive-oriented Swordsmen. An so forth.

I personally like a big unit of Swordsmen with a 15 Halb detachment protecting my flanks.

Because big horde units of them are pretty killy?

A horde of just 40 is ace at 31 S4 attacks, throw in a WP for re-rolls to hit.

Swordsmen aren't bad, but they don't put out as much damage as Halberdiers at S3.

However, Swordsmen under Wyssan's Wildform are just diddly.

For empire I always run halbs but never in hordes.

Usually, I go for 40 halberdiers (5x8) with a 20 man swords detachment to negate ranks.

The extra defense helps keep your flanker alive considering most enemies will only throw a few attacks their way at best.

Also, wildform on halberdiers is great as well! Always run a lvl 2 with beasts to make my babies str 5, t 4!

use either a large horde of halberdiers or use them as a detachment to swordsmen along with a ranged detachment. to be honest, I prefer using 20 crossbowmen with 10 halberdiers as support while sporting war machines as motivation for the enemy to come to me. crossbowmen just use stand and shoot while the halberds charge the side, which is a stereotypical plan with state troops. think of halberdiers as cheaper versions of greatswords, who in my experience, lose their armor save anyway from charging too many high strength enemies. they have fairly high strength, have better survivability than flaggellants and can use steadfast to their advantage, unlike the greatswords. ignore fluff entirely, because in my opinion, using it as a template for choosing your army never ends well...

I think the "ignore fluff" suggestion works for a "win only" army. Sure, fluff often doens't get you the best armies, but it might get you the best-looking ones, or the at least the ones that makes sense as a combined force.
I'm not saying don't ignore fluff, of course, if that's how you want to go. But without fluff we're just pushing squares with different stats around the tabletop.

I personally haven't used a 40+ horde unit yet, and I doubt I will. Especially in games below 2000 points, that's just a huge-mongous unit. I would rather have fun with two units of 20 guys, than kick the most butt with 40 guys altogether.

Halberds are where its at! Both from a fluff standpoint and tactics wise IMO. Horde of 50-60 strong with WP for good ol'hatred and you're golden lol.

Most of my usuall opponents at my FLGS use 25 mm base armies (WOC, LM, O&G, Daemons) so i like to run my guys 14 wide and 6 deep. For 420 points and another 160 points for a maxed out warrior priest and command. This unit is 580 Points, in your normal game agianst other enemy hoards w/a hero it i around 100-200 points cheaper. It can also benefit from the Warrior Priest prayers and an addtional 12 attacks over the average 10 wide hoard. 42 S4 attacks with hatred and buffs from the prayers of sigmar is pretty scary. It makes short work of most enemy units. I use a general of the empire instead of any of the other Lord choices so i can take the Razor standard also. That pretty much guarentees that this unit will cut through most enemies. So for 625 points you are getting 85 guys at S4 with Armour piercing attacks. It is extremly cheap compared to other death stars. Also you can field 2 in the same 2000 point game and still have plenty of room for support units.

The only problem with your stratergy is HOW ON EARTH DID YOU GET 84 BLODDY HALBERDIERS!!1!
Back to the subject, when I got my battleforce, I assembled the 20 State Troops as 10 Spearmen and 2 detachments of 5 Halberdiers (I was young and foolish, my plan being to use the spearmen to absorb the attack while the Halberdiers smash the opponet) I am currently thinking of redoing them into a 20 Halberdier unit. If you throw in a Warrior Priest and use Wizard to buff the unit, these guys are scary as hell (30 Str 5 hits with Razor Banner for armour piercing, and all models hate the enemy, and all know the WoC go SPLAT), the funny thing is, we Empire players can field these monstrous formations really cheaply (points wise, money wise its hell to put these units into action)

I think "moneywise" is the biggest problem for me. As well as the fact that painting multiple units of 50 boggles my mind.

I highly prefer the look of the Swordsmen, but I know the Halberdiers pack the punch.

When you buy a box of state troops it has 10 bodies and 10 sword/shield and 10 halbred/spears. So, you buy a state troop box, then buy 10 more bodies for $14 from the war store. Now for $39 you have 10 swordsmen and 10 halbrediers. I use militia heads with mine to make them look less elite.

I generally use a unit of 42 Swordsmen 7 wide and 6 deep with 2 detachments of 21 Halbrediers 7 wide and 3 deep. It is around 500 points when complete but it does its work well.

That is 15 S3 WS 4 attacks with 28 S4 WS 3 attacks that remove pary saves (on the flank) The swordsmen can absorb the charge with thier 5+/6+ fairly well, especially with the WS and I of 4. There is no way for the enemy to kill the required 20 halbrediers to maintain rank bonus (10 Per unit to keep your rank bonus).

Don't forget that shipping to Canada is not as cheap as shipping to the States, when you're ordering from the States. So it comes out to a little more than $14.
Regardless, I can get State Troopers for $19-$22 per set. That still adds up when you're looking for 80 guys in two blocks of 40.

In your 42 + 21 +21 system, do you ever come up against any of the "kill-all-models-in-a-unit" spells? Dwellers, Final Transmutation, Purple Sun, etc?
A couple of unlucky rolls and you've just lost one heck of a large chunk of points. I guess in high points games that's alright, but not at 1000-1500.

That is actually the big strength of Empire and WoC Marauders: you can have huge units on the cheap, so the kill them all spells are not too terrible. You lose half the unit, ok that's 150 points, and you still have 25 men or so. Cool.

Winds of magic seems to result in getting a few uber spells off a game, say 1-3, but not dependably. Getting small units smashed by combat and giving up points easily is a bit more reliable. So you tend to be in a tug of war between smaller units that give up fewer points to the big unit killers, and larger units that keep away points from the enemy. Also, considerations of tactical flexibility and the possibility of losing a whole deathstar to one bad combat. This is probably a good thing, over all.

As a rule of thumb, I would probably say that cheaper models like state troops can be in bigger semi-death stars (near-death star?) just because that unit killer isn't removing too many points, and they are squishy enough that they really need the steadfast and bodies to save their points. I wouldn't put say 50 great swords in a unit since I don't want a sorc lord getting their points back in one magic phase.

Given that in 7th, simply taking Empire halberds at all was a doomed, noble endeavor to stay true to the background, I firmly salute 8th for making them a true mainstay.

And Wehrkind- I like what you're talking about here with the "tug of war"...

I used halberdiers as my detachments in 7th and they worked great, so that is where they stay in 8th

I could never see myself running a death star of halberdiers! Just doesn't work for me, trust me with my dice one purple sun or dwellers and the unit would head straight to the dead pile! Even against light you've got problems - stupid net :(

cheers

Papasmurf

To quote the esteemed Thomas Sowel : (in life) there are no solutions, only trade offs.

My personal game philosophy is that good games stay true to life like that, while poorer ones present the obvious "This is always better" solutions. So from my stand point "Big units vs little units" is good, "MoT vs MoN" is bad

I am kind of curious as to whether I could come up with a rule of thumb for unit size based on model cost, stats and base size, but honestly I am probably not good enough at math or WHFB to really get a good idea for it. Your work with moderately sized dwarf units and the battle reports with various d-stars are all I really have to work with. Still, the evidence seems to suggest it really isn't cut and dry, but rather juicy and full of flavor.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just for reference though, Purple Sun kills many small units just as well as big ones, the only difference being the 1" gap between them. Not really certain why people are calling it a big unit killer, though I might be really missing something!

Malleus wrote: The swordsmen will tar pit nearly anything nearly forever (definitely long enough for the old tank in the flank prank).

Just found my new sig. And it's so good, that I'm not even going to ask your permission.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wehrkind wrote:I am kind of curious as to whether I could come up with a rule of thumb for unit size based on model cost, stats and base size, but honestly I am probably not good enough at math or WHFB to really get a good idea for it. Your work with moderately sized dwarf units and the battle reports with various d-stars are all I really have to work with. Still, the evidence seems to suggest it really isn't cut and dry, but rather juicy and full of flavor.

Honestly, I've tried this a few times each edition... since about 5th ed. The problem that I continually run into, is that points costs are clearly non-linear for what you recieve.

I always try to see if I can find some sort of a break even point where X Goblins are = X Chaos Warriors, but the unit of goblins gets too big to fit in a deployment zone, and that's where the system breaks. The last 2 editions, The movement phase was the phase you won the game in, so people couldn't understand why Elves of all flavors were so expensive, while Chaos, and Dwarfs were comparatively cheaper for what they viewed as "better stats".

This is why most internet pundits failed last edition, when trying to theory hammer. All they saw were stats. They never understood that a min-maxed army could be "outplayed" by inferior stats type units with better movement.

Once the Khemri book hits, I actually intend to try a Comparative Analysis along these lines.. just to see if GW has a better grasp of points-cost balance... Especially now that movement is far less effective in this edition.

Ragnar4 wrote:
Honestly, I've tried this a few times each edition... since about 5th ed. The problem that I continually run into, is that points costs are clearly non-linear for what you recieve.

I always try to see if I can find some sort of a break even point where X Goblins are = X Chaos Warriors, but the unit of goblins gets too big to fit in a deployment zone, and that's where the system breaks. The last 2 editions, The movement phase was the phase you won the game in, so people couldn't understand why Elves of all flavors were so expensive, while Chaos, and Dwarfs were comparatively cheaper for what they viewed as "better stats".

This is why most internet pundits failed last edition, when trying to theory hammer. All they saw were stats. They never understood that a min-maxed army could be "outplayed" by inferior stats type units with better movement.

Once the Khemri book hits, I actually intend to try a Comparative Analysis along these lines.. just to see if GW has a better grasp of points-cost balance... Especially now that movement is far less effective in this edition.

How did you approach the issue? I was thinking making unit size a function of attacks, str, ranks and cost with some sort of mitigating factor based on vulnerability to certain spells. So to put it another way, Size is a function of expected CR per point and Steadfast expectation minus vulnerability.

So Size is inversely proportional to #wounds the unit can cause in a round of combat (relatively weak units need more bodies to cause the same damage as stronger ones (e.g. halberdiers vs chosen)) but directly proportional to static CR required to push back against enemy size and wounds differential. So Size depends on how many wounds you need to cause to win, which depends on how many wounds you are likely to take vs your rank differential. All of that should tend to push your model count up, especially if you factor in your ability to deny steadfast and so win by breaking the enemy vs killing them all, but should be mitigated by cost and a function of vulnerability to unit killing spells.

Troubles I would see off the bat are:
1) Combat res vs what? Is this going to vary on opponent? If so, does a proper death star plan require you load for bear assuming you will mostly be fighting dogs? Or do you figure out optimal sizes vs specific armies, and then pick the size that best fits the armies you expect to face?
2) I don't know how to incorporate base size
3) How do you put in steadfast to the equation
4) How do you account for vulnerability? I was thinking the expected points loss per casting of the big killer spells, with each having some factor attached to it. If you then changed the factor up for a spell being more common (we have 20 Life mage players in our league etc.) or down for less.
5) Just thinking of how to build that equation is making my brain hurt.

Ragnar4 wrote:

Malleus wrote: The swordsmen will tar pit nearly anything nearly forever (definitely long enough for the old tank in the flank prank).

Just found my new sig. And it's so good, that I'm not even going to ask your permission.

Awwww I've been sigged.