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So how should I be using NG with short bows? Their range seems horrible at 18" and you have to take 20. Do you run them with 20 in two ranks and slowly edge them up, and if you are lucky you get 1-2 turns of shooting (probably just the front rank) before they are charged? It seem really inefficient unless you are trying to use it to caddy more fanatics.

dont?

Use them to screen your spear chukkas on the hill. Put your chukkas/ doom divers on a hill for better vantage point. Then put the gobbos (with 3 fanatics of course) 2 ranks deep (1 if your hill is really big with loads of warmachines on it, like 2 doom divers & 8 chukkas) and they may or may not be a huuge part of the game but it will make other armies think twice about hunting down warmachines. Top of that night gobbos are quite cowardly and would prefer to be in the back anyways. Bows are there to take out large targets really, because anything that can take 3d6 fanatic hits really isn't going to be brought down by short bows (barring absurd dice rolling skillz).

Edited for courtesy reminder that there are people here that do speak proper English. My apologies.

Not a bad idea but to use them well dont necesarily think of them as missile troops. What can they do. well they can flank and reduce your opponents combat res. Also if you happened to fire them at a unit on a hill or at a giant persay you can fire all 20 shots.

Use them to keep your flanks clear. even if they only have one fanatic in them your oponent will be a bit hesitant to charge them seeing as he doesent want that pesky fan to come out.

Also use them as a screen to keep your other ng units from getting charged by those high elf knights that can rumble through cover.

I thought they would be lame but ran them with great success last week at a tourney.

25 models, muso, 2 fanatics... 129 points.
I ran 2 units.

I always started in a 5x5 formation and stuck one on each flank of my main line.

They would redeploy (change formation) as needed to get more shooting, but ANY kill is a bonus.

They are really good vs large targets in that you get to shoot at them and may do 1 or 2 wounds in a game)

But primarily they are just fanatic deliver system.

IIRC in 5 games the 2 units (not including fanatics) by shooting:
1 plaguebearer with regen, and a plaguerider 1 wound.
Killed 3-4 skinks and 2 wounds on kroxigor.
1 wound on gyrocopter and 2 ironbreakers
3 shades
1 empire knight

Never got their points back but its the flexibility of having a range of options rather than just sit there, release fanatics and wait to get charged.

I think I will probably add two units to my army. When I had first tried them it was the first time playing fantasy and I just had the whole idea that they sit in the back and fire away, but I am not playing HE, so that went out the door. Using them as flank protectors that get to shoot some is not bad.

I also don't know how many fanatics is right amount I should be taking. At 1000 points I have only been taking about 4. I have 9, so I guess I could use them all, but that is about 1/4 of my army.

At 2000 points to 2250 9 is a good number.

I aim for no more than an average of 2 per NG unit (my current list has 3 in 1 HW/Sh unit, 1 in each of my 2 spears units) and 2 in each of my flanking SB units (for 9)

At a thousand points 4 seems fine... but you have to put it in the context of acctually having something else decent in the army.

I have a unit of 8 squig hoppers, two teams of squig hearders, and two spear chuckas that I have not assembled. I also just assembled a Big Boss of Giant Squig. I was going to squeze those into my 1000 point list. That would leave me with 2 30 man spears with command, nets, 1 fanatic, and 1 20 HW/Sh, 2 fanatics. Along with my level 2 Shaman. I love the stone trolls when they are not stupid, but even when babysat with a ng hero it is still about a 50/50 chance of being stupid.

I need to go pickup another box of NG to get more netters and to flesh out my HW/Sh. I also want to pickup another Skull Pass boxset so I can add another 30 block of spears, and be able to field 2x20 bowmen with just a muso.

bleedge wrote:dont?

someone beat me to it..

Shaman bunkers, flank-bait, fanatic-caddies, routers.

All legitimate uses, but still a decidedly lacking unit.