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I have a stupid question, if your Battle Standard Banner is in a unit, can attacks be directed against him since he is a hero, or is he given the same protection a units standard bearer is?

He can be attacked, so can your unit champion and any other character that is touching an enemy.

Any model in base contact with him can allocate their attacks specifically against him unless he has some ability/item that prevents it. You are able to challenge him, as he is able to accept and decline challenges as normal.

Remember there are ways to block some attacks going towards him IE challenging, refusing challenges, etc. Its why its a good idea to protect him, and have some sort of armor, mount, etc for him.

Example:
Bretonnia BSB: Heavy armor, barded steed, shield. 2+ in addition to the lady save pretty sweet.
Black Orc BSB: Heavy armor, shield, boar. 2+ save, from the extra save from the boar.
Khorne Demonic Herald BSB: Armor of Khorne, Juggarnaut. 0+ save, 5+ ward.

Protect them because they are valuable, and very helpful to your army.

I don't get why people think a 2+ save is good. In 40k sure, but in fantasy?

"I do three wounds, at S5" *DEAD*

I have so much trouble keeping BSBs alive, except my wight lord. Even with a worse armour save than my chaos ones, he's just got that T5 and 3 wounds that can be healed.

Bat Manuel wrote:He can be attacked, so can your unit champion and any other character that is touching an enemy.

So does this mean in many situations (unit vs unit in CC with no characters) the unit champions are going to die first? Since they're no harder to kill in CC (they just have one more attack or one more BS point) would it make sense to simply remove the champion as the first CC casualty without bothering to nominate him as a target?

ImperialTard wrote:So does this mean in many situations (unit vs unit in CC with no characters) the unit champions are going to die first? Since they're no harder to kill in CC (they just have one more attack or one more BS point) would it make sense to simply remove the champion as the first CC casualty without bothering to nominate him as a target?

Actually, because they are a character (in name) I think they're removed last. You have to specifically target a character with attacks before they take the hits (usually).

Imperialtard - the Champion counts as a character in CC, therefore has to be specifically nominated in combat otherwise will not be removed until all other of the RnF have been removed.

Quite, but, is there any reason someone wouldn't target the champion in CC? If there are no other characters attached to the combat, would it be easier to assume that at least one wound was directed at the champion--since he's just as easy to kill as the Rank and File, it would be a pretty obvious first target, no?

Well your scary orc lord with 5 attacks wouldnt bother attacking the champion because he can only kill 1 model then rather than up to 5, true he gets overkill but im sure the orc would just kill as many as he could.

The only reason i can think of someone specifically targeting the champion is because he may carry a talisman that gives his unit magical resistance etc. For instance a black guard champ (DE) could carry a null talisman (magic resistance (1))

The best thing to do is always nominate one attack to go towards the unit champion, whether it is from a character or the unit itself. That way if you kill him you used just enough attacks to do it, but if you don't that attack would have missed anyway. Basically it keeps you from missing out on killing the unit champ without wasting attacks.

Eldar Own wrote:Well your scary orc lord with 5 attacks wouldnt bother attacking the champion because he can only kill 1 model then rather than up to 5, true he gets overkill but im sure the orc would just kill as many as he could.

He would only get Overkill if he did a Challenge, otherwise other allocated attacks would be wasted. So outside a challenge, best to slap just one or two (you can split attacks, as stated in the LRB page 32) and hope one of those kills. If two, you at most lost one successful attack. If you allocate one attack, as was said before a regular grunt wouldn't have dropped.

Orcs more than many other armies have good reason to have their champions attacked. Specifically: For regular Orc Boyz, not only is the champion +1 attack, but they're also +1WS and +1S. You'll still usually hit the Boss on the same roll as you would a regular boy (3 for high WS units, 4 for med / low WS units), and you're knocking out a stronger / more skilled fighter. Since WS is the only "durability" spot they improve, they're pretty easy to cut out and deny the Orc unit noticeable hitting power.

It was mentioned above already:
I always place 1 attack on the unit champion. There's really no reason not to, statistically nothing really changes, however you can lessen your opponents attacks if he dies. Plus if combat hangs out, you reduce the number of models who can accept a challenge which can affect the game down the line for your favor.

Spellbound wrote:I don't get why people think a 2+ save is good. In 40k sure, but in fantasy?

"I do three wounds, at S5" *DEAD*

I have so much trouble keeping BSBs alive, except my wight lord. Even with a worse armour save than my chaos ones, he's just got that T5 and 3 wounds that can be healed.

Well…

First, given that a BSB is a hero-level character, he’s usually going to have pretty high WS, and any regular infantry is going to hit him on a 4+ (or occasionally 5+, for really terrible troops or particularly high-WS BSBs, like WoC exalted champs). Given the WS, you’re usually going to need 6 attacks to get 3 hits on a BSB in an average round of combat.

Secondly, most regular troops don’t have S5. Chaos Knights, Chaos Warriors with Halberds, and occasional other stuff with great weapons. So the times when non-character troops are going to be whupping up on your BSB at S5 are pretty darn limited. If the opposition has a great weapon, he’s usually going to be swinging first, too, and so have a good chance of reducing the incoming attacks against him.

Even if the opposition DOES get three S5 hits on the character, they still have to roll to wound. Most BSBs are T4, so that’s an average of two successful.

2+ save modifies by S5 to a 4+, so on average one failure.

So if we’re talking about an average BSB, with WS equal to or higher than the troops attacking him, T4 and a 2+ save, you’re really talking about getting twelve S5 attacks allocated against him to average a dead BSB. If that happens, hey, you deserve to lose him. Maneuver better next time, and/or kill some of the guys trying to attack him.

The scary thing is when you factor in things like Killing Blow, or that Nurgle spell that allows you to poke characters with ease for a wound here and there. Other than that, general combat shouldn't be a huge threat to the BSB.